_Washington_
Washington was a vestryman of both Truro and Fairfax parishes. The place
of worship of the former was at Pohick, and of the latter at Alexandria.
Mount Vernon was within Truro parish, and in the affairs of the church
Washington took a lively interest. The old Pohick building became so
dilapidated that in 1764 it was resolved to build a new church. The
question as to location was discussed in the parish with considerable
excitement, some contending for retention of the old site and others
favoring a more central position. At a meeting for settling the
question, George Mason (the famous author of the Bill of Rights of
Virginia) made an ardent and eloquent plea to stand by the old landmarks
consecrated by the ashes of their ancestors, and sacred to all the
memories of life, marriage, birth, and death. In reply to this touching
appeal Washington produced a survey of the parish, drawn by himself with
his usual accuracy, on which every road was laid down, and the residence
of every householder marked. Spreading his map before the audience, he
showed that the new location which he advocated would be more
conveniently reached by every member of the parish, while to many of
them the old site was inaccessible. He expressed the hope that they
would not allow their judgment to be guided by their feelings. When the
vote was taken, a large majority favored removal to the proposed
locality. Thereupon George Mason put on his hat and stalked out of the
meeting, saying, in not smothered tones, “That’s what gentlemen get for
engaging in debate with a damned surveyor.” But, notwithstanding this
little tiff, the owners of Gunston Hall and of Mount Vernon had the
highest respect and warmest affection for each other.
One of the greatest blessings which a man can possess—especially if he
is a public man—is an imperturbable temper. It is a remarkable fact that
those who have most signally manifested this virtue have been men who
were constitutionally irritable. Such was the case with Washington,
whose habitual composure, the result of strenuous self-discipline, was
so great that it was supposed to be due to a cold and almost frigid
temperament. By nature a violently passionate man, he triumphed so
completely over his frailty as to be cheated of all credit for his
coolness and exasperating trials.
His biographers record very few instances of violent outbreak of anger,
even under excessive provocation. One of the few was in the well-known
disobedience of orders by General Charles Lee, at the battle of
Monmouth, and his ordering a retreat by which the day was nearly lost.
It was a betrayal of confidence which was subsequently explained by the
verdict of a court-martial convened to inquire into his misconduct. When
Washington, who was hurrying forward to his support, met the retreating
troops struggling and straggling in confusion, and realized the
situation, he rode at Lee as if he meant to ride him down. He was like a
raging lion. Demanding the meaning of the rout, he accompanied his
questions with imprecations whose crushing force was terrible.
Another instance of justifiable wrath following the libellous attacks of
Bache, Freeman, and the French Minister Genet, is noted as follows in
McMaster’s “History of the People of the United States,” which we copy
from that admirable book by permission of the publishers, D. Appleton &
Company:
“For a while Washington met this abuse with cold disdain. ‘The
publications,’ he wrote to Henry Lee, June 21, 1793, ‘in Freneau’s and
Bache’s papers are outrages on common decency. But I have a consolation
within that no earthly effort can deprive me of, and that is, that
neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The
arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never
can reach the most vulnerable part of me, though, while I am up as a
mark, they will be continually aimed.’ But as time went on, the slanders
daily heaped upon him by the _National Gazette_ and the _General
Advertiser_ irritated him to such a degree that every allusion to them
provoked a testy answer or a show of rage. One of these outbursts took
place at a cabinet meeting held early in August, and has been described
with manifest delight by Jefferson. The matter discussed was the conduct
of Genet, and, in the course of some remarks, Knox spoke of the recent
libel on the President. In a moment the face of Washington put on an
expression which it was seldom given his friends to see. Says Jefferson,
‘He got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself, ran
on much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him, and defied
any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in
the government which had not been done on the purest motives. He had
never repented but once having slipped the moment of resigning his
office, and that was every moment since; and, by heavens! he would
rather be in his grave than in his present situation. He would rather be
on his farm than be emperor of the world; and yet they were charging him
with wanting to be a king.’”
This reference to a dictatorship recalls the incident which shook to its
centre his evenly balanced and self-controlled nature. Discontent among
officers and soldiers over arrearages of pay, the neglect of Congress to
make provision for the claims of their suffering families, and
increasing distrust of the efficiency of the government and of
republican institutions, led to an organized movement for a
constitutional monarchy, and to make Washington its king. A paper
embodying the views of the malcontents was drawn up, and presented to
the Chief by a highly esteemed officer,—Colonel Nicola. Washington’s
scornful rebuke, dated Newburgh, May 22, 1782, expressed surprise and
indignation. Said he, “No occurrences in the course of the war have
given me more painful sensations than your information of the existence
of such ideas in the army, ideas which I view with abhorrence and
reprehend with severity. I am at a loss to conceive what part of my
conduct could have given encouragement to an address, which to me seems
big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not
deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person
to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. Let me conjure you, if you
have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or
respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never
communicate, from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like
nature.”
While colonel of the Virginia troops in 1754, Washington was stationed
at Alexandria. At an election for members of the Assembly Colonel
Washington, in the heat of party excitement, used offensive language
toward a Mr. Payne. Thereupon that gentleman struck him a heavy blow and
knocked him down. Intelligence of the encounter aroused among his
soldiers a spirit of vengeance, which was quieted by an address from
him, showing his noble character. Next day, Mr. Payne received a note
from Washington, requesting his attendance at the tavern in Alexandria.
Mr. Payne anticipated a duel, but instead of pistols he found a table
set with wine and glasses, and was met with a friendly smile by his
antagonist. Colonel Washington felt that himself was the aggressor, and
determined to make reparation. He offered Mr. Payne his hand, and said:
“To err is human; to rectify error is right and proper. I believe I was
wrong yesterday; you have already had some satisfaction, and if you deem
that sufficient, here is my hand—let us be friends.” The _amende
honorable_ was promptly accepted.
Another case of offence, with prompt regret and reparation, occurred at
Cambridge, in 1775, when the army was destitute of powder. Washington
sent Colonel Glover to Marblehead for a supply of that article, which
was said to be there. At night the colonel returned and found Washington
in front of his head-quarters pacing up and down. The general, without
returning his salute, asked, roughly, “Have you got the powder?” “No,
sir.” Washington swore the terrible Saxon oath, with all its three
specifications. “Why did you come back, sir, without it?” “Sir, there is
not a kernel of powder in Marblehead.” Washington walked up and down a
minute or two in great agitation, and then said, “Colonel Glover, here
is my hand, if you will take it and forgive me. The greatness of our
danger made me forget what is due to you and myself.”
In his “Memories of a Hundred Years,” Edward Everett Hale says, “It is
with some hesitation that I add here what I am afraid is true, though I
never heard it said aloud until the year 1901. It belongs with the
discussion as to the third term for the Presidency. The statement now is
that Washington did not permit his name to be used for a third election
because he had become sure that he could not carry the State of Virginia
in the election. He would undoubtedly have been chosen by the votes of
the other States, but he would have felt badly the want of confidence
implied in the failure of his own ‘country,’ as he used to call it in
his earlier letters, to vote for him. It is quite certain, from the
correspondence of the time, that as late as September of the year 1796,
the year in which John Adams was chosen President, neither Adams nor
Washington knew whether Washington meant to serve a third time.”
In delineating the characteristics of Washington, Edward Everett says,
in his masterly way:
“If we claim for Washington solitary eminence among the great and good,
the question will naturally be asked in what the peculiar and
distinctive excellence of his character consisted; and to this fair
question I am tasked to find an answer that does full justice to my own
conceptions and feelings. It is easy to run over the heads of such a
contemplation; to enumerate the sterling qualities which he possessed
and the defects from which he was free; but when all is said in this way
that can be said, with whatever justice of honest eulogy, and whatever
sympathy of appreciation, we feel that there is a depth which we have
not sounded, a latent power we have not measured, a mysterious beauty of
character which you can no more describe in words than you can paint a
blush with a patch of red paint, or the glance of a sunbeam from a
ripple with a streak of white paint thrown upon the canvas; a moral
fascination, so to express it, which we all feel, but cannot analyze nor
trace to its elements. All the personal traditions of Washington assure
us that there was a serene dignity in his presence which charmed while
it awed the boldest who approached him.”
_Franklin_
Benjamin Franklin is probably the best specimen that history affords of
what is called a self-made man. He certainly “never worshipped his
maker,” according to a stinging epigram, but was throughout his life,
though always self-respectful, never self-conceited. Perhaps the most
notable result of his self-education was the ease with which he accosted
all grades and classes of men on a level of equality. The printer’s boy
became, in his old age, one of the most popular men in the French Court,
not only among its statesmen, but among its frivolous nobles and their
wives. He ever estimated men at their true worth or worthlessness; but
as a diplomatist he was a marvel of sagacity. The same ease of manner
which recommended him to a Pennsylvania farmer was preserved in a
conference with a statesman or a king. He ever kept his end in view in
all his complaisances, and that end was always patriotic. When he
returned to his country he was among the most earnest to organize the
liberty he had done so much to achieve; and he also showed his hostility
to the system of negro slavery with which the United States was
burdened. At the ripe age of eighty-four he died, leaving behind him a
record of extraordinary faithfulness in the performance of all the
duties of life. His sagacity, when his whole career is surveyed, was of
the most exalted character, for it was uniformly devoted to the
accomplishment of great public ends of policy or beneficence.
During a part of his reign, George III. was in the habit of keeping a
note-book, in which he jotted down his observations of men and passing
events. In the volume dated 1778, among the names to which the king
attached illustrative quotations, was the name of Benjamin Franklin,
with the following passage from Shakespeare’s _Julius Cæsar_, ii. 1:
O let us have him; for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,
And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds:
It shall be said his judgment ruled our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.
With regard to the charge frequently made against him of scepticism and
infidel leanings, Franklin’s own refutation should suffice. In a letter
written in 1784 to his friend William Strahan, in England, he said,
referring to the successful outcome of the Revolutionary struggle,—
“I am too well acquainted with all the springs and levers of our machine
not to see that our human means were unequal to our understanding, and
that, if it had not been for the justice of our cause, and the
consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had faith, we must
have been ruined. If I had ever before been an atheist, I should now
have been convinced of the being and government of a Deity. It is He
that abases the proud and favors the humble. May we never forget His
goodness to us, and may our future conduct manifest our gratitude!”