To believe that a free state should offer an asylum to the oppressed,
and an example of virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations.
To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of such a state a man
should be willing to give his whole service, in property, in labor, and
in life.
That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in a people; a creed
heated white hot in the furnace of conviction and hammered into shape on
the anvil of life; a vision commanding men to follow it whithersoever it
may lead them. And it was the subordination of the personal self to that
ideal, that creed, that vision, which gave eminence and glory to
Washington and the men who stood with him.
This is the truth that emerges, crystalline and luminous, from the
conflicts and confusions of the Revolution. The men who were able to
surrender themselves and all their interests to the pure and loyal
service of their ideal were the men who made good, the victors crowned
with glory and honor. The men who would not make that surrender, who
sought selfish ends, who were controlled by personal ambition and the
love of gain, who were willing to stoop to crooked means to advance
their own fortunes, were the failures, the lost leaders, and, in some
cases, the men whose names are embalmed in their own infamy.
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