While Washington was looking solemnly
at this manifestation of weakness and disorder, and was urging strong
measures with passionate vehemence, Jefferson was writing from Paris
in the flippant vein of the fashionable French theorists, and uttering
such ineffable nonsense as the famous sentence about "once in twenty
years watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants." There
could be no better illustration of what Washington was than this
contrast between the man of words and the man of action, between the
astute leader of a party, the shrewd manager of men, and the silent
leader of armies, the master builder of states and governments.
I have followed Washington through the correspondence of this time
with some minuteness, because it is the only way by which his work in
overcoming the obstacles in the path to good government can be seen.
He held no public office; he had no means of reaching the popular ear.
He was neither a professional orator nor a writer of pamphlets, and
the press of that day, if he had controlled it, had no power to mould
or direct public thought. Yet, despite these obstacles, he set himself
to develop public opinion in favor of a better government, and he
worked at this difficult and impalpable task without ceasing, from
the day that he resigned from the army until he was called to the
presidency of the United States. He did it by means of private
letters, a feeble instrument to-day, but much more effective then.
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