He wore black velvet
and powdered hair, knee-breeches and diamond buckles, which are
certainly not American fashions to-day. But they were American
fashions in the last century, and every man wore them who could afford
to, no matter what his origin. Let it be remembered, however, that
Washington also wore the hunting-shirt and fringed leggins of the
backwoodsman, and that it was he who introduced this purely American
dress into the army as a uniform.
His manners likewise were those of the century in which he lived,
formal and stately, and of course colored by his own temperament. His
moral standards were those of a high-minded, honorable man. Are we
ready to say that they were not American? Did they differ in any vital
point from those of Lincoln? His social theories were simple in the
extreme. He neither overvalued nor underrated social conventions, for
he knew that they were a part of the fabric of civilized society, not
vitally important and yet not wholly trivial. He was a member of an
aristocracy, it is true, both by birth and situation. There was a
recognized social aristocracy in every colony before the Revolution,
for the drum-beat of the great democratic march had not then sounded.
In the northern colonies it was never strong, and in New England
it was especially weak, for the governments and people there were
essentially democratic, although they hardly recognized it themselves.
In Virginia and the southern colonies, on the other hand, there was a
vigorous aristocracy resting on the permanent foundation of slavery.
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