This openness of mind and superiority to prejudice were American in
the truest and best sense; but Washington showed the same qualities in
private life and toward individuals which he displayed in regard to
communities. He was free, of course, from the cheap claptrap which
abuses the name of democracy by saying that birth, breeding, and
education are undemocratic, and therefore to be reckoned against a
man. He valued these qualities rightly, but he looked to see what a
man was and not who he was, which is true democracy. The two men who
were perhaps nearest to his affections were Knox and Hamilton. One
was a Boston bookseller, who rose to distinction by bravery and good
service, and the other was a young adventurer from the West Indies,
without either family or money at his back. It was the same with much
humbler persons. He never failed, on his way to Philadelphia, to stop
at Wilmington and have a chat with one Captain O'Flinn, who kept a
tavern and had been a Revolutionary soldier; and this was but a single
instance among many of like character. Any soldier of the Revolution
was always sure of a welcome at the hands of his old commander.
Eminent statesmen, especially of the opposition, often found his
manner cold, but no old soldier ever complained of it, no servant ever
left him, and the country people about Mount Vernon loved him as a
neighbor and friend, and not as the distant great man of the army and
the presidency.
He believed thoroughly in popular government.
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