One does not find in his
letters the bitter references to democracy and to the populace which
can be discovered in the writings of so many of his party friends,
legacies of pre-revolutionary ideas inflamed by hatred of Parisian
mobs. He always spoke of the people at large with a simple respect,
because he knew that the future of the United States was in their
hands and not in that of any class, and because he believed that they
would fulfill their mission. The French Revolution never carried him
away, and when it bred anarchy and bloodshed he became hostile to
French influence, because license and disorder were above all
things hateful to him. Yet he did not lose his balance in the other
direction, as was the case with so many of his friends. He resisted
and opposed French ideas and French democracy, so admired and so
loudly preached by Jefferson and his followers, because he esteemed
them perilous to the country. But there is not a word to indicate that
he did not think that such dangers would be finally overcome, even
if at the cost of much suffering, by the sane sense and ingrained
conservatism of the American people. Other men talked more noisily
about the people, but no one trusted them in the best sense more than
Washington, and his only fear was that evils might come from their
being misled by false lights.
Once more, what is it to be an American? Putting aside all the outer
shows of dress and manners, social customs and physical peculiarities,
is it not to believe in America and in the American people? Is it not
to have an abiding and moving faith in the future and in the destiny
of America?--something above and beyond the patriotism and love which
every man whose soul is not dead within him feels for the land of his
birth? Is it not to be national and not sectional, independent and not
colonial? Is it not to have a high conception of what this great new
country should be, and to follow out that ideal with loyalty and
truth?
Has any man in our history fulfilled these conditions more perfectly
and completely than George Washington? Has any man ever lived who
served the American people more faithfully, or with a higher and truer
conception of the destiny and possibilities of the country? Born of an
old and distinguished family, he found himself, when a boy just out of
school, dependent on his mother, and with an inheritance that promised
him more acres than shillings.
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