The value of all this to the country he served cannot be too often
reiterated, for ridicule was a real danger to the Revolutionary cause
when it started. The raw levies, headed by volunteer officers from the
shop, the plough, the work-bench, or the trading vessel, despite their
patriotism and the nobility of their cause, could easily have been
made subjects of derision, a perilous enemy to all new undertakings.
Men prefer to be shot at, if they are taken seriously, rather than to
be laughed at and made objects of contempt. The same principle holds
true of a revolution seeking the sympathy of a hostile world. When
Washington drew his sword beneath the Cambridge elm and put himself at
the head of the American army, effective ridicule became impossible,
for the dignity of the cause was seen in that of its leader. The
British generals soon found that they not only had a dangerous enemy
to encounter, but that they were dealing with a man whose pride in his
country and whose own sense of self-respect reduced any assumption of
personal superiority on their part to speedy contempt. In the same way
he brought dignity to the new government of the Constitution when
he was placed at its head. The confederation had excited the just
contempt of the world, and Washington as President, by the force of
his own character and reputation, gave the United States at once the
respect not only of the American people, but of those of Europe as
well. Men felt instinctively that no government over which he presided
could ever fall into feebleness or disrepute.
Pages:
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372