out credit or the power of taxation," from a people "subject to separate state governments, and not yet organized under one efficient central authority." As Congress could act only by recommendations addressed to the several States, he was supported by no strong civil power at any time during the war, and his personal character and influence really stood for the nation in place of a central government. Without a military chest, without money, "the sinews of war," and without constitutional authority, Washington maintained the conflict against the disciplined armies and world-renowned valor of the first power among modern nations. With troops as ragged and pitiful to behold as those of Falstaff, he presented to the royal foe a front of unbroken courage, sublime as the unconquerable spirit of Leonidas, when he turned back the wave of battle from Thermopylæ. He was never at the head of what military men would esteem an efficient force, until the junction of the allied armies at Yorktown preluded the speedy triumph of the new Republic, and struck the flag of St. George from the Colonial States. But the gravest difficulties surmounted by Washington were not so much the inevitable outgrowth of the circumstances of the country as the suggestions of vanity, ambition and duplicity, springing from the frailty of human nature. In the most gloomy days of the revolution, already burdened as he was by care and danger, there were in the American army intriguers who desired to supplant him, liars who aspersed his honor, and traitors who tried to sacrifice the dear country to which he had pledged his life and fortune. The crime of Arnold has been blazoned to the world, but the despicable vanity of General Gates nourished a brood of vipers that more vitally endangered American liberty; and it is now known that, in the person of General Lee, Washington endured, for three years, out of a mistaken regard for the public interest, the insolence of a traitor meaner than Arnold, far more mischievous, and worthy to rest in yet blacker infamy. Situated as the country was, during that momentous period of our history, it is morally certain that no man inferior to Washington could have brought the war to a successful issue. The solid majesty of his character, the personal influence he wielded, the general confidence reposed in his integrity and wisdom, were absolutely essential to the auspicious result of the struggle. No

other man could have restored the public confidence, after the disastrous campaign of 1776; no other man could have afforded to despise, as he did, the calumnies spread abroad by unprincipled competitors; and no other man could have subdued, by the magnetism of personal authority, the military sedition at Newburgh.

As the gods know their own strength, so a wise and good man is conscious of a certain weight of character and of a trust in the final verdict of mankind, that keep him steadfast and serene, while base men are brawling, and while society rocks on an ocean swell. How truly this sublime serenity may be ascribed to Washington, will appear by relating two circumstances, developed by his public life.

Soon after the commencement of the revolution, a volume of spurious letters, attributed to Washington, was published in London, intended to show that he was secretly unfriendly to the American cause, and thereby vitiate his influence among his countrymen. His rivals, in the army and in Congress, in the furtherance of their plot to displace him, procured the re-issue of this base fabrication in New York, and its circulation through the country. Most men would have promptly exposed such an impudent forgery, and indignantly protested against its damaging imputations. Washington did neither. For twenty years, he never honored the miserable imposture enough to notice it. For twenty years, it lay at the mercy of his silent disdain; and it was not until he was in the act of taking final leave of public life, at the close of his second Presidential term, that he alluded to the calumny, by filing a refutation of it in the department of State.

The other circumstance, to which we have alluded, occurred in connection with Mr. Jay's celebrated treaty. It was during Washington's second administration. A strong opposition party had, by this time, grown into being; and the country, besides being agitated by the collision of politics, was in danger of becoming embroiled in war with both France and England. The affronts received from the two great powers were about equally aggravating; but the popular mind was far more willing to endure insolence from France than from Great Britain. France had been the. friend of America, in the late conflict, and was herself striving to achieve a republican form of government; and it

required, consequently, peculiar provocations to elicit a hostile feeling towards that country. But, the wrongs received from England were fresh in the nation s memory; and a new war with that power, however impolitic, would have been congenial to the public feeling. It was under these circumstances, that Washington-rising, as he always did, above the dissonance of passion, and having in view the ultimate welfare of the country-resolved on sending a special minister to England, with instructions to negotiate a treaty. He selected John Jay, the Chief Justice of the United States, a man qualified, in every point of view, for the important mission. The nomination, besides being furiously assailed by the opposition, with difficulty passed the Senate.

The treaty which Mr. Jay succeeded in negotiating,— viewed at the present day, apart from the heat and prejudice engendered by party friction, seems as favorable to the United States as any reasonable man could have required. Nevertheless, it barely secured the endorsement of the Senate, and was assailed, on its official promulgation, with all the malignity of partizan hatred. Even in Boston, which had been esteemed the strongest bulwark of the administration-the Treaty was condemned in a public meeting, and a remonstrance despatched to the Executive. The demonstration of popular feeling, as it spread over the land, rose so far as to asperse, in the grossest terms, the private character of the President. Washington was never greater than in that evil day, when, convinced that the public interest required the confirmation of the Treaty, he exposed his gray hairs to the storm, and pressed his inflexible purpose, while the chair of state rocked under him. It is such executive vigor the attribute of consummate manhood, that guides a nation safely through a great convulsion; while God only can tell what wolfish treason may leap to our throat, while a paralytic "grannihood" sits at the helm of power!

The conscious rectitude, that gave such dignity and strength to Washington's public life, is finely illustrated in his treatment of one of the measures of the opposition, at this time. The House of Representatives made a demand for the instructions, under which Mr. Jay had negotiated the treaty. A call of this kind, at the present day, from either House of Congress, is uniformly complied with,-unless, in

some special case, (in the judgment of the President,) the communication would be detrimental to the public service. But, in that early day of the government, usage had established no precedent; and the demand for Jay's instructions, besides being couched in offensive language, was properly regarded as a hostile movement against the administration. Washington declined to communicate the instructions, taking the position that the power to make treaties was confided, by the Constitution, to the President and Senate; and that it was not the province of the House of Representatives to examine the instructions that might have formed the basis of such treaties. Provoked by his refusal to yield the paper, the opposition naturally supposed and asserted, what was extensively believed by the public, that the instructions contained matter which would damage the government, if it were divulged. It was charged that the President was actuated by some other motive, stronger than his regard for a constitutional principle, on which he had ostensibly withheld the paper. He disdained to vindicate himself, as he might have done, at any moment, but calmly confided to time the solution of the question. For thirty years, those celebrated instructions lay buried in the archives of the nation. Meantime, the political antipathies, which had made them the mark of critical curiosity, died away; the hand, that had written them, was mouldering in the tomb; and the fame they had qualified for a day, was enshrined in the immortal veneration of mankind. At length, twentysix years after the close of Washington's mortal career, the paper he had declined to yield on a peremptory order of the House, was accidently brought to light, and found to contain nothing which his most violent political enemy could have turned against him.

There is no act in Washington's career, more important to be acquainted with or more interesting to contemplate, especially in the pending crisis of our country, than his agency in the formation of the Federal Union. Nor is it paying too high a tribute to his influence to say, that, without the beneficent ascendency of his personal character, this noble fabric of constitutional liberty could not have been reared.

It will be borne in mind, that, during the revolution, the several States sustained the relation of independent sover

eignties; bound only by a league for mutual defence; with no common government armed with authority, and united by the sinews of no organic system. The stress of the war, the plea of common interests, and the presence of common danger, had forced the States into temporary unity of feeling and action; but when the pressure of foreign aggression came to be withdrawn, the bonds of concord relaxed, and the shade of anarchy shot across the land. The boon of independence had been achieved, but there was no government to wisely preserve what had been gallantly won. The old Congress, invested with no authority over the States, presented only the phantom of power; making futile recommendations, disregarded by the local governments. In this condition, the country could neither enjoy tranquillity at home, nor secure respect abroad. It wanted the first condition of an auspicious social developement.

The leading men of the day were painfully sensible of the miserable collapse, in which the embryo republic threatened to founder. But it does not appear that many of them. looked forward to the grand remedy, finally realized in the establishment of the Federal Government. The idea of a Central government, invested with authority over the States, was at first regarded with almost universal jealousy and distrust, as an expedient tending directly to despotism. After the idea had been conceived, it was strenuously opposed in all the States, and won its way to popular favor by slow processes. And, long after the Federal Government had become enthroned over the Union, its operation was vigilantly watched by a powerful opposition, and its alleged tendency to subvert state rights was vehemently denounced.

The movement, which ultimately led to the adoption of our present government, began in the necessity of adjusting certain commercial difficulties between Maryland and Virginia. In March, 1785, commissioners on the part of those States met at Alexandria, to devise means for regulating the navigation of the Potomac and Pocomake rivers, and of the Chesapeake Bay. Washington was "one of the commissioners on the part of Virginia; and, his associates being on a visit to him at Mount Vernon, it was there agreed by them to recommend to their respective States the appointment of a new commission, with enlarged powers, to devise a plan for the establishment, under the sanction of Con