wards "Democrats," who had opposed the Constitution, disliked a strong central power, and relied more upon the local self-government of the states, or upon the individual man. With his usual sagacity, Washington selected the best political talent of the country to help the great work, and with characteristic fairness he chose men from both parties. Jefferson was Secretary of State, Hamilton of the Treasury, General Henry Knox of War, and Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General. These composed the Cabinet. The Supreme Court were to be appointed. He put John Jay at its head. He would not be President of a party, but sought to reconcile differences, and to fuse all parties into one. The attempt could not succeed. There were quarrels in his own Cabinet, especially between Jefferson, who was an ideal Democrat, with great confidence in the mass of the people, and Hamilton, who inclined towards monarchy, and had but small confidence in the people. In the eight years of Washington's two Presidencies the country was full of strife and contentions between these parties. No President has since had such difficulties to contend with -all was to be made anew; the departments of government to be constructed, treaties to be negotiated with foreign powers, the revenue to be settled, the public debt to be paid, the continental paper money to be provided for, or the question disposed of, the limits of the constitutional power of the general government to be fixed, the forms of procedure in the Federal courts to be settled. The Union itself was so new, the elements were so diverse, the interests of North and South so hostile, it was to be feared the whole. would soon fall to pieces. But quickly the government was organized, an admirable plan of administra tion was devised, and the eight years brought increased stability to the American institutions, greater confidence in them, greater welfare to the whole people, and additional renown to Washington. I will not here recapitulate the chief acts of his administration. They are to be found in historical and biographical works. His leading principle was simply to be just to all, and demand justice from all. This was especially difficult in a time of such trouble; for while the constructive work of American democracy was going on here, in Europe the great destructive forces of humanity made the earth to quake, and to swallow down the most ancient monarchy in the Christian world. Both countries felt the shock of the French Revolution. The Federalists generally took sides against France, and with England, who feared the revolutionary contagion. The Democrats favored the French, and were hostile to England, as being willing to arrest the progress of mankind. Both parties were a little crazy. VII. On the 3rd of March, 1797, Washington withdrew from public life, and in a few days again sat down at Mount Vernon, devoted himself to agriculture, and hoped to enjoy the pleasing leisure of a country life. But his farewell address could not save him from public duties. He was to die with his harness on. Fear of war with France called him again to the head of the American army, which must be reconstructed in the midst of new and endless difficulties. But soon a peaceful trumpet called him to another field. On the 14th December, 1799, Washington ceased to be mortal; and he who had been "first in war, and first in peace," became also "first in the hearts of his countrymen," where he still lives. It is not difficult to understand a character which is so plain, the features so distinct and strongly marked. 1. Look at his intellect. He had not a great reason that philosophic principle which seeks the universal law and the scientific truths, resting in them as ends. He was not a speculative, but a practical man; not at all devoted to ideas. He had no tendency to science. He did not look after causes, ultimate reasons, general laws; only after facts. He was concerned with measures, not with principles. He seldom, if ever, made a philosophic remark on matter or on man. His diary is full of facts. It has no ideas, no hints or studies of a thoughtful character. He had little curiosity to learn the great generalizations of nature. It does not appear that he ever read a single philosophic book. His letters contain no ideas, and refer to no great principles. 2. He had not much imagination -that poetic power which rests in ideal beauty as its end. There was little of the ideal element in him. He takes no notice of the handsome things in nature, art, or literature. I remember but one reference to anything of the kind. That is to be found in the "Lowland Beauty," who so charmed him in boyhood. He looked at use, not at beauty. Handsome dress he prized for the dignity and consequence it gave him. This unideal character marks his style of writing, which is commonly formal, stiff, and rather prim,20 without ornament, or any of the little wayside beauties which spring up between the stones even of a military road. He seems to have had as little fondness for literature as for science. The books he read were practical works, which contained only information, and were quite destitute of the beauty, the inspiration, and the charm of letters. In the great mass of documents which bear his name it is not always easy to see what is his. Some of his greatest state papers were the work of other hands. The Farewell Address must be adjudged to Madison,21 who made the original draft in 1792, and to Hamilton, who wrought it over in 1797. Washington wrote it out anew with his own hand, making some alterations. It required four months to get it ready, so important did Washington deem the occasion. The greater part of the letters which fill eighty manuscript volumes are written by his secretaries, who must think for him as well as write. Still, there are enough which came unaltered from his pen to show us what power of writing he possessed. It is refreshing to find that he sometimes departed from the solemn, dull, conventional language of state papers, and calls the British soldiers "Red Coats," and General Putnam" Old Put; " talks of "kicking up some dust," "making a rumpus," of nominating "men not fit to be shoe-blacks;" speaks of " the rascally Puritanism of New England," and "the rascally Tories; a scoundrel from Marblehead a man of property." But in general his style is plain and business-like, without fancy or figure of speech, and without wrath. His writings are not grass which grows in the fields; they are hay which is pitched down from the mow in a barn. 99 66 3. Washington had a great understanding. He had that admirable balance of faculties which we call good judgment; the power of seeing the most expedient way of doing what must be done,- a quality more rare, perhaps, than what men call genius. Yet his understanding was not of a wide range, but was limited to a few particulars, all pertaining to practical affairs. Thus gifted, Washington was not an originator. I think he discovered nothing, invented nothingin war, in politics, or in agriculture. The “ new plough of my own invention" came to nothing. He was a soldier nearly sixteen years. I do not find that he discovered anything new in military affairs. He sat in the Virginia Assembly of Burgesses; was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and was a member of the Federal Convention, at the time when those bodies were busy with the most important matters; but I do not learn that he brought forward any new idea, any original view of affairs, or ever proposed any new measure. He was eight years President, and left behind him no marks of originality, of inventive talent, or of power of deep insight into causes, into their modes of operation, or even into their remote effects. Here he stood on the common level of mankind, and saw no deeper or farther than ordinary men. But he was a good organizer. Naturally systematic, industrious, and regular by early habit, he had the art to make things take an orderly shape, and to serve the purpose he had in view. Thus his large farm at Mount Vernon was managed with masterly skill; the routine of crops was adjusted as well as was then known to the art of agriculture. In the French and Indian War he took the raw human material, arrayed it into companies and regiments, and made a serviceable little army. In the War of the |