general principle is that commerce ought to be free, and labor and industry left at large to find their proper object." But he admitted that "the interests of the states which are ripe for manufactures ought to have attention, as the power of protecting and cherishing them has by the present constitution been taken from the states and its exercise thrown into other hands. Regulations in some of the states have produced establishments which ought not to be allowed to perish from the alteration which has taken place, while some manufactures being once formed can advance toward perfection without any adventitious aid. Some of the propositions may be productive of revenue and some may protect our domestic manufactures, though the latter subject ought not to be too confusedly blended with the former." "I," said Tucker, "am opposed to high duties because they will introduce and establish a system of smuggling, and because they tend to the oppression of citizens and states to promote the benefit of other states and other classes of citizens."* The election to the presidency found Washington prepared with a federal policy, which was the result of long meditation. He was resolved to preserve freedom; never to transcend the powers delegated by the constitution; even at the cost of life to uphold the union, a sentiment which in him had a tinge of anxiety from his thorough acquaintance with what Grayson called "the southern genius of America;" to restore the public finances; to establish in the foreign relations of the country a thoroughly American system; and to preserve neutrality in the impending conflicts between nations in Europe. Across the Atlantic Alfieri cried out to him: "Happy are you, who have for the sublime and permanent basis of your glory the love of country demonstrated by deeds." On the fourteenth of April he received the official announcement of his recall to the public service, and was at ten o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth on his way. Though reluctant "in the evening of life to exchange a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficulties," he bravely said: "Be the voyage long or short, although I may be deserted by all men, integrity and firmness shall never forsake me." * Annals of Congress, i., 291. But for him the country could not have achieved its independence; but for him it could not have formed its union; and but for him it could not have set the federal government in successful motion. His journey to New York was one continued march of triumph. All the way he was met with addresses from the citizens of various towns, from societies, universities, and churches. His neighbors of Alexandria crowded round him with the strongest personal affection, saying: "Farewell, and make a grateful people happy; and may the Being who maketh and unmaketh at his will, restore to us again the best of men and the most beloved fellow-citizen." * To the citizens of Baltimore, Washington said: "I hold it of little moment if the close of my life shall be embittered, provided I shall have been instrumental in securing the liberties and promoting the happiness of the American people." + He assured the society for promoting domestic manufactures in Delaware that "the promotion of domestic manufactures may naturally be expected to flow from an energetic government;" and he promised to give "a decided preference to the produce and fabrics of America."+ At Philadelphia, "almost overwhelmed with a sense of the divine munificence," he spoke words of hope: "The most gracious Being, who has hitherto watched over the interests and averted the perils of the United States, will never suffer so fair an inheritance to become a prey to anarchy or despot At Trenton he was met by a party of matrons and their daughters, dressed in white, strewing flowers before him, and singing an ode of welcome to "the mighty chief" who had rescued them from a "mercenary foe." Embarking at Elizabeth Point in a new barge, manned by pilots dressed in white, he cleaved his course swiftly across the bay, between gayly decorated boats, filled with gazers who cheered him with instrumental music, or broke out in songs. As he touched the soil of New York he was welcomed by the two houses of congress, by the governor of the state, by the *Sparks, xii., 139, note. Sparks, xii., 140, 141. Sparks, xii., 141. magistrates of the city, by its people; and so attended he proceeded on foot to the modest mansion lately occupied by the presiding officer of the confederate congress. On that day he dined with Clinton; in the evening the city was illuminated. The senate, under the influence of John Adams and the persistency of Richard Henry Lee, would have given him the title of "Highness;" but the house, supported by the true republican simplicity of the man whom they both wished to honor, insisted on the simple words of the constitution, and prevailed. On the thirtieth, the day appointed for the inauguration, Washington, being fifty-seven years, two months, and eight days old, was ceremoniously received by the two houses in the hall of the senate. Stepping out to the middle compartment of a balcony, which had been raised in front of it, he found before him a dense throng extending to Broad street, and filling Wall street to Broadway. All were hushed as Livingston, the chancellor of the state, administered the oath of office; but when he cried, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" the air was rent with huzzas, which were repeated as Washington bowed to the multitude. Then returning to the senate-chamber, with an aspect grave almost to sadness and a voice deep and tremulous, he addressed the two houses, confessing his distrust of his own endowments and his inexperience in civil administration. The magnitude and difficulty of the duties to which his country had called him weighed upon him so heavily that he shook as he proceeded: "It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who presides in the councils of nations, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves. No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. There exists in the economy of nature an indissoluble union between an honest and magnanimous policy and public prosperity. Heaven can never smile on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right. The preservation of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the American people." At the close of the ceremony the president and both branches of congress were escorted to the church of St. Paul, where the chaplain of the senate read prayers suited to the occasion, after which they all attended the president to his mansion. "Every one without exception," so reports the French minister to his government,*" appeared penetrated with veneration for the illustrious chief of the republic. The humblest was proud of the virtues of the man who was to govern him. Tears of joy were seen to flow in the hall of the senate, at church, and even in the streets, and no sovereign ever reigned more completely in the hearts of his subjects than Washington in the hearts of his fellow-citizens. Nature, which had given him the talent to govern, distinguished him from all others by his appearance. He had at once the soul, the look, and the figure of a hero. He never appeared embarrassed at homage rendered him, and in his manners he had the advantage of joining dignity to great simplicity." To the president's inaugural speech one branch of the legislature thus responded: "The senate will at all times cheerfully co-operate in every measure which may strengthen the union and perpetuate the liberties of this great confederated republic." The representatives of the American people likewise addressed him: "With you we adore the invisible hand which has led the American people through so many difficulties; and we cherish a conscious responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty. We join in your fervent supplication for our country; and we add our own for the choicest blessings of heaven on the most beloved of her citizens." In the same moments of the fifth day of May 1789, when these words were reported, the ground was trembling beneath the arbitrary governments of Europe as Louis XVI. proceeded to open the states-general of France. The day of * Moustier's report on the inauguration of the president of the United States. wrath, against which Leibnitz had warned the monarchs of Europe, was beginning to break, and its judgments were to be the more terrible for the long delay of its coming. The great Frederick, who alone of them all had lived and toiled for the good of his land, described the degeneracy and insignificance of his fellow-rulers with cynical scorn. Not one of them had a surmise that the only sufficient reason for the existence of a king lies in his usefulness to the people. Nor did they spare one another. The law of morality was never suffered to restrain the passion for conquest. Austria preyed upon Italy until Alfieri could only say, in his despair, that despotic power had left him no country to serve; nor did the invader permit the thought that an Italian could have a right to a country. The heir in the only line of protestant kings on the continent of Europe, too blind to see that he would one day be stripped of the chief part of his own share in the spoils, joined with two other robbers to divide the country of Kosciuszko. In Holland dynastic interests were betraying the welfare of the republic. All faith was dying out; and self, in its eagerness for pleasure or advantage, stifled the voice of justice. The atheism of the great, who lived without God. in the world, concealed itself under superstitious observances which were enforced by an inquisition that sought to rend beliefs from the soul, and to suppress inquiry by torments which surpassed the worst cruelties that savages could invent. Even in Great Britain all the branches of government were controlled by the aristocracy, of which the more liberal party could in that generation have no hope of being summoned by the king to frame a cabinet. The land, of which every member of a clan had had some share of ownership, had been for the most part usurped by the nobility; and the people were starving in the midst of the liberality which their own hands extorted from nature. The monarchs, whose imbecility or excesses had brought the doom of death on arbitrary power, were not only unfit to rule, but, while their own unlimited sovereignty was stricken with death, they knew not how to raise up statesmen to take their places. Well-intentioned friends of mankind burned with indignation, and even the wise and prudent were incensed by the conscious endurance of wrong; |