1732-1799

George Washington was born at Pope's Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22, 1732. Like many other great men, he owed much to his mother, for it was she who impressed upon his memory the excellent maxims, moral and religious, that governed his conduct throughout life. At sixteen Washington left school, and began the exciting and dangerous work of surveying land in the pathless wilderness that then covered the western part of Virginia. His hazardous expedition in 1753 to the French commander near Lake Erie, the affair at Fort Necessity, and the disastrous ambuscade in which he, as adjutant of General Braddock's command, was the only mounted officer to escape, are well-known historical events.

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In January of the following year he married Martha Custis, the widow of John Parke Custis. For the next fifteen years he followed the peaceful occupation of a colonial planter. He was elected a delegate to the provincial House of Burgesses, and the beginning of each session found him in his seat, never late and never in a hurry. He possessed the confident bearing and unruffled dignity that are the accompaniments of true greatness. He had the reputation of being one of the thinkers" of the House. He spoke seldom, but he was a good listener. On the authority of Patrick Henry, Washington was, 'for solid information and sound judgment, unquestionably the greatest man in the Assembly." He had throughout these years been a keen observer of current events. When he saw the unyielding attitude of England, marked especially by her insistence on the retention of the tea tax, he was ready to join in measures of remonstrance, and, if need be, of actual resistance. He was sent as a delegate to the first Continental Congress and, during the session of the second Congress, was unanimously elected commanderin-chief of all the Continental forces raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty. The difficulties that encompassed him in the conduct of the war; the discouragements, and the fortitude with which he met them; his cautious strategic moves, and carefully planned successes, all leading to the final surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, are too well known to be detailed here. The story of the struggle for American independence, with its tears and sorrows, its brave deeds and heroic sacrifices, with the noble figure of Washington moving across the scene, stirs the American heart like the call of a trumpet.

Washington delivered his farewell address to the army in 1783, and soon after the evacuation of New York by the British bade an affectionate farewell to his officers. In 1787 he was elected president of the Federal Convention which assembled in Philadelphia. After due ratification of the constitution, Washington was elected first President of the United States, and took the oath of office at New York, April 30, 1789. With a skill and tact worthy of a trained diplomat, Washington accomplished the difficult work of moulding a compact nation out of a bundle of loosely joined States, in spite of the powerful opposition and adverse criticism that he encountered in some quarters. He was elected for a second term in 1793. During the year 1796 Washington, solicitous for the success of the government and the welfare of his people, wrote his farewell address, and in December of the same year he met the two Houses of Congress for the last time. On retiring from the presidential office he withdrew to Mount Vernon, where he died, after a brief illness, on December 14, 1799. As an orator Washington owed his fame more to the substance of his utterances than to the eloquence with which he delivered them. The Inaugural Address and the "Farewell Address" are characteristic examples of his solid style.

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INAUGURAL ADDRESS'

ELLOW-CITIZENS of the Senate, and of the House of

Representatives: Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties, than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and in my flattering hopes with an immutable decision as the asylum of my declining years; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary, as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust, to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence, one, who inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is, that if in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibil

General Washington was officially notified of his election as President of the United States on April 14, 1789. He immediately left Mount Vernon, and on the twenty-third of the same month arrived at New York, where he was received by the Governor of the State and conducted under an escort of mili tary, through an immense throng of people, to the apartments provide for him. Here he received the salutations of foreign ministers, public bodies, po

litical characters, and private citizens of distinction, who pressed around him to offer their congratulations, and to express their joy at seeing the man who had the confidence of all, at the head of the American republic. On the thirtieth of April he was inaugurated. Having taken the oath of office in the view of a great concourse of people, who attested their joy by loud and repeated acclamations, he returned to the Senate, where he delivered his inaugural address.

ity to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellowcitizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe who presides in the councils of nations-and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes; and may enable every instrument, employed in its administration, to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the great author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore 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; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with a humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the executive department, it is made the duty of the President, "to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and ex

pedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject, farther than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests; so on another, that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: since we ought to be no less persuaded, that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained: and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this sub

ject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline, as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed, may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, that since he has been pleased to favor the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government, for the security of their union, and the advancement of their happiness; so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this government must depend.