Part 31

The institution prospered. About 1802 a new charter was granted with larger powers, under the name of Washington College. John Robinson, a soldier of the Revolution under Washington, gave, in emulation of his illustrious commander, his entire estate to Washington College; from it the trustees realized $40,000 toward the endowment. The stock of the James River Company, which Washington transferred to the College, to-day yields an income of six per cent, on $50,000, and, after prospering years, the College has now a productive endowment of $600,000, and a property worth $800,000. The country has passed through many critical periods since Washington's day, and the Union is stronger than ever. The old College is a witness to the all-healing power of time and kinship, for its name has again been added to: it is Washington and Lee University now; and thus is joined with the name of the Father of His Country the name of one whom the South has ever loved, whom the North long since forgave, and whose memory the country will ever cherish.

The Revolutionary War was a costly experiment of education in military affairs in the field; it cost heavily in blood and treasure. Washington realized that preparation for service in the army must be had in military schools.

From the very beginning of the war until the end of his life, by official message and by letter, Washington urged the importance of military instruction. In his message to Congress in 1796 he said: "The institution of a military academy is recommended by cogent reasons. However pacific the general policy of a nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies. In proportion as the observance from the necessity of practicing the rules of the military art, ought to be its care in preserving and transmitting by proper establishments the knowledge of that art. A thorough examination of the subject will evince that the art of war is extensive and complicated; that it demands much previous study; and that the possession of it in its most important and perfect state is always of great moment to the security of a nation." Congress did make provision for the carrying out of many of the President's recommendations; it created a new grade in the army, that of Cadet, to which young men exclusively were admitted, and money was appropriated for their education in the science of war that they might be prepared for positions of command. But Congress delayed the potential part of the plan; it did not collect the regiment of artillerists and engineers at a single station, nor did it erect buildings for the uses of education.

The idea did not die; in 1802 Congress made the first of those provisions for a military academy with the plan and scope which Washington had so persistently urged. West Point was chosen as the place of its location. That academy has more than once demonstrated the wisdom of the far-seeing Washington.

West Point is the realization of Washington's plans for a national school of military instruction. To-day it represents to the country the important features of that plan for a National University. By his last will and testament, Washington bequeathed the fifty shares of stock in the Potomac Company to the establishment of a National University in the central part of the United States; he made provision that until such a university should be founded the fund should be self-accumulating by the use of the dividends in the purchase of more stock, to still further augment the endowment fund. In the transfers and changes of commercial life apparent record of that stock has been lost, yet that last will bequeathed an ideal which in indirect ways is still inspiring our national educational system.

Let us take our place by the side of a student of our national history and institutions, as after a walk through the buildings across that noble plain at West Point he sits down to meditate, on the granite steps of the "Battle Monument." He is where the history of yesterday abides, but about him is represented the strength and life of the nation, and the strong military figures of officers, cadets, and soldiers from every section of our country. He feels the wisdom of that great desire of Washington's that the life and thought of the widely separated sections of the rising empire should become homogeneous and unified by the meeting of the young men of the land in a central school, during the years of training for the country's service at arms. This student of history would feel how that hope had been fulfilled by the loyal service which the sons of West Point to so large a degree rendered the Union in its days of peril; and with deep gratitude would he acknowledge that enthusiastic loyalty with which the North and South, the East and West, as represented at West Point and throughout the country, rushed to its service to release those islands of the sea from the thraldom and tyranny of a medieval monarchy.

Then the vista of the future would open before him, and he would see that larger hope and plan of Washington's realized in the city of his name. There in that center in the Nation's life he would see young men assembling in the national schools of administration, commerce, consular service, and finance, to study questions of government and international relations. He would see reaching to all the lands of earth a peace more beautiful than that of the river below him; and wider and deeper than that Western ocean where now is flying our flag of hope and promise.

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ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

BY JOHN W. DANIEL

Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, February 21, 1885

Mr. President of the United States, Senators, Representatives, Judges, Mr. Chairman, and My Countrymen:--Alone in its grandeur stands forth the character of Washington in history; alone like some peak that has no fellow in the mountain range of greatness.

"Washington," said Guizot, "Washington did the two greatest things which in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace the independence of his country, which he had conquered by war. He founded a free government in the name of the principles of order and by re-establishing their sway." Washington did, indeed, do these things. But he did more. Out of disconnected fragments, he molded a whole, and made it a country. He achieved his country's independence by the sword. He maintained that independence by peace as by war. He finally established both his country and its freedom in an enduring frame of constitutional government, fashioned to make liberty and union one and inseparable. These four things together constitute the unexampled achievement of Washington.

The world has ratified the profound remark of Fisher Ames, that "he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." It has approved the opinion of Edward Everett, that he was "the greatest of good men, and the best of great men." It has felt for him, with Erskine, "an awful reverence." It has attested the declaration of Brougham that he was "the greatest man of his own or of any age."...

Conquerors who have stretched your scepter over boundless territories; founders of empires who have held your dominions in the reign of law; reformers who have cried aloud in the wilderness of oppression; teachers who have striven to cast down false doctrines, heresy, and schism; statesmen whose brains have throbbed with mighty plans for the amelioration of human society; scar-crowned vikings of the sea, illustrious heroes of the land, who have borne the standards of siege and battle, come forth in bright array from your glorious fanes, and would ye be measured by the measure of his stature? Behold you not in him a more illustrious and more venerable presence? Statesman, soldier, patriot, sage, reformer of creeds; teacher of truth and justice, achiever and preserver of liberty, the first of men, founder and saviour of his country, father of his people--this is he, solitary and unapproachable in his grandeur!

Oh, felicitous Providence that gave to America our Washington!

High soars into the sky to-day, higher than the pyramid or the dome of St. Paul's or St. Peter's--the loftiest and most imposing structure that man has ever reared--high soars into the sky to where--"Earth highest yearns to meet a star" the monument which "We the people of the United States" have uplifted to his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied character. So art has fitly typified his exalted life in yon plain, lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent that by this mighty sign she may disclose the amplitude of her story.

No sum could now be made of Washington's character that did not exhaust language of its tributes and repeat virtue by all her names. No sum could be made of his achievements that did not unfold the history of his country and its institutions--the history of his age and its progress--the history of man and his destiny to be free. But, whether character or achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal of the leader or ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great, free people, who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Cæsar, Cromwell, Frederick, and Napoleon, but when Washington's face rises before us, instinctively mankind exclaims: "This is the man for nations to trust and reverence, and for rulers to follow."

Drawing his sword from patriotic impulse, without ambition and without malice, he wielded it without vindictiveness, and sheathed it without reproach. All that humanity could conceive he did to suppress the cruelties of war and soothe its sorrows. He never struck a coward's blow. To him age, infancy, and helplessness were ever sacred. He tolerated no extremity unless to curb the excesses of his enemy, and he never poisoned the sting of defeat by the exultation of the conqueror.

Peace he welcomed as a heaven-sent herald of friendship; and no country has given him greater honor than that which he defeated; for England has been glad to claim him as the scion of her blood, and proud, like our sister American States, to divide with Virginia the honor of producing him.

Fascinated by the perfection of the man, we are loath to break the mirror of admiration into the fragments of analysis. But, lo! as we attempt it, every fragment becomes the miniature of such sublimity and beauty that the destructive hand can only multiply the forms of immortality.

Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us--a fair and open manuscript. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech--the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime.

A true son of nature was George Washington--of nature in her brightest intelligence and noblest mold; and the difficulty, if such there be, in comprehending him, is only that of reviewing from a single standpoint the vast procession of those civil and military achievements which filled nearly half a century of his life, and in realizing the magnitude of those qualities which were requisite to their performance--the difficulty of fashioning in our minds a pedestal broad enough to bear the towering figure, whose greatness is diminished by nothing but the perfection of its proportions. If his exterior--in calm, grave, and resolute repose--ever impressed the casual observer as austere and cold, it was only because he did not reflect that no great heart like his could have lived unbroken unless bound by iron nerves in an iron frame. The Commander of Armies, the Chief of a People, the Hope of Nations could not wear his heart upon his sleeve; and yet his sternest will could not conceal its high and warm pulsations. Under the enemy's guns at Boston he did not forget to instruct his agent to administer generously of charity to his needy neighbors at home. The sufferings of women and children thrown adrift by war, and of his bleeding comrades, pierced his soul. And the moist eye and trembling voice with which he bade farewell to his veterans bespoke the underlying tenderness of his nature, even as the storm-wind makes music in its undertones.

Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a grateful State to educate the children of his fallen braves in the institution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous elements in man, that he almost created the qualities which his country needed to exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and forbearing to the weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the vices of which he feared the consequences. But his virtue was more than this. It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant's grasp, assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience. Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten our admiration for the noble passions which were kindled by the aspirations and exigencies of virtue.

Invested with the powers of a Dictator, the country bestowing them felt no distrust of his integrity; he, receiving them, gave assurance that, as the sword was the last support of Liberty, so it should be the first thing laid aside when Liberty was won. And keeping the faith in all things, he left mankind bewildered with the splendid problem whether to admire him most for what he was or what he would not be. Over and above all his virtues was the matchless manhood of personal honor to which Confidence gave in safety the key of every treasure on which Temptation dared not smile, on which Suspicion never cast a frown. And why prolong the catalogue? "If you are presented with medals of Cæsar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you are still led to ask what was their stature and the forms of their persons; but if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not curious about the other parts, but rest assured that they were all conformable to those of a god."

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"Rome to America" is the eloquent inscription on one stone of your colossal shaft--taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood hard by the Palace of the Cæsars. Uprisen from the sea of Revolution, fabricated from the ruins of bartered bastiles, and dismantled palaces of unrighteous, unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of republics, the Nation of nations, the Constitution of constitutions, to which all lands and times and tongues had contributed of their wisdom, and the priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.

When Marathon had been fought and Greece kept free, each of the victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor, but all agreed that Miltiades was second. When the most memorable struggle for the rights of human nature of which time holds record was thus happily concluded in the muniment of their preservation, whoever else was second, unanimous acclaim declared that Washington was first. Nor in that struggle alone does he stand foremost. In the name of the people of the United States, their President, their Senators, their Representatives, and their Judges do crown to-day with the grandest crown that veneration has ever lifted to the brow of Glory, him whom Virginia gave to America, whom America had given to the world and to the ages, and whom mankind with universal suffrage has proclaimed the foremost of the founders of empire in the first degree of greatness; whom Liberty herself has anointed as the first citizen in the great Republic of Humanity.