Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1858-03-19

their day, and some of them to be ranked
with the greatest men Of any day. He did
not leave Jefferson and Hamilton without
the Cabinet, to shake perhaps the whole
fabric of Government in their fierce wars
and rivalries, he took them within, where
he himself might arbitrate their disputes
as they arose, and turn to the best account
for the country their suggestions as they
were made. Either Of these great minds
was perhaps more inventive than his own,
but he had the rarer and higher faculty
of Judgment. which enabled him to per-
ceive truth however and wherever presen-
ted, and which held with an imperturbable
hand and an unfaltering eye the airy bal
ances in which are weighed the sugges-
tons Of human reason. 1t is this, after all,
which constitutes the greatest faculty of a
statesman, because it enables him to gath
er tribute from the universal mind, and to
command resources far more various and
inexhaustible than those which could be
furnished by any one man, however gifted
he might be. [ do not mean to say that
his Judgment was infallible, or that | ac-
cord, at this day, with every measure Of
his Administration andy with all my ad
miration of Jefferson, and with all my
partialty for his general scheme Of poll
tics, | must say that the policy Of Wash
ington. when viewed with its connecting
circumstance, was the mastery work of a
statesman, great in his own day, and who
would have been great in any time and in
any land which he might have been called
to rule.
It is to be remembered that he was the
pioneer in one Of the greatest fields of hu-
man experiment which has ever tried the
power of man. Every thing was new,
nothing had been explored. New and un-
tried theories of government were aioat
Nations were in strange positions, OF which
history had no examples, and for whose
proper treatment experience furnished no
rules. On one continent the fountains of
the great deep Of human passion had been
broken up, and were sweeping away so
many of the barriers which had been raised
by laws, ordinances and governments, that
it was difficult to say how much would
probably survive the general wreck. On
another young people were setting out.
on ,aslle E-cafeef .<and nnder~eireHH Instances
unknown hitherto to civilized society. Its
interests and sympathies We're those Of the
forest, but It's traditions and lessons Of ex-
perience were drawn from the old world,
from whence it sprang. Nature led them
in one direction, whilst education pointed
to another To have governed such peo-
pie by these old-world traditions would
have been to take from David his sling and
to clothe him in the armor of Saul. No
man saw this more clearly than Washing
ton, or felt more deeply the necessity for
burning the ships to cut off all hope Of re-
turn to systems which had been left behind
them The rules for their government were
to be suggested by the occasion which re-
quired them The law OF their self-devel-
opement must depend, after all, upon the
peculiar circumstances which attended it.
Il want" said he. ''an American charac-
ter, that the powers in Europe may be con-
vinced we act for ourselves, and not for
others-' Accordingly, after having estab-
| lished securely the government credit, and
| organized the great arm Of the public SER
vice so as to command respect abroad and
| inspire confidence at home, he cut loose
from all embarrassing and entangling al
! liances with the political systems OF Eu-
| can column to the wilderness, he directed
| it upon that independent career of self-de-
! velopement which has made us what we
are. And yet how much did it cost him
| to establish that great principle of non-inter-
ventionin foreign affairs which was neces-
sary to secure us those opportunities which
we have used to such advantage! On the
one hand he was to hold in check
! the aggressive spirit of powerful nations
abroad, and on the other he must encoun-
ter the surging waves Of popular violence,
which had arisen so high that none but he
could have breasted them. In vain
the roar of the people came up demanding
to be assigned place in the great melee
! of nations which was going on around
them. Calm and unmoved, he held fast
against the press Of this angry throng the
door of the temple of war through which
alone they could have passed to the ac-
complishment Of their purpose. A com
manding spirit, his voice alone could have
settled the raging fury Of that storm.
He conquered peace for others; but to
do it he encountered the shock of war,
and a war which Of all others, was the most
cruel in its consequences upon himself
for it was war upon the popularity won
| by the hard service of anxious years, andu
on his supremacy in the affections of a peo-
pie whose love he priced beyond all earth
1y considerations. It struck the soul and
not the body it was wounded spirit
which he bore, without one word of COM
plant or reproaeh to those whose ingrati
tude had caused it. Nor did he relax the
reins until he had discharged all his du
ties and fulfilled his high purposes When
he did lay them down he left it to poster
ity to defend his memory, and to his owr
deeds to vindcate themselves by their con
sequences "a noble confidence which ex