The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-21

ington's life proves him to have been the
ablest, most useful and far-seeing states
man of his time. He was ADLER than Ham
ilton, for Hamilton sat at his feet and
learned from his lips the doctrine of ma
tionality and union; he was greater than
Jefferson, who, more politician than pat
riot. preached the doctrine of state SUI
premacy that contained the seed of nulli-
fication, secession and civil war.
The first exponent of the saving faith
| and doctrine of nationality was Washing
ton; who was its original inspirer, organ
izer and defender; its stainless sentinel on
the walls of the Union. Washington passed
this watchword to Hamilton, Hamilton to
jackson and Webster, and Webster
gave it to the future armies of the
nation when the rolling thunder of his
tongue saluted the flag with Liberty and
union, now and forever, one and insepara-
ble." Washington was the first man to
denounce the famous Virginia resolutions
of 1889; the first to gravely warn his
countrymen that these state sovereignty
secession. disunion and civil war. The
Confederate" muse at the dedication of
Lees Richmond monument sang of Wash
ington and Lee as
Both patriots, both Virginiens, true
Both "rebels," both sublime.
Does any sane man today suppose that
Washington, who denounced the Virginia
~, q corid hao
'rebel' in 1861? Playing rebel to secure
the primitive rights and privileges of the
whole people of the American colonies
from the grip of the king did not reduce
Washington down to the comparatively
low and mean stature of Lee, who, by his
own confession, did not rebel because the
South was justified IN rebellion, but because
his loyalty to the heresy of state sover-
eighty, which Washington denounced
and detested as likely to split the Union
and wreck the nation, persuaded him to
leap into the dark of a senseless and cause
less war, in which the success of the South
would have ruined the Union, whose per-
petuity Washington placed high above
all such extravagant and dangerous de-
votion to state supremacy as that for
which Lee lifted his sword.
John Marshall writes that without
Washington's enormous personal inhu-
ence the confederation would never have
become a nation of states; that he was be-
hind all the agitation that ended in the
adoption of the constitution. His vast
personal weight of character and intellect
bore down the scales for union and nation
atty at time when but for him the ex-
pertinent would have been rejected. Wash
ington, the statesman who planted our
state on the deep-bolted foundation of
union and national supremacy, is
a larger and more benefcent fig
ure than Washington, the sagacious
soldier and stainless patriot; for, like
Cromwell, he had rarer gift than the
genius for eloquent speech; he had the
genius of unerring judgment and eloquent
action. Like Cromwell, too, he grows
taller and wider every year. The mother
country against which he warred is today
eager to claim him as the most illustrious
man of English blood that modern history
records.
Washington was praised by Chatham,
by Burke, by Brougham, Macaulay and
Gladstone. The greatest English poet of
the century, Byron, makes him the theme
of noble lines of lofty praise; Green, the
greatest English historian, places him on
the same level with John Hampden; the
great English statesman and orator, Fox,
spoke of him as man whose
moral and intellectual majesty of
character impressed him with a sense
of reverence and awe; the greatest
English novelist, Thackeray, paints his
pictures in fine colors in "The Virginians;"
the greatest English soldier of the century,
Wellington, hung a copy of Stuart's por-
trait of Washington in the place of honor
in his drawing room and once said: "Not
only was Washington the purest and
most patriotic man of modern times, but
he was also the stateliest, most majestic
and the most modest of men," Napoleon,
when first consul paid distinguished
honors to Washington's memory, and his
humanity and truth SO impressed the
Indians of his day that he is given a
distinguished place in the Indian heaven.
A man who commanded the admira-
ton of men of such varied
genius and attainments must have been a
great man, and withal he was so human.
At Monmouth, when the British were
routed, Washington broke into cheer and
behaved like fox hunter in sight of his
game; he forbade cheering at the sur
render of CORVALLIS, nobly saying, "Let
posterity cheer"
Washington was a great man, great in
moral force, and in addition he had most
powerful understanding. Nothing but the
image of Lincoln makes the figure of
Washington dim to the average American.