Washington's Birthday : $b its history, observance, spirit, and significance as related in prose and verse, with a selection from Washington's speeches and writings
History
Washington's Birthday : $b its history, observance, spirit, and significance as related in prose and verse, with a selection from Washington's speeches and writings
Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Anniversaries, etc.
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 Caesar, 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."
* * * * *
"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 Caesars. 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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