Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/416

Rh 390 WASHINGTON PRESIDENT. such suggestive hints as his proposal to amend a restriction of the standing army to 5000 men by forbidding any enemy to invade the United States with more than 3000. He approved the constitution which was decided upon, believ ing, as he said, &quot; that it was the best constitution which could be obtained at that epoch, and that this or a dissolu tion awaits our choice, and is the only alternative.&quot; All his influence was given to secure its ratification, and his influence was probably decisive. When it had been ratified, and the time came to elect a president, there was no more hesitation than if the country had been a theocracy. The office of president had been &quot; cut to fit the measure of George Washington,&quot; and no one thought of any other person for it. The unanimous vote of the electors made him the first president of the United States ; their unani mous vote re-elected him in 1792-93 ; and, even after he had positively refused to serve for a third term, two electors obstinately voted for him in 1796-97. The public events of his presidency are given elsewhere (see UNITED STATES, vol. xxiii. pp. 752-755). One can hardly follow them with out receiving the conviction that the sudden success of the new system was due mainly to the existence at that time of such a character as Washington. He held the two natural parties apart, and prevented party contest until the new form of government had been firmly established. It seems hardly possible that the final result should have been baulked, even if &quot; blood and iron &quot; had been necessary to bring it about. It would be unwise to attribute the quiet attainment of the result to the political sense of the American people alone, or to use it as an historical pre cedent for the voluntary assumption of such a risk again, without the advantage of such a political factor as Washington. No greater mistake could be made, however, than to think that the influence of the president was fairly appreciated during his term of office. He attempted to balance party against party, to divide his cabinet between them, and to neutralize the effects of parties in that way. The consequence was that the two leading members of the cabinet soon occupied the position, to use the words of one of them, of &quot; two game-cocks in a pit.&quot; The unconscious drift of Washington s mind was toward the Federal party ; his letters to La Fayette and Henry, in December 1798 and January 1799, are enough to make that evident. When the Republican party was formed, about 1793, it could not have been expected that its leaders would long submit with patience to the continual interposition of Washington s name and influence between themselves and their opponents ; but they maintained a calm exterior. Some of their followers were less discreet. The president s proclamation of neutrality between France and Great Britain excited them to anger ; his support of Jay s treaty with Great Britain roused them to fury. Forged letters, purporting to show his desire to abandon the revolutionary struggle, were published ; he was accused of drawing more than his salary ; hints of the propriety of a guillotine for his benefit began to appear ; some spoke of him as the &quot; stepfather of his country.&quot; The attacks embittered the close of his term of service ; he declared, in a cabinet meeting in 1793, that &quot;he had never repented but once the having slipped the moment of resigning his office, and that was every moment since.&quot; Indeed, the most un pleasant portions of Jefferson s Ana are those in which, with an air of psychological dissection, he details the storms of passion into which the president was hurried by the news paper attacks upon him. These attacks, however, came from a very small fraction of the politicians ; the people never wavered in their devotion to the president, and his election would have been unanimous in 1796, as in 1789 and. 1792, if he had been willing to serve. All accounts agree that Washington was of imposing presence. He measured just 6 feet when prepared for burial ; but his height, in his prime, as given in his orders for clothes from London, was 3 inches more. La Fayette says that his hands were &quot; the largest he ever saw- on a man.&quot; Custis says that his complexion was &quot;fair, but considerably florid.&quot; His weight was about 220 Bx The various and widely-differing portraits of him find exhaustive treatment in the seventh volume of Winsor s Narrative and Critical History of the United States. The editor thinks that &quot; the favourite profile has been unquestionably Houdon s, with Stuart s canvass for the full face, and probably TrumbulPs for the figure.&quot; Stuart s face, hoAVBver, gives the popular notion of Washington, though it has always been a subject of curious speculation to some minds how much of the calm and benign expres sion of the face was due to the shape of Washington s false teeth. Washington was childless : said the people of his time, he was the father only of his country. Collateral branches of the family have given the Lees, the Custises, and other families a claim to an infusion of the blood ; but no direct descendants of Washington can claim his honours, or disgrace his name. His estate of Mount Vernon was acquired in 1858 by an association, and has been practically national property ever since. Retiring from the presidency in 1797, Washington resumed the plantation life which he most loved, the society of his family, and the care of his slaves. He had resolved some time before never to obtain another slave, and &quot; wished from his soul &quot; that his State could be persuaded to abolish slavery ; &quot; it might prevent much future mischief.&quot; He was too old, however, to attempt further innovations. In 1798 he was made commander- in-chief of the provisional army raised in expectation of open war with France, and was fretted almost beyond endurance by the quarrels of Federalist politicians about the distribution of commissions. In the midst of his military preparations, he was struck down by sudden illness, which lasted but for a day, and he died at Mount Vernon, December 14, 1799. The third of the series of resolutions introduced in the house of representatives five days after his death, by John Marshall, and passed unanimously, states exactly, if a trifle rhetorically, the position of Washington in American history : &quot; first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.&quot; Washington s disorder was an redematous affection of the wind-pipe, contracted by careless exposure during a ride in a snow-storm, and aggravated by neglect afterwards, and by such contemporary remedies as excessive bleeding, gargles of &quot; molasses, vinegar, and butter &quot; and &quot; vinegar and sage tea,&quot; which &quot; almost suffocated him,&quot; and a blister of cantharides on the throat. He died without theatrical adieus ; his last words were only business direc tions, affectionate remembrances to relatives, and repeated apologies to the physicians and attendants for the trouble he was giving them. Just before he died, says his secre tary, Mr Lear, he felt his own pulse ; his countenance changed ; the attending physician placed his hands over the eyes of the dying man, &quot;and he expired without a struggle or a sigh.&quot; Any complete bibliography of books relating to &quot;Washington would be voluminous. Lives have been written by Weems, Marshall (1804-7), Ramsay (1807), A. Bancroft (1826), and Irving (1S55). See also Sparks s Writings of Washington (1834-37) ; Rash s Domestic Life of Washington (1857) ; G. &quot;W. P. Custis s Recollections of Washington (1860) ; Baker s Character Portraits of Washington (1887) ; Science, December 11, 1885 (an attempt to make a composite portrait of Washington) ; Winsor s Narrative and Critical History of the United States (editor s article) ; Bancroft s United States (final revision) ; Schouler s United States ; M Master s United States. (A. J.)