In the House of Burgesses Washington was a taciturn member, yet he seemed to have got a great deal of political knowledge and wisdom so that his colleagues thought of him as the solid man of the House and they referred many matters to him as if for final decision.  He followed political affairs in the newspapers.  Above all, at Mount Vernon he heard all sides from the guests who passed his domain and enjoyed his hospitality.  From the moment that the irritation between Great Britain and the Colonies became bitter he seems to have made up his mind that the contention of the Colonists was just.  After that he never wavered, but he was not a sudden or a shallow clamorer for Independence.  He believed that the sober second sense of the British would lead them to perceive that they had made a mistake.  When at length the Colonies had to provide themselves with an army and to undertake a war, he was the only candidate seriously considered for General, although John Hancock, who had made his peacock way so successfully in many walks of life, thought that he alone was worthy of the position.  Who shall describe Washington’s life as Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial forces during the Revolutionary War?  What other commander ever had a task like his?  For a few weeks the troops led by Napoleon—­the barefooted and ragged heroes of Lodi and Arcola and Marengo—­were equally destitute, but victory brought them food and clothes and prosperity.  Whereas Washington’s men had no comfort before victory and none after it.

Some of the military critics to-day deny Washington’s right to be ranked among the great military commanders of the world, but the truth is that he commanded during nearly eight years and won one of the supreme crucial wars of history against far superior forces.  The General who did that was no understrapper.  The man whose courage diffused itself among the ten thousand starving soldiers at Valley Forge, and enabled them to endure against the starvation and distress of a winter, may very well fail to be classified among the Prince Ruperts and the Marshal Neys of battle, but he ranks first in a higher class.  His Fabian policy, which troubled so many of his contemporaries, saved the American Revolution.  His title as General is secure.  Nor should we forget that it was his scrupulous patriotism which prevented the cropping out of militarism in this country.

Finally, a country which owed its existence to him chose him to be for eight years its first President.  He saw the planting of the roots of the chief organs of its government.  In every act he looked far forward into the future.  He shunned making or following evil precedents.  He endured the most virulent personal abuse that has ever been poured out on American public men, preferring that to using the power which his position gave him, and denaturing the President into a tyrant.  Nor should we fail to honor him for his insistence on dignity and a proper respect for his office.  His enemies sneered at