a newly established nation.  Washington lost no opportunity for teaching a moral.  Thus, when he came to Boston, John Hancock, the Governor of Massachusetts, seemed to wish to indicate that the Governor was the highest personage in the State and not at all subservient even to the President of the United States.  He wished to arrange it so that Washington should call on him first, but this Washington had no idea of doing.  Hancock then wrote and apologized for not greeting the President owing to an unfortunate indisposition.  Washington replied regretting the Governor’s illness and announcing that the schedule on which he was travelling required him to quit Boston at a given time.  Governor Hancock, whose spectacular signature had given him prominence everywhere, finding that he could not make the President budge, sent word that he was coming to pay his respects.  Washington replied that he should be much pleased to welcome him, but expressed anxiety lest the Governor might increase his indisposition by coming out.  This little comedy had a far-reaching effect.  It settled the question as to whether the Governor of a State or the President of the United States should take precedence.  From that day to this, no Governor, so far as I am aware, has set himself above the President in matters of ceremonial.

One of the earliest difficulties which Washington’s administration had to overcome was the hostility of the Indians.  Indian discontent and even lawlessness had been going on for years, with only a desultory and ineffectual show of vigor on the part of the whites.  Washington, who detested whatever was ineffectual and lacking in purpose, determined to beat down the Indians into submission.  He sent out a first army under General St. Clair, but it was taken in ambush by the Indians and nearly wiped out—­a disaster which caused almost a panic throughout the Western country.  Washington felt the losses deeply, but he had no intention of being beaten there.  He organized a second army, gave it to General Wayne to command, who finally brought the Six Nations to terms.  The Indians in the South still remained unpacified and lawless.

Washington made another prolonged trip, this time through the Southern States, which greatly improved his health and gave an opportunity of seeing many of the public men, and enabled the population to greet for the first time their President.  Meanwhile the seeds of partisan feuds grew apace, as they could not fail to do where two of the ablest politicians ever known in the United States sat in the same Cabinet and pursued with unremitting energy ideas that were mutually uncompromising.  Thomas Jefferson, although born of the old aristocratic stock of Virginia, had early announced himself a Democrat, and had led that faction throughout the Revolution.  His facile and fiery mind gave to the Declaration of Independence an irresistible appeal, and it still remains after nearly one hundred and fifty years one of the most