In order to understand the utter demoralization of society, politics, and public opinion at that time, the offspring of a wasting civil war and of colonial habits of thought, it is interesting to contrast the attitude of Washington with that of another distinguished American in regard to the Shays rebellion.  While Washington was looking solemnly at this manifestation of weakness and disorder, and was urging strong measures with passionate vehemence, Jefferson was writing from Paris in the flippant vein of the fashionable French theorists, and uttering such ineffable nonsense as the famous sentence about “once in twenty years watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.”  There could be no better illustration of what Washington was than this contrast between the man of words and the man of action, between the astute leader of a party, the shrewd manager of men, and the silent leader of armies, the master builder of states and governments.

I have followed Washington through the correspondence of this time with some minuteness, because it is the only way by which his work in overcoming the obstacles in the path to good government can be seen.  He held no public office; he had no means of reaching the popular ear.  He was neither a professional orator nor a writer of pamphlets, and the press of that day, if he had controlled it, had no power to mould or direct public thought.  Yet, despite these obstacles, he set himself to develop public opinion in favor of a better government, and he worked at this difficult and impalpable task without ceasing, from the day that he resigned from the army until he was called to the presidency of the United States.  He did it by means of private letters, a feeble instrument to-day, but much more effective then.  Jefferson never made speeches nor published essays, but he built up a great party, and carried himself into power as its leader by means of letters.  In the same fashion Washington started the scheme for internal waterways, in order to bind the East and the West together, set on foot the policy of commercial agreements between the States, and argued on the “imperial theme” with leading men everywhere.  A study of these letters reveals a strong, logical, and deliberate working towards the desired end.  There was no scattering fire.  Whether he was writing of canals, or the Mississippi, or the Western posts, or paper money, or the impost, or the local disorders, he always was arguing and urging union and an energetic central government.  These letters went to the leaders of thought and opinion, and were quoted and passed from hand to hand.  They brought immediately to the cause all the soldiers and officers of the army, and they aroused and convinced the strongest and ablest men in every State.  Washington’s personal influence was very great, something we of this generation, with a vast territory and seventy millions of people, cannot readily understand.  To many persons his word was law; to all that was best in the community,