first broke down colonial lines to declare himself an American; Samuel Adams, the great forerunner of the race of American politicians; Thomas Jefferson, the idol of American democracy.  These and many others Mr. King might exclude on the ground that they did not reach the lonely height of immortal fame.  But Franklin is enough.  Unless one is prepared to set Franklin down as an Englishman, which would be as reasonable as to say that Daniel Webster was a fine example of the Slavic race, it must be admitted that it was possible for the thirteen colonies to produce in the eighteenth century a genuine American who won immortal fame.  If they could produce one of one type, they could produce a second of another type, and there was, therefore, nothing inherently impossible in existing conditions to prevent Washington from being an American.

Lincoln was undoubtedly the first great American of his type, but that is not the only type of American.  It is one which, as bodied forth in Abraham Lincoln, commands the love and veneration of the people of the United States, and the admiration of the world wherever his name is known.  To the noble and towering greatness of his mind and character it does not add one hair’s breadth to say that he was the first American, or that he was of a common or uncommon type.  Greatness like Lincoln’s is far beyond such qualifications, and least of all is it necessary to his fame to push Washington from his birthright.  To say that George Washington, an English commoner, vanquished George, an English king, is clever and picturesque, but like many other pleasing antitheses it is painfully inaccurate.  Allegiance does not make race or nationality.  The Hindoos are subjects of Victoria, but they are not Englishmen.

Franklin shows that it was possible to produce a most genuine American of unquestioned greatness in the eighteenth century, and with all possible deference to Mr. Lowell and Mr. King, I venture the assertion that George Washington was as genuine an American as Lincoln or Franklin.  He was an American of the eighteenth and not of the nineteenth century, but he was none the less an American.  I will go further.  Washington was not only an American of a pure and noble type, but he was the first thorough American in the broad, national sense, as distinct from the colonial American of his time.

After all, what is it to be an American?  Surely it does not consist in the number of generations merely which separate the individual from his forefathers who first settled here.  Washington was fourth in descent from the first American of his name, while Lincoln was in the sixth generation.  This difference certainly constitutes no real distinction.  There are people to-day, not many luckily, whose families have been here for two hundred and fifty years, and who are as utterly un-American as it is possible to be, while there are others, whose fathers were immigrants, who are as intensely American as any one can desire