Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment.  If we fail, who shall venture the repetition?  If our example shall prove to be one not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models?  If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted?  What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?

There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the important part which we are now acting in human affairs.  It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense both of our privileges and of our duties.  We cannot wish better for our country, nor for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may influence all who succeed him; and that the same blessing from above, which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs.

Washington’s Farewell Address

The principles of Washington’s administration are not left doubtful.  They are to be found in the Constitution itself, in the great measures recommended and approved by him, in his speeches to Congress, and in that most interesting paper, his Farewell Address to the people of the United States.  The success of the government under his administration is the highest proof of the soundness of these principles.  And, after an experience of thirty-five years, what is there which an enemy could condemn?  What is there which either his friends, or the friends of the country, could wish to have been otherwise?  I speak, of course, of great measures and leading principles.

In the first place, all his measures were right in their intent.  He stated the whole basis of his own great character, when he told the country, in the homely phrase of the proverb, that honesty is the best policy.  One of the most striking things ever said of him is, that “he changed mankind’s ideas of political greatness."[22] To commanding talents, and to success, the common elements of such greatness, he added a disregard of self, a spotlessness of motive, a steady submission to every public and private duty, which threw far into the shade the whole crowd of vulgar great.  The object of his regard was the whole country.  No part of it was enough to fill his enlarged patriotism.  His love of glory, so far as that may be supposed to have influenced him at all, spurned everything short of general approbation.  It would have been nothing to him that his partisans or his favorites outnumbered, or outvoted, or outmanaged, or outclamored, those of other leaders.  He had no favorites; he rejected all partisanship; and, acting honestly for the universal good, he deserved, what he so richly enjoyed, the universal love.