He was buried at Mount Vernon, which has become one of the great shrines of America, and rightly so.  For no man, at once so august and so lovable, has graced American history.  Indeed, he stands among the greatest men of all history.  There are few men with such a record of achievement, and fewer still who, at the end of a life so crowded and cast in such troubled places, can show a fame so free from spot, a character so unselfish and so pure.

We know Washington to-day as well as it is possible to know any man.  We know him far better than the people of his own household knew him.  Behind the silent and reserved man, of courteous and serious manner, which his world knew, we perceive the great nature, the warm heart and the mighty will.  We have his letters, his journals, his account-books, and there remains no corner of his life hidden from us.  There is none that needs to be.  Think what that means—­not a single corner of his life that needs to be shadowed or passed over in silence!  And the more we study it, the more we are impressed by it, and the greater grows our love and veneration for the man of whom were uttered the immortal words, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen”—­words whose truth grows more apparent with every passing year.

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It is one of the maxims of history that great events produce great men, and the struggle for independence abundantly proved this.  Never again in the country’s history did it possess such a group of statesmen as during its first years, the only other period at all comparable with it being that which culminated in the Civil War.  It was inevitable that these men should assume the guidance of the newly-launched ship of state, and Washington had, in every way possible, availed himself of their assistance.  Alexander Hamilton had been his secretary of the treasury, Thomas Jefferson his secretary of state, and James Monroe his minister to France.  The first man to succeed him in the presidency, however, was none of these, but John Adams of Massachusetts.  His election was not uncontested, as Washington’s had been; in fact, he was elected by a majority of only three, Jefferson receiving 68 electoral votes to his 71.

Let us pause for a moment to see how this contest originated, for it was the beginning of the party government which has endured to the present day, and which is considered by many people to be essential to the administration of the Republic.  When Washington was elected there were, strictly speaking, no parties; but there was a body of men who had favored the adoption of the Constitution, and another, scarcely less influential, who had opposed it.  The former were called Federals, as favoring a federation of the several states, and the latter were called Anti-Federals, as opposing it.