unfinished; devoid of all taint of obstinacy in his firmness; seeking
and gladly receiving advice, but immovable in his devotedness to right.

Of a "retiring modesty and habitual reserve," his ambition was no more
than the consciousness of his power, and was subordinate to his sense of
duty; he took the foremost place, for he knew from inborn magnanimity
that it belonged to him, and he dared not withhold the service required
of him; so that, with all his humility, he was by necessity the first,
though never for himself or for private ends. He loved fame, the
approval of coming generations, the good opinion of his fellow-men of
his own time, and he desired to make his conduct coincide with his
wishes; but not fear of censure, not the prospect of applause could
tempt him to swerve from rectitude, and the praise which he coveted was
the sympathy of that moral sentiment which exists in every human breast,
and goes forth only to the welcome of virtue.

There have been soldiers who have achieved mightier victories in the
field, and made conquests more nearly corresponding to the boundlessness
of selfish ambition; statesmen who have been connected with more
startling upheavals of society: but it is the greatness of Washington
that in public trusts he used power solely for the public good; that he
was the life and moderator and stay of the most momentous revolution in
human affairs; its moving impulse and its restraining power....

This also is the praise of Washington: that never in the tide of time
has any man lived who had in so great a degree the almost divine faculty
to command the confidence of his fellow-men and rule the willing.
Wherever he became known, in his family, his neighborhood, his county,
his native State, the continent, the camp, civil life, among the common
people, in foreign courts, throughout the civilized world, and even