THE GREATNESS OF WASHINGTON.

Great he was, preeminently great, whether we regard him sustaining alone
the whole weight of campaigns all but desperate, or gloriously terminating
a just warfare by his resources and his courage; presiding over the jarring
elements of his political council, alike deaf to the storms of all
extremes, or directing the formation of a new government for a great
people, the first time that so vast an experiment had ever been tried by
man; or, really, retiring from the supreme power to which his virtue had
raised him over the nation he had created, and whose destinies he had
guided as long as his aid was required,--retiring with the veneration of
all parties, of all nations, of all mankind, in order that the rights of
men might be conserved, and that his example never might be appealed to by
vulgar tyrants.

This is the consummate glory of Washington; a triumphant warrior where the
most sanguine had a right to despair; a successful ruler in all the
difficulties of a course wholly untried; but a warrior, whose sword only
left its sheath when the first law of our nature commanded it to be drawn;
and a ruler who, having tasted of supreme power, gently and ostentatiously
desired that the cup might pass from him, nor would suffer more to wet his
lips than the most solemn and sacred duty to his To his country and his God
required!

To his latest breath did this great patriot maintain the noble character of
a captain the patron of peace, and a statesman the friend of justice.
Dying, he bequeathed to his heirs the sword which he had worn in the war
for liberty, and charged them "never to take it from the scabbard but in
self-defence, or in defence of their country and her freedom;" and