Washington may have had ambition, but it was not of that stamp that made the angels fall. He loved popularity, but not to gratify a vulgar vanity. His ambition was for his country's good. He took office to achieve a great end. When that was accomplished, he withdrew gladly to that retirement which was ever grateful to his heart, and which, in all circumstances and conditions in which he might be placed, always stretched out before him, in the future, as the calm and peaceful haven of his hopes. Had he been less a good man, he would not thus have desired retirement, for none but a good man could so love the calm delights of privacy and the pure joys of the domestic circle and the family fireside. Had he been not so much a great one, he would never have left his home.
Strange decree of fate! that in this Western world, but recently known to civilization, and only partially reclaimed from the savages; over which the dull oblivion of unnumbered centuries had not yet ceased to brood; without literature, without polite arts, without settled social organization, without position among nations--that in such a land, almost unknown and utterly uncared for, there should have arisen a man who was destined to equal, in the estimation of the virtuous and the good, all ancient glory and all modern fame.
The verdict of the French philosopher, Guizot, pronounced in view of his whole record, was, that "of all great men he was the most virtuous and the most fortunate--in this world God has no higher favors to bestow;" while the great English orator, jurist, and statesman, Lord Brougham, has declared that "until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington."
Had Washington never lived, what would have been the result of our revolutionary struggle? Had he died immediately after the close of the war, what would have been the fate of our governmental experiment? These are speculations which it will never be allowed us, in this life, to solve. As, in the one case, we can not say that the struggle would not ultimately have ended triumphantly, so, in the other, we do not know that our present form of government would not have been successfully established. For myself, I doubt the latter proposition fully as much as the former. Under another man, as first President, the fury of party strife would have been far greater, and sectional discord much stronger. Insurrectionary movements would have been more numerous and difficult of suppression, and foreign jealousy more bold and effective.