As the human race has moved along down the centuries, the vigorous and ambitious, the dissenters from blind obedience and the original thinkers, the colonists and state builders, have broken camp with the morning, and followed the sun till the close of day. They have left behind narrow and degrading laws, traditions, and castes. Their triumphant success is pushing behind every bayonet carried at the order of Kaiser or Czar; men, who, in doing their own thinking, will one day decide for themselves the problems of peace and war.
The scenes of the fifth act of the grand drama are changing, but all attention remains riveted upon one majestic figure. He stands the noblest leader who ever was intrusted with his country's life. His patience under provocation, his calmness in danger, and lofty courage when all others despaired, his prudent delays when delay was best, and his quick and resistless blows when action was possible, his magnanimity to defamers and generosity to his foes, his ambition for his country and unselfishness for himself, his sole desire of freedom and independence for America, and his only wish to return after victory to private life, have all combined to make him, by the unanimous judgment of the world, the foremost figure of history.
"Napoleon was great, I know, And Julius Cæsar, and all the rest, But they didn't belong to us, and so I like George Washington the best."
It is the peculiar good fortune of this country to have given birth to a citizen whose name everywhere produces a sentiment of regard for his country itself. In other countries, whenever and wherever this is spoken of to be praised, it is called the country of Washington. I believe there is no people, civilized or savage, in any place however remote, where the name of Washington has not been heard, and where it is not respected with the fondest admiration. We are told that the Arab of the desert talks of Washington in his tent, and that his name is familiar to the wandering Scythian. He seems, indeed, to be the delight of humankind, as their beau-ideal of human nature. No American, in any part of the world, but has found the regard for himself increased by his connection with Washington, as his fellow-countryman; and who has not felt a pride, and has occasion to exult, in the fortunate connection?