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Our American Holidays

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY

Its History, Observance, Spirit, and Significance as Related in Prose
and Verse, with a Selection from Washington's Speeches and Writings

Edited by

ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

New York
Dodd, Mead and Company

PREFACE

The popular idea of Washington has recently begun to veer away from the
vision of an eighteenth century demigod in a wig,--an old-fashioned
statue in dusky bronze, stern and forbidding. We are swinging around
toward the idea of a loveable, fallible, very human personality with
humor, a hot temper, and a genuine love of pleasure.

Accordingly, in gathering material for this book the editor has passed
by those earlier writers who are mainly responsible for this distorted
view; and he has aimed to gather here the essays, orations poems,
stories, and exercises which best exhibit the modern conception of
Washington; together with a selection from his own writings and the
finest of the elder tributes to the memory of our greatest National
Hero.

NOTE

The Editor and Publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to
Houghton, Mifflin & Company; Doubleday, Page & Company; J.B. Lippincott
& Co.; Mr. David McKay, John Macy, and others who have very kindly
granted permission to reprint selections from works bearing their
copyright.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I
THE DAY

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY _Oliver Wendell Holmes_
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY _Margaret E. Sangster_
THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON _Anonymous_
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY _George Howland_
WASHINGTON AND OUR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES _Charles W. Eliot_
CROWN OUR WASHINGTON _Hezekiah Butterworth_
WASHINGTON-MONTH _Will Carleton_

II
EARLY YEARS

A GLIMPSE OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE _Grace B. Johnson_
SOMETHING OF GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD _Anonymous_
WASHINGTON'S TRAINING _Charles Wentworth Upham_
WASHINGTON AS HE LOOKED

III
THE GENERAL

WASHINGTON IS APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF _Sydney George Fisher_
WASHINGTON AT TRENTON _Richard Watson Gilder_
GEORGE WASHINGTON
VALLEY FORGE _Henry Armitt Brown_
WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE _Canon R.G. Sutherland_
A FRENCHMAN'S ESTIMATE OF WASHINGTON IN 1781 _Claude C. Robin_

IV
THE PRESIDENT

WASHINGTON AND THE CONSTITUTION _John M. Harlan_
WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION _Edward S. Ellis_
WASHINGTON _Mary Wingate_
WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION _Edward Everett Hale_
WASHINGTONIANA
LESSONS FROM THE WASHINGTON CENTENNIAL _George A. Gordon_
PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S RECEPTIONS _William Sullivan_
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF WASHINGTON _Charles James Fox_

V
LAST DAYS

GEORGE WASHINGTON _Hamilton Wright Mabie_
WASHINGTON'S LAST DAYS _Elisabeth Eggleston Seelye_
THE MOUNT VERNON TRIBUTE
THE WORDS OF WASHINGTON _Daniel Webster_

VI
TRIBUTES

MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON _Henry B. Carrington_
FROM THE "COMMEMORATION ODE" _Harriet Monroe_
WASHINGTON'S STATUE _Henry Theodore Tuckerman_
TRIBUTES
WASHINGTON'S NAME IN THE HALL OF FAME _Margaret E. Sangster_
ESTIMATES OF WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON'S RELIGIOUS CHARACTER _William M'Kinley_
WASHINGTON _Anonymous_

VII
WASHINGTON'S PLACE IN HISTORY

THE HIGHEST PEDESTAL _William E. Gladstone_
WASHINGTON IN HISTORY _Chauncey M. Depew_
TO THE SHADE OF WASHINGTON _Richard Alsop_
THE MAJESTIC EMINENCE OF WASHINGTON _Chauncey M. Depew_
FOR A LITTLE PUPIL _Anonymous_
WASHINGTON'S FAME _Asher Robbins_
WASHINGTON, THE BRIGHTEST NAME ON HISTORY'S PAGE _Eliza Cook_
WASHINGTON, THE PATRIOT

VIII
THE WHOLE MAN

GEORGE WASHINGTON _John Hall Ingham_
HISTORICAL MEMORABILIA OF WASHINGTON _H.B. Carrington_
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF WASHINGTON _Henry Mitchell MacCracken_
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON _Daniel Webster_
MOUNT VERNON, THE HOME OF WASHINGTON _William Day_
THE UNSELFISHNESS OF WASHINGTON _Robert Treat Paine_
THE GENIUS OF WASHINGTON _Edwin P. Whipple_
WASHINGTON'S SERVICE TO EDUCATION _Charles W.E. Chapin_
ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT
_John W. Daniel_
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON _Henry Cabot Lodge_

IX
ANECDOTES AND STORIES

ANECDOTES OF WASHINGTON
THE ABUSE OF WASHINGTON _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
PROVIDENTIAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON _Irving Allen_
CHARACTERISTICS OF WASHINGTON
GREAT GEORGE WASHINGTON _Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith_
HEADQUARTERS IN 1776 _Paul Leicester Ford_

X
SELECTIONS FROM WASHINGTON'S SPEECHES AND WRITINGS

SELECTIONS FROM THE RULES OF CIVILITY
SAID BY WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, AUGUST, 1776
FROM VARIOUS LETTERS, SPEECHES, AND ADDRESSES
WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO THE ARMY
PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S RESPONSE TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR ON
RECEIPT OF THE COLORS OF FRANCE, 1769
WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS

XI
EXERCISES

DECORATIONS FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY EXERCISES
SOME YEARS IN WASHINGTON'S LIFE _M. Lizzie Stanley_
SOMETHING BETTER _Clara J. Denton_
THE STATES CROWNING WASHINGTON _Kate Bowles Sherwood_
THE NEW GEORGE WASHINGTON _Anonymous_
IN PRAISE OF WASHINGTON

INTRODUCTION

A good deal of American history was once violently distorted by the
partisanship of the eighteenth century, frozen solid by its icy
formalism, and left thus for the edification of succeeding generations.
For example, it was not until 1868 that Franklin's Autobiography was by
accident given to the world in the simple natural style in which he
wrote it. The book had been "edited" by Franklin's loyalist grandson,
and had been cut and tortured into the pompous, stilted periods that
were supposed to befit the dignity of so important a personage. When
John Bigelow published the original with all its naivete and homely
turns of phrases and suppressed passages, he shed a flood of light upon
Benjamin Franklin.

But not _such_ a flood as has still more recently been shed upon our
struggle for independence, and the hero who led it.

Mr. Sydney George Fisher[1] has shown how the history of the Revolution
has been garbled by the historians into the story of a struggle between
a villainous monster on the one hand, and a virtuous fairy on the other:
He has shown how a period that is said to have changed the thought of
the world like the epochs of Socrates, of Christ, of the Reformation,
and of the French Revolution, has been described in a series of "able
rhetorical efforts, enlarged Fourth-of-July orations, or pleasing
literary essays on selected phases of the contest." These writers have
ignored the fearful struggle of the patriots with the loyalists, the
early leniency of England as expressed in the conduct of General Howe,
the Clinton-Cornwallis controversy, and many other important subjects.
In short, their design was--as Mr. Wister has happily put it, "to leave
out any facts which spoil the political picture of the Revolution they
chose to paint for our edification; a ferocious, blood-shot tyrant on
the one side, and on the other a compact band of 'Fathers,' downtrodden
and martyred, yet with impeccable linen and bland legs."

In view of this state of affairs, it is not strange that Washington
should have shared in the general misrepresentation. Like Franklin's,
his writings, too, were altered by villainous editors. In his letters,
for example, such a natural phrase as "one hundred thousand dollars will
be but a flea-bite" was changed to "one hundred thousand dollars will be
totally inadequate."

The editors were aided in their refrigerating enterprise by a throng of
partisan biographers, first among whom was the Rev. Mr. Weems, that
arch-manipulator of facts for moral purposes. They were helped also by
many of our old sculptors and painters, who were evidently more
concerned to portray a grand American hero in a wig than to give us a
real man of flesh and blood.

"By such devices," writes Owen Wister,[2] "was a frozen image of George
Washington held up for Americans to admire, rigid with congealed virtue,
ungenial, unreal, to whom from our school-days up we have been paying a
sincere and respectful regard, but a regard without interest, sympathy,
heart--or, indeed, belief. It thrills a true American to the marrow to
learn at last that this far-off figure, this George Washington, this man
of patriotic splendor, the captain and savior of our Revolution, the
self-sacrificing and devoted President, was a man also with a hearty
laugh, with a love of the theater, with a white-hot temper ... a
constant sportsman, fox-hunter, and host...."

"The unfreezing of Washington was begun by Irving, but was in that day a
venture so new and startling, that Irving, gentleman and scholar, went
at it gingerly and with many inferential deprecations. His hand,
however, first broke the ice, and to-day we can see the live and human
Washington, full length. He does not lose an inch by it, and we gain a
progenitor of flesh and blood."

Since Irving the thawing process has been carried on with growing
success by such able biographers as Lodge and Scudder, Hapgood and Ford,
Woodrow Wilson, Owen Wister, and Frederick Trevor Hill.

As yet this new idea of Washington's essential humanity has seemed too
novel and startling to make its way deep into the popular conviction. I
say "new idea." In reality it is a very old idea; only it has been
smothered by the partisan writers of history and biography. Certainly
the accounts of the first celebrations of Washington's Birthday do not
sound as though our ancestors were trying to work up their enthusiasm
over a steel-engraving hero.

"It was the most natural thing," writes Walsh,[3] "for our forefathers
to choose Washington's Birthday as a time for general thanksgiving and
rejoicing, and it is interesting to note that the observance was not
delayed until after the death of Washington. Washington had the
satisfaction of receiving the congratulations of his fellow-citizens
many times upon the return of his birthday, frequently being a guest at
the banquets given in honor of the occasion. In fact, after the
Revolution, Washington's Birthday practically took the place of the
birthday of the various crowned heads of Great Britain, which had always
been celebrated with enthusiasm during colonial times. When independence
was established, all these royal birthdays were cast aside, and the
birthday of Washington naturally became one of the most conspicuous in
the calendar of America's holidays.

"It may be interesting at this time to look back upon those early days
of the republic and see how the newly liberated citizens attested their
admiration for their great general and the first President of their
country. But the people did not wait until Washington was raised to the
highest position his country could give him before honoring his
birthday.

"The first recorded mention of the celebration is said to be the one in
_The Virginia Gazette_ or _The American Advertiser_ of Richmond:
'Tuesday last being the birthday of his Excellency, General Washington,
our illustrious Commander-in-Chief, the same was commemorated here with
the utmost demonstrations of joy.' The day thus celebrated was February
11, 1782, the Old Style in the calendar not having then been everywhere
and for every purpose abandoned. Indeed, the stone placed as late as in
1815 on the site of his birthplace in Westmoreland County, Virginia, had
the following inscription: 'Here, the 11th of February, 1732, George
Washington was born.'

"Twelve months later the 11th was commemorated at Talbot Court-House in
Maryland. On the same day a number of gentlemen met in a tavern in New
York. One had written an ode. Another brought a list of toasts. All,
before they went reeling and singing home, agreed to assemble in future
on the same anniversary and make merry over the birth of Washington.

"Next year they had an ampler opportunity. In the previous October the
British troops had evacuated New York City, which was gradually
recovering from the distresses of the long war. The demonstrations were
not very elaborate, but they were intensely patriotic. In a newspaper of
February 17, 1784, we find an interesting account of this first public
celebration in New York:

"'Wednesday last being the birthday of his Excellency, General
Washington, the same was celebrated here by all the true friends of
American Independence and Constitutional Liberty with that hilarity and
manly decorum ever attendant on the Sons of Freedom. In the evening an
entertainment was given on board the East India ship in this harbor to a
very brilliant and respectable company, and a discharge of thirteen
cannon was fired on this joyful occasion.'

"A club called a 'Select Club of Whigs' assembled in New York on the
evening of February 11, and a brief account of the proceedings at its
meeting was sent to the _New York Gazette_, with an amusing song,
written, it was stated, especially for this occasion. The following
stanzas will serve as a sample of this effusion of poetical patriotism:

Americans, rejoice;
While songs employ the voice,
Let trumpets sound.
The thirteen stripes display
In flags and streamers gay,
'Tis Washington's Birthday,
Let joy abound.

Long may he live to see
This land of liberty
Flourish in peace;
Long may he live to prove
A grateful people's love
And late to heaven remove,
Where joys ne'er cease.

Fill the glass to the brink,
Washington's health we'll drink,
'Tis his birthday.
Glorious deeds he has done,
By him our cause is won,
Long live great Washington!
Huzza! Huzza!

"The following is also an interesting example of newspaper editorial
patriotism which appeared in the _New York Gazette_ at the same time:
'After the Almighty Author of our existence and happiness, to whom, as a
people, are we under the greatest obligations? I know you will answer
"To Washington." That great, that gloriously disinterested man has,
without the idea of pecuniary reward, on the contrary, much to his
private danger, borne the greatest and most distinguished part in our
political salvation. He is now retired from public service, with, I
trust, the approbation of God, his country, and his own heart. But shall
we forget him? No; rather let our hearts cease to beat than an
ungrateful forgetfulness shall sully the part any of us have taken in
the redemption of our country. On this day, the hero enters into the
fifty-third year of his age. Shall such a day pass unnoticed? No; let a
temperate manifestation of joy express the sense we have of the
blessings that arose upon America on that day which gave birth to
Washington. Let us call our children around us and tell them the many
blessings they owe to him and to those illustrious characters who have
assisted him in the great work of the emancipation of our country, and
urge them by such examples to transmit the delights of freedom and
independence to their posterity.'

"It is also interesting to know that New York City was not the only
place in the country remembering Washington's Birthday in this year
1784. The residents of Richmond, Virginia, were not forgetful of the
day, and in the evening an elegant entertainment and ball were given in
the Capitol Building, which, we are informed, were largely attended. So
late as 1796, Kentucky and Virginia persisted in preserving the Old
Style date. But we have documentary evidence that in 1790 the Tammany
Society of New York celebrated the day on February 22. The society had
been organized less than a year, and it is interesting to see that it
did not allow the first Washington's Birthday in its history to pass by
without fitting expressions of regard for the man who was then living in
the city as President of the United States. Washington, at that time,
lived in the lower part of Broadway, a few doors below Trinity Church.
Congress was in session in the old City Hall, on the corner of Wall and
Nassau Streets, now occupied by the Sub-Treasury. New York was the
capital of the country, but it was the last year that it enjoyed that
distinction, for before the close of 1790 the seat of government was
removed to Philadelphia, where it remained until 1800, when permanent
governmental quarters were taken up at Washington. It may be of interest
to know how the founders of this famous political organization
commemorated Washington's Birthday. Fortunately, the complete account of
this first Tammany celebration has been preserved. It was published in
a New York newspaper, a day or two after the event, as follows:

"'At a meeting of the Society of St. Tammany, at their wigwam in this
city, on Monday evening last, after finishing the ordinary business of
the evening, it was unanimously resolved: That the 22d day of February
be, from this day and ever after, commemorated by this society as the
birthday of the Illustrious George Washington, President of the United
States of America. The society then proceeded to the commemoration of
the auspicious day which gave birth to the distinguished chief, and the
following toasts were drank in porter, the produce of the United States,
accompanied with universal acclamations of applause:

1. May the auspicious birthday of our great Grand Sachem, George
Washington, ever be commemorated by all the real sons of St.
Tammany.

2. The birthday of those chiefs who lighted the great Council Fire
in 1775.

3. The glorious Fourth of July, 1776, the birth of American
Independence.

4. The perpetual memory of those Sachems and warriors who have been
called by the Kitchi Manitou to the Wigwam above since the
Revolution.

5. The births of the Sachems and warriors who have presided at the
different council fires of the thirteen tribes since 1776.

6. Our Chief Sachem, who presides over the council fire of our
tribe.

7. The 12th of May, which is the birthday of our titular saint and
patron.

8. The birth of Columbus, our secondary patron.

9. The memory of the great Odagh 'Segte, first Grand Sachem of the
Oneida Nation, and all his successors.

10. The friends and patrons of virtue and freedom from Tammany to
Washington.

11. The birth of the present National Constitution, 17th of
September, 1787.

12. The Sachems and warriors who composed that council.

13. May the guardian genius of freedom pronounce at the birth of
all her sons--Where Liberty dwells, there is his country.

"'After mutual reciprocations of friendship on the joyous occasion, the
society adjourned with their usual order and harmony.'

"In Washington ever since the first President was inaugurated it had
been the practice of the House to adjourn for half an hour to
congratulate him on the happy return of his natal day. But this
observance was dropped in 1796, on account of the animosities excited by
the Jay Treaty.

"The Philadelphians, always patriotic, never allowed Washington's
Birthday to go by without the celebration. In 1793 a number of old
Revolutionary officers belonging to the First Brigade of Pennsylvania
Militia had a 'very splendid entertainment at Mr. Hill's tavern in
Second Street, near Race Street.' According to a Philadelphia newspaper
account, the company was numerous and truly respectable, and among the
guests on that occasion were the Governor of Pennsylvania, Thomas
Mifflin, and Mr. Muhlenberg, Speaker of the House of Representatives. At
all these patriotic banquets it was customary to give as many toasts as
there were States in the Union, so that during the early years we
invariably find that thirteen toasts was the rule. As new States were
added, however, extra toasts were added to the list. Just when this
custom died out can perhaps not be definitely determined, but probably
the rapid increase of the States may have had something to do with it,
as the diners probably saw that it was taxing their drinking abilities
too heavily with the addition of each new State. However, at this
Philadelphia celebration the toasts were fifteen, as two new States had
recently been added, and among some of the most interesting are the
following:

The people of the United States--May their dignity and happiness be
perpetual, and may the gratitude of the Nation be ever commensurate
with their privileges.

The President of the United States--May the evening of his life be
attended with felicity equal to the utility and glory of its
meridian.

The Fair Daughters of America--May the purity, the rectitude, and
the virtues of their mind ever continue equal to their beauty and
external accomplishments.

The Republic of France--Wisdom and stability to her councils,
success to her armies and navies, and may her enemies be
compensated for their defeats by the speedy and general diffusion
of that liberty which they are vainly attempting to suppress.

May Columbia be ever able to boast a Jefferson in council, a
Hamilton in finance, and, when necessary, a Washington to lead her
armies to conquest and glory.

The Day--May such auspicious periods not cease to recur till every
day in the year shall have smiled on Columbia with the birth of a
Washington.

Our Unfortunate Friend the Marquis de Lafayette--May America
become shortly his asylum from indignity and wrong, and may the
noon and evening of his life be yet honorable and happy in the
bosom of that country where its morning shone with such unclouded
splendor.

"In conclusion, the newspaper account of this celebration states that
'the afternoon and evening were agreeably spent in social pleasures and
convivial mirth, and the conduct of the whole company was marked by that
politeness, harmony, and friendship which ought ever to characterize the
intercourse of fellow-citizens and gentlemen.'

"Balls and banquets, it will be seen, were the chief methods employed in
celebrating the day, and there was hardly a town so small that it could
not manage to have at least one of these functions in honor of George
Washington. The early newspapers for a month, and often longer, after
the 22d of February, were filled with brief accounts of these
celebrations from different localities. Many of them are very
interesting, showing, as they do, the patriotism of the people, as well
as their customs and habits in their social entertainments. For
instance, when Washington's Birthday was celebrated in Alexandria,
Virginia, in 1791, the _Baltimore Advertiser_ gives us the following
amusing account of a ball held at Wise's tavern:

"'The meeting was numerous and brilliant. Joy beamed in every
countenance. Sparkling eyes, dimpled cheeks dressed in smiles, prompted
by the occasion, with all the various graces of female beauty,
contributed to heighten the pleasure of the scene. At an interesting
moment a portrait of the President, a striking likeness, was suddenly
exhibited. The illustrious original had been often seen in the same room
in the mild character of a friend, a pleased and pleasing guest. The
song of "God Bless Great Washington, Long Live Great Washington,"
succeeded. In this prayer many voices and all hearts united. May it not
be breathed in vain.'"

In course of time Washington's Birthday was made a legal holiday in one
State after another, until to-day it is legally recognized in every
State but Alabama.

But as it gradually became legalized, so it also became formalized
little by little, until, in some parts of America, the very phrase, "a
Washington's Birthday celebration," came to mean a sort of exercise in
hypocrisy,--a half-hearted attempt to galvanize a dead emotion into
life.

This attitude toward Washington as a man was due largely to the
misrepresentations of the early literature. Three distinct eras in our
regard for him as a public character have been pointed out by Bradley T.
Johnson:[4]

The generation which fought the Revolution, framed and adopted the
Constitution, and established the United States were impressed with
the most profound veneration, the most devoted affection, the most
absolute idolatry for the hero, sage, statesman. In the reaction
that came in the next generation against "the old soldiers," who
for thirty years had assumed all the honors and enjoyed all the
fruits of the victory that they had won, accelerated by the
division in American sentiment for or against the French
Revolution, it came to be felt, as the younger generation always
will feel, that the achievements of the veterans had been greatly
overrated and their demigod enormously exaggerated. They thought,
as English Harry did at Agincourt, that "Old men forget: yet all
shall be forgot, but they'll remember with advantages what feats
they did that day."

The fierce attacks of the Jeffersonian Democracy on Washington, his
principles, his life, and his habits, exercised a potent influence
in diminishing the general respect for his abilities felt by the
preceding generation; and Washington came to be regarded as a
worthy, honest, well-meaning gentleman, but with no capacity for
military and only mediocre ability in civil affairs. This estimate
continued from the beginning of Jefferson's administration to the
first of Grant's. Neither Marshall nor Irving did much during that
period to place him in a proper historical light....

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