The Americanism of Washington | Page 2

By the unanimous judgment of his
countrymen for two generations after his death he was hailed as Pater
Patriae; and the age which conferred that title was too ingenuous to
suppose that the father could be of a different race from his own
offspring.
But the modern doubt is more subtle, more curious, more refined in its
methods. It does not spring, as the old denial did, from a partisan hatred,
which would seek to discredit Washington by an accusation of undue
partiality for England, and thus to break his hold upon the love of the
people. It arises, rather, like a creeping exhalation, from a modern
theory of what true Americanism really is: a theory which goes back,
indeed, for its inspiration to Dr. Johnson's somewhat crudely expressed
opinion that "the Americans were a race whom no other mortals could
wish to resemble"; but which, in its later form, takes counsel with those
British connoisseurs who demand of their typical American not
depravity of morals but deprivation of manners, not vice of heart but
vulgarity of speech, not badness but bumptiousness, and at least enough
of eccentricity to make him amusing to cultivated people.
Not a few of our native professors and critics are inclined to accept
some features of this view, perhaps in mere reaction from the
unamusing character of their own existence. They are not quite ready to
subscribe to Mr. Kipling's statement that the real American is
"Unkempt, disreputable, vast,"
I remember reading somewhere that Tennyson had an idea that
Longfellow, when he met him, would put his feet upon the table. And it
is precisely because Longfellow kept his feet in their proper place, in
society as well as in verse, that some critics, nowadays, would have us
believe that he was not a truly American poet.
Traces of this curious theory of Americanism in its application to

Washington may now be found in many places. You shall hear
historians describe him as a transplanted English commoner, a second
edition of John Hampden. You shall read, in a famous poem, of
Lincoln as
"New birth of our new soil, the first American."
He knew it, I say: and by what divination? By a test more searching
than any mere peculiarity of manners, dress, or speech; by a touchstone
able to divide the gold of essential character from the alloy of
superficial characteristics; by a standard which disregarded alike
Franklin's fur cap and Putnam's old felt hat, Morgan's leather leggings
and Witherspoon's black silk gown and John Adams's lace ruffles, to
recognize and approve, beneath these various garbs, the vital sign of
America woven into the very souls of the men who belonged to her by
a spiritual birthright.
For what is true Americanism, and where does it reside? Not on the
tongue, nor in the clothes, nor among the transient social forms, refined
or rude, which mottle the surface of human life. The log cabin has no
monopoly of it, nor is it an immovable fixture of the stately pillared
mansion. Its home is not on the frontier nor in the populous city, not
among the trees of the wild forest nor the cultured groves of Academe.
Its dwelling is in the heart. It speaks a score of dialects but one
language, follows a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a
thousand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal which is its life.
True Americanism is this:
To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness are given by God.
To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is
unjust.
To believe that taxation without representation is tyranny, that
government must rest upon the consent of the governed, and that the
people should choose their own rulers.

To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law and order, and that
the end of freedom is fair play for all.
To believe not in a forced equality of conditions and estates, but in a
true equalization of burdens, privileges, and opportunities.
To believe that the selfish interests of persons, classes, and sections
must be subordinated to the welfare of the commonwealth.
To believe that union is as much a human necessity as liberty is a
divine gift.
To believe, not that all people are good, but that the way to make them
better is to trust the whole people.
To believe that a free state should offer an asylum to the oppressed, and
an example of virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations.
To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of such a state a man
should be willing to give his whole service, in property, in labor, and in
life.
That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in a people; a