Washingtons Birthday | Page 5

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....
But in the last twenty-five years there has