The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
WASHINGTON, GEORGE
I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were
I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like
these. His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very
first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a
Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever
sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or
imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his
officers, of the advantage he derived from Councils of war, where
hearing all suggestions, he selected what-ever was best; and certainly
no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged
during the course of the action, if any member 9f his plan was
dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in re-adjustment. The
consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against
an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear,
meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the
strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until
every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed;
refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through
with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most
pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of
interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias
his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a
good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high
toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual
ascendency over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most
tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact;
liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning
and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on
his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly
calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned
to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one
would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of
his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.
Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved
with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial
talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of
ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden
opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily,
rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired
by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading,
writing and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later
day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that
only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became
necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural
proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the
whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few
points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature
and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place
him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from
man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and
merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an
arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting
its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and
principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train;
and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career,
civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no
other example.
He has often declared to me that he considered our new Constitution
as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and
with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that
he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would
lose the. last drop of his blood in support of it. And these
declarations he repeated to me the oftener and more pointedly, because
he knew my suspicions of Colonel Hamilton's views, and probably had
heard from him the same declarations which I had, to wit, "that
the British Constitution, with its unequal representation, Corruption
and other existing abuses, was the most perfect government which had
ever been established on earth, and that a reformation of those abuses
would make it an impracticable government." I do believe that
General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our
government He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy
apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at
length end in something like a British Constitution, had some weight
in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous
meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character,
calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed
possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to
the public mind.
to Walter Jones (Doctor), 2 January 1814
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