formity of all his conduct to the fame maxims. These maxims, though wife, were yet not fo remarkable for their wifdom, as for their authority over his life: For if there were any errors in his judgment, (and he discovered as few as any man) we know of no blemishes in his virtue. He was the patriot without reproach: He loved his country well enough to hold his fuccefs in ferving it an ample recompenfe. Thus far felf-love and love of country coincided: But when his country needed facrifices, that no other man could, or perhaps would be willing to make, he did not even hesitate. This was virtue in its most exalted character. More than once he put his fame at hazard, when he had reafon to think it would be facrificed, at least in this age. Two inftances cannot be denied: When the army was difbanded; and again, when he stood, like LEONIDAS at the pafs of Thermopyla, to defend our independence against France. It is indeed almost as difficult to draw his character, as the portrait of Virtue. The reafons are fimilar. Our ideas of moral excellence are obfcure, because they are complex, and we are obliged to refort to illustrations. WASH. INGTON's example is the happieft to fhew what virtue is; and to delineate his character, we naturally expiate on the beauty of virtue: Much must be felt, and much imagined. His pre-eminence is not fo much to be seen in the difplay of any one virtue, as in the poffeffion of them all, and in the practice of the moft difficult. Hereafter therefore his character must be ftudied before are applied his own. His great modeity and referve would have concealed them, if great occafions had not called them forth; and then, as he never fpoke from the affectation to fhine, nor acted from any finifter motives, it is from their effects only that we are to judge of their greatnefs and extent. In public trufts, where men, acting confpicuously, cautious, and in those private concerns, where few conceal or resist their weakneffes, WASHINGTON was uniformly great; purfuing right conduct from right maxims. His talents were fuch, as aflift a found judgment, and ripen with it. His prudence was confummate, and feemed to take the direction of his powers and paffions; for, as a Soldier, he was more folicitous to avoid mistakes that might be fatal, than to per-1 form exploits that are brilliant; and as a Statefman, to adhere to juft principles, however old, than to purfue novelties; and therefore, in both characters, his qualities were fingularly adapted to the in-. tereft, and were tried in the greateft perils, of the country. His habits of inquiry were fo far re markable, that he was never fatis-. fied with inveftigating, nor defifted: from it, fo long as he had lefs than all the light that he could obtain upon a fubject; and then he made his decifion without bias. This command over the partialities that fo generally ftop men fhort, or turn them alide, in their purfuit of truth, is one of the chief caufes of his unvaried courfe of right conduct in fo many difficult scenes, where every human actor must be prefumed to err. If he had ftrong paffions, he had learned to fubdue them, and to be moderate and mild. If he had weakneffes,he concealed them, which is rare, and excluded them from the government of his temper and conduct, which is ftill more rare. If he loved fame, he never made improper compliances for what is called popularity. The fame he enjoyed is of the kind that will last forever; yet it was rather the cffect, than the motive, of his conduct. Some future PLUTARCH will fearch for a parallel to his character. EPAMINONDAS is perhaps the brightest name of all antiquity. Our WASHINGTON refembled him in the purity and ardor of his patriotifm; and like him, he first exalted the glory of his country. There, it is to be hoped, the parallel ends For THEBES fell with EPAMINONDAS. But fuch comparifons cannot be purfued far, without departing from the fimilitude. For we shall find it as difficult to compare great men as great rivers. Some we admire for the length and rapidity of their current, and the grandeur of their cataracts: others, for the majestic filence and fullness of their ftreams: We cannot bring them together to measure the difference of their waters. The unambitious life of WASHINGTON, decli ning fame yet courted by it, feem ed, like the Ohio, to choose its long way through folitudes, diffufing fertility; or like his own Potownac, widening and deepening his channel, as he approaches the fea, and difplaying moft the ufefulness and ferenity of his greatnefs towards the end of his courfe. Such a citizen would do honor to any country. The conftant veneration and affection of his country will fhew, that it was worthy of fuch a citizen. However his military fame may excite the wonder of man. kind, it is chiefly by his civil magistracy, that his example will inftruct them. Great Generals have arifen in all ages of the worid, and perhaps most in thofe of defpotifm and darkness. In times of violence and convulfion, they rife, by the force of the whirlwind, high enough to ride in' it, and direct the ftorm. Like meteors, they glare on the black clouds with a fplendor, that, while it dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but the darkness. The fame of heroes is indeed growing vulgar: They multiply in every long war: They ftand in hiftory, and thicken in their ranks, almoft as undistinguished as their own foldiers. But fuch a Chief-Magiftrate as WASHINGTON, appears like the pole ftar in a clear sky, to direct the fkilful ftatefman. His prefidency will form an epoch, and be diftinguished as the age of WASHINGTON. Already it affumes its high place in the political region. Like the milky way, it whitens along its allotted portion of the hemifphere. The latest generations of men will fur vey, through the telescope of hiftory, the space where fo many virtues blend their rays, and delight to feparate them into groups and distinct virtues. As the beft illustration of them, the living monument, to which the first of Patriots would have chofen to confign his fame, it is my earnest prayer to Heaven, that our country may subsist, even to that late day, in the plentitude of its liberty and happiness, and mingle its mild glory with WASHINGTON's. THE POLITICAL REVIEW. No. III. THERE HERE has always exifted in mankind two oppofite difpofitions, a love of novelty, and an attachment to old ufages. The former is ingrafted on curiofity, which is found in a greater or lefs degree in every mind; it becomes the ruling paffion of the ardent projector, and is the ignis fatuus that conftantly allures and bewilders the volatile and unfettled, who fpend their time, like the Athenians of old, inquiring after fome "new thing." The latter is the effect of early attachments, and what fome might call a contracted, others, perhaps, a prudent education. It is predominant with the ignorant in the lower grades of fociety, and the better informed of fettled principles and fyftematic habits. One naturally makes the mind unstable, by leading it from certain enjoyment, through the wild rout of precarious pleasures; and, when it launches into the wide field of fpeculation, in its rapid progrefs of new frivolity, and half finished experiments, leaves far behind the found maxims of ex perience, and the fober dictates of truth. The other binds men to a certain fet of customs and habits, which they receive by right of inheritance, or force of education; incased in thefe, like W the filk-worm in its web, they are content to be obftinately regular, mechanically virtuous, and blindly happy. Under thefe different paffions are enlifted the adverfe partifans, for new fashions, and old customs: It is well when they extend their influence only to the cut of a coat, the fhape of a head dress, or the minutiæ of etiquette. When either a rage for novelty, or a blind adherence to ancient ufages, become the ruling paffion of a man, he refigns the dignity of his nature-reason. This fhould teach him to steer the middle courfe between bigotry and licentoufnefs: Though it have not the charms of novelty, nor the force of instinct or habit, it will dictate him to lean on the fafe fide, and not to outftrip flow, progreffive improvement for impracticable reformation. One or the other of these principles have become predominant in the public mind of almost all countries in all ages. Happily moft nations have followed the fafer guide, and evinced their attachment to immemorial ufages, which were at firft introduced by enlightened ages from their obvious utility, and have been venerated by fucceeding generations for their antiquity. Thus in national inftitutions, generally speaking, fuperftition 'fuperftition and bigotry are nothing more than ignorance lending its aid to wifdom, and vice yielding to virtue. Wisdom thus tarnished, is preferable to fplendid folly, and vice thus controlled to dazzling licentoufnefs. The laws and inftitutions which have existed time out of mind, in most of the older nations of the world, may be compared to a river rifing from a pure fource, but tainted by the filth of the foil over which it paffes in its long progrefs, till at length, instead of being a benefit to man, it becomes his bane.— Where the human intellect is matured by fcience, and investigation takes its free courfe, the river, to keep up the allufion, is fupplied by the continual influx of pure ftreams, and increafes in dignity, utility and magnitude, without fuffering a contamination in its quality. Most of the nations of modern Europe come within this exception, fo honourable to the human race, and have neither yielded to the iron fceptre of bigotry abfolute, nor given the rein to hafty, chimerical reformation, that is rich in faith and promifes, but barren, very barren in good works. Among thefe exceptions England claims an eminent rank. Our forefathers, the AngloAmericans, while under the control of Great-Britain, partook of her habits and adhered to her inftitutions, as far as circumftances peculiar to their young provinces would admit. Induftry, virtue, and fteady loyalty, were the leading traits of the American character. To complete the charter of a growing and important nation one effential was wanting-Independence we know the blood and treafure which this coft; and we glory in the balance which remains in our favour. Yet we have to regret, and have cause to regret feriously, that the purchase was not only at the expense of blood and treafure, but of those regular habits of moral rectitude, firm adherence to wholesome regulations, which conftitute the good citizen, and that national stability, which conftitutes fo important a part of its character. The European politician, who furveyed the state of America after her revolutionary struggle, and before the adoption of the Federal Conftitution, and beheld her citizens debauched with the luxuriance of liberty-her feveral States cut off from their former head, pursuing oppofite interests, oppreffed with public and private debts, fomented with jealoufies, governed by different and undigefted laws-each fovereign, and all without any common bond to unite them together-while he furveyed this picture, he pronounced, and on the authority of the experience of ages, that America was incapable of felf govern ment, and that nothing fhort of the voice of Omnipotence could call order out of this political chaos. When thus tottering on the confines of anarchy, the people of America bad difcernment to fee their danger. From their good fenfe, to their own honour and the aftonishment of Europe, was furnifhed a remedy, anticipated by those who were unacquainted with the genius of our countrymen in nothing fhort of foreign interference, or the interpofition of a miracle. In the formation and adoption of our prefent Conftitution, was found found a fubftitute for, if not an improvement upon thofe venerable codes of legiflation, which, while they have received the fanction, have alfo fuffered the abufes of time. It is not the intention of the author, at this time to analyze this Conftitution, or point out the excellence of its component parts. Without going into particulars, its greatest eulogy is to fay, that it was the offspring of enlightened wifdom, and calm difpaffionate difcuffion. As it was calculated to fecure the best interests of our citizens, it was received by them as become independent freemen, from no other force, but that of conviction, after a deliberate and impartial examination. It was the fruit of no other triumph, but that of wifdom over ignorance and prejudice. If we might restore to their proper fignification, words which have been fhamefully perverted, we might emphatically ftyle this Conftitution, the "Temple of Reafon." Our devotion to it is the refult of the understanding, from an experiment of its utility. In future generations, if it ftand the test of time (and Heaven grant it may) it will unite the judgment and the paffions of our pofterity in its fupport, and receive that veneration which is acquired by the fanc tion of ages. What is our duty to give it this ftability; to unite paflion with understanding in its fupport?-In the firft place, let us fee if it is entitled to our unreferved approbation. If we may judge from what we have experienced, I truft it will be allowed it is; and to fomething more-our gratitude. To prove this, facts without much reflection will fupply the place of argument-Eve ry American of mature years has a lively recollection of the contraft between the state of our country before the adoption of the Conftitution, and fince to the prefent time. This visible and happy change in our favour was the obvious effect of a wife and energetic fyftem of national government. From this era may be dated the union of thefe States and the existence of America as a nation. Before the concuffions of the French revolution reached our fhores, experience excluded the neceffity of reafoning on the Federal Conftitution: it faid every thing in its favour. All who loved their own interest and security approved of the Constitution; for it was demonftration to the common fenfe of all, that it guarded and promoted both. But thofe were tranquil times. It had not yet ftood the test of the ftorm. A political tempeft, which has fhook the firmeft fabrics of gov ernment in the Old World to their bafe, has fince tried its ftrength and proved its competency to protect us in times of commotion. Though removed far from this tremendous vortex, we were perhaps the nearest in real danger. Had the poifonous cup of French liberty been prefented to enervated Columbia while reeling with the fume of her own freedom, before she was awakened to temperance and vigilance, and difciplined by the wifdom and energy of the general government; it is not in the compafs of the mind to imagine what human effort could have faved her from irretrievable ruin. Inftead therefore of confidering the difcords which have prevailed among us as owing to any |