ew York, by the chancellor of the State, and the Bible
on which it was sworn is still preserved as a sacred relic.

At the time Washington assumed the high functions of President of the
United States, there was ample room for the exertion of all his
firmness, integrity, and talents. A new constitution to be administered,
without the aid of experience or precedent, by an authority to which the
people were strangers; serious and alarming difficulties to be adjusted
with England; the Indian nations all along our frontier brandishing
their tomahawks and whetting their scalping-knives; war with
Mediterranean pirates; the Spaniards denying our right to navigate the
Mississippi, and the people of Kentucky threatening a separation from
the Union unless that right was successfully asserted by the Government.
Other difficulties stared the new President full in the face. Some of
the States still declined to accept the new Constitution, and become
members of the Confederation; others nearly equally divided on the
subject; and a debt of eighty million dollars; to meet all which there
was an army of less than a thousand men and an empty treasury.

Here was enough, and more than enough, to call forth all the energies,
if not to produce despair in the mind, of an ordinary man. But
Washington was not such a man. Conscious of the purity of his purposes,
he relied on the protection of that Power which is all purity. His first
care was to provide for the civil and judicial administration of the
government, by the appointment of men in whose virtue and capacity a
long experience had given him confidence. Having done this he took the
reins with a firm, steady hand, and commenced the ascent of the rugged
steep before him.

The next object that called his attention was the situation of the
inland frontier, now exposed to the inroads of the savages, who had not
been included in the general pacification, although a proposition to
that effect had been made by the British commissioners. Although our
Government has always treated with the Indians as independent tribes, it
has never placed them on the footing of civilized nations, or admitted
any mediation on the part of foreign powers. The United States do not
recognize them as parties in civilized warfare; they neither avail
themselves of their alliance nor acknowledge them as the auxiliaries of
other nations.

A system was devised for the conduct of those singular relations which
alone can su