ng, as the first magistrate of a free government must ever do,
the real and deliberate sentiments of the people, their gusts of passion
passed over without ruffling the smooth surface of his mind. Trusting to
the reflecting good sense of the nation for approbation and support, he
had the magnanimity to pursue its real interests, in opposition to its
temporary prejudices; and, though far from being regardless of popular
favor, he could never stoop to retain, by deserving to lose it. In more
instances than one, we find him committing his whole popularity to
hazard, and pursuing steadily, in opposition to a torrent that would
have overwhelmed a man of ordinary firmness, that course which had been
dictated by a sense of duty.

"In speculation, he was a real republican, devoted to the constitution
of his country, and to that system of equal political rights on which it
is founded. But between a balanced republic and a democracy the
difference is like that between order and chaos. Real liberty, he
thought, was to be preserved only by preserving the authority of the
laws and maintaining the energy of government. Scarcely did society
present two characters which, in his opinion, less resembled each other,
than a patriot and a demagogue.

"No man has ever appeared upon the theatre of public action whose
integrity was more incorruptible, or whose principles were more
perfectly free from the contaminations of those selfish and unworthy
passions which find their nourishment in the conflicts of party. Having
no views which required concealment, his real and avowed motives were
the same; and his whole correspondence does not furnish a single case
from which even an enemy would infer that he was capable, under any
circumstances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No truth can
be uttered with more confidence than that his ends were always upright,
and his means always pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician
to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign
governments and to his own countrymen were always sincere. In him was
fully exemplified the real distinction which for ever exists between
wisdom and cunning, and the importance as well as truth of the maxim,
'Honesty is the best policy.'

"If Washington possessed ambition, that passion was, in his bosom, so
regulated by principles or controlled by circumstances, that it was
neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the