rupulously
respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making
acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation;
when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice,
shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own
to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that
of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

WASHINGTON

Address by John W. Daniel, lawyer, statesman, United States senator
from Virginia, delivered in the hall of the House of
Representatives, Washington, D. C., at the dedication of the
Washington National Monument, February 21, 1885, Mr. Daniel being
then a member of the House from Virginia. He was introduced by
Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont, president pro tempore of the
Senate, who occupied the speaker's chair, and presided at the
dedicatory exercises.

MR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, SENATORS, REPRESENTATIVES, JUDGES,
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND MY COUNTRYMEN:--Alone in its grandeur stands forth the
character of Washington in history; alone like some peak that has no
fellow in the mountain range of greatness.

"Washington," says Guizot, "Washington did the two greatest things which
in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace
the independence of his country, which he had conquered by war. He
founded a free government in the name of principles of order and by
re-establishing their sway."

Washington did indeed do these things. But he did more. Out of
disconnected fragments he molded a whole and made it a country. He
achieved his country's independence by the sword. He maintained that
independence by peace as by war. He finally established both his country
and its freedom in an enduring frame of constitutional government,
fashioned to make Liberty and Union one and inseparable. These four
things together constitute the unexampled achievement of Washington.

The world has ratified the profound remark of Fisher Ames, that "he
changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." It has approved the
opinion of Edward Everett, that he was "the greatest of good men and the
best of great men." It has felt for him, with Erskine, "an awful
reverence." It has attested the declaration of Brougham, that "he was
the greatest man of his ow