tion journals
Washington had ample proofs of the soundness of his theory.

If he had needed to be strengthened in his determination, his
opponents furnished the requisite aid. In February, 1796, the House
refused to adjourn on his birthday for half an hour, in order to go
and pay him their respects, as had been the pleasant custom up to that
time. The Democrats of that day were in no confusion of mind as to the
party to which Washington belonged, and they did not hesitate to put
this deliberate slight upon him in order to mark their dislike. This
was not the utterance of a newspaper editor, but the well-considered
act of the representatives of a party in Congress. Party feeling,
indeed, could hardly have gone further; and this single incident is
sufficient to dispel the pleasing delusion that party strife and
bitterness are the product of modern days, and of more advanced forms
of political organization.

Yet despite all these attacks there can be no doubt that Washington's
hold upon the masses of the people was substantially unshaken. They
would have gladly seen him assume the presidency for the third time,
and if the test had been made, thousands of men who gave their votes
to the opposition would have still supported him for the greatest
office in their gift. But this time Washington would not yield to the
wishes of his friends or of the country. He felt that he had done his
work and earned the rest and the privacy for which he longed above all
earthly things. In September, 1796, he published his farewell address,
and no man ever left a nobler political testament. Through much
tribulation he had done his great part in establishing the government
of the Union, which might easily have come to naught without his
commanding influence. He had imparted to it the dignity of his own
great character. He had sustained the splendid financial policy of
Hamilton. He had struck a fatal blow at the colonial spirit in our
politics, and had lifted up our foreign policy to a plane worthy of an
independent nation. He had stricken off the fetters which impeded the
march of western settlement, and without loss of honor had gained time
to enable our institutions to harden and become strong. He had made
peace with our most dangerous enemies, and, except in the case of
France, where there were perilous complications to be solved by his
successor, he left the United States in far better and more honorable
relations with the rest of the wor