work of
framing the Constitution by correspondence. In May, 1787, he took his
seat as President of the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. He
was inaugurated the first President of the United States in April, 1789,
after a unanimous election. He was similarly reflected in 1793, but
refused a third term in 1796. In the face of unmeasured vituperation he
firmly kept the nascent nation from embroiling herself in the wars of
France and England. Retiring again to Mount Vernon in the spring of
1797, he nevertheless accepted, at sixty-six years of age, the post of
Commander-in-Chief of the provisional army raised in 1798 to meet the
insolence of the French Directorate. In December, 1799, while riding
about his estates during a snowstorm, he contracted a disease of the
throat, from which he died on December 14, 1799. He provided by his will
for the manumission of his slaves, to take effect on the decease of his
widow. No lineal descendants can claim as an ancestor this extraordinary
man. He belongs to his country. His tomb is at Mount Vernon, and is in
keeping of the women of America.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] From "The Hall of Fame." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York,
1901.

* * * * *

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

_A Speech Delivered at a Public Dinner, Washington, February 22, 1832_

_The Power of the Name of Washington_

We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is intimately
blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the
liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our country;. That
name was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging
public disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war,
a beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed,
too, like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace,
was a lodestone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a
whole people's love, and the whole world's respect. That name,
descending with all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in
all the languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will forever
be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by everyone in whose breast
there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.

We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred
years from his birth, near the place so cherished and beloved by him,
where hi