around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but
must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience.
Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at
their exhibition heighten our admiration for the noble passions which
were kindled by the aspirations and exigencies of virtue.

Invested with the powers of a Dictator, the country bestowing them felt
no distrust of his integrity; he, receiving them, gave assurance that,
as the sword was the last support of Liberty, so it should be the first
thing laid aside when Liberty was won. And keeping the faith in all
things, he left mankind bewildered with the splendid problem whether to
admire him most for what he was or what he would not be. Over and above
all his virtues was the matchless manhood of personal honor to which
Confidence gave in safety the key of every treasure on which Temptation
dared not smile, on which Suspicion never cast a frown. And why prolong
the catalogue? "If you are presented with medals of Caesar, of Trajan,
or Alexander, on examining their features you are still led to ask what
was their stature and the forms of their persons; but if you discover in
a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not
curious about the other parts, but rest assured that they were all
conformable to those of a god."

* * * * *

"Rome to America" is the eloquent inscription on one stone of your
colossal shaft--taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood
hard by the Palace of the Caesars. Uprisen from the sea of Revolution,
fabricated from the ruins of bartered bastiles, and dismantled palaces
of unrighteous, unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of
republics, the Nation of nations, the Constitution of constitutions, to
which all lands and times and tongues had contributed of their wisdom,
and the priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.

When Marathon had been fought and Greece kept free, each of the
victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor, but all agreed
that Miltiades was second. When the most memorable struggle for the
rights of human nature of which time holds record was thus happily
concluded in the muniment of their preservation, whoever else was
second, unanimous acclaim declared that Washington was first. Nor in
that struggle alone does he stand foremost. In the name of the people of
the United States, their President, their Senators, the