udies for the duties of a
statesman. He commenced his great task of first liberating and then
governing a nation, with all the advantages of this varied experience,
in his forty-third year, an age at which the physical vigor is
undiminished, and the intellect fully ripe. He persevered in it, with a
brief interval of repose, for upward of twenty years, with almost
uniform success, and with an exemption from the faults of great leaders
unparalleled in history.

Washington was elected commander-in-chief on June 15, 1775; he resigned
his commission into the hands of the President of Congress on December
23, 1783. His intermediate record as a general, and as the steadfast and
undismayed leader of an apparently hopeless struggle, we pass over here.
It is the entire history of the American Revolution.

We must also pass briefly over the interval which separates the epoch of
Washington the soldier from that of Washington the statesman--the few
years which elapsed between the resignation of his command in 1783, and
his election as first President of the United States, in February, 1789.
It was for him no period of idleness. In addition to a liberal increase
of hospitality at Mount Vernon, and indefatigable attention to the
management of his large estates, he actively promoted in his own State,
plans of internal navigation, acts for encouraging education, and plans
for the civilization of the Indians. He also acted as delegate from
Virginia to the Convention which framed the first constitution of the
United States. We now turn to contemplate him as president.

Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, which was then the seat of
Congress, on April 16, 1789. His journey was a triumphal procession. He
took the oath of office on April 30th, with religious services,
processions, and other solemnities.

The new president's first step was to request elaborate reports from the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of War, and the
Commissioners of the Treasury. The reports he read, and condensed with
his own hand, particularly those of the Treasury board. The voluminous
official correspondence in the public archives, from the time of the
treaty of peace till the time he entered on the presidency, he read,
abridged, and studied, with the view of fixing in his mind every
important point that had been discussed, and the history of what had
been done.

His arrangements for the transaction of business and the reception of
visitors