8999. WASHINGTON (George), Ceremony and.—
I remember an observation of
yours, made when I first went to New York,
that the satellites and sycophants that surrounded
him [Washington] had wound up the ceremonials
of the government to a pitch of stateliness
which nothing but his personal character
could have supported, and which no character
after him could ever maintain. It appears now
that even his will be insufficient to justify them
in the appeal of the times to common sense as
the arbiter of everything. Naked, he would
have been sanctimoniously reverenced; but enveloped
in the rags of royalty, they can hardly
be torn off without laceration. It is the more
unfortunate that this attack is planted on popular
ground, on the love of the people to France
and its cause, which is universal.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 579.
Ford ed., vi, 293.
(June. 1793)
