16. Luxury
a) To CATHERINE MACAULAY GRAHAM, New York, January 9, 1790. “Mrs. Washington is well and desires her compliments may be presented to you. We wish the happiness of your fireside, as we also long to enjoy that of our own at Mount Vernon. Our wishes, you know, were limited; and I think that our plans of living will now be deemed reasonable by the considerate part of our species. Her wishes coincide with my own as to simplicity of dress, and everything which can tend to support propriety of character without partaking of the follies of luxury and ostentation.”
17. Morality
a) To GEORGE STEPTOE WASHINGTON, Philadelphia, December 5, 1790.
“It may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.”
b) To ANNIS BOUDINOT STOCKTON, Mount Vernon, August 31, 1788.
“A good general government, without good morals and good habits, will not make us a happy People; and we shall deceive ourselves if we think it will.”
c) GENERAL ORDERS, Saturday, March 22, 1783.
“In justice to the zeal and ability of the Chaplains, as well as to his own feelings, the Commander in chief thinks it a duty to declare the regularity and decorum with which divine service is now performed every sunday, will reflect great credit on the army in general, tend to improve the morals, and at the same time, to increase the happiness of the soldiery, and must afford the most pure and rational entertainment for every serious and well disposed mind.”
d) To CYRUS GRIFFIN, New York, August 18, 1789.
The general convention of bishops, clergy, and laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina delivered an address to the President at this approximate time which, together with Washington’s reply, is entered in the “Letter Book” in the Washington Papers. In that reply, Washington stated that “human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected” and that “It affords edifying prospects indeed to see Christians of different denominations dwell together in more charity, and conduct themselves in respect to each other with a more christian-like spirit than ever they have done in any former age, or in any other Nation.”
e) To HENRY LEE, Mount Vernon, September 22, 1788.
“Though I prize, as I ought, the good opinion of my fellow citizens; yet, if I know myself, I would not seek Or retain popularity at the expense of one social duty or moral virtue.”
f) To THE MINISTERS AND ELDERS REPRESENTING THE MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES which compose the First Presbytery of the Eastward, Newburyport, October 28, 1789.
“I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna- Charta of our country. To the guidance of the ministers of the gospel this important object is, perhaps, more properly committed. It will be your care to instruct the ignorant, and to reclaim the devious, and, in the progress of morality and science, to which our government will give every furtherance, we may confidently expect the advancement of true religion, and the completion of our happiness.”
18. Philanthropy
a) To MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE, Mount Vernon, August 15, 1786.
“As a Philanthropist by character, and (if I may be allowed the expression) as a Citizen of the great republic of humanity at large; I cannot help turning my attention sometimes to this subject. I would be understood to mean, I cannot avoid reflecting with pleasure on the probable influence that commerce may hereafter have on human manners and society in general. On these occasions I consider how mankind may be connected like one great family in fraternal ties. I indulge a fond, perhaps an enthusiastic idea, that as the world is evidently much less barbarous than it has been, its melioration must still be progressive; that nations are becoming more humanized in their policy, that the subjects of ambition and causes for hostility are daily diminishing, and, in fine, that the period is not very remote, when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.”
b) To MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE Mount Vernon, August 15, 1786.
“Altho’ I pretend to no peculiar information respecting commercial affairs, nor any foresight into the scenes of futurity; yet as the member of an infant empire, as a Philanthropist by character, and (if I may be allowed the expression) as a Citizen of the great republic of humanity at large; I cannot help turning my attention sometimes to this subject. I would be understood to mean, I cannot avoid reflecting with pleasure on the probable influence that commerce may hereafter have on human manners and society in general. On these occasions I consider how mankind may be connected like one great family in fraternal ties. I indulge a fond, perhaps an enthusiastic idea, that as the world is evidently much less barbarous than it has been, its melioration must still be progressive; that nations are becoming more humanized in their policy, that the subjects of ambition and causes for hostility are daily diminishing, and, in fine, that the period is not very remote, when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.”
c) To LAFAYETTE, August 15, 1786.
“[I am] a philanthropist by character, and . . . a citizen of the great republic of humanity at large.”
d) To GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, July 28, 1791.
“I believe it is among nations as with individuals, that the party taking advantage of the distresses of another will lose infinitely more in the opinion of mankind, and in subsequent events, than he will gain by the stroke of the moment.”
19. Passion
a) To JOHN BANISTER, April 21, 1778.
“We must take the passions of men as nature has given them, and those principles as a guide, which are generally the rule of action.”
20. Reconciliation
a) To DAVID STUART, March 28, 1790.
“To constitute a dispute there must be two parties. To understand it well, both parties, and all the circumstances, must be fully heard; and, to accommodate differences, temper and mutual forbearance are requisite.”
21. Reputation
a) To BURWELL BASSETT, Philadelphia, June 19, 1775.
“I can answer but for three things, a firm belief of the justice of our Cause, close attention in the prosecution of it, and the strictest Integrity. If these cannot supply the place of Ability and Experience, the cause will suffer, and more than probable my character along with it, as reputation derives its principal support from success; but it will be remembered, I hope, that no desire or insinuation of mine, placed me in this situation. I shall not be deprived therefore of a comfort in the worst event if I retain a consciousness of having acted to the best of my judgment.”
b) To LUND WASHINGTON, Col. Morris’s, on the Heights of Harlem, September 30, 1776.
“To lose all comfort and happiness on the one hand, whilst I am fully persuaded that under such a system of management as has been adopted, I cannot have the least chance for reputation, nor those allowances made which the nature of the case requires; and to be told, on the other, that if I leave the service all will be lost, is, at the same time that I am bereft of every peaceful moment, distressing to a degree. But I will be done with the subject, with the precaution to you that it is not a fit one to be publicly known or discussed. If I fall, it may not be amiss that these circumstances be known, and declaration made in credit to the justice of my character.…I am wearied to death all day with a variety of perplexing circum stances — disturbed at the conduct of the militia, whose behavior and want of discipline has done great injury to the other troops, who never had officers, except in a few instances, worth the bread they eat.”
22. Truth
a) To THE SECRETARY OF STATE, [Philadelphia, March 3, 1797.]
“I have thought it a duty that I owed to Myself, to my Country and to Truth, now to detail the circumstances above recited; and to add my solemn declaration, that the letters herein described are a base forgery, and that I never saw or heard of them until they appeared in print.”
23. Thrift
a) To PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS, April 23, 1776.
