Henry Cabot Lodge: “The Fugitive Slave Law was in absolute conflict with the awakened conscience and moral sentiment of the North.”

Clearness and precision of plan as to the central point, joined to a perfect readiness to change suddenly and strike hard and decisively in a totally different quarter, are sure marks of the great commander.

He fought to free the colonies from England, and make them independent, not to play the part of a Cæsar or a Cromwell in the wreck and confusion of civil war.

He repeatedly referred to the United States, even before the close of the war, as an infant empire, and he saw before any one else the destined growth of the country.

All that can be said is, that without the influence and the labors of Washington the convention of 1787, in all probability, would have failed of success.