The Meansure Of A Man (A Closer Look At Five Great Men)
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How does one determine the measure of a man? His accomplishments? His ancestry? His financial worth? Or do we look deep into the heart and soul of that man and determine the weight of his values, his dreams and what he has stood for in the grand scheme of things?
We will appraise the lives of six important figures in the shaping of our country. With this evaluation, we risk becoming critic and judge, but in an attempt to go beyond those things both tangible and measurable, perhaps we will be forgiven.
Thomas Jefferson called him, “a wise, a good and a great man.” Patrick Henry, when asked who he thought was the greatest man in Congress, replied, “if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is the greatest man on that floor.”
Despite his height and noble bearing, Washington was a quiet man who pondered long before decisions. Even with little schooling, he was an avid student of math and science. At a very early age, he was aware and respectful of decorum and manners. At 13, he copied the one hundred and ten “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversations,” and lived by them. His mathematical and science skills coupled with attributes of respect, responsibility and strength secured him a position as a surveyor in Virginia at only sixteen.
These same qualities, planted as deeply into his soul as the trees on his fathers farm, are what gave him the courage and perseverance to plunge headlong into a life filled with some of the greatest achievements in American history.
At 20 years old, Washington was plodding through one thousand miles of snow, swimming ice-clogged rivers and dodging the bullets of angry Native Americans only to carry a warning message to an unwelcoming French commander in the Ohio River Valley. He was shot once, and walked one hundred miles when his horse got too weak to go on. But he finished the task laid before him. In this first mission, courage and perseverance were metals he earned to wear on his heart.
Two years later he commanded the British army in the French and Indian War. As Lieutenant Colonel of the Virginia forces, he captured twenty-one French and killed ten, losing
only one man in the process. In this, he added two metals, strength and wisdom.
Military battles dominated Washingtons years, and the battles both won and lost created the warp and weft of the fabric of his life. Without the losses, there would have been only the weft, leaving a weak fabric indeed. Instead, it strengthened. Whats more, Washington seemed divinely blessed for this work, this weaving, and this strengthening.
Washington: “I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side.”
Finally the power, divine or otherwise, holding sway over Washingtons life seemed to decide it was time to place him in a position he had earned through the equally merciless fires of defeat and adversity and joy and success. First he was named Commander of the Continental Army and served as such throughout the Revolutionary War. In 1787, he was the President of the Constitutional Convention that drew up the Constitution. And finally, in 1789 he became the first President.
As president, Washington became the potter—America, the clay. He had a daunting, broken potters wheel before him. But he took the peoples good, rich American soil and he placed it there. Smoothing, he organized the new government and made appointments for offices that didnt exist before him. Lifting the clay of the new government, he straightened its crooked finances. He began trying to shape a new and better relationship with England, and he strengthened the new vessel of America with what to him was the wonderful and valuable blood of the native American.
Upon his death, “Light Horse” Harry Lee said of him, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the heart of his countrymen, he was second to none.” To that we heartily concur.
Illegitimately born into the poor society of 1755, Alexander Hamilton and his mother were abandoned on St Croix Island. After losing her at 13, he walked a narrow gully of poverty for several years. It was because of these beginnings that he emerged with his chin high and a chip on his shoulder. His entire life, he would wear pride like a fine shirt, forcing those who would resent his low birth to consider, much of the time grudgingly, his high achievements.
A Spitfire determination to improve his circumstances set him reading books and studying profusely. On the wings of friends who saw his genius, he was sent to America where they hoped he would become a physician and return to them. He never saw the West Indies again.
In America, Hamilton was thrust into the heat of the Revolution. As men prepared for battle at Lexington and Concord, he took the title Captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery. From there, he fought several battles with George Washington who was impressed with Hamiltons character and handed him the position of aide-de-camp.
But spending winter with Washington at Valley Forge left him with a combination of frustration at the state of the military and a desire for fighting.
Regretfully, in 1781, through ill-feelings for each other, Hamilton and Washington split company. After another brief brush with military action, Hamilton resigned.
Not content to live quietly, Hamilton began writing “The Continentalist,” which launched him into the political arena. Here, his charm and oratory skills would fight slavery, prove him worthy to sign the Constitution, and allow him to make astronomical progress in the finances of the new America.
Working behind the scenes in Hamiltons career, however, were the ghosts of his past. Those low, whispering tell-tales from a miserable island many years ago. No money, no family, no background. No impressive bloodline to prove worthiness to the high cause of his station. Even though Hamilton held his head high and pushed forward on issues of which he believed, those with prejudice and jealousy, those who held sway over the workings of government, fought him at every turn.
Hamilton had the last laugh, so to speak. However posthumously, his financial policies continued to be used by Jefferson, a man who vehemently fought him throughout his political life. These financial plans are what brought America through troubled times and were, essentially, what kept her alive.
But to realize Hamiltons contributions to America is to realize that he gave far more to humanity than to his country. One only needs to study hard the