Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, and such things were swarming
in every street.
Every one thought alike whether they had ancestors or not. No
sort of glory hedged Presidents as such, and, in the whole
country, one could hardly have met with an admission of respect
for any office or name, unless it were George Washington. That
was -- to all appearance sincerely -- respected. People made
pilgrimages to Mount Vernon and made even an effort to build
Washington a monument. The effort had failed, but one still went
to Mount Vernon, although it was no easy trip. Mr. Adams took the
boy there in a carriage and pair, over a road that gave him a
complete Virginia education for use ten years afterwards. To the
New England mind, roads, schools, clothes, and a clean face were
connected as part of the law of order or divine system. Bad roads
meant bad morals. The moral of this Virginia road was clear, and
the boy fully learned it. Slavery was wicked, and slavery was the
cause of this road's badness which amounted to social crime --
and yet, at the end of the road and product of the crime stood
Mount Vernon and George Washington.
Luckily boys accept contradictions as readily as their elders
do, or this boy might have become prematurely wise. He had only
to repeat what he was told -- that George Washington stood alone.
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