John Adams, President: Washington's and Potomac

The news of Washington's death reached President Adams at Philadelphia by a special courier, on the morning of the 11th of December. John Marshall announced it to the assembled Congress that day, when a public funeral was decreed; and as the tidings went over the land, bells tolled funeral knells in solemn monotones. When, forty days afterward, the news reached England, the flags of the great English fleet of sixty vessels lying in Torbay were lowered to half-mast; and Bonaparte, just made First Consul, ordered a funeral oration to be pronounced before himself and the civil and military authorities of France. On an appointed day, Congress went in procession to the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, where an eloquent funeral oration was delivered by General Henry Lee, a son of the "Lowland Beauty," who was the object of 'Washington's first love in his youth. Congress also decreed the erection of a monument to his memory at the site of the new national capital on the banks of the Potomac, and asked the privilege (which was granted) of depositing his remains at the seat of the national government. That monument has not been erected, and the remains are in a vault at Mount Vernon. A cenotaph, constructed upon a plan unworthy of the subject, the nation, and the principles of taste, has been a-building many years; and Congress at its session in 1875-'76, made an appropriation for the purpose of completing it. It is in the form of a huge obelisk of white marble; and the original design called for an unsightly, structure to surround its base. The obelisk has been carried up many feet already. It stands near the shore of the Potomac River within the limits of Washington city, and when completed will be conspicuous at a great distance; but it is simply a following of the barbarian custom of perpetuating the memory of their patriots and heroes by a pile of stones--an artistic improvement of the ancient cairn. How much more appropriate, artistic and useful, would have been the erection of a building at the National Capital, in the simple Doric style of architecture, into which might be gathered for all time the portraits, by painting or sculpture, of the men and women of the nation whom the whole people delight to honor for their great, and generous, and patriotic deeds. Such portraits, when looked upon by our young citizens, would tend to inspire them to imitate the lives of their great exemplars. Sallust says: "I have often heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other reverend persons of the Roman Commonwealth, used to say that, whenever they beheld the images of their ancestors, they felt their minds vehemently excited to virtue. It could not be the wax, nor the marble, that possessed this power; but the recollections of their great actions kindled a generous flame in their breasts, which could not be quelled till they also, by virtue, had acquired equal fame and glory."