” never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.” If those words by Thomas Jefferson don’t call to mind the name and image of George Washington, first American president, the rest of the paragraph will: “For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulnusly obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.” Quite a tribute – especially from a contemporary statesman who had grown somewhat distant from Washington in the 1790s when the latter backed Alexander Hamilton’s theories of strong central government against Jefferson’s emphasis on state’s rights. Actually,” who was better qualified ‘ to evaluate Washington, the “father of his country” whose birthday we commemorate Feb. Z2? Jefferson was a fellow delegate to the Virginia Legislature, member of thesecond Continental Congress which named Washington commander-in-chief of American hrevolutionary forces, author of the Declaration of Independence, first secretary of state in Washington’s Cabinet, and two-term third president after serving as vice president to John Adams. Jefferson’s description was contained in a letter he wrote in response to a request from Jones for his opinion I ‘”Washington. These excei-rg are from that letter, reproduced by the American Legion magazine in July 1976: “His (Washington’s) mind vias great and powerful, witlmut being of the very first order and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciouslyt But if derangedduring the course of the action he was slow in readjustment; “He was incapable of fear, meeting proposal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed his integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible l have ever known “He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man his heart was not warm in its affecti ns; but he exactly calcula ed every man’s value, and ga e him a solid esteem proport oned to it. “His person was fine, his stature xactly what one would wish. is deportment easy. erect and noble; the best horsempn of his age He remains today a worthy example in our time, as he was in his. ‘