Franklin was national by the force of his own commanding genius.

John Adams grew to the same conception, so far as our relations to other nations were concerned.
But beyond these three we may look far and closely before we find another among all the really great men of the time who freed himself wholly from the superstition of the colonist about the nations of Europe.
When Washington drew his sword beneath the Cambridge elm he stood forth as the first American, the best type of man that the New World could produce, with no provincial taint upon him, and no shadow of the colonial past clouding his path.

It was this great quality that gave the struggle which he led a character it would never have attained without a leader so constituted.

Had he been merely a colonial Englishman, had he not risen at once to the conception of an American nation, the world would have looked at us with very different eyes.
It was the personal dignity of the man, quite as much as his fighting capacity, which impressed Europe.

Kings and ministers, looking on dispassionately, soon realized that here was no ordinary agitator or revolutionist, but a great man on a great stage with great conceptions.