Posted on 02/22/2015 5:14:14 AM PST by Kaslin
At the end of the American Revolution, King George III asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what George Washington would do next. West replied, “They say he will return to his farm.”
“If he does that,” the incredulous monarch said, “he will be the greatest man in the world.”
Colloquially we now call the federal holiday on the third Monday in February “Presidents Day.” Legally, though, it’s still “Washington’s Birthday.” Which is appropriate, because without Washington we might not have had any other presidents.
George Washington was the man who established the American republic. He led the revolutionary army against the British Empire, he served as the first president, and most importantly he stepped down from power.
In an era of brilliant leaders, Washington was not the deepest thinker. He never wrote a book or even a long essay, unlike George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams. But Washington made the ideas of the American founding real. He incarnated liberal and republican ideas in his own person, and he gave them effect through the Revolution, the Constitution, his successful presidency, and his departure from office.
What’s so great about leaving office? Surely it matters more what a president does in office. But think about other great military commanders and revolutionary leaders before and after Washington—Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, Lenin. They all seized the power they had won and held it until death or military defeat.
Washington held “republican” values – that is, he believed in a republic of free citizens, with a government based on consent and established to protect the rights of life, liberty, and property.
From his republican values Washington derived his abhorrence of kingship, even for himself. The writer Garry Wills called him “a virtuoso of resignations.” He gave up power not once but twice – at the end of the revolutionary war, when he resigned his military commission and returned to Mount Vernon, and again at the end of his second term as president, when he refused entreaties to seek a third term. In doing so, he set a standard for American presidents that lasted until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose taste for power was stronger than the 150 years of precedent set by Washington.
Washington was not only a model for future presidents, too rarely followed, but he also left behind some advice. He laid out America’s founding commitment not just to toleration but to equal rights for all citizens in a famous letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.”
In his Farewell Address, he laid a foundation for American foreign policy that we would do well to ponder today: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”
He knew that a president’s job is not to run the country, nor to make law, but rather to carry out the laws made by Congress. In the Farewell Address, he urged all of those entrusted with office “to confine themselves within their respective Constitutional spheres; avoiding in the exercise of the Powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”
Washington was a farmer, a businessman, an enthusiast for commerce. As a man of the Enlightenment, he was deeply interested in scientific farming. His letters on running Mount Vernon are longer than his letters on running the government. (Of course, in 1795 more people worked at Mount Vernon than in the entire executive branch of the federal government.)
On February 22, the actual anniversary of George Washington’s birth, we should remember the man who led the war that created the nation and established the precedents that made it a republic.
The greatest by far.
Agree— the absolute first and best president we ever had bar none. A man of faith, courage and principles.
It should have been kept as Washington's birthday.
I have read at least a half dozen biographies of this great man. I cannot express in words my admiration and appreciation for this man. He truly was the father of our country.
He clearly earned the title of “His Excellency”.
Happy Bithday Mr. Washington.
Such a man would be scorned and ridiculed today, called “old fashioned” or “irrelevant” or “stupid” and worse....but this man who WAS the Father of our Country left a legacy which every citizen of The USA is forever bound to uphold and preserve. God Bless George Washington.
Are you sure it was “George” Washington? The way President Obama talks, I thought our country was founded by Mohammed Washington, Abdulla Jefferson and Benjamin al Baghdadi.
Excellent point
“A man of faith, courage and principles.” Description aptly applies to another Virginian, Robert E. Lee.
Though Washington stands alone and tall, in reading Shady’s post, “such a man would be scorned and ridiculed today, called “old fashioned” or “irrelevant” or “stupid” and worse”, Rick Santorum came to immediate mind.
They worked as a team that will probably never again see its equal.
When Thomas More sat in the Tower awaiting his trial and execution, the one thing he wished he had was a large group of men just like him who could have truly done for the people what our Founders did.
George Washington would be the first to say what I have just said.
****Washington was a farmer, a businessman, an enthusiast for commerce. As a man of the Enlightenment,***
No, NO, NO! Washington had (gasp) SLAVES and Indentured white servants!! That makes him super BAD! OK, so he later freed them, and left money to take care of the old ones.
HE HAD SLAVES!
Snark.
So many are still looking for the perfect man to relate to. The only perfect man I can find was crucified 2000 years ago.
Virginia’s greatest gift to our nation.
+1
But, when you have a Holiday like “President’s Day” it starts getting like the Roman Empire. People are sort of forced to worship them all.
***
And I suspect that was the real reason it was changed to President’s Day. I wonder how many bow down to Obama on this day.
Of course when Washington was born everyone thought the date was February 11th. (Washington himself did not have an opinion about the matter until later--he was 20 years old when the calendar reform was made.)
I agree. But he would have probably opposed even that.
He was the Greatest American.
Rick Santorum? The guy who refused to serve in the military and mocked Reagan voters and supported Arlen Specter’s pro-abortion campaign for the presidency?
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