George Washington is one of the statues selected by Virginia to be in the National Statuary Collection in the U.S. Capitol. February 22 is his birthday, although when he was born the Julian calendar was used and it was recorded as February 11. Today is February 22, so George Washington will be the new addition to my series Statues: The People They Salute.
During the early 19th century George Washington’s birthday celebration was second only to the Fourth of July as a patriotic holiday. Today George Washington’s birthday is a federal holiday, but it is more widely revered for the bedding and mattress sales. The Monday Holiday Law in 1968 moved it from February 22 to the third Monday in February. This holiday is slowly being morphed into Presidents’ Day. That blurs the focus. Yes, a holiday for each president would be too much, however learning about each president individually has value. It helps us understand our nation better.
It is important to recognize George Washington, our first president, preferred to play his leadership role humbly. He was concerned that the new nation’s president be nothing like a king. George Washington rejected any attempt by his countrymen to make him into an exalted leader. This new nation was to be a nation of the people; nothing like the old nation they had fought long and hard to be free of. That is why after two terms as president, George Washington declined to run for office again.
Washington is relevant to Americans today because his life demonstrated his strong moral values, undaunted courage, solid and consistent judgment, unabashed patriotism, and his complete commitment to what was best for his country. Those traits never go out of style. George Washington is an example of how an individual can make an enormous difference. That is an important trait we should be sure to recognize and pass on to our children and grandchildren.
In honor of our first president, take some time to review your own town’s historic society records to find locations associated with George Washington. Here on Long Island where I live there are many places along Route 25A where George Washington stopped to thank his countrymen for their help during the Revolutionary War. Let’s celebrate George Washington and his humble, noble leadership today on his birth date and throughout the year. Happy Birthday George Washington!
The following is an excerpt from George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 19, 1796. It is a warning we should heed today and tomorrow…
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, 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. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)
His words are just as pertinent today as when he wrote them!
A great article! This should be a reading lesson for every child in school today. ❤️🇺🇸