I love American history. I especially love reading about our former presidents. So few truly stand out as exceptional, in my opinion – names such as Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln, Coolidge, Kenndy and Reagan certainly deserve to be held in high esteem. But one former president stands head and shoulders above them all – George Washington.
Most don’t know that George Washington did not want to be president. He had served his country for 8 years during the revolutionary war. He fought next to his men (unlike many generals who lead from afar). He inspired his men, time and time again during that war.
It was after the war, when he happily returned to work his farm in Mount Vernon. That was his dream – to work the land, to be a farmer. And then things started to fall apart. They came knocking at his door and said, “George, we need you, because the whole thing is falling apart.” I’m paraphrasing of course, but I think it that his response was something like — “Have I not yet done enough for my country?” Of course the answer was, “No.”
He went back to the capitol and he didn’t say very much during the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. He didn’t have to. He was respected and loved.
He was a revered figure. He was a revered figure because he had already achieved so much – he was the hero of the revolutionary war.
After he served 2 terms as president of the United States, he retired, thus setting a precident that wasn’t challenged until 150 years later when FDR ran more than twice. They didn’t want him to retire though. They asked him to remain in office, so pleased was the country with his exemplary leadership qualities.
Perhaps, author, David Boaz can sum up George Washington best:
“He was also a liberal and tolerant man. In a famous letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, he hailed the “liberal policy” of the United States on religious freedom as worthy of emulation by other countries. He explained, “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.”
And most notably, he 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.
Give the last word to Washington’s great adversary, King George III. The king asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence. 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.”
