ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

As should every publicly elected “representative” of the people, by the people, for the people.

Term Limits Now!

In the beginning, it was so.

If we're gonn'a tag President Washington with "The Father of Our Country", we are disobedient children and SHOULD get a whoopin'.

Mother has married another and THIS one looks to be a loving and benevolent papa.

We'd be wise to say "yes sir" and BE the Americans we were meant to be.

An amazing leader.

We were so BLESSED to have him and so many others as the Founders of this great nation.

We need a new graphic, for those inclined, of our new leader charging through the swamp on a 1000 HP swamp buggy. Preferably a track drive rather than wheels and mud tires.

AMEN. A few years ago I and a coworker flew into BWI for business, stopped by Mount Vernon and visited our 1st POTUS grave. Very solemn and sobering. I was filled with pride just to be there.

https://youtu.be/O_xyGrOmhXg

You know, I did that too.

It was very moving to me....which surprised me...I can usually gaze on their tombs with respect but little emotion. Not the case when I stood before his.....

The following is taken from "The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson," edited by Adrienne Koch and William Peden. Apologies for the length.

"I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these.

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously.... He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.

His temper was naturally irritable and high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.... His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed.... On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that 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. For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading 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 scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example....

I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to the public mind.

These are my opinions of General Washington, which I would vouch at the judgment seat of God, having been formed on an acquaintance of thirty years. I served with him in the Virginia legislature from 1769 to the Revolutionary war, and again, a short time in Congress, until he left us to take commmand of the army. During the war and after it we corresponded occasionally, and in the four years of my continuance in the office of Secretary of State, our intercourse was daily, confidential and cordial.... I felt on his death, with my countrymen, that "verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.""

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Walter Jones, January 1814.

He put down an officer-led mutiny at Newburgh NY in 1783.

Somehow, he kept a malnourished and badly equipped army together.

He didn't accept salary for his services as General of the Continental Army or President.

George Washington was the last Cincinnatus.

See?

That's what I like about you, Jacquerie ... you have all this "hole filler" stuff at the ready.

Thanx, I appreciate your input.

Thanks for the GW reminder. Even at FR, he doesn’t get the attention and admiration he deserves.