Posted on 02/15/2022 6:17:46 AM PST by Kaslin
With the shock and awakening of Americans that the freedoms, rights and opportunities they had taken for granted for generations have been brazenly stripped away in the last few years, this President’s Day 2022 may well be one of our most significant holidays. Presidents Day is unique among American holidays in providing the opportunity to appreciate why George Washington and Abraham Lincoln—whose birthdays fall in February—were the two greatest U.S. presidents.
While Washington was the founding father of the United States becoming the first President in 1789 after final success in the War of Independence, Lincoln would save the nation from division and collapse—bringing an end to the Civil War and the scourge of slavery as the sixteenth President in 1865. In short, Lincoln saved the republic that Washington made possible. And two remarkable men they were, whose wisdom, judgment and foresight are more relevant today than they were in their times.
In both Washington and Lincoln, we are confronted with flawed men who made mistakes, but whose remarkable qualities of character were so formidable that they became part of the essence of what we call “American exceptionalism.” Both presidents readily admitted that it was not their own abilities that made the difference but rather their faith, trust and reliance on God that gave them their strength and opened the way for ultimate success.
What is particularly striking for people today is that both Washington and Lincoln agreed that America’s greatest threat to its national survival would not come from military invasion from a foreign power. Rather America’s downfall would come from within.
Washington’s Farewell Address was so popular that it was reprinted more than the Declaration of Independence. Prophetic in places, it warned of three sources of peril to liberty in the American Republic. And these are more relevant now than ever before: 1) the failure of citizens to be well-informed; 2) internal division because of party factions and hyper-partisanship; and 3) the decline of religious obligation and national morality.
Lincoln asked, “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? He answered that question, stating, “If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.” On another occasion, Lincoln said, “The people… are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts—not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”
After his reelection for a second term, Lincoln observed that “…corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” While he could not possibly have foreseen the technological transformations to come in the U.S. economy, Lincoln was still prescient. It’s now obvious that the aggregation and concentration of wealth in the information technology industry today is undermining Constitutional First Amendment rights. Free speech after all is the cornerstone of the republic. One is reminded of Ben Franklin’s warning to future generations that, “there is no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”
Washington and Lincoln were unique and very different in personality, but both were men of deep faith, wisdom, courage, and persistence. Each in different times with different challenges was willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good. They both shared a vision of America as a nation grounded in the ideas of the Declaration of Independence that would provide its people the freedom and rights to pursue life, liberty and happiness. And they both believed that if the nation lived up to these ideals, The United States would be a light and beacon of hope for the world.
Washington and Lincoln were committed to government of the people, by the people and for the people. If somehow, they could be resurrected and transported into the present, they would scarcely recognize what America has become. Their observations would probably start with cheering on efforts of American citizens to push back against the abuse of government power at every level, guided by the determination to reclaim the God-given rights enumerated in the Constitution’s first ten amendments.
Presidents Day offers us the opportunity to contemplate the qualities of these two unique individual leaders—the greatest American presidents. To the extent we can internalize and build character around the virtues that each embodied, we too can regain our voice and courage to fight to reestablish our unalienable rights that define who we are as Americans. Our success in so doing may well be the key to preventing our nation’s downfall. We stand on the shoulders of so many who came before us who were willing to give their lives for freedom and equality. We are called to do no less.
Most Americans do not even know what natural born citizen means and that Obama is not one and that ALL of their elected and appointed abrogated the Constitution by swearing him in.
We lost the Republic on Usurpation Day.
It directly lead to what they did to Trump.
Just as important, if not more, is to reclaim the powers we have never delegated to government which are reserved to us (or the States) by the 10th Amendment and which the federal government has stolen.
Once again we have evedence of the success of the United states public education sydtem, changing history for their benefit, elevating a tyrant to hero. Lincoln was a murdering narcissist. Who didnt go to war to free the slaves and even admitted so.
The holiday is Washington’s Birthday. It had been a national holiday before Congress moved most holidays to Mondays. Nixon came up with the idea of calling it “Presidents Day,” probably thinking that Lincoln was also supposed to be honored, but Lincoln’s birthday had never been a national holiday.
I have a big problem with Lincoln.
I think he was a good man. But heavily flawed in that he thought the country must be kept together at all costs. At the point of a gun is not a good relationship. And it violated the principle already set forth by Washington et al. Yes, Union is great, but if someone wants to separate why force them not to? This was not the Whiskey Rebellion where a few might upset the apple cart. This was a whole territory.
Either settle the differences or let them go.
Did they forget to mention Washington’s admonition against foreign entanglements?
He may have but it was not a prevalent thing until the ‘90s.
Actually in MD it seemed to be pretty settled that it was “President’s Day”. I was shocked and pleased in the ‘90s when moving to CT that my work had Washington’s Birthday. But then, the very next year it went to President’s Day.
First, not overly pleased deliberately celebrating Lincoln. 2nd, the very generic name has already given 5e idea we’re just celebrating any ol’president. Which makes us have to get into Uhbama and libs have to do Trump. LOL.
We need to go back to Washington and Lincoln each having their birthday celebrated as a national holiday - instead of rolled up into one generic “President’s Day.”
I realize there’s always a small cabal of suicide-loving libertarians that surface from time to time on FR, especially on the “Lincoln was a dictator” meme.
But had we become two countries as a result of the North-South disputes, instead of serving into the 1930s and 1940s as a single, mighty nation — there’s at least a strong possibility we’d be speaking German today.
so THANK YOU presidents Washington and Lincoln for being the unique heroes you were.
THANK YOU United States, and all of the stateds, north, south, east, west, midwest, for saving Europe AND THE USA from the Nazis, and the Pacific Ocean and Asia AND THE USA from Japan.
THANK YOU President Reagan for ending totalitarian rule in Eastern Europe and instituting tax cuts that are largely still in place today, and for restoring the quaint notion that it’s cool to love America.
THANK YOU President Trump for knowing what was wrong in the United States and doing all you could to remedy our ailments.
THANK YOU, GOD, for giving us the heroic presidents we needed when we needed them — including Lincoln.
EDIT: “surviving” instead of serving
I realize there’s always a small cabal of suicide-loving libertarians that surface from time to time on FR, especially on the “Lincoln was a dictator” meme.
But had we become two countries as a result of the North-South disputes, instead of surviving into the 1930s and 1940s as a single, mighty nation — there’s at least a strong possibility we’d be speaking German today.
I have often said that if we could bring Washington, Adams, and the rest of the Founders back to life, the first thing they would do after taking a look around would be to start another Revolution.
The republic was lost when lincoln was elected.
Thankfully someone else realizes the truth about lincoln.
If the US had split there would have been no WWI to set the stage for Hitler’s accession to power and probably no WWII. Learn your history
There are more of us then we let on. Then again there are a bunch of people crom the south who dont know much except that the north invaded and they hate yankees. How do you tell them from the rest? They have confederate battle flags flying all over. I prefer the confederate states flag. The horheads on either side dont know what it is
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