George Washington's Finest Hour

In December, 1782, as General George Washington awaited news of a preliminary peace treaty with Great Britain, he had little reason to be optimistic.  The British still occupied New York, a congressional tax on imports had failed, and his soldiers had not been paid in months or years.  In the midst of these continuing difficulties, a delegation of three officers rode into Philadelphia to issue a warning to Congress. 

The officers met with certain key nationalist members of Congress such as Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris, as well as with financier, Robert Morris, hatching a plan to use the discontent in the army to force Congress to adopt more powers adequate to a national government.  It was a dangerous game to play in a fledgling republic. 

On January 6, 1783, the officers presented an ominous petition to Congress: “We have borne all that men can bear – our property is expended – our private resources are at an end, and our friends are wearied out and disgusted with our incessant applications.”  The officers demanded that Congress make good on its promise of a half-pension as an “honorable and just recompense for several years hard service in which the health and fortunes of the officers have been worn down and exhausted.”  They gave a final warning of the consequences of not paying the army: “The uneasiness of the soldiers, for want of pay, is great and dangerous; any further experiments on their patience may have fatal effects.” 

Congress responded by appointing a committee.  Meanwhile, Robert Morris ratcheted up the pressure on that body by threatening to resign if Congress did not establish a “permanent provision for public debts.”  Hamilton, Washington’s former intimate aide, worked on the general to win over his support for the scheme.  “The claims of the army urged with moderation, but with firmness . . . may add weight to the applications of Congress to the several states.” 

Washington, however, was not taking the bait.  From his humble acceptance of the position of commander of the Continental Army through his continued deference to the civilian government during the war despite the constant sufferings of the army due to a penurious Congress and state governments, Washington was unwaveringly dedicated to the republican government. 

When the general caught wind of the plot afoot among the officers at Newburgh, he feared that their machinations would plunge the nation “into a gulph of civil horror.”  Washington was sympathetic to their plight and the continental vision but would not countenance military threats to the civilian government.  He called a meeting of the officers at the appropriately-named Temple of Virtue on March 15 – the Ides of March. 

When General Washington unexpectedly marched into the meetinghouse, he immediately addressed the men with a deeply-moving speech, appealing to their patriotic and republican principles:

Let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood gates of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire in blood . . . By thus acting you will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings.  And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of your glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, “had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.” 

Washington loved the theater throughout his life, especially his favorite play, Joseph Addison’s Cato.  Indeed, he had been playing the role of the aloof general for years and commanded as much as anything by his presence.  He understood the human response to a dramatic gesture.  At Newburgh, he pulled out a pair of spectacles, candidly admitting his declining vigor in front of his men, muttering, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country.” 

The cabal collapsed on the spot.  The tension broke and the officers wept openly.  They pledged their “unshaken confidence” in Congress. 

In the end, Congress failed to fulfill its promises and never assumed greater powers.  These failures would help lead to the Constitutional Convention to erect a new framework of government with adequate powers.

For now, Washington established the critically important precedent that in America the republican civilian government was superior to the military.  Washington could easily have decided to march on Congress and become a Caesar or Alexander.  Instead, he became as the legendary Roman Cincinnatus who patriotically served the republic and returned to his plow. 

To paraphrase Churchill’s great praise for the fighter pilots who defeated the Nazi air assault in the Battle of Britain, perhaps we can say of the virtuous Washington that if the American republic lasts a thousand years, men will say, this was his finest hour. 

_________________________________

Tony Williams is the WJMI Program Director and the author of four books including America’s Beginnings: The Dramatic Events that Shaped a Nation’s Character.  

The Character of George Washington as described by Thomas Jefferson

By: J. David Gowdy

George Washington had a complex, constantly evolving relationship with Thomas Jefferson. Prior to the Revolutionary War, Washington and Jefferson labored together as delegates from Virginia to the Continental Congress during 1775. After the war, under the newly adopted Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was appointed by Washington as his first Secretary of State in the new cabinet, where he served from March 22, 1790, to December 31, 1793.  Though Washington and Jefferson’s relationship grew to be somewhat contentious by the end of Washington’s life due to party politics (Jefferson refused to attend memorial services for the President), the two were not always at odds personally and politically. Their dedication to the cause of the American Revolution by far proved to be their greatest common bond; however, as Mary Stockwell points out they were alike in even more ways. Both were “tall redhead[s] from the middling planter class,” “who raised their social and economic “status by marrying a wealthy widow.” Additionally, “Jefferson considered himself a farmer and spent his life improving his plantations… just as Washington cared for Mount Vernon.” (1)

Jefferson and Washington corresponded over many years.  Washington wrote to Jefferson about the Constitutional Convention while he was in France.  In addition to political matters, they wrote each other about western lands and agricultural topics.  Thomas Jefferson admired the pecan tree and sent seeds to George Washington, who planted and cared for his own pecans. Today those pecans have the distinction of being the oldest living trees at Mount Vernon. (2)

In Paris, while serving as Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson owned two portraits of George Washington, a full-length by Charles Willson Peale and a half-length by Joseph Wright.  Before leaving Paris, Jefferson presented the Peale to Madame de Tessé. Wright's portrait of Washington became part of the art collection at Monticello. 

After Jefferson resigned from Washington’s cabinet in 1793, he soon became the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party.  He  was elected Vice President in 1796 and President in 1801. In his inaugural address delivered on March 4, 1801, Jefferson called Washington “our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country’s love.” Later, upon founding the University of Virginia, Jefferson recommended Washington’s Farewell Address as part of the required reading for the study of the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson wrote a detailed description of the great qualities of mind and character possessed by George Washington in a letter written fourteen years after Washington’s death:

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. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstance, he was slow in re-adjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. 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 a 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 high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. 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. . . .

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 the 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. . . .

We knew his honesty …

I felt on his death, with my countrymen, that “verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.” (3)

____________________________

(1) See: http://www.georgewashingtonwired.org/2013/05/29/encyclopedia-entry-thomas-jefferson/; and Stockwell, Ph.D., “Thomas Jefferson” (Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia), http://www.mountvernon.org/educational-resources/encyclopedia/thomas-jefferson
(2) http://www.arborday.org/programs/nationaltree/pecan.cfm
(3) Jefferson to Dr. Walter Jones, January 2, 1814, ME 14:48-52.

Favorite Quotes by Abraham Lincoln

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
16th President of the United States of America
Born February 12, 1809, Hodgenville, Kentucky
Died April 15, 1865, Washington D. C.

Here are some of my favorite Lincoln Quotes in honor of his birthday:

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1859), p. 376.

"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (July 10, 1858), p. 502.

"Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them." Lincoln and the Civil War In the Diaries and Letters of John Hay selected by Tyler Dennett (New York, Da Capo Press, 1988), p. 143.

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day." Lincoln Observed: The Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks edited by Michael Burlingame (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 210.

"Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Quintin Campbell" (June 28, 1862), p. 288.

"...I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 282. Also, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln by Ward Hill Lamon (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1994), p. 91.

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." Lincoln's 'House-Divided' Speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.

"I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!" The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Remarks at Closing of Sanitary Fair, Washington D.C." (March 18, 1864), p. 254.

"Perhaps a man's character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing." Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln compiled and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 43.

"Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Notes for a Law Lecture" (July 1, 1850?), p. 81.

"In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Reply to Loyal Colored People of Baltimore upon Presentation of a Bible" (September 7, 1864), p. 542.

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association" (March 21, 1864), pp. 259-260.

"I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Remarks at Painesville, Ohio" (February 16, 1861), p. 218.

"The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity." Lincoln's Temperance Address, Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842.

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Maryland" (April 18, 1864), p. 301-302.

"Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right and PART with him when he goes wrong." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 273.

"There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite." Herndon's Life of Lincoln by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (New York, Da Capo Press, 1983), p. 354.

"The legitimate object of government is 'to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves'." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Fragment on Government" (July 1, 1854?), p. 221.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

Washington’s Farewell Address

By: Tony Williams

           

        When Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the other board members designed the civics curriculum of the University of Virginia, they concurred that there were certain key readings that were essential to the training of statesmen and citizens.  The works of John Locke and Algernon Sidney, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist, and President George Washington’s Farewell Address were the basis for understanding the American character and system of constitutional self-government. 

          Known as a man of action rather than philosophical reflection, even among many historians today, Washington offered advice to his country that was a profound reflection in American principles of constitutional liberty and republicanism.

     Washington mainly collaborated with two trusted advisers – first Congressman James Madison in 1792, and later Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in 1796 – in composing the address.  This reflected the waxing and waning influence of the two men during Washington’s presidency, but it also reflected a liberality of spirit in bringing what became two warring parties together. 

        Washington’s Farewell was not delivered as a speech but rather printed in newspapers for all citizens to read or have read to them.  It was a public farewell from a patriotic, magnanimous citizen who had served the republic for half a century in the French and Indian War, Virginia House of Burgesses, the Revolutionary War, President of the Constitutional Convention, and President of the United States. 

       Washington begins the Farewell by announcing his intention to retire from the presidency.  There is a deep humility in his hope that he discharged the trust his countrymen placed in him by giving his “best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.”  Washington describes the sense of duty that bound him as a patriotic citizen to answer the repeated call of his country in war and peace despite his longings for his farm.  He emulates the legendary Roman Cincinnatus and the main character of his favorite play, Cato, rather than an ambitious Caesar, and establishes the firm precedents of republican virtue in public service and the superiority of the civilian government. 

       Washington then offers a prayer for the well-being of the American republic as he prepares to go to his fathers.  He prays that the American people enjoy the blessings of providential liberty and self-government rooted in Union.  He gives them a classical recipe for their true happiness rooted in virtue and ordered liberty.  He ends this passage with a statement of American exceptionalism. 

I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your Union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its Administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and Virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing  as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

Washington then offers the reflections of a “parting friend” to his country for their “felicity as a People.”  The sentiments of the “Father of His Country” were actually excellent political principles – the centrality of the Union, the danger of political parties, the significance of religion, and independence in foreign policy – upon which to found the country. 

       UNION.   Washington first discusses the importance of Union to the American experiment in liberty.  He recognized that sectional and cultural differences could imperil the nation at some future point.  He urges his fellow citizens to revere, “The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.”  Washington reminds them that despite their local attachments, they had “the same Religion, Manners, Habits, and political Principles.”  They must remember that they have “in a common cause fought and triumphed together.” 

The Union was so central to the American nation, in Washington’s view, because it was the “main pillar in the Edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home; your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty which you so highly prize.”  Americans should jealously guard their lasting Union, forming a habitual and unfailing attachment to it because it was “the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity.” 

The Union has at its foundation the Constitution.  It was a framework of government reflecting the great deliberative moment of the American founding and its principles had a just claim on their confidence and support.  “Respect for its authority, compliance with its Laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty,” Washington argues.  He emphasizes that though the sovereign people can alter the Constitution through the American process, it is otherwise “sacredly obligatory upon all.” 

PARTIES.  In his discussion of political parties, Washington follows the proposition laid down in Federalist #10 that they were factions, “whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”  In the Farewell, Washington similarly warns that they were artificial designs of a “small but artful and enterprising minority” who sought to “direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the Constituted authorities,” with invariably fatal results.

Madison reflected that factions were rooted in the self-interest of human nature.  He wrote, “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.”  Washington agreed that the “baneful spirit of party was unfortunately “inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human Mind.” 

At best, however, both founders agreed that they could only be controlled not destroyed in a free government.  Madison thought a large republic would create contending factions that would limit their effects, while Washington settled for “a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame.”  After powerlessly witnessing the rise of the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans that fiercely divided his own administration, Washington warned his countrymen of the dangers of the passions stirred by political parties. 

RELIGION AND VIRTUE.  Washington was and remains an unrecognized essential founder of American religious liberty even though he advanced the principle while general of the Continental Army and as President when he wrote letters to various congregations promising them the natural right of liberty of conscience.  He did not believe, however, that religion should be divorced from public life.  Indeed, in a logical syllogism embraced by all the Founders, Washington advanced the notion that religion was the basis for virtue and morality and a virtuous character was essential for good citizenship and republican self-government. 

Washington called religion and morality the “indispensable supports” of political prosperity, the “great Pillars of human happiness,” and the “firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.”  He warned, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.”  If either religion or morality were to collapse, then the conclusion is clear that self-government could not endure.  Washington believed that, “’Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”  Self-government was not possible if its citizens were not self-governing individuals who controlled their passions with reason. 

FOREIGN POLICY.  Washington had vast experience in diplomatic affairs during his public service in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the presidency.  Britain and France were at war throughout the 1790s, and Washington proclaimed the neutrality of the fledgling republic with some opposition from the Democratic-Republicans.   The European powers consistently violated American neutral rights and threatened to drag the new nation into war.  

In the Farewell Address, Washington had a very simple formula for American foreign policy: no permanent alliances in commercial or diplomatic relations (some attribute to him the phrase “entangling alliances,” which were actually Jefferson’s words of a similar sentiment).  He warned that America should not be a “slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” 

Before one assume that he was America’s founding Machiavelli, Washington did not argue purely for a foreign policy rooted in American interest devoid of morality.  He states that, “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.”  Indeed, in this section of the address, he advises that American foreign relations be guided by good faith, justice, religion, morality, peace, harmony, free, enlightened, benevolence, and magnanimity.  In short, he believed that “just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.” 

Washington does address other topics briefly but no less importantly.  He warns against “overgrown Military establishments” that threaten liberty, defends a strict separation of powers by the branches of the national government, supports “institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge” for an enlightened public opinion, and advises the retiring of the public debt with necessary and prudent taxation.  And he concludes with this maxim, “no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”

         As you can see from the principles discussed above, Washington’s Farewell Address deserves an exalted position among American founding documents, and it is vitally important for our young people in schools and American citizens to know.  In our national civic conversation, we must appeal to first principles often, and Washington’s Farewell Address is one of the pillars and best sources of those founding principles. 

__________________________________________

Tony Williams is the Program Director of the WJMI and the author of four books including America’s Beginnings: The Dramatic Events that Shaped a Nation’s Character. 

Reason, Patriotism & Reverence for the Laws: Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Speech

By Tony Williams

On January 27, 1838, a young Abraham Lincoln addressed a Young Men’s Lyceum debating club in Springfield.  The topic of the speech was “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions” and addressed the tumult in American society raised by radical abolitionism who were willing to sacrifice the laws to the “higher law” of justice for slaves.  The address, however, raised fundamental questions about human nature, the authority of law, and the American founding.  Lincoln’s speech raises an interesting counterpoint to Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which I wrote about on the WJMI recently. 

Lincoln begins the speech by expressing reverence for the American political tradition of self-government which was more conducive to “the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.”[i]  The Founders left a legacy that was “hardy, brave, and patriotic” to the present generation.  They inherited that gift of republican self-government and had a grace responsibility to transmit it to their posterity: “This task gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.” 

The greatest threat to ensuring the survival of that inheritance was not from outside enemies but from the suicide of a nation of free men who lived by license rather than ordered liberty.  “I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.” 

Lincoln is assuming a classical and Christian position in which man is a rational being who can master his passions and become a self-governing individual.   In Book IV of The Republic, Plato has Socrates explain that, “Moderation is surely a kind of order and mastery of certain kinds of pleasures and desires, as men say when they use . . . the phrase ‘stronger than himself.’”[ii]  In second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tells us that, “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean . . . this being determined by a rational principle” over irrational passions and desires.[iii]  St. Paul tells us in Romans 6:12, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.”  These thinkers agree with Lincoln that rational man can gain self-mastery by controlling his passions through reason. 

Many Founders adopted this classical and Christian stance on human nature such as James Madison when he wrote about the danger of factions in The Federalist.  In Federalist #10, Madison wrote, “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the right of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”[iv]

For Lincoln, moral license leads to vice, violence begets violence, and unpunished acts spawn a lawless spirit among the American people.  Soon, both the guilty and innocent “fall victims to the ravages of mob law . . . till all the walls erected for the defence of the persons and property of individuals are trodden down, and disregarded.”  The result is ultimately that the “strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed – I mean the attachment of the People.” 

Lincoln’s answer to the destruction of law and liberty in the land is poetic, reasonable, and practical:

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.  As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor; - let everyman remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children’s liberty.  Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; - let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.  And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.

Lincoln wants to build laws rooted in reason to frustrate the designs of ambition of a Caesar or Napoleon, and to foil the passions of a mob.  He admits near the end of the speech that the passionate mobs of the American Revolution were dedicated to liberty and threw off British rule to advance the “noblest cause – that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty.” 

However, the Founders had passed away, and a new generation has been given the reins of self-government.  Lincoln finishes with another poetic appeal to reason, law, and the name of Washington: 

That temple must fall, unless we, their descendents, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.  Passion has helped us; but can do so no more.  It will in future be our enemy.  Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence, - Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON.  Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as has been said of the only greater institution, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” 

That same burden to preserve the laws, the Constitution, and American principles of religious and civil liberty binds us.  May we do so through well-reasoned, civil discourse rather than partisan demagoguery. 

Tony Williams is the Program Director of the WJMI and the author of America’s Beginnings: The Dramatic Events that Shaped a Nation’s Character. 

---

[i] All quotes from Lincoln’s speech can be found in Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (New York: Da Capo, 2001), 76-85. 

[ii] Allan Bloom, The Republic of Plato (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 109. 

[iii] Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 39. 

[iv] Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, ed., Clinton Rossiter (New York: Signet, 1961), 72. 

Henry Knox and the Cannon of Fort Ticonderoga

On January 26, 1776, former bookseller Henry Knox arrived at George Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with 60 tons of captured artillery to use in the liberation of Boston from British forces. Knox had masterminded the removal and transportation of the guns from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, through over 300 miles of sparsely populated terrain in the dead of winter. [1]

Knox went to Ticonderoga in November 1775, and, over the course of three winter months, moved 59 cannons and other armaments by boat, horse and ox-drawn sledges, and manpower, along poor-quality roads, across two semi-frozen rivers, and through the forests and swamps of the lightly inhabited Berkshires to the Boston area. 

On December 17, 1775, Knox wrote to Washington from Lake George, New York, describing the difficulty of transporting the cannon and mortars: “It is not easy [to] conceive the difficulties we have had in getting them here over the Lake owing to the advanc’d Season of the Year & contrary winds, but the danger is now past; three days ago it was very uncertain whether we could have gotten them untill next spring, but now please God they must go – I have had made forty two exceeding Strong Sleds & have provided eighty Yoke of oxen to drag them as far as Springfield.” 

Historian Victor Brooks has called Knox's exploit "one of the most stupendous feats of logistics" of the entire American Revolutionary War. [2]

“What was heroic in this expedition was that it was a stroke of inspiration, coupled with good timing, skilled logistics and luck. And by this stroke, the British Army was forced to relinquish its hold on one of the great American cities. In a time when proofs of potential victory were precious few, this single event did more than most to energize and inspire the Revolution.”  (New York Knox Trail History).

In March 1776, Washington seized Dorchester Heights (the key to Boston) and Knox placed the cannon in position there.  British General Howe realizing the danger of an impending American bombardment, withdrew his troops from the city. On March 17, he embarked his troops for Halifax. Boston was entered the following day by triumphant Americans. [3]

____________________________
[1] "Noble Train of Artillery" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_train_of_artillery
[2] Brooks, Noah, Henry Knox, a Soldier of the Revolution: Major-general in the Continental Army, Washington's Chief of Artillery, First Secretary of War Under the Constitution, Founder of the Society of the Cincinnati; 1750–1806 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons., 1900), p. 210.
[3] "Historic Valley Forge" http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/served/knox.html

“The Right Stuff” – The First American Army

“On the 14^th of June, 1775, the Continental Congress, facing actual war, issued its first call for troops.  It is interesting to note the class of men to which America turned in her hour of extreme peril. Congress, having resolved itself into a committee of the whole, decided thus:

Resolved, That six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four Serjeants, four Corporals, a Drummer or Trumpeter, and sixty-eight Privates. 

That each Company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the Army near Boston, to be there employed as Light Infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that Army.

Such was the beginning of the United States Army; for these were the first troops ever levied on this continent by the authority of the central Government. On the following day George Washington was appointed Commander in Chief.

It may seem strange that the first men called into service should be those furthest from the scene and hardest to reach, the nomadic hunters on the frontier. When hostilities were so imminent (Gage was already penned up in Boston, and Bunker Hill was but three days off), why did Congress send hundreds of miles into the wilderness, when the seaboard towns were alive with men eager to enlist?

…the action was due to a subtler policy than appears on the surface, and that it was suggested by the only man in Congress who knew the backwoodsman like a brother; who had marched with them, camped with them, fought side by side with them – by Washington himself. It was plain enough that a corps of these incomparable sharpshooters, hardy, indomitable, experienced in war, would be the right stuff to meet British Regulars. But there was another and a deeper motive which impelled Congress at this critical hour to hazard the delay of sending for the mountaineers…

The colonies at this time were still separated by petty jealousies and local pride. Cavalier mocked at Puritan, and Knickerbocker mistrusted both. Would these discordant elements act together when the supreme hour arrived? Would Virginia strike hands with Massachusetts? Would Pennsylvania fraternize with Connecticut and Maryland?  Granting that war was inevitable, it was above all else essential that this continental army have a nucleus that was not provincial , but American.

Where, then, were these Americans to be found?

As a surveyor in the back country, as scout and diplomat on his long midwinter march through the wilderness to the French outpost in the Ohio country, and especially with his Virginians in Braddock’s fatal expedition, Washington had formed the acquaintance of a set of men whose like was to be found nowhere on earth. These were the hunters, Indian fighters, pioneers of the Alleghenies… far in the interior there dwelt and roamed a class of men who remembered no fatherland but the wilderness they trod. Their food was won with the rifle, and their shelter was with the axe. Procuring everything they wanted from the forest with their own hands, they asked nothing of civilization, and never were in debt.

Here were Americans. Original in all things, they were not to be confounded with this or that province, or with any European race. Their freedom needed no proclamation; it showed in every movement and looked straight from their eyes.

We see, then, the significance of Washington’s fondness for the hunting shirt [he ordered 10,000 for his new troops]. It was an emblem of liberty, which never in history of man was worn by enslaved people.  It was distinctive. It meant: We are Americans.

And when Congress drew its first levies from the backwoods, it was not alone to secure the services of the finest marksmen living[1]. Something more was sought. It was the moral effect, upon the camp at Cambridge, of independence typified by flesh and blood, clad in American Garb, and wielding an American weapon…

As the riflemen moved swiftly toward Cambridge, there was rejoicing along the line of March.  The brothers Bradford, printers of Philadelphia, wrote to a London publisher:

‘This province has raised 1000 riflemen, the worst of whom will put a ball into a man’s head at the distance of 150-200 yards, therefore advise your officers who shall hereafter come to America to settle their affairs in England before their departure.” (London Chronicle, August 17-19, 1775, p. 174)…’”[2]

"To Washington, who desperately needed to keep the British from attacking during the ammunition crisis, the arrival of the riflemen was an answer to a prayer. They brought with them not only their rifles but a fierce reputation as fighting men." (Harrington, Patriot Riflemen, 2000)

---

[1] The frontier troops’ marksmanship with their American made long rifles became legendary, as they could, to a man, shoot an orange at 100 yards. The Virginia Gazette of July 25, 1775 carried an article claiming that so many riflemen had volunteered for the rifle companies that a shooting test was required to weed down the numbers. It was claimed that the judges chalked a drawing of a human nose on a board and sixty men were said to have riddled the mark from 150 yards away.

[2] This blog post is an excerpt from John G. W. Dillin, “The Kentucky Rife” (Washington D. C., 1924). pp. 77-83.