Today is the Anniversary of George Washington's Birthday

Statue: "George Washington Kneeling in Prayer" by Donald De Lue in Paramus, New Jersey

Statue of George Washington on the Morristown Green

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth"

- George Washington

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder" 

- George Washington

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."

- George Washington

“In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.” 

― George Washington

Today is the 294th anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of course, Washington is best known as the leading general during the American Revolutionary War for Independence, as well as becoming the first president. He had the chance to be an authoritarian ruler, even a king, if he had wanted it. But I long believed that his greatest contribution was offering the new nation a model of restraint of power. It is this same spirit of restraint which, in my opinion, made the Revolution, and the democratic experiments which the Founding Fathers then embarked upon, great in the first place, and which we have benefitted from since. 

If anything, the lack of this restraint and, frankly, wisdom in American politics today underscores just how difficult it is to achieve that delicate balance. We could use the real wisdom - not the mythology or the excesses of the age of which too many of them were guilty (particularly regarding racism and slavery) - of Washington and the other Founding Fathers in this regard.

So today, it seemed fitting to give a tribute to the man who is often considered the father of the modern United States: George Washington. He could have chosen a very different path, as did other men of his age, such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Simon Bolivar. Instead, he helped to usher in what was the greatest democratic experiment of the time, and which for all of it's imperfections, lasted the better part of two-and-a-half centuries. It increasingly feels like it is slipping away from us today. We could do worse than go back to the beginning and see what the Founding Fathers actually did - again, stripped of the mythology which too often surrounds them - in order to see if we cannot win that democracy back.