I dream that music would be put to exalted words by or about beau ideals to regenerate interest in their principles. I conceptualized The Pursuit of Happiness Album. This is the 6th song:
George Washington Found it Abhorrent to be King
George Washington led the brave Continental Army
Through eight years of war, privations aplenty.
He inspired a ragtag army, a fragile nation
Amid the threats of failure and disintegration.
At the war's end in 1783, he took affront
When asked to be king, to wear a crown.
George Washington replied, “Abhorrent!” Power-lust is for little fiends.
A moral man does not rule, nor can he be ruled by men.
Rejecting power, George Washington resigned his commission.
On Mount Vernon, the General retired to his plantation.
An incredulous King George III remarked, greatly awed,
“If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
The Electoral College elected General George Washington
Unanimously in 1789, and again in the 1792 election.
The only president to get 100% of electoral votes, he refused a third term
"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Thomas Jefferson honored George Washington:
“The moderation and virtue of a single character
Probably prevented this Revolution from being closed,
As most others have been, by a subversion
Of that liberty it was intended to establish.”
"His mind was great and powerful...
His integrity was most pure,
His justice the most inflexible I have ever known…
He was, indeed, in every sense of the words,
A wise, a good, and a great man....
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…
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...."
“I served with General Washington
In the legislature of Virginia, before the revolution,
And, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress.
I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time,
Nor to any but the main point, which was to decide the question.
They laid their shoulders to the great points,
Knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves.”
On the one hundred and tenth anniversary
Of the birthday of George Washington,
The man who found it abhorrent to be king,
Was reverently exalted by Abraham Lincoln.
“Washington is the mightiest name on Earth —
Long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty;
Still mightiest in moral reformation.
On that name a eulogy is expected.
It cannot be.
To add brightness to the sun
Or glory to the name of Washington
Is alike impossible. Let none attempt it.
In solemn awe pronounce the name
And in its naked, deathless splendor
Leave it shining on."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
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.”
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5593
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" - George Washington
This is why government/force should not be in bed with religion, healthcare, economics, education, science, art, the bedroom, the uterus, marriage, and all realms not involving the violation of rights.
The government is not free because it is chained by the Constitution, while rights-respecters should be fully free limited only by the equal rights of others. The wall of separation, applicable to all realms, SEPARATES THE FREE FROM THE CHAINED.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=415194198518822&set=a.112478365457075.7231.107705785934333&type=1&theater
King George III 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.”
http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2010/09/george-washington-found-it-abhorrent-to.html
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=661726767176095&set=a.645193005496138.1073741834.559064320775674&type=1&theater
George Washington Found it Abhorrent to be King
George Washington led the brave Continental Army
Through eight years of war, privations aplenty.
He inspired a ragtag army, a fragile nation
Amid the threats of failure and disintegration.
At the war's end in 1783, he took affront
When asked to be king, to wear a crown.
George Washington replied, “Abhorrent!” Power-lust is for little fiends.
A moral man does not rule, nor can he be ruled by men.
Rejecting power, George Washington resigned his commission.
On Mount Vernon, the General retired to his plantation.
An incredulous King George III remarked, greatly awed,
“If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2010/09/george-washington-found-it-abhorrent-to.html
May your every wish be realized in the success of America, at this important and interesting Period; and be assured that the every exertion of my worthy Colleagues and myself will be equally extended to the re-establishment of Peace and Harmony between the Mother Country and the Colonies, as to the fatal, but necessary, operations of War. When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen; and we shall most sincerely rejoice with you in that happy hour when the establishment of American Liberty, upon the most firm and solid foundations, shall enable us to return to our Private Stations in the bosom of a free, peaceful and happy Country. I am etc.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/contarmy/newyork.html
General Washington did not harbor one principle of federalism. He was neither an Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. He sincerely wished the people to have as much self-government as they were competent to exercise themselves. The only point on which he and I ever differed in opinion, was, that I had more confidence than he had in the natural integrity and discretion of the people, and in the safety and extent to which they might trust themselves with a control over their government. He has asseverated to me a thousand times his determination that the existing government should have a fair trial, and that in support of it he would spend the last drop of his blood. He did this the more repeatedly, because he knew General Hamilton's political bias, and my apprehensions from it. It is a mere calumny, therefore, in the monarchists, to associate General Washington with their principles. But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves. - TJ
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl216.php
http://www.mountvernon.org/educational-resources/encyclopedia/spurious-quotations
Post a Comment