A Holiday for Presidents with a Handful of Quotes from Our First

When I was a kid we celebrated both Abe Lincoln's and George Washington's birthdays. For convenience the two were merged into a Federal holiday called President's Day.  The Washington illustration was created as part of my Mapped Life Series in which I painted faces on pages of a Rand McNally Atlas. Pennsylvania is where our Founding Fathers met to hammer out the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, one of the defining documents of our American experiment.

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Here are some George Washington quotes to ponder and enjoy on this day.

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"Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence."

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"We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a Nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."

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"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."
--Letter to Robert Morris

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"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."
--Letter to James Madison

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"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

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"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one."
--Letter to his niece

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"Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter; whether in public or private walks of life."

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"It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones."
--Letter to James McHenry

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls. Is Paine Still Relevant Today? You Decide

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Luetze

This weekend the quote "These are the times that try men's souls" crossed my mind. Certainly these have been quite trying times for our lives and our nation, so I decided to investigate further into its origin. 

I knew that Thomas Paine, pamphleteer and author of Common Sense, was the man who penned it, but I recalled little else.

When I found the quote I read the rest of this essay and found it quite illuminating with many passages quite relevant for our own trying times. It is the opening essay of a compilation of essays under the title The American Crisis.

I also discovered that in order to fortify the resolve of his troops, George Washington ordered that this essay be read aloud to his men the night before they crossed the Delaware in their December 26 surprise attack on Trenton. 

Portrait of Thomas Paine by Matthew Pratt

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” 

The American Revolution had one pre-eminent ideal: Freedom.

In the first section Paine writes:

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. 

Does this sound like today? The next sentence amplifies that with the reminder that "All nations and ages have been subject to them."

Next, he points out that panics have value and can be useful. Why?

Their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered.

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So it is that we are in a time of crisis, times that try men's souls. There are forces at war which have lain dormant and below the surface. What is emerging has been coalescing for a long time. The American Revolution did not "just happen." It had been evolving for quite some time.

I've been reading C.S. Lewis again lately. His book The Abolition of Man sheds light on this cultural rift, a collision of worldviews. In That Hideous Strength, the third book in his sci-fi space trilogy, he uses fiction to illustrate how these ideas emerged and what the intentions are.

Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 point to seeming different dystopian scenes, yet they all have a common denominator, which I hope to elaborate upon in a future post.

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Paine's essay then outlines events that had occurred up in the vicinity of Hackensack and the Colonialists escape from the Brits there, which sets up this section a little further:

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other.

How relevant are these notions to our situation today? I believe parallels can be drawn. This is why so many voices are being raised. Something big appears to be at stake.

There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both.

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This document, one of a series, was written December 23, 1776, approximately six months after the Declaration of Independence.

Full essay:
https://www.ushistory.org/Paine/crisis/c-01.htm

Honduras: Are We On The Wrong Side?

A month ago I went to a retirement party for a friend and got into a conversation with someone who is intimately connected with Honduras, whose family is still there. Naturally, with Honduras being in the news I had to ask if he could explain what was happening there.

It was a clean and concise summary. Essentially, the properly elected president did not wish to follow the country's own Constitution. The military deposed him not because it was striving for power, but because of the president's unconstitutional behavior. Unfortunately, multinational organizations like the U.N. and O.A.S. want him reinstated.

I just finished watching the film Black Hawk Down, which shows the consequences of a military incursion in Somalia in 1993 in which 19 soldiers and 1000 Somali citizens lost their lives. The film shows the action which took place, but the book details the backdrop. The Somalia situation was this. The country was a wrecked mess run by gangs. The most powerful had been top dog for quite some time, but he was hated and ruthless. The one good thing he did was to unify all the rival gangs in their common hatred of him. They banded together and ousted him.

But this ousted gang leader, who had diplomatic ties to the U.N., persuaded the U.S. to intervene and help him regain his "rightful place." It was a disastrous, ill-conceived response. I highly recommend this book.
Based on my understanding of the situation, we are very possibly doing an instant replay. On Sept 4 it was announced that the U.S. cut off aid to Honduras, which is already one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. Two letters that I have received from Honduras indicate that the people are in dire straits.

Here's a brief summary of the background on this story.

One of the most amazing features of the United States has been its example of the peaceful transition of power. Right from the start our history has been a role model that is worth noting and quite a contrast to most of history. George Washington, who was nearly godlike in stature, stepped down voluntarily from the equivalent of a throne, the U.S. presidency. Keep in mind there were no term limits in those days.

When our second president John Adams handed power over to Thomas Jefferson, this was the first time in history that power was given voluntarily to an opposing party. These two were adversaries. Adams and Jefferson both lived by the principle of Rex Lex, that is, Law is King. There is something higher than the men and women who run the country.

That tradition has followed us to the present time where ideologically contrary presidents have handed over the baton, or sword, or whatever symbol you'd like to call it, without resorting to guns, hand grenades, etc. If the disrespect shown on the floor of congress last week (Mr. Bush was booed in 2005 on one occasion in a similar vein) is the worst of what we do, well, we're probably not doing too badly.

As for Honduras... Based on a lifetime of reading and certain anecdotal observations from friends and acquaintances over the years, my guess is that there is a divergence of opinion on the matter within the State Department itself, or the Pentagon and the executive branch. Let's pray our leaders make wise decisions and exercise care as they evaluate courses of action.

Setting The Trajectory

I've been reading Joseph Ellis' Founding Brothers, a book about the first decade of our Republic. Ellis, who wrote a National Book Award-winning bio on Jefferson did this piece as a follow up, no doubt because of his love for that period, but probably also to utilize all the research he'd dug up to produce the first book.

Ellis argues that of all the decades in our history, the first one was preeminent in importance because it set the trajectory our country would take. From the manner in which conflicts were resolved to the manner in which power was wielded, there is probably some truth to Ellis' assessment.

Take, for example, the matter of Washington stepping down as president after two terms. This was unheard of in the era of monarchies. King George III said Washington was the greatest man ever if he could do that. Well, he did it. The torch was passed to another, John Adams. It was unprecedented, but served as just one example of how things were different over here. Instead of being about power, Washington's presidency was about service.

The book begins with the story of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. It is inconceivable today that a sitting Vice President would kill a man in a duel -- though our previous VP did shoot a lawyer. The significance of the Burr-Hamilton event is this: even though Burr won he lost. When he shot Hamilton, his reputation was shot. The real significance is that the old order, the code of the duel, and all those "gentlemanly" things that were vestiges of the old British ways, fell to the wayside and from this instance on were no longer to be a part of the New America.

Another major chapter in the book is about the manner in which the founding fathers avoided resolving the slave issue. In thinking about to tell it I was reminded of a dream I once had.

In the dream there was a giant tortoise in my small house. It was making a mess as turtles do, but it was also so enormous that I could not get it out of the house because it was wider now than the doors. I was in despair, and I prayed to God for help. A ray of light came down from above and shone on the tortoise, and almost immediately the critter began to become translucent, then transparent and a misty nothing... but just before disappearing altogether, she gave birth to four more baby turtles which were just so cute. Then I woke up.

The meaning of the dream for me was this: deal with a bad habit or situation when it is small and you can maybe get rid of it, but allow it to stick around and you have a major problem on your hands. The only way to get rid of that tortoise would have been to tear a wall out.

Well, the slave issue was not cute like those little baby turtles, but it was a much smaller problem in 1790 than in 1850. The founding fathers would have been better off facing it, and dealing with it while there were fewer slaves and a lesser economic impact. Instead, though they knew sooner or later it was going to tear the fabric of the Republic, they shuttled it off for another time the way many groups and individuals deal with their problems. Try to put a good face on it, try not to make waves.

Aside: How about in your life? Is that an elephant in your living room?

For sure reading Founding Brothers has me eager to find the Jefferson book by Ellis. I very much enjoyed David McCullough's John Adams a couple years ago and recommend it to you are well for an intro to this period of our history. They were remarkable times and remarkable men. They were not passive about the world they lived in. The issues they wrestled with and how they resolved them set the tone for what made America the influential nation it later became.