By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty, (www.bannerofliberty.com)
February 22, 2001
A Gallup poll last week revealed that only 5% of the American people thought George Washington was the "Greatest American President." To the obvious surprise of most media pundits, the president with the most votes for "greatest" was Ronald Reagan, followed by John F. Kennedy with Abraham Lincoln coming in third.
I've received several e-mail from people who cannot figure out why John F. Kennedy was considered a great president:
"Mary, even though I disagree with you almost all the time I still love your web site. I was curious though why you think John Kennedy is still so popular? He had no discernable moral compass and was just plain screwing everyone he could. His marriage vows meant nothing, so I assume his 'faith' was of equal importance to him.I was also surprised how low Thomas Jefferson was rated.
The only answer I can come up with is that the truth about someone means little, only the perception, and if that perception makes you feel good then the truth means little.
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, got only a 1% vote. This probably is
because of the determined effort of recent years to trash Jefferson with totally unfounded stories about his sex life.
Sadly, few of the younger generation in America today really know what a great leader our first president, George Washington, was. What made George Washington a great leader was his unwavering devotion to duty, once called by his countrymen to lead the army. When the Continental Congress asked Washington to lead the Continental Congress there WAS no army. There were state militiamen fighting scattered battles on their own.
Washington, who had been trained in war during the French and Indian wars, not only LED the army, he never took any money for his services, used his own money to maintain his headquarters and at time to feed his soldiers.
In 1783, with the war all but won, many of the soldiers and officers were furious at the Congress. As the men were mustered out, they were going home with no money and to a shattered economy. Congress did not have the power to force the states to send money to maintain the army or to raise funds through taxation to pay the men who had sacrificed everything to support the principles of freedom.
Before returning to their homes a group of officers and men, some of them very close to Washington, concluded that their only hope was to march on Congress and demand, at bayonet point, that their just payment. Up to that point, every revolution like the one just ended had ended in tyranny. Those with the power and the weapons to demand their way, used that power and weapons to get their way.
George Washington had spent nearly eight hard years trying to get the Congress to supply his men with food, weapons and bare necessities. In the Congress, John Adams, who had urged the Congress to choose Washington as its Commander, was often the only member who seemed really concerned about the deplorable conditions the troops were in, or the military necessities of fighting a war. Washington asked for a Navy and the Congress talked and talked and talked - but didn't approve it.
Washington had ever reason to want to bring order to the nation through military force. Many of his officers and aides, including Alexander Hamiliton who was a member of Congress from New York by 1782, tried to convince Washington to join in the revolt, and, with his army behind him, take control, declare himself America's king and FORCE the politicians to pay the destitute soldiers.
In mid-February 1783, Hamilton reported to Washington, who was at his headquarters on the Hudson River at Newburgh, New York, that "there were no further possibilities of supplying the army" and that by June the troops would have to "take everything they needed at bayonet point."
Instead, General Washington called a meeting with his officers for Saturday, March 15, 1783.1 He talked for some time to them, pointing out that the country they were about to "tyrannize" was their own: "our wives, our children, our farms and other property." The angry soldiers and officers would not be persuaded.
Finally, George Washington pulled from his pocket a reassuring letter from one of the members of Congress. But, he hesitated. Unbeknownst to his officers and men, he was no longer able to read without his glasses. To read the Congressman's letter, he would have to put on his spectacles. As he placed his glasses on his nose he said to his officers: "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."
As Thomas Jefferson later said of that moment: "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." The simple act and heartfelt comment broke the angry mood. Washington's officers and soldiers wept and after a time they disbanded and headed for their homes - without pay. The danger of an armed take-over of the fledging nation passed, although a few Pennsylvania veterans did try to march on the Congress a little later. They did not have the numbers, or the leadership, needed to succeed, however, necessary for success.
It was not the force of arms, nor the payment of money that made the difference that day. It was character, and only character mattered that day in 1783. George Washington, according to Thomas Jefferson, was a man whode "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."
Had it not been for that man of character, who was born two hundred and sixty-nine years ago today, this nation would have been stillborn. In a day in which we have watched a president leave office in a flurry of scandal, perhaps it is time to remember once again that character really does matter. Sometimes it is the ONLY thing that matters.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
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