A Flag, A Man, A Country

George Washington in deeds, words and example

Most of the time, I fly the Commodore Perry Flag outside my home. This year, in preparation for America’s 250th birthday, I put out General George Washington’s personal standard during the Revolutionary War.

This flag would be flown wherever Washington stood on the battlefield. On its blue field were arrayed 13 stars - one for each colony – in a three-two-three-two-three pattern. Each star contained six points, a feature long derived from English heraldry, flag makers having an easier time sewing on six-pointed stars, made of two triangles, than the more complicated five-pointed stars.

When I think of America and its founding, I always remember George Washington. I recall his deeds on the blood-soaked hills of the Revolutionary War, his tactical maneuvering a secondary consideration to his masterful leadership in simply keeping his army in existence. I reflect on his words, in war and peace, in governing and retirement:

“But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.”

To the Continental Congress, accepting command of the Continental Army, June 16, 1775

“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
Circular Letter to the States, June 8, 1783

“Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair.”

Spoken at the Constitutional Convention in 1787

“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain — what I consider the most enviable of all titles — the character of an honest man.”

Letter to Alexander Hamilton, 1788

“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, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 18, 1790

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
Farewell Address, September 18, 1796

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”
Farewell Address, September 18, 1796

“I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend.”
Farewell Address, September 18, 1796

As moved as I am as I record his words, I feel immensely more stirred by the force of Washington’s example. “My life is my message,” Mahatma Gandhi said. Washington embodied that dictum.

He used his power responsibly. Then he gave it up. He spoke and wrote without gossip or ill-will. His words counted.

At the end of his life, he was the only Founding Father of note to free his slaves.

He did not live a perfect life or make ideal decisions in every case. No person does. But he demanded more of himself than almost any leader before or after.

Would that I, and we, strive for the same.

On this 250th anniversary of the founding of this nation, I remember this man, his deeds, words and example.

And I share Washington’s hope for the American people, from his Circular Letter to the States in 1783:

“I now make it my earnest prayer that God would... most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion.”

Let us thank the Lord of Heaven for these 50 states, this one United States of America, and these 250 years. Long live the cause of freedom!