As we get ready to honor our own fathers, especially after a week like the last one, Father’s Day 2023 seems like a good time to remember “The Father of Our Country,” George Washington.
This past Tuesday, former president Donald Trump was arraigned in federal court on 37 criminal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents. So far, these are the most serious criminal charges the ex-president is facing.
Trump also is awaiting trial in New York, where the Manhattan district attorney has charged him with falsifying business records in order to cover up a hush money payment to a pornography actress in the final days of the 2016 presidential race.
In Washington, D.C., a grand jury is taking testimony regarding Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, where Trump supporters violently tried to prevent the certification of the legitimately elected president, Joe Biden.
In Georgia, a district attorney is investigating Trump’s directive to the secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse Trump’s defeat by Biden there. Also, there is an ongoing investigation of a scheme involving fake electors that could have stolen the Georgia election for Trump.
None of that is the way Washington imagined the presidency should go. When he took the oath in 1789, he knew he would be defining the job, saying, “I walk on untrodden ground.” And he decided to propose and embody a balance that provided enough power to be an effective chief executive without becoming a dictator or monarch.
He was that way as commanding general. During the Newburgh Conspiracy, at the end of the Revolutionary War, unhappy soldiers planned to storm Congress to demand back pay. Washington told them they would only “sully the glory” they had earned on the battlefield by “opening the floodgates of discontent.” Then, he negotiated with Congress and got their pay.
When a disgruntled military officer suggested near the end of the war that Washington should become king, Washington said he “must view with abhorrence, and reprehend with severity” such a suggestion.
And when Britain finally was defeated and he could have taken all the power that he wanted, he simply resigned his military commission instead. Artist John Trumbull, whose painting of Washington’s resignation as general hangs in the Capitol rotunda, called Washington’s actions “one of the highest moral lessons ever given the world.”
“The Caesars, the Cromwells, the Napoleons yielded to the charm of earthly ambition and betrayed their country,” Trumbull said. But not Washington.
When Washington was called from retirement to become our first president, he could have been called Your Highness, Your Most Benign Highness or Your Elective Majesty. Those were some of the suggestions. Washington settled on Mr. President.
And after two terms as president, Washington voluntarily stepped down and returned to Mt. Vernon and life as a private citizen.
Historian David McCullough said Washington was like Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer-soldier who put civic duty above personal gain. “If there was a more courageous human being who ever lived, I don’t know who it was,” McCullough said of Washington.
George and Martha Washington had no biological children, but George was a loving and devoted father to the two children and ensuing grandchildren that the once-widowed Martha brought into their marriage.
And, of course, he has all of us. Happy Father’s Day, George.
