In Washington's famous Farewell Address on his retirement from public life, he emphasized that the responsibility for America's destiny rests directly upon its citizens, and he urged Americans to forge a nation of high principles: "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct." We today who comfortably wear our
the lead of God, who gives freedom to the children that dare follow through the wilderness of trial and sorrow and hardship. During the darkest days of the Revolution and the cruel winter at Valley Forge, it was Washington who stood firm in the face of adversity and knelt for prayer in the snow to reaffirm his faith in God and seek divine assistance in the justice of his cause. For freedom is a fairer land.
"During the darkest days of the Revolution and the cruel winter at Valley Forge, it was Washington who stood firm in the face of adversity and knelt for prayer in the snow to reaffirm his faith in God and seek divine assistance in the justice of his cause. For freedom is a fairer land." freedoms so valiantly won in years past can only dimly understand the absolute courage and personal risk that men like Washington took. For me, George Washington embodies that brave spirit and bold vision that captured a Moses 3,000 years earlier to lead God's people out of bondage in Egypt to a Promised Land. Washington, like Moses, viewed it from afar. But unlike Moses, he was per-miffed to cross over the Jordan River, and with the boldness and daring of a Joshua, capture that Promised Land. While the ancient land of Canaan was dripping with milk and honey, for Washington freedom was a fairer land. Freedom was the driving force and compelling motive for Washington and his contemporaries who sacrificed lands, fortunes, health, and even life, to win for us, their children, the blessings of freedom. Serving the British in Colonial America, Washington had a promising career. Already a military hero by the age of twenty-two in colonial Virginia, he dreamed of capturing an officer's commission in the British Army. His could have been a comfortable life and honored one as a loyal son of the Crown. But freedom is a fairer land, and Washington chose to throw his lot into a struggle that would brand him a traitor to the ruling government, and give him death in defeat. Freedom is a fairer land than the comfort and approbation offered by tyranny. Washington, the man of valor and virtue, dared to follow
February 1997
Washington was not well educated, as many of his peers were. He completed only the equivalent of an elementary education. He taught himself the rudiments of surveying. Throughout his life, agricultural books were his favorite reading. He was characterized as a deliberate and methodical thinker, one who showed willingness to try against impossible odds and who was persistent in working out solutions despite many difficulties and setbacks. He modestly credited luck or providence for his accomplishments and unselfishly used power for the common good, rather than for personal gain. Washington often chose less efficient and more difficult ways to do things in order to maintain his principles. When granted emergency dictatorial powers during the Revolution, he used them sparingly and continued to support the authority of Congress, despite its inability to provide funds and supplies for his army. Throughout the war, he consistently refused to plunder civilian property for the supplies that his troops badly needed. For the integrity of freedom for all men was more important than power over men, and freedom is a fairer land. Washington served both God and man with the firmness of his convictions. As author Robert Hughes had to admit in his study of Washington: 'The more I study Washington, the greater and better I think of him ... He was a man of such tremendous
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