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January 1 - January 2, 2020
Patience and perseverance, submission to duty, self-discipline rather than self-glory
Washington didn’t chop down a cherry tree; he didn’t throw a half dollar across the Delaware River.
In 1657, George Washington’s great-grandfather came to America and settled in Westmoreland County. Virginia, which began with the colony at Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America,
Lawrence Washington suffered from poor health. When he journeyed to Barbados in the hope that the warmer climate would be of benefit, his brother George was with him. However, George contracted smallpox and had to return home. The disease would leave him with some scarring, but his recovery from the deadly pestilence was another example of how the young man managed to triumph over adversity.
George didn’t receive a commission for this assignment, but it introduced him to a military career, something which would have far-reaching effects on his later life and on his country as well.
The French and Indian War was George Washington’s military university, and he graduated with honors.
“The world has no business to know the object of my love, declared in this manner to . . . you . . . when I want to conceal it.”
The interests of North and South almost immediately rose to conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson over the establishment of a national bank. Hamilton was determined to see that the United States was established on a solid financial foundation. Washington supported Hamilton in this aim and agreed that the national debt should be funded and state debts incurred during the war should be assumed by the federal government, but the hostility between Hamilton and Jefferson was bitter and acrimonious. They represented different hopes for the future of America. Jefferson cherished the agricultural
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“First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
George Washington had no children, no sons or daughters born to him. America was his child, and he raised his offspring as carefully and attentively as he would have done had he been a father. It forever remains for America to express its adherence to his lessons.