Today, Feb. 20, 2023, is Presidents’ Day. On this holiday, it seems appropriate to look to the advice of the men it celebrates, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and see how that advice is still relevant for our own time. It is amazing how prophetic Washington and Lincoln were, and how, in some ways, though we have changed so much since their eras, America still suffers from some of the same weaknesses and problems as it always did.
Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address is one of the most iconic speeches in the English language, but in the modern era of wokeness and historical ignorance, there are too many Americans who have forgotten Lincoln’s call at the Gettysburg Union cemetery for living Americans to take up the cause of freedom and fight for what their fellows died for:
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
America is always in danger of being ruined by her internal enemies. Now as then, the Democrats are determined to remake America according to their own anti-liberty ideology. As Lincoln urged us, we cannot let that happen.
As for George Washington, his Farewell Address upon preparing to resign from the Presidency in 1796 is a source of wisdom from the Father of our Country. Washington gives a great deal of very excellent advice, including warnings against factions, excessive party spirit, allowing different branches of government to exceed their designated powers, accumulating national debt, allowing regional distinctions to supersede loyalty to America as a whole, foreign influence, “pretended patriotism,” and irrational hatred or irrational loyalty toward specific nations.
We can see how we are currently suffering in one way or another from every single one of these problems against which Washington warned. But in light of record low numbers of actively religious Americans, particularly those practicing a Judeo-Christian religion, I wanted to share Washington’s reminders that religion and morality are absolutely vital to keep America just and free:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
With drag queen story hours, child sex change surgeries, CRT and LGBTQ ideology in schools, Satanism going mainstream, a collapsing population, the nuclear family under attack, movements for abortion on demand and as common as possible, rising crime, and the many other cultural and moral evils afflicting America, I think we can agree with Washington that freedom and justice cannot survive without religion and morality.
It would be well if Americans heeded Washington’s and Lincoln’s advice, still so relevant today.
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