President Biden Be Like George Washington

President George WashingtonPresident Joe BidenThe following was taken from Mountvernon.org Read more about President George Washington’s decision not to run for a third term. President Washington was 64 years old at the end of his second term.

Words from America’s first president:

“…every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.” President George Washington

On September 16, 1796, about ten weeks before the presidential electors were to cast their votes in the 1796 election, Tobias Lear made a surprise visit to David Claypoole, a newspaper publisher in Philadelphia. Lear informed Claypoole that Washington wanted to see him, and the two men traveled straight to the executive mansion.

It was there, alone with Washington, that Claypoole learned that Washington planned to leave the presidency—and he wanted to publish his address in Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser in three days’ time.

Washington never labeled it a “farewell address.” It was, instead, published under the heading “To the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES.” As Washington biographer Ron Chernow describes it, “While Washington could have informed Congress of his resignation, he went instead to the source of all sovereignty, the people, just as the Constitutional Convention had bypassed state legislatures and asked the people to approve the document directly through ratifying conventions.”

A warning from President Washington: Beware of Political Parties

“…they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government…”

A reminder from President Washington : Remain United

“The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”

Cato Instiute: “Give the last word to Washington’s great adversary, King George III. The king asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence. West replied, “They say he will return to his farm.” “If he does that,” the incredulous monarch said, “he will be the greatest man in the world.” Cato Institute

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