Presidents Day... Isn't
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Gilbert Stuart - 1797 |
It's George Washington's Birthday
and has been since 1879. A draft of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act that renamed the holiday Presidents Day never made it out of committee and the Act as passed kept the federal holiday as Washington's Birthday which it remains as to this day on the Federal Calendar. Lincoln's Birthday has never been a federal holiday.
Washington's Farewell Address
Since 1862 there has been a tradition in the US Senate of reading Washington's Farewell Address on or near his birthday. I suggest that perhaps this year instead of just reading it, they listen, here are some highlights:
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this
fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in
the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often
a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and,
according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the
public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous
projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome
plans digested by common counsels and modified
by mutual interests.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public
credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as
possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but
remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger
frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding
likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of
expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the
debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously
throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and
affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and
lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual
current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations.
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