With the marking this week of the federal holiday officially called Washington’s Birthday, or Presidents Day as it’s known among some, especially retailers, it is a good time for a history lesson this week.
George Washington served as our first president from 1789 to 1797 but he left behind a legacy that each year is remembered when a member of the U.S. Senate reads the farewell address of President Washington.
The speech is a reminder of the first president’s warnings about regionalism and partisanship that still ring true today.
And in that famous speech, you also hear a leader who said something you don’t hear a lot from today’s political leaders: an uncommon humility.
As George Washington put it in describing his years as president, “While I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence.”
The words of George Washington may be 228 years old but are still as important now as they were then.
(Photo Getty Images)
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