George Washington: Role Model for Giving Up Power

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is going on here if we could have pulled
the soldiers in the Army and Potomac at
Gettysburg right after Gettysburg and
said what did you accomplish here they
would have talked all about Union that
is what they would have talked about
first to last first to last it was a war
about Union it was a war about Union
that also killed slavery and most white
Americans eventually supported
emancipation but they but not for the
reasons we’d want them to they don’t
care about black people
wish they did they didn’t they saw
emancipation as a tool to defeat the
rebels to punish what they considered
oligarchy slaveholders they didn’t think
slaveholders believed in democracy they
saw them as oligarchs they call them
oligarchs all the time the South is not
what the founders had in mind and they
could work it out in their mind that
even though a lot of the founders are
prominent slaveholders the documents and
the traditions that they bequeath
unionists in the loyal States would have
said the oligarchic slaveholding south
is totally out of step with this they
are inimical to the intent of the
founders and if they succeed in tearing
the nation apart oligarchs everywhere
can point to the United States and say
see we told you people are not capable
of self-government look at them they
can’t even have a presidential election
can’t even do that they rip their nation
apart that’s what’s at stake that’s what
and if the Union gives you those things
what is your obligation as a male a
white male of military age your
obligation is you pick up a musket and
you go do your small R Republican duty
and who is your model there who is the
model for disinterested Republican
service Stuart’s Washington George
Washington didn’t even take a salary
during the American Revolution and
George Washington did something twice
that absolutely blew people’s minds at
the time he didn’t do it once he did it
twice at the end of the Revolutionary
War
he gave up power he was the
Generalissimo they couldn’t believe it
in Europe he what did he show he’s not
Julius Caesar he’s not Oliver Cromwell
he is a man with small our Republican
virtue he went back to Mount Vernon then
he’s made president he would have been
president for life if he wanted to be
FDR had to think about it Washington
didn’t they would have just elected he
until they hauled him out of the
Executive Mansion but he did it again
he gave up power a second time and it
just absolutely mystified most people in
Europe how that could happen
didn’t mystify Americans they said this
is that’s the point
he’s the point he’s the model so in our
own little way each of us were all
members of the third Vermont in our
little way we are emulating George
Washington