George Washington's Mother

 

For Mother’s Day, Paul Kengor at American Spectator reviewed a biography of George Washington’s mother, and below is an extract from it:

Mary Ball Washington, America’s First Mother [Harper, 2019]

Craig Shirley’s biography is a character study
of the strong woman who raised our first president

“My great age, and the disease which is fast approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world. I trust in God that I may be somewhat prepared for a better.”

So said a weak Mary Ball Washington, mother of America’s first president, George Washington, to her son in March 1789 as she lay dying from cancer at roughly age 80 (her exact age unknown). Her son had come to bid America’s first mother a final goodbye. He told her about this significant new office that he was assuming for his country — to which all 69 electors had unanimously chosen him on Jan. 7. The only president ever selected unanimously.

“But before I can assume the functions of my office,” he told the frail old woman, “I have come to bid you an affectionate farewell.”

The 57-year-old Washington continued, “So soon as the weight of public business, which must necessarily attend the outset of a new government, can be disposed of, I shall hasten to Virginia, and—” Here, the mother interrupted the son: “—and you will see me no more.” . . .

Mr Kengor closes his review:

And as Shirley shows, the relationship between the two was “laden with difficulty” for both of them. It was a struggle for anyone to have much affection for Mary. Shirley describes Mary Ball Washington as “self-centered and acquisitive,” “tutoring and fashioning” her son but also “driving and admonishing” him. She was not a warm lady and, frankly, was hard to feel warm about. She was not easy to like. She was a cold woman, austere, and herself quite a character — an odd one. And Craig Shirley’s book provides far more than a history of her and her son. He provides a character study that fascinates.

But whatever her personal shortcomings, this woman raised a president, our nation’s first. He was our first president and Mary Ball Washington was our first mother — one who needs to be remembered, and perhaps particularly so for America’s annual celebration of Mothers’ Day. Get this book and read and learn and remember.

Read the entire review here.

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Celebrating Independence Day

 

Gary Bauer at PatriotPost has a message for all of us on this Fourth of July weekend:

Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays – celebrating patriotism, our history and the tremendous courage, faith and sacrifices of our Founding Fathers. As the 246th birthday of America approaches, by all means, enjoy the day! Celebrate America and our freedoms!

But please take a moment to remind your children and grandchildren about America’s exceptionalism and the significance of Independence Day.

Remind them about the sacrifices at Bunker Hill and Concord Bridge that were necessary to create this nation and secure our freedoms. Tell them about the courage of George Washington crossing the Delaware River on Christmas night.

Most importantly, tell them about America’s “mission statement.” It can be found in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Yes, the right to life is a God-given human right. It is the first right without which all others are meaningless!

Those were radical ideas in 1776, and they are still radical concepts in many parts of the world today.

Of course, we have struggled at times to live up to that standard, but there is a reason millions of people from all over the world want to come to America – and it’s not because we are a “systemically racist nation.” We are not!

There is a reason that courageous Chinese dissidents wave the American flag, and not the Canadian flag or the Iranian flag or the Swedish flag.

Sadly, in 21st century America it seems we are struggling with the concept of “truth” and the notion that our rights come from God, not government. As Ronald Reagan famously warned, freedom is not guaranteed. Reagan said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

That warning has never seemed more dire than today as radical Marxists are attacking our history and demanding a “fundamental transformation of America.” Into what exactly?

They are not seeking to create “a more perfect union.” They are seeking to divide us in order to impose their will on us. The future of our liberty depends on whether folks like you and me can muster the courage to overcome this radical impulse to rule or ruin.

. . .

God bless you, my friends, and may God bless the United States of America!

Read the rest here. And Happy Independence Day.

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Happy Father's Day

 

And today, our household will be drinking a toast to a special bunch of Fathers:

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We Should Celebrate Individual POTUS Birthdays

 

“We Should Celebrate Individual POTUS Birthdays.” Jeff Dunetz at The Lid has a point:

Monday, February 15, has been designated as Presidents’ Day, another fake holiday seemingly meant to tear down American heroes and replace them with a meaningless day off work (for some). But I urge you, America, to reject this sham holiday. 

In New York, where I grew up, we celebrated the birthdays of two of our greatest presidents in February, Abraham Lincoln on the 12th and George Washington on the 22nd. Lincoln’s birthday was never a federal holiday (southern states still weren’t happy about losing the Civil War). In 1968 congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved Washington’s big day to the third Monday in February and changed it to Presidents’ Day. A celebration of all presidents.

It’s right to celebrate the presidents individually, sure, but not all 46 of them on the same day. I mean, it isn’t celebrating any of them if you are celebrating all of them. 

Read the full piece here.  

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Joe Biden’s ONE truth

Photo credit: WSJ.com

Daniel Greenfield watched Joe Biden’s speech accepting the Democratic party’s nomination for President.  Most of Mr. Greenfield’s comments are critical of the DNC imaginary convention as well as Creepy Joe’s remarks and political history.  His article at Front Page Magazine concludes:

Joe Biden did speak one truth in his acceptance speech.

“This election will determine what America is gonna look like for a long, long time,” he said.

Cities under Democrat control are burning now. Stores are closed and businesses are bankrupt. Imagine what it will look like if they have the absolute power to determine the fate of America.

The Democrats are nasty and proud of it. They are proud of what they have done in Portland. They are proud to have torn down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They are proud to have defaced churches and synagogues. And they can’t wait to show us how nasty they can really be if they once again have absolute power over the entire United States

Mr. Greenfield’s article is here.

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Destroying our heroes and culture: coming to Cleveland

photo credit from Portland: pamplinmedia

Daniel Greenfield is an associate of David Horowitz at the Freedom Center, and he blogs at Sultan Knish.  Several days ago, he posted a sobering essay, “Here Are the Heroes Whose Statues Black Lives Matter Has Attacked,” about the destruction and defacement of monuments.  Highly recommended, pretty upsetting, but a must-read. Here are a few extracts:

The statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, stands at the corner of Fairfax and Beverly in Los Angeles. When the racist mobs swept through the area, looting Jewish stores and defacing synagogues with "BLM" and "Free Palestine" graffiti, the statue of a man who risked his life to resist fascism and bigotry was one of their targets.

The racists and leftists vandalizing statues across the world claim that they’re fighting hate, but their targets have often been the men and women who courageously stood up to racism and hatred.

. . .

In Washington D.C., the Lincoln Memorial and the National WW2 Memorial were both defaced. This is not the work of anti-racists, but of racists. It’s not the work of anti-fascists, but of fascists.

While the media has upheld the racist narrative justifying the Taliban campaign against America by focusing on confederate memorials, the vandalism has been extensive, targeting both sides in the Civil War, and spilling over to vandalize statues that have absolutely no relevance to contemporary politics.

. . .

As every statue falls, is defiled, and disgraced, a part of America dies. When Democrats and even Republicans collude in the desecration and stand aside for the mob, a part of America dies.

The soul of a nation lies with its heroes. The radicals and racists tearing down our statues are out to destroy that soul. They want our heroes to be Karl Marx and Angela Davis, they want terrorists, totalitarians and criminals celebrated, and heroes, explorers, founders, officers and soldiers condemned.

They aren’t just coming for the “controversial” statues as the media likes to tell us.

They are coming for all the statues, for our entire history, for every great man and woman who sacrificed, strove, and struggled to move the course of human history forward by even one inch.

They are coming for America. And they intend to destroy it, one statue and one city after another.

When the history of this period is written, we will learn whether we had any heroes in our time.

Mr. Greenfield full article is here.

The Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument honors Civil War soldiers and sailors from Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.  It is located at Public Square. And it was defaced during the recent riots.  

How much longer before it is destroyed? 

To make matters even worse, Cuyahoga County is considering “declaring racism a public health crisis.” This blog already reported that Cleveland Council unanimously approved a ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural outside City Hall   All this support for an organization that is utterly destructive to our way of life.

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Land of Hope: book review

Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story 

by Wilfred M. McClay

Philip Tervian’s review at Commentary concludes:

. . . [McClay] begins at the beginning—the archaeological evidence of our aboriginal inhabitants—and like most American histories, McClay’s tends to pass a little quickly over the first century-and-a-half of European settlement. But this is a minor complaint. His description of America on the eve of revolution is perceptive and succinct, and capacious as well. The reader never doubts the author’s perspective on the colonists’ revolt, or British government in America, but he tells the story with illuminating clarity and, above all, fair-mindedness. The answer to ignorance is not indoctrination but knowledge.

This virtue in the writing of history is not necessarily self-evident. The American Revolution, like any such episode, was a complicated matter, reaching back in history and forward in effect; and both sides—one is tempted to say all sides—were benighted and heroic, generous and arbitrary, products of their various places and time. George Washington was not without his flaws, and the Loyalists were not without their reasons. McClay sets all this out in crisp detail, balancing his judgment in conjunction with the evidence, flattering his readers to draw their own conclusions.

Which is what distinguishes this from other history texts. The present sits not in judgment but inquiry. And to the extent that we can understand people and events in circumstances far removed from our own experience, the past is revealed in Land of Hope to the present, without prejudice. The dramas and their actors—the drafting of the Constitution, Andrew Jackson, westward expansion, John C. Calhoun, the Mexican War, Samuel Gompers, women’s suffrage, Woodrow Wilson, the Great Crash, Ronald Reagan—are given the chance to speak for themselves in explaining themselves to modern sensibilities.

This is especially useful in contending with subjects—slavery and its relative significance in national life, the Civil War and its aftermath, the condition of African Americans in their own country—that routinely disrupt the historical profession, and are just as routinely distorted by ideology. This is no small matter, and no small achievement. McClay’s skill in furnishing context to emotion, in introducing modern presumption to past evidence, puts the history of the American republic in a new light by revealing its inward and outward complexity. This makes Land of Hope important, compelling, essential reading.

“Nothing about America better defines its distinctive character than the ubiquity of hope,” he writes, “a sense that the way things are initially given to us cannot be the final word about them, that we can never settle for that.” I hope he’s right.

Land of Hope sounds like a must-read. Full review is here. Amazon listing is here.

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President's Day

Image credit: thestoryoflibertyblog.com

It’s not Feb. 22, but it is President’s Day. And here’s some thoughts about George Washington from Newt Gingrich:

What we now call Presidents’ Day was originally the national recognition of the birth of President George Washington. As a country, we have celebrated Washington’s birth since 1800 (the year after Washington died) because he played such a critical role in our country’s founding – and very survival.

. . .

On one hand, Washington was essential to eventually defeating the British – largely through pure determination, courage, and faith rather than specific military expertise.

. . .

Remember, Washington had spent eight years of his life fighting the strongest military in the world. He had been away from his farm, his wife, and the life that he loved. Then, he sees the country he sought to help create was in many ways tearing itself apart. Despite this, he did not want or ask for the presidency.

When his generals, who were frustrated by politics and lack of pay, wanted to over throw Congress to bring order to the new country, he put a stop to the potential rebellion. When the Continental Congress convened, he turned in his sword, resigned, and went back to Mount Vernon. It was only through strong urging from Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and other Founding Fathers that he agreed to accept his election as our first president – and it took even more convincing from them for him to sit a second term. His fellow founders were so adamant about Washington leading the country in those early days because they knew he was the only one who could do it.

Newt’s full message is posted here.

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Happy President’s Day

image credit: smvdiscoverymuseum.org

Thoughts from Melissa Emery at CNS News:

I recently received an email from an old friend who lives in a very blue state exclaiming that Trump was “not his president.” 

. . .

I tried not to respond in anger, but merely with regret to learn that Trump was not “his” president, since wages were up, taxes were down, the stock market was up, and over 2 million new jobs had been created. Black and Latino unemployment were at new all-time lows. Were these not things that liberals cared about anymore? But, perhaps, I suggested a bit snarkily, these bits of news had not appeared in the New York Times. I doubt that I’ll ever hear from him again.

As the days went by, his comment that Trump was not his president kept rolling around in my head. I wanted to ask him, who IS your president? Are you operating now without a president? Is your state no longer part of the Union? And how does not having the United States’ president as your president work for you? Do you still get all your Social Security payments and Medicare benefits? Can you still sit in your lovely cabin by a lake and pontificate about how much smarter you are than people who voted for Mr. Trump?

. . .

I didn’t like Obama. I wanted him and his crew out of there as soon as possible. But it never occurred to me to say he was not my president. He was president of the United States, for better or for worse. We cannot continue to be united if we decide which laws to obey and which presidents to acknowledge. If you don’t like Trump, work to elect someone you do like next time.  . . .

Mark Steyn posted a musical medley in honor of President’s Day starting with this introduction:

Happy Presidents Day to all our American readers - and yes, I know it's grotesque to have to put Jimmy Carter and Franklin Pierce up there with Washington and Lincoln, but don't blame me . . . 

From a history.com link on President’s Day:

Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. Traditionally celebrated on February 22—Washington’s actual day of birth—the holiday became popularly known as Presidents’ Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents’ Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present.

Cleveland Tea Party salutes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald J. Trump.

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