Топик: Джордж Вашингтон
"To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."—Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, 1799.
WASHINGTON CRITICIZED: "If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the
American nation has been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation was
deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington. Let his conduct, then, be an example to future ages; let it serve to be a warning that no man may be an idol."17—Philadelphia Atirora, 1796.
"An Anglican monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government. ... It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England."—Thomas Jefferson, in the wake of Washington's support of Jay's Treaty, 1796.
"You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging and swallowing the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from one end to the other, to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many addresses in your chest as James the II. ... The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in this world, is a sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy, that it easily slides into it. ... And as to you, sir, treacherous to private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any?"—Thomas Paine, in an open letter to Washington, 1796.
WASHINGTON QUOTES: "It is easy to make acquaintances but very difficult to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found after we have once committed ourselves to them. ... Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth."
"As the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first to be laid aside when those liberties are firmly established."—1776
"Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: if defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence."—1786
"[Political parties] 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 enterprizing 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. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer Popular ends, 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; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."—1796 (Farewell Address).'
BOOKS ABOUT WASHINGTON.
1. Childrens Britanica “Presidents of the USA”
2. “The complete book of U.S. Presidents”
3. American’s First President. “Focus on the U.S.A.”
4. George Washington: Man and Monument”. (Cunliffe, Marcus)
5. James T. Flexner. “George Washington: A Biography”.