Washington sets an example

Rich Lowry:

'DECADES later the Declaration of Independence was canonized as American scripture," historian Walter McDougall writes of the nation's founding document, "but in 1776 it was generally read once - in army camps, taverns, and village greens - cheered, and forgotten."

Its fate might have been to be forgotten forevermore, if it weren't for George Washington and his Continental Army. When our great adventure in liberty still seemed an impossible risk, they were the embodiment and vindicators of the Declaration. Our nation was born on the shoulders of an army, whose exertions and principled patriotism gave the famous parchment its life.

Besides the Continental Congress - which hardly covered itself in glory - the Army was our first national institution. It joined together well-mannered Virginians, quarrelsome Yankees and backcountry riflemen in an incubator of the nation.

Independence from Britain was hardly a unanimous proposition. John Adams thought a third of the country supported it, a third opposed and a third was neutral. It was on the Army that independence would stand or fall, and Gen. Washington's strategic imperative was always to preserve the Army to preserve the nation.

He knew if he kept the Army alive, eventually the British would tire. And keep it alive he did, though sometimes by the barest of margins. After the war, Washington marveled that "such a force as Great Britain has employed for eight years in this country could be baffled in their plan of subjugating it, by numbers infinitely less, composed of men oftentimes half starved, always in rags, without pay."

...

Of course, when the war ended, he resigned his command and returned to Mount Vernon. Upon hearing the news, an astonished King George III said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." Before he did, Washington had a last instance of drama with his Army. Camped in Newburgh, NY, at the end of the war in 1783, the Army grew restive because Congress was tardy in paying it. Insurrection was in the air.

In a tense meeting with his officers, Washington told them that in rejecting rebellion, "You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings; And you will, by the dignity of your Conduct, afford occasion of Posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to Mankind, 'had this day been wanting, the World had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.' "

The day wasn't wanting, nor were the men in arms who vindicated the Declaration.

Before it could be written and executed the pacifist Quakers had to be overcome. They were much like the modern Democrat party with an insane belief in the power of negotiation. In the end the Quaker leader was persuaded to be absent on the day the Continental Congress voted on the Declaration of Independence so the recorded vote would be unanimous.

Washington was not a particularly brilliant general, but he was persistent and sometimes lucky. At Boston a bookseller named Knox had the presence to go wit a group of men to Fort Ticondroga and capture some aboandoned British canons, pull them across a froze lake and drag them back to Boston where they were placed on the "heights" overlooking boston harbor forcing teh British to pull out.

After Washington and his troops were routed by the British at New York and they barely escaped he used his small remaining force to attack British and Hessian forces in New Jersey in the middle of the winter which was quite unsporting since they had retired to "winter quarters." With the help of the French, he finally prevailed at Yorktown in Virgina. It was a very long war, bt it was worth for the world and for America.