On February 15th we as a country celebrate the birthday of our first President. From now until then, I want to focus on the thoughts of Washington.
Our first president believed that the happiness of the people of this country was completely dependent on their virtue. He called this out in his first inaugural address on April 30, 1789:
I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained…
And when Washington left office, in his farewell address, he reaffirmed that belief:
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue?
It is obvious, that as he held the same belief when he left office that he had when he entered – that our actions as a people determine our happiness. Washington also reaffirms the last self-evident truth espoused in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence called out six self-evident truths - there is a Creator God, that He ordained natural law, and that these natural laws include the belief that all are created equal and have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Washington asks how we, if we are not cognizant and respectful of those rules, we then expect that Heaven will smile on us.
Washington believed that virtue was an action. You may think virtue is no action, but if you are virtuous it is only displayed by your actions. You cannot have virtue and not act virtuously. In Washington’s mind, the ends did not justify the means; the means must be as virtuous as the ends. This also sheds light on how the Founders believed we should pursue happiness – virtuously.
Living virtuously wasn’t something that Washington believed applied only to the citizens, but also to government. In his farewell address, he also stated:
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.
Later in the week, we’ll look at how Washington thought a government could be virtuous.