Why George Washington still matters in America's history, present and future | Opinion

Editor’s note: The attorney general’s office sent this guest opinion column to both The Washington Examiner and The Tennessean for publication.

Presidents Day once was, and should be, a celebration of the titans of our history, men whose choices defined our nation and whose memory teaches us anew what it means to be an American.

Yet in our critical age we seem more interested in eroding the foundations of our monuments than in marveling at their heights.

Thus every year we are reminded that George Washington participated in and profited from chattel slavery. Slavery was unquestionably a stain on our nation’s founding that took oceans of blood and centuries of toil to overcome.

Indeed, we honor Abraham Lincoln alongside Washington — because the former led the painful excision of slavery from our country. We also recognize that despite Washington’s failures, his example has taught us “wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men . . . in future generations as long as our history shall be read,” as John Adams put it.

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Washington was great for ceding power

Rather than focus exclusively on Washington’s complicity with a then-widespread evil, the more fruitful inquiry is to ask what set Washington so far apart from his peers that he is singularly remembered as the father of our country.

Following his victory in the Revolutionary War, Washington could have been king, or dictator, or could have unilaterally used his military power to establish whatever system of government he wanted.

Instead, he humbly resigned his commission and affirmed the incipient democracy. King George III, Washington’s adversary in the Revolution, upon learning of his decision to resign instead of rule,  reportedly declared that this made Washington “the greatest man in the world.”

At the constitutional convention, Washington again could have accepted a crown, or could have upon election to the presidency subverted the separation of powers and established himself as a proto-Napoleon. Again and again, he instead embraced the virtues of our Constitution’s limited national government and constrained executive branch.

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First president should inspire lesser leaders

Our collective appreciation of the virtue of separation of powers and the dynamic tension between the branches of government has diminished catastrophically since Washington’s era. The virtuous aversion to concentration of power has been replaced with the bureaucratic vigor of “a pen and a phone.” The celebration of representative government has turned to condemnation of citizens who vote the wrong way.

Washington held fast to principles of limited government at great personal expense. He gave up an empire to protect the personal liberties that exist only when the structure of government prevents concentration of power. Too many of his successors have forgotten his example.

When the reaction to divided government is that the president must regulate more, rather than that our national leaders must find compromises that will secure majorities in each house of Congress, we must rally to the rule of law.

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When lesser men than Washington declare that we must submit to government by regulation, whether the purported reason is efficiency or better outcomes or raw tribal politics, we must reassert the primacy of the constitutional order.

Likewise, when corporate titans seek to consolidate the power of their industry to secure social ends they cannot achieve through democratic means, we must remind them that any concentration of power is an intolerable threat to freedom.

We remember Washington as an avatar of the American ideals of individual liberty and accountable government. It is no wonder that the degradation of his memory runs parallel with the degradation of our constitutional order. For the sake of our country, we need to remember him better.

Jonathan Skrmetti is the attorney general of Tennessee.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: George Washington matters in America's history, present and future