RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/washingtons-239-year-old-christmas-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-11671830842?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

There’s been so much talk lately about threats to our sturdy republic that it’s worth reflecting on a time when American democracy really was fragile and the actions of one man were essential in allowing it to thrive. It was on this day in 1783 that George Washington performed perhaps the greatest of all his services to our country.

Richard Snow wrote in the Journal in 2014:

One day toward the end of the Revolution, the expatriate American painter Benjamin West fell into a conversation about the war with George III (although one would think His Majesty would hardly have welcomed the topic). West said he believed that when the fighting was done, George Washington would retire. The king was incredulous: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
When Washington did just that in 1783, another American artist, John Trumbull, wrote from London to say that the resignation “excites the astonishment and admiration of this part of the world. ’Tis a Conduct so novel, so inconceivable to People, who, far from giving up powers they possess, are willing to convulse the Empire to acquire more.”

Thomas Fleming wrote in the Journal in 2007:

The story begins with Gen. Washington’s arrival in Annapolis, Md… The country was finally at peace — just a few weeks earlier the last British army on American soil had sailed out of New York harbor. But the previous eight months had been a time of terrible turmoil and anguish for Gen. Washington, outwardly always so composed. His army had been discharged and sent home, unpaid, by a bankrupt Congress — without a victory parade or even a statement of thanks for their years of sacrifices and sufferings.
Instead, not a few congressmen and their allies in the press had waged a vitriolic smear campaign against the soldiers — especially the officers, because they supposedly demanded too much money for back pay and pensions…
Congressman Alexander Hamilton, once Washington’s most gifted aide, had told him in a morose letter that there was a “principle of hostility to an army” loose in the country and too many congressmen shared it. Bitterly, Hamilton added that he had “an indifferent opinion of the honesty” of the United States of America.
Soon Hamilton was spreading an even lower opinion of Congress. Its members had fled Philadelphia when a few hundred unpaid soldiers in the city’s garrison surrounded the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), demanding back pay. Congressman Hamilton called the affair “weak and disgusting to the last degree” and soon resigned his seat.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/american-christmas-1776-victory-or-death/

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

“One had to be a fool or a fanatic in early January 1776 to advocate American independence.” That is the considered judgment of one of the leading historians of the American Revolution. Meeting in Philadelphia, delegates from the thirteen colonies to the second Continental Congress had been discussing independence for months leading up to January 1776. Some were strong advocates. All delegates were pledged not to reveal the secrets of their conversations outside the doors of Congress. One reason for this was that discussion of independence was dangerous. Independence meant rebellion. Rebellion meant treason. Treason was a capital offense.

Nonetheless, one of those delegates, a 29-year-old physician and spirited patriot from Philadelphia named Benjamin Rush, sought out an acquaintance who was not a member of Congress to discuss advocating independence to the public. This acquaintance, a few years older, had been an unknown shopkeeper in England until a couple of years before; now he worked as an editor and writer for Pennsylvania Magazine; soon he would become the famous Thomas Paine. Paine liked Rush’s idea, maybe even more than Rush did. He set to work writing, and the two began to meet at night in Rush’s home reading passages aloud and editing them. When the pamphlet was finished, Rush suggested a title and arranged for a printer. On January 10, 1776, Common Sense was published, arguing fiercely and uncompromisingly for American independence. It became more widely read than any merely human writing yet published in America and contributed greatly to making the idea of independence seem not foolish or fanatical, but inevitable. On July 4, 1776 America went from discussing and advocating independence to declaring it. But declaring independence was a long, long way from achieving it.

By summer 1776, the most powerful navy in the world was conveying the greatest British expeditionary force in history across the ocean to suppress the American rebellion—over 30,000 professional soldiers, including 17,000 Hessians, experienced, fully equipped, and backed by the wealth of empire. George Washington’s rag-tag Continental Army seemed no match for this great force. The most informed leaders in England thought and said that they would make short work of the rebels. European powers largely agreed. Tories and even many revolutionaries in America thought the same thing. Through the summer and fall of 1776, Washington and his army suffered one defeat after another, retreating from New York, across New Jersey, and finally crossing the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, as British and Hessian forces pursued. His men were in tatters, many had no shoes and wrapped their feet in rags. Many were sick. Many more were dispirited. Winter was coming on. Enlistments would expire at the end of the year. On December 20, Washington wrote Congress: “10 days more will put an end to the existence of this army.”