George Washington Quotes
Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
Washington, George. "General Orders, 2 July 1776." The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, University of Virginia Press, 1993, pp. 179-182.
Ironically, events later supported the truth of his statement. He was wrong about the parties however. It was the South who denied liberty to a very large part of their population, and it was the “unconquerable will” of the enslaved Negroes that eventually prevailed. It is hard for most of us in modern times to understand why Davis and other Southerners saw themselves as having freedom curtailed over an economic factor—chattel slavery—and not see that the institution of slavery was a total denial of freedom to a huge part of their population. See England’s Dr. Johnson XXXXX for a classic contemporary statement of this contradiction.
George Washington was the first President of the United States (1789-97), the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He presided over the convention that drafted the current United States Constitution and during his lifetime was called the "father of his country".
