George Washington Quotes
Never unsheathe the sword except in self defense.
George Washington, 1732-1799, 1st President of the United States (VA), Letter to Lafayette, Quoted in Smithsonian, September 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was criticizing the George W. Bush administration for attacking Iraq, a country which had not attacked the United States or Americans abroad while America did not attack those terrorists and countries which had killed Americans. For example, Hezbollah which blew up the Marine Barracks in Lebanon and the naval ship Cole.
Malcolm was not an enthusiast of non violent, passive resistance a la Martin Luther King. He did not generally advocate general violence per se, but did preach the doctrine of the 21st century National Rifle Association: That everyone should be armed and use the weapons to thwart criminal attacks on them and their families. However at the time, many police departments commonly broke the law and attacked Blacks in many ways. If Malcolm had more followers there could easily have been armed pitched battles between blacks who had been attacked and police who even if their colleagues had violated the law, would not allow citizen armed defense. The non-violence of King and others, accomplished the objective with relatively few people killed and wounded. They were virtually all Black or white sympathizers however. The racists bore no physical casualties but their culture and way of life was destroyed.
This appears to be the first American utterance of a longstanding doctrine of foreign policy.
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".
