Thanksgiving, Washington's Way

The Pilgrims and Native Americans in their vicinity started Thanksgiving, it is said, but it's George Washington who declared it the national observance that it now is. He also tried hard to make it something other than what it has become.

As the first President, Washington declared the first 'official' Thanksgiving for the fourth Thursday in November, 1789, according to Ron Chernow's thorough and absorbing biography of our country's first father. Washington declared that 'Almighty God' "should be thanked for the abundant blessings bestowed on the American people, including victory in the war against England, creation of the Constitution, establishment of the new government, and the 'tranquility, union, and plenty' that the country now enjoyed," Chernow said.

Chernow also added that Washington provided "beer and food to those jailed for debt....He gave scores of charitable contributions preferring anonymity, though he sometimes made exception on public holidays to set an example for the citizenry."

So Thanksgiving was supposed to be a celebration of giving rather than of gorging, forbearance rather than football. Good old George wanted it to be an example of distribution, not hoarding for self-consumption. It didn't really matter who was supposed to have done it, just that it was done and that wealth and prosperity were shared.

Once again, we have lost a sense of history and with it, a sense of proper meaning. If all this makes you feel something like a, uh, turkey, welcome to the club.

I have no idea whether that went through the mind of President Barack Obama when he walked into a food kitchen unannounced on Thursday and offered to help serve Thanksgiving dinners to the destitute, but he did. On the other hand, 45 was asked what he was most thankful for, and he replied, "myself. I'm pretty amazing."

Oh, yes. We are all amazed. Daily.

But I'm with George. We should be thankful for the creation of the Constitution, because it's that document and the observance that most of us, in power and out, put into its limitations, that is stopping our present president from indulging his craven madness to a completely destructive extent.

So far.

We are rife to have that showdown, and it will happen soon enough. Can the Constitution survive the politics that threaten to tear it to shreds--with the same kind of intensity with which the original document was almost dismissed with what would have been disastrous consequences? Or will we recall enough of our posterity to restore it to better health?

Washington understood his importance to the nation and his already strong influence over others. Rather using it to manipulate, he was careful not to interject himself into the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, other than to run the meeting as its chosen President. He thought better than to be divisive. He understood that, as the nation's first icon, the conventioneers would naturally go along with whatever he wanted--simply because he wanted it.

He had had that moment a few years before that. Members of the army had approached him, the victor in one of the greatest military upsets in history, and offered him complete support if he would become something like the emperor of the new country. It was all there for him--the power that he could have lusted for, to recreate the new country in his own image, perhaps forever.

It had to be tempting. All during the war, Washington had to deal with a hesitant, self-centered Congress that had little money and little ability to get it from states, nee colonies, that quibbled about lending their own people to a greater cause. He watched his men suffer the degradation of Valley Forge, more defeats than victories, and more than once dangled at the edge of disaster before some edgy fate, or his talent in slipping away, saved him and Continental Army. What need did the country have of clueless politicians who operated by not rules but guidelines they were free to ignore on a whim?

He refused the offer. It was exactly for that reason--to prevent the re-occurrence of a dictatorship--that the war had been fought and freedom had been won, he explained. It was his humility, not his ego, that would drive the creation of the republic and the establishment of the presidency as an admirable, transcendent position.

I want someone to present such a situation to 45 to see what he'd say. Any takers? Let's get Lesley Stahl back in there: "We'd like to ask you one more thing, sir."

And watch him squirm, because he wants exactly what the Constitution is designed to prevent: a free hand to use the military for whatever itch he needs to scratch. The recent joke of the deployment of National Guardsmen to the southern border, plus the outrageous permission granted for them to use weapons against defenseless migrants, is a perfect demonstration of that.

Granted, in 1794 Washington rode at the head of the militias of four states--Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey--to exert federal authority against feisty Pennsylvania farmers who had refused to pay taxes on whiskeys made from their grain: the famous Whiskey Rebellion. But Washington also offered the farmers amnesty to avoid bloodshed and pardoned some. Amnesty for immigrants within the U.S. is considered by most Republicans as unthinkable--a major roadblock to compromising our way out of the quicksand of immigration reform. And a president who would approve of putting kids into tents for months, rather than reuniting them with their parents, has no time for amnesty.

One desperately needs power to legitimize himself; the other had plenty of power but saw a way to avoid its use to get the results that were needed--not for himself, but for the country. Our ability to notice the difference would make Washington thankful. It should make us thankful, too, that we have an example that would make us proud.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark