As the man who was "first in the hearts of his countrymen," George Washington wrote guiding principles for the newly established country in his Farewell Address of 1796.  He stressed:

... that the 'national Union' formed the bedrock of 'collective and individual happiness' for U.S. citizens.  As he explained, 'The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local distinctions.'

We see the degradation of this idea of patriotism as the left continually hammers away that America is the nexus of evil.  One need only read the 1994 book titled Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, which states in its introduction that the "nostalgic vision of a simple, harmonious past ... obscures the long history of oppression within the United States."  The editors choose "not to be all inclusive [or] create a pluralistic play of voices."  Instead, they choose "poems that directly address the instability of American identity and confront the prevalence of cultural conflict and exchange within the United States ... [in order] to highlight the constant erecting, blurring, breaking, clarifying, and crossing of boundaries that are a consequence of the complex intersections among people's cultures, and languages within national borders."

Hail to the fact that the country is not afraid to deal with its past, but woe to the students who receive such a skewed and narrow interpretation of what the country has accomplished.

Dinesh D'Souza writes in his Death of a Nation that "in other countries, a flag is just a flag, but in America ... the flag is the symbol of a founding event, emerging out of the Revolutionary War that articulated principles that could only be fully expressed almost ninety years later in the aftermath of one of the bloodiest civil wars in history."  America is "a product of design that gave rise to an American dream[.] ... There is no such thing as a French dream, an Indian dream, a Chinese dream.  Identity in other countries is based on birth and blood; but in America it is based on embracing American ideals and the American way of life.  That's why the American tribe is so multiracial and includes white people, black people and brown people."

Instead of embracing this idea of unity, many football players show disrespect for the American dream every time they kneel.

George Washington also "feared that local factors might be the source of petty differences that would destroy the nation."  He asserted that the idea of union promises "greater strength, greater resources, [and] proportionately greater security from danger" than any state or region could enjoy alone.  He emphasized that the "Union ought to be considered as a main prop of ... liberty."

Yet we now have cities, counties, and states across the fruited plain that defy federal immigration law.  They "have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE[.]"  These locations have clearly decided that "the threat to public safety or security" is to be abandoned.  To hearken back to Washington's ideas, these so-called sanctuary cities exist only to "acquire influence, within particular districts, [and] to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts."

Strikingly, George Washington also examined two major threats to the nation – one domestic and the other foreign.  Our first president "warned of the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party."  He felt that political parties are a deep threat to the health of the nation for they allow "a small but artful and enterprising minority" to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, the will of a party."

Yet, non-stop, Americans see a keen desire by an "artful and enterprising minority" within the Democratic Party to eliminate a duly elected president, to demand of Americans an ever increasing acceptance to kneel at the altar of left-wing ideology, and to understand that punishment will ensue should they disagree with the dictates of the left.  Maxine Waters is an elected official who threatens violence.  Leftist judges continue to thwart federal law.  Put simply, they have ignored Washington's words (emphasis mine):

Respect for [the government's] authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.

Can we not, as Washington wrote, have "reason to distrust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter may endeavour to weaken [America's] bands [of unity]"?  Should we not rebel against those who seek a hollowed out America under the banner of socialism – an ideology antithetical to America's very reason for existence?  After all, George Washington emphasized that "the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."

George Washington understood that "foreign nations could not be trusted to do anything more than pursue their own interests when entering international treaties."  Yet Trump is excoriated when he demands that America's interests come first, and not the interests of the European Union, not the interests of the United Nation's collection of terrorist thugs, and certainly not the interests of illegal aliens who wander into America and demand to be paid.  Clearly, these illegal aliens are not devoted to Washington's idea that whether "[c]itizens, by birth or choice ... [the] country has a right to concentrate [their] affections."  Washington correctly delineated that any demand of this type "agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.  It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.  Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."  Instead, Washington called for extending foreign "commercial relations that could be mutually beneficial, while maintaining as little political connection as possible."

Gregg Jarrett (The Russia Hoax), Sidney Powell (Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice), and Sharyl Attkisson (The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote) have incontrovertible evidence that there are strong forces "who are working overtime to kill America" and "subject us to the policy of another."

As heirs of that momentous American Revolution and Civil War, we need to heed the words of Washington:

The unity of Government, which constitutes you [as] one people, is also now dear to you.  It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize.

But he warned:

[I]t is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed.

Thus, he counseled:

[I]t is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

Indeed, "many artifices" – i.e., the media, the technological giants, the Democratic Party, and the myriad organizations of George Soros – are being employed "to alienate one part of our country from the rest."  But if we understand that unity is the "palladium" of our safety and prosperity, these forces can be impeded.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.