PrintWhy Presidents’ Day Matters
Presidents’ Day is one of those uniquely American holidays. As such, it is under scrutiny and condemnation of the anti-American Left. Honoring men, white men for that matter, who engaged in colonization and racism, the argument goes ad nauseum, is bad. Shame on us who honor these despicable men.
The condemnation of Washington, and even Lincoln, fails to miss a broader and bigger story that their inspirational memory is meant to reveal: the growth of liberty and equality in the United States that Washington helped give birth to and that Lincoln helped to preserve and expand.
Focusing on the detriments of Washington and Lincoln as individuals obscures the bigger story of the republic and union they both shaped. This is why the anti-American left keeps a closed narrative on those whom they critique and wish to destroy. By taking a larger picture the narrative peddled by anti-Americans becomes untenable.
The new common fad on the Left is to see everything American as evil. The Pilgrims are evil. Everyone who settled North America from Europe is evil. The Founding Fathers are evil. The Constitution is evil. Even Lincoln is evil because, well, he’s a white male and didn’t do nice things to the Native Americans even if he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a sad but seductive story for those with rage in their hearts.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are important because of what the United States has accomplished for our country and the world because of their heroism.
Washington led a band of heroic Americans to fight for their rights and liberties against the world’s largest empire. Despite the hardships he and his army endured, he and the Continental Army preserved. Their perseverance is something to emulate, especially in today’s world of soft weakness.
The country that Washington fought for and the union that he became the first president of inspired the world with its ideals of liberty, equality, and self-governance. Contrary to the critics, the American Revolution inspired the growth of liberty and equality in South America when the various Latin American colonies rebelled against the Spanish Empire and won their freedom. It also inspired republican reforms in Europe that brought greater religious and political freedom to the Old World.
Those inspired by Washington and the American Revolution hoped that the republic established in 1787 would survive and thrive. Despotic tyrants around the world wanted it to fail. And make no mistake, those still wishing America to fail are despotic tyrants despite cloaking their tyrannical impulses in the language of progress, equity, and democracy, just waiting to take advantage if they can ignite the spark to destroy the American project.
America was tested again through the fire of the Civil War which Abraham Lincoln courageously steered the union through. The fate of freedom and the ideals of 1776 hung in the balance. Lincoln’s stand against the expansion of slavery, leading to its eventual abolition, created a more perfect union more closely aligned with the ideals and values that inspired the patriots led by Washington.
It is true that Lincoln’s war conduct wasn’t perfect. The temporary suspension of habeas corpus set a dangerous precedent. But contrary to his contrarian critics, Lincoln was a man who sought to uphold the dignity of the Constitution which the Confederacy abrogated first, 
not Lincoln. Furthermore, Lincoln considered himself firmly within the political tradition of the Founding Fathers as most historians have documented when assessing Lincoln’s many writings and speeches. Lincoln’s fight to save the Republic was a fight to save the country that declared independence in 1776 and ratified the Constitution in 1787. Freedom not only returned after the Civil War, but it was also greatly expanded.
The country born under Washington’s stewardship and the country preserved under Lincoln’s presidency had an even greater influence on the development of the world in the 20th century. The world that suffered in the crushing grip of Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and Soviet despotism was liberated by the country born under Washington’s leadership and preserved under Lincoln’s.
Let us, now, imagine a world where Washington or Lincoln failed. This world would have seen the proliferation of the most totalitarian and genocidal movements in the history of humanity consummate their bloodlust across continents. A world dominated by either Nazism, fascism, or Stalinist totalitarianism, is a world where contemporary critics of America and its supposed sins would be silenced or hauled away to the Gulag.
The liberty that Washington helped established and Lincoln helped preserve and advance eventually challenged the many totalitarian movements of the 20th century. Without heroes like Washington and Lincoln the world that is comparatively free today would be awash in a despotic darkness that only the intelligentsia and governing elite would enjoy. Most of the anti-American activists who fancy themselves revolutionaries would be in a far worse position under those regimes (if even allowed to live) than what they enjoy under the current American Republic.
When we celebrate Presidents’ Day, we don’t merely celebrate the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Though their lives do give us inspiration to emulate -- their steadfast courage being one such value—it is their legacy that is more important and to which the holiday commemorates. The legacy of liberty and equality, republicanism and democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties, is what these men helped establish, preserve, and expand over the course of their lives.
The United States that Washington and Lincoln helped lead and create in their own ways played an indispensable role in advancing freedom and equality in the dark 20th century. Without men like Washington and Lincoln, the world would undoubtedly be a crueler, darker, and less humane place. But that story isn’t what the anti-American Left wants us to know or tell. Yet that story is very much part of what we celebrate on Presidents’ Day. The Presidents we honor on Presidents’ Day are part of a grander story that we, as Americans, should be proud of and not shy away from in telling and celebrating.
Paul Krause is the editor of VoegelinView. He is the author of The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books, The Politics of Plato, and contributed to The College Lecture Today and the forthcoming book Diseases, Disasters, and Political Theory.
