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The history of Presidents Day is a bit convoluted. The enduring lessons from some of the leaders recognized on the third Monday of February, however, are crystal clear even generations later.
This holiday began in the 1880s to honor George Washington’s Feb. 22 birthday. In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, leading to certain holidays falling on Mondays rather than specific dates and giving Americans a few three-day weekends. While the federal holiday still technically stands as “Washington’s Birthday,” it has in recent decades come to be widely recognized as Presidents Day. This celebrates the office of the presidency and those who have joined Washington in serving in it — particularly another former president with a February birthday, Abraham Lincoln.
As America once again celebrates Washington and Lincoln long after their deaths, their words remain instructive.
Each year in observance of Washington’s birthday, a member of the U.S. Senate reads the first president’s farewell address. It’s an annual reminder of Washington’s timeless warnings about regionalism, partisanship and foreign interference in our domestic affairs. Those continue to be forces that, if left unaddressed, threaten the American democratic experiment.
In that address, written with help from Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Washington also demonstrated a level of humility and introspection that is often lacking from many of today’s political leaders.
“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors,” Washington said. “Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”
That stands in stark contrast to current political discourse, when few seem able to muster three important words: “I was wrong.”
Our first president’s departure from office is so revered not just because of the words he offered at his farewell, but also because of the context in which those words and that departure came. There was no 22nd Amendment in 1796. A 64-year-old Washington could have served a third term, but he worried that he could die in office and cast the presidency from its inception as a position held for life.
Presidents are temporary servants of the people. The way Washington left office helped ensure that American reality.
Washington’s departure continues to stand in stark contrast to how former president Donald Trump pushed the limits of America’s peaceful transfer of power by refusing to admit defeat and helping to fuel a violent attack on Congress last Jan. 6. As Trump persists in his false claims of a stolen election in 2020, and indicates that he wanted former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results, it is worth remembering just how divergent his actions have been from Washington’s example.
Those are just a few important reminders from America’s first president. America’s first Republican president, Lincoln, also left us with a wealth of instructive actions and words. One example, from remarks he delivered in 1854, remains just as relevant today.
“Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong,” Lincoln said.
America’s political discourse is often splintered along pre-existing fault lines and allegiances. Lincoln reminds us that loyalty to principles and good ideas should be stronger than loyalty to a single leader or group.