Historians often wonder how so many geniuses could all have been in the same place at the same time as American independence: Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, and others...
While this group of Renaissance men wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the one indispensable man—the one without whom our nation might never have been born—was George Washington, rightly called “the father of our country.”
Washington was the only American rebel with any significant experience in military command. He was the only member of the Continental Congress who appeared and participated while wearing a dress military uniform. A few others vied for the position, but it was a foregone conclusion he would be selected as our first commander-in-chief. And like Sam Houston fifty years later, Washington clung to an unpopular but decisive guerilla strategy: keep the army together no matter what; fight no major battles that might destroy it. As long as the army survived, the revolution would survive.
But Washington was more than a general. He was a statesman. After independence was won, no one but Washington could have presided over the Constitutional Convention and kept the delegates together and negotiating. No one else even ran for president when the country had its first election. Few politicians with his power and esteem would voluntarily retire after two terms as president, setting the precedent that public office is temporary and no man, no matter how popular, would ever be dictator of America for life. In this, as much as in the written law, Washington secured one of greatest freedoms, the freedom to live freely in a republic with limited powers and no kings.
"The History of Our Freedoms" is produced by KEDT-FM in Corpus Christi. Dr. Bill Chriss is a historian and legal scholar. For more on history and the constitution, check out his blog at https://drbillchriss.substack.com/.
