which enabled them to perform such great service to their country.
George Washington’s outstanding virtue was self-control. He had some
natural traits (pride, ambition, a hot temper) which he perceived were not
good and would be a hindrance to his life’s work, so he made a deliberate,
sustained effort to gain mastery over them.
He very carefully taught himself to rule over his own passions rather than
let them run away with him, and this exercise in governing himself prepared
him to be the great leader he became of the new republic, whose survival
depended upon the people’s ability to govern themselves.
The fledgling nation was inspired by Washington’s heroic self-discipline,
self-sacrifice, devotion to duty, bravery, and willingness to relinquish power
when the time came. His strength of character gave strength to the new
country.
As one historian recently wrote: Washington was a “pragmatic visionary,
who embodied the spirit of the nation before the nation existed except as an
idea.” (Myron Magnet, The Founders At Home, pp. 93-94)
No one admired Washington more than Abraham Lincoln, who devoted
himself to following in the first president’s footsteps and saving the republic
Washington did so much to establish. In the words of his Gettysburg Address,
Lincoln’s task was to lead the nation to “a new birth of freedom” for the United
States. Washington, “the Father of his Country,” was the spiritual father of
Lincoln, who was regarded by many as (