Our Constitutional Republic is Officially 225 Years Old

[XLFD]

Today is the Quasquibicentennial (225th anniversary) of America under its Constitution, which was put into effect on April 30, 1789 with the inauguration of George Washington as our first president and the swearing in of members of the judicial and legislative branch.  But you would hardly know it; I thank our member easymoney for bringing it to the forefront of my attention with this article. 

Frankly, standing up for your Constitutional republic nowadays is fraught with peril.  Witness what has happened at universities:  in Hawaii, a lawsuit was recently levied against the college when administrators prohibited students from giving out complimentary copies of the Constitution, in Modesto, California last September campus cops and administrators prohibited a student from doing the same, as seen in the video below. 

When I started talking at the latest Ludington City Council meeting on Monday about the 225th anniversary of our Constitutional republic, Councilor Kaye Holman turned her back on me, and kept turned around for the duration of the comment.  Councilor Gary Castonia sternly remarked at the end of the meeting that he defended the Constitution 50 years ago while a member of the US Army, but uttered not a word of any defense of it in his career of public service in Ludington thereafter, probably because he has been actively working against it over the last few years in the actions and policies he has backed as councilor. 

The career politicians and their quockerwodger (pseudo-politicians whose strings of action are pulled by somebody else) relatives care little for Constitutional values and ideals, except how to subvert them, and they are getting more and more control in government at all levels.  They get uneasy when you mention constitutional protections and their duty to the document.  Our Constitutional republic is doomed to failure if we do not root out and eliminate these threats to our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. 

It may seem an insurmountable task, but so was the process of getting our country's liberty, and following it up with what is perhaps the best Constitution ever constructed.  Here are a couple of motivational tools to assist you in making the choice to defend, preserve, and protect the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States.  A video of Washington's oath of office on that day 225 years ago today (courtesy of HBO), and Washington's full text of his inaugural address that same day.  The inaugural address that has not been equaled since.

WASHINGTON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 1789:  A Transcription [April 30, 1789]

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance, by which it might be affected. All I dare hope, is, that, if in executing this task I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof, of the confidence of my fellow-citizens; and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me; my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my Country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the Executive Department, it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration, such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you, will acquit me from entering into that subject, farther than to refer to the Great Constitutional Charter under which you are assembled; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no separate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the Fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the System, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good: For I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an United and effective Government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honoured with a call into the Service of my Country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the Executive Department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the Station in which I am placed, may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

Having thus imported to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign parent of the human race, in humble supplication that since he has been pleased to favour the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparellelled unanimity on a form of Government, for the security of their Union, and the advancement of their happiness; so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

[Willy]

Unbelievable video of ignorance displayed by the college employees. I know they are just doing what they are told but they themselves should question what they are doing. I'll comment on the rest of the topic when I read it later.

[Willy]

I have difficulty understanding the type of English that was spoken so long ago. It just doesn't sink in. I especially have problems with Shakespeare. I'll take your word that what Washington said was in fact the best Inaugural speech of all time. Thanks for posting it.

[XLFD]

Washington prose reads easier than Thomas Paine, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, but you still need to digest a lot of words you'll never find in today's popular literature and media. 

The profundity and novelty of the speech make me believe it has never been equaled, but I have never read Millard Fillmore's inaugural address or most of the others for that matter. 

[Chef Jemichel]

Washington refers to "the People of the United States" twice in his Inaugural speech however he was elected "President of the United States of America" which did not require an oath of office. He declared an oath for the office of "President of the United States" - an office distinct from the former. The former is "Head of State". The later is "Head of Government". Washington combined these two into one person referred to as "President of the United States". Possibly the first time this was revealed was n the Nuremberg Trial.

In the Nuremberg Trial “Stahmer cued Goring to explain where the idea had come from to combine the ceremonial head of state and the head of government in one person, Adolf Hitler. That was simple, Goring explained. They had taken their example from the similar dual roles of the president of the United States.”[1].

[1] Re-writting History:

https://www.curezone.org/Blogs/fm.asp?i=2328557

[Willy]

Very interesting Chef. The following seems to be a good explanation of "president / head of state"

"President is also an official leader of a republic, democratic or dictatorial country. Besides using world for leader of a country it is also used to represent the big gun of any department. For example chief executive, chairman or chancellor are also considered as a president of their organization. In many countries president is a common title for head of state. The word president was first time used during Commonwealth of England after removing the word monarchy for Council of State."

• Head of state is a general term, which is used to show that in a specific country who is the most powerful person according to its constitution. Head of state can be a president or prime minister. In US, president is considered as the head of state while in Asian countries prime minister is believed a head of state. While designation of president relates to a specific person.
• Head of state has more authority than president. In some counties president nature is just symbolic until its constitution provides him all power of decision making.
• In some kingdom or dictatorial countries post of head of state and president are often held by a same person.
• Head of state is just used for the formal highest ranked person of a government while president is used informally as well to represent the chairman or chief executive of an organization.
• More of the political functions, duties or legislation are performed by head of state either he is a president or prime minister. While the power of president can be limited according to constitution.
• If head of state is prime minister than most of the head of the federal department like National Finance Commission and other national level designation, without any political elected minister, are appointed by president.
• https://www.differencebtw.com/difference-between-head-of-state-and-...

[Chef Jemichel]

Glad you have this interest, Willy! What is the source of the "explanation"?

[Willy]

I added the link to my previous post. I'm no expert so I''m assuming the information is accurate. 

[Chef Jemichel]

Thanks very much!

I'm in the process of making contact with the author now.

Have a fabulous new week!