“Gentlemen, this is a football.”
Football coaching icon Vince Lombardi is said to have begun pre-season training with these words, emphasizing the importance of foundations and getting back to the basics.
How would George Washington coach America if he could travel through time to the 21st century?
Some might say he would begin,
“Gentlemen, this is a Constitution.”
After all, one of Washington's greatest achievements is said to have been his leadership at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, as he wisely brought differing
perspectives and state interests together to agree on a national constitution.
But Washington
said there was something more basic than human political charters.
If the blessings of Heaven showered thick around us should be spilled on the ground or converted to curses, through the fault of those for whom they were intended, it would
not be the first instance of folly [34] or perverseness in short-sighted mortals. The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful
monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made
subservient to the vilest of
[-302-] purposes. Should, hereafter, those who are intrusted with the management of this government, incited by the lust of power and prompted by the
Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no
compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no
Wall of words, that no mound of parchmt. can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of
corrupted morals on the other. |
Revelation is something "deists" rejected. Washington was no deist. He would begin pre-season training by holding up a Bible and saying:
“Gentlemen, this is the revealed Word of God.”
Which Bible? Any good evangelical Bible, such as one Washington subscribed to. |