RE: Presidents’ Day 2026
See my thoughts this Presidents’ Day, and my recommended reading list. Then leave a comment to join this dialogue, and don’t forget today’s writing prompt at the bottom of the post. [Ed from Archive.]
Honestly, I’ve never thought much about Presidents’ Day in the past. It was always just another day banks were closed, another day other people across the country got off work besides me. However, it is starting to seem that I, all of us, should have been commemorating and remembering Presidents’ Day with a lot more vigor than we have in recent decades.
Presidents’ Day was established in the late 1800s to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. Though his birthday was technically on February 22nd, the holiday established to celebrate his birthday takes place on the third Monday of February each year so that government employees can enjoy a longer, three-day weekend.
Some of my favorite George Washington quotes:
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”
“There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
“As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”
“To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.”
“I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
Coincidentally enough, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday falls on February 12, which is why over the years the holiday has been recognized as Presidents’ Day, and not Washington’s Day, eventually leading to other presidents being recognized on the holiday, too.
Some of my favorite Abraham Lincoln quotes:
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”
“With malice toward none, with charity for all ... let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.”
“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
“’A house divided against itself cannot stand. ‘I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
Though the first and sixteenth US presidents were just men at the end of the day, products of their time in history, and certainly made mistakes as all men do, without them we wouldn’t have the following in the United States:
Freedom from British monarchical rule, and bondage and enslavement
Female influence on the founding of a new nation
An established and regimented military
A free press and freedom of speech
The Constitution of the United States with a Bill of Rights
A two-term limit for the office of President of the United States
Updated agricultural innovations and technologies and the Department of Agriculture
A federally connected union of states
The state university system
A federal banking system and a federal income tax
There is a lot more that Washington and Lincoln contributed to and influenced, to be sure, but those are some of the major highlights. And they’re worth mentioning because it seems their accomplishments and contributions to the US are being taken for granted, or willfully ignored altogether nowadays, which is beyond devastating and alarming.
You see, I believe, above all else, what is most important to remember about Washington’s and Lincoln’s legacies is their skill and tenacity at preserving the union of the United States and keeping the country together and whole— along with the fact that it seems they understood wholeheartedly that in order for that to happen people needed rights and freedoms, especially the freedom to read via easy access to books and information— as well as connected and established institutions of governance that were amiable to change and invested in progress for all people. They could not do everything they wanted to do during their short tenures, and neither could others on day 90,000+ of the US, but they established important mechanisms for citizens of the US to continue to strive for and “form a more perfect Union.” Is it not important that we remember that? Especially now.
Over the years, many of us have clearly taken for granted what The Constitution of the United States with a Bill of Rights establishes and entails. And we clearly need to reread the Declaration of Independence. I mean, actually read every single word of each document, especially this bit in the Constitution: “Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:— ‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’"
Read them today, not later! They are not very long, and it will take less than an hour to read them right now.
And while you’re at it, here are some other things you might want to read as soon as possible:
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Second Treatise of Government by John Locke
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
1984 by George Orwell
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin
Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine K. Albright
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi (Editor) and Keisha N. Blain (Editor)
How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum
Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Elizabeth Cheney
An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution by Mary Wollstonecraft
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
Supreme Justice: Speeches and Writings by Thurgood Marshall, J. Clay Smith Jr.
Democracy by Joan Didion
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
What would you add to this reading list? And what are your thoughts on Presidents’ Day? Leave a comment to join this dialogue, then share this post with others so they can join this dialogue too.
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Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Dear President,
Write a letter addressed to the office of the President of the United States. You can write this letter to a recent, previous, or future president.
