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NO KINGS. None. Nada.
Get ready to rally on Saturday, June 14, at a town square near you
On the website of The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think thank, there’s an essay by Matthew Spalding titled “The Man Who Would Not Be King.”
It’s about George Washington, for whom some newly minted “Americans” had royal ambitions after he led the Continental Army to victory over the British.
“It is no coincidence . . . that Washington’s most important legacy comes during moments of temptation, when the lure of power was before him,” Spalding writes.
“Twice during the Revolution, in 1776 and again in 1777 when Congress was forced to abandon Philadelphia in the face of advancing British troops, Gen. Washington was granted virtually unlimited powers to maintain the war effort and preserve civil society, powers not unlike those assumed in an earlier era by Roman dictators. He shouldered the responsibility but gave the authority back as soon as possible.
“After the war, there were calls for Washington to claim formal political power. Indeed, seven months after the victory at Yorktown, one of his officers suggested what many thought only reasonable in the context of the 18th century: that America should establish a monarchy and that Washington should become king.
