What made George Washington the most remarkable man of an extraordinary generation? He was not an intellectual giant like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison.

The statue of George Washington stands in the Capitol Rotunda, in Washington D.C. On this day 287 years ago, America's first and most famous president was born.

For, on this President’s Day, friends, Americans, countrymen, we commemorate not just the birth, but also the character, of George Washington. Character was a lifelong concern of Washington.

As we celebrate the 293rd birthday of the father of our country, I would like to note that George Washington’s strength of character is still portrayed as the standard for the office of the ...

It is estimated that George Washington wrote 140,000 ... steadfast leadership and exploits of courage in that war are so well known that the letters written later reveal no new traits of character.

George Washington, letter to The United Baptist Churches in Virginia, May 1789, in Writings of George Washington, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: The American Stationer’s Company, 1837), Vol. XII, p. 155.

Washington had this in mind in issuing his rightly famous Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1789. First begun as a harvest holiday, Thanksgiving predates the founding of our republic.