September 19 · This Day in America
There is no speech, no stage. Washington's Farewell Address simply appears in a Philadelphia newspaper one morning, addressed to "Friends and Fellow-Citizens." The most powerful man in America is announcing that he will not seek a third term — that the presidency is not a throne and he will not die in it. He warns against the "baneful" spirit of party, against permanent foreign alliances, against anyone who would loosen the bonds of Union. Kings did not give up power voluntarily; that was the whole point of a king. By choosing to leave, Washington teaches the office its deepest lesson — that the chair is bigger than the person in it, and that the truest exercise of American power is knowing when to set it down.
Source: www.mountvernon.org
Also on this day · 1881
Shot in a Washington train station in July, James A. Garfield lingers for eighty days while doctors probe the wound with unwashed fingers. Moved to the New Jersey shore in hope the sea air might save him, he dies there on this night, more likely killed by infection than by the bullet. The nation, which had followed every bulletin, mourns a president it barely got to know — and a young inventor named Bell had even built a metal detector to try to find the slug.
Source: millercenter.org
“The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796