December 4 · This Day in America
Nine days after the last British ship clears New York Harbor, George Washington gathers the officers of the Continental Army in the Long Room of Fraunces Tavern. The war is won. He could be king; armies in his position have made worse men kings. Instead he raises a glass of wine and his voice nearly fails him. "With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you," he says, and asks each man to come and shake his hand. They do, in silence, every one of them weeping, Washington weeping with them. Colonel Tallmadge writes that he had never witnessed such sorrow and hoped he never would again. Then Washington walks out the door, rides south, and gives his commission back to Congress. The most powerful man in America chooses to become a citizen. The republic holds because he let it.
Source: washingtonpapers.org
Also on this day · 1969
Before dawn, Chicago police acting with the FBI's COINTELPRO program raid an apartment on West Monroe Street and shoot Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in his bed. He is twenty-one, a gifted organizer who built coalitions across the city's poorest neighborhoods. A later federal review finds the police fired nearly all the shots. The case becomes a landmark in the long reckoning over surveillance and force aimed at American dissent.
Source: www.loc.gov
“Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnessed, and fondly hope I may never be called to witness again.”Col. Benjamin Tallmadge, on Washington's farewell, recalled 1830