December 14 · This Day in America
Two days earlier he had ridden his farms for hours in snow and sleet and sat down to dinner without changing his wet clothes. By Saturday his throat has closed; he can barely speak or swallow. His doctors bleed him, again and again, as the era believed was right. He knows it is over and faces it with the same composure he carried at Valley Forge. He gives Tobias Lear careful instructions about his burial — wait three days, do not rush — and asks if he is understood. Told yes, he answers, "'Tis well." Near eleven that night, the man who could have been king, who instead handed back his sword and then his office and went home to Mount Vernon, feels his own pulse, and is gone. A republic that had never seen a leader leave power willingly had now watched him do it twice, and one final time.
Source: www.mountvernon.org
Also on this day · 1819
President James Monroe signs the resolution admitting Alabama to the Union, the only state added that year. Settlers had poured into the territory so fast the rush had a name: Alabama Fever. A constitutional convention met through a Huntsville summer; a new state government was waiting before Congress even said yes. The map of the young country grows by one more star, drawn westward by people in a hurry.
Source: www.ebsco.com
“'Tis well.”George Washington, last words, December 14, 1799