Our Presidents’ Day Promise
On Presidents’ Day, we celebrate America’s great Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and the promise of a nation committed to freedom and opportunity for all. The exceptional promise of our country is what brought my grandparents and my mom to the United States after surviving the Holocaust.
During his life, President Washington highlighted our nation’s commitment to freedom and opportunity for all. As he stated, “the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that those who live under its protection should [be] . . . good citizens . . . .” These words are as wise today as they were when our nation began. These values are what brought my family to America — tolerance for others, economic opportunity and possibilities for a better life, and commitment to defending our values when threatened.
President Lincoln reminded Americans of our core responsibility — to stay true to our ideals and do the hard work required to perfect and preserve our union. As he said in his second inaugural address when our Civil War neared its end:
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Lincoln’s famous words affirmed our commitment to veterans and their families who selflessly put their lives on the line for all of us. And equally important, Lincoln captured our nation’s ethos of “e pluribus unum” — from many, we are one. President Lincoln lived and died to defend that spirit.
Today, we live in difficult times, with significant divisions we must overcome. Social media disinformation, families struggling to pay bills and being preyed on by irresponsible actors, with overt threats of violence against public officials. Lincoln’s calls for unity ring as true today as ever.
As we reflect on the meaning of Presidents’ Day, we can honor our nation’s commitment to protecting both freedom and opportunity for all. And in doing so, we can each do our part as we continue to strive for “a more perfect union.”