Many times during these past 6 years, as I have been forced to re-introduce to fellow citizens the basic arguments for a lawful Republic I thought settled between 1200 to 1800 AD, I have reminded people of George Washington's conscious decision to stop after two terms so as to avoid all temptations of tyranny in the fledgling Republic he had helped launch.

Maybe such lovers of America like Mansfield ought to read the words of our founding President.

It is absolutely moving and so incredibly applicable to this day. Glenn could easily spend a week on this one speech alone, and what it reveals what the Enlightenment's leaders knew which today's Reaganite revolutionary despots gladly ignore.

Please, please, go read the whole thing. You will remember it time and time again as you hear the Republicans speak.

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FAREWELL ADDRESS (1796) {just a few excerpts}

George Washington

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/49.htm

"Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

"The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the Executive Government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.... I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.

..."The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

...it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to [the Constitution's] acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts...

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

"This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy...

"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

...If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change [to the Constitution] by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.

"Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence, and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

...I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free government -- the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Source: J.D. Richardson, ed., Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol.1 (1907), 213.