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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | January 12, 2016 10:44 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Commemorating the birth of George Washington and honoring his contributions to our country |
| I plan to offer a resolution commemorating the birth of George Washington and honoring the contributions he made to this country. George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Bridges Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia, son of Mary and Augustine Washington. George Washington, who was interested in surveying and attracted by government service, became a member of the Virginia militia and was at the time of French expansion into the Ohio Valley a captain of the Virginia militia. Washington's increasing interest in the affairs of the colony led him to seek a seat in the House of Burgesses, and, as tension with England increased, years later he became a delegate to the First Continental Congress. The Second Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775 and presided over by John Hancock, elected George Washington to become the first Commander of the Continental Army. In 1775, on the brink of the American Revolutionary War, Washington commissioned six privately owned schooners, later to be known as “Washington’s Secret Navy”, to intercept incoming British ships with much-needed supplies after his failed petition to Congress to form a national navy. The schooners flew the Washington Cruisers Flag, sometimes called the “Liberty Tree Flag”, a white flag with an evergreen tree in the middle with the words “An Appeal to Heaven” stitched across it. The idea to use this flag came from Colonel Joseph Reed, an aide to General Washington. In a letter dated October 20, 1775, Colonel Reed described the Washington Cruisers Flag, as it came to be known, that flew on the floating batteries. The letter read in part, “Please to fix upon some particular colour for a flag, and a signal by which our vessels may know one another. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, the motto “Appeal to Heaven?” This is the flag of our floating batteries.” In April 1776, the state of Massachusetts adopted a similar flag for its own official navy. Its resolution for operations read, “Resolved, that the uniforms of the officers be green and white, and that the colors be a white flag, with a green pine tree, and the inscription, ‘An Appeal to Heaven’”. The phrase “Appeal to Heaven” was a popular phrase during and prior to the American Revolution. It represented to the colonists trust in God to deliver them from the tyrannical acts of the British government. This phrase is thought to have come from English philosopher John Locke’s work, “Second Treatise of Government”. Locke wrote in part “The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven:…”. This phrase was emblazoned on George Washington’s Revolutionary War flag to remind those over whom it flew that after all other alternatives of seeking justice have been exhausted, only an “appeal to heaven” remains. “Washington’s Secret Navy” captured a British brigantine loaded with an abundance of supplies, and was so successful that it inspired the creation of the United States Navy as we know it today. George Washington served as a general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolution, and because of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. Elected as a delegate in 1787 to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, he served as the presiding officer of the convention. Following ratification of the new Constitution, in the first national election, Washington was elected president of the United States by a unanimous vote of the Electoral College, serving from 1789 to 1797. George Washington spent his first term establishing the administrative features of the executive branch, which includes the President's cabinet and the department agencies of the Federal government. The new country quickly adopted his procedures, ideas and knowledge for the running of a new government, many of which are still followed today, shown through the style and nature of our government's policies affecting our countrymen and other nations. Washington was a natural leader and instrumental in creating a united nation out of a conglomeration of struggling colonies and territories, and his birthday is a special day for the United States of America. Therefore, it is only fitting and appropriate that we commemorate the birth of George Washington and honor the contributions he made to this country. |
Introduced as SR287