Matt Spalding reminds us that this isn’t really president’s day, it’s George Washington’s birthday. Here is the indispensable man’s letter to the Hebrew Congragation at Newport and his rebuke to Colonel Lewis Nicola who wanted Washington to become king. Nicola took this stern rebuke so to hart that he wrote Washington three letters of apology. Washington’s constancy to republican principles prevented him from becoming our Napoleon, while the real Napoleon at his death regretted that he couldn’t become France’s Washington. Perfect.