Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue?

~George Washington, September 17, 1796

Though many of the founding fathers weren’t the saints that we’d like to believe, they surely believed in most of the ideals for which they fought (at least if you were a white male…)

Hopefully president #44 can be a bit more like #1 or #16 as opposed to #43, who has been more like #29 or #18.