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George Washington, the Constitution, and the Founding

George Washington, the Constitution, and the Founding

Last updated on: July 5, 2026 at 7:36 am by Dan Peterson

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George Washington, the Constitution, and the Founding 2026-07-05T07:36:54-06:00 Dan Peterson

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I believe that it’s obligatory, on such occasions, to display the American flag very prominently.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

My father occasionally asked me or various of my friends whether they have the Fourth of July in Canada. the typical answer was that No, they do not. After all, it’s a uniquely American holiday. To which he would reply that, in fact, they do have the fourth of July. It follows the third of July and immediately precedes the fifth. (Capital letters are invisible in spoken American English.)

Well, happy Fourth of July — happy Independence Day — to my American readers out there, and especially to any readers that I may have in the United Kingdom!

The official movie poster (fair use)

It seemed an appropriate thing to do for Independence Day weekend, so, with friends, my wife and I went to see the new Angel Studios film Young Washington on its opening day. I liked the film quite a bit, and I commend it warmly to your notice.

Washington is still unmarried and still serving the King of England by the time the film ends its narrative, and his life hasn’t exactly been one of consistent success. (Will he ever amount to anything?) But the film does a good job of telling his story up to that point, illustrating (among other traits) his determination and ambition and his quite deliberate cultivation of the classical virtues. From what I’ve read about the young George Washington, features of his character appear to be accurately depicted. As is also his curious seeming invincibility on the battlefield, which others also appear to have noticed and which he came to regard both as genuine and as, in a sense, an indicator of destiny. I think that it may well have been exactly that.

Some may find this article of interest: “The Personal God of George Washington,” by John C. Pinheiro. It was published by the Acton Institute:

“Was the first president a deist? A heretic? Simply a lukewarm Anglican? His insistence of God’s providential care, which he sought in prayer, leads any open-minded inquirer to a very different conclusion.”

And I liked this article, which was written by Maurine Proctor for Meridian Magazine: “America: Who Will Cross the Delaware Now?”

Emanuel Leutze, “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1852, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

My father recalled, as a young boy in North Dakota, seeing a performance by the great John Philip Sousa and his band. I am, myself, a fan of Sousa’s stirring marches. Years ago, though, I realized that I’m far more enamored with the ideas and the ideals of the American Revolution and the Republic that emerged from it, with ordered liberty, than I am with flag-waving and fireworks and parades and military fly-bys.

With other Latter-day Saints, I believe that God was involved in the founding of the United States of America, so I’m more than open to the possibility of the miraculous in those early years. In Doctrine and Covenants 101:77-80, a revelation that was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith at Kirtland, Ohio, on 16-17 December 1833, the Lord speaks of

the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;

That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. [Please note the condemnation of slavery here.]

And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.

President Dallin H. Oaks, whose April 2021 conference talk, “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution,” is well worth viewing or reading again this weekend, has asked all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to observe a fast tomorrow, Sunday, 5 July, specifically related to the First Amendment of the Constitution: “Unified fast for religious liberty on Sunday, July 5: ‘All are invited to participate in a unified fast to express gratitude for religious liberty and to pray that it be strengthened throughout the world’”

There are some very admirable things in the history of Quincy, Illinois. The town’s treatment of Latter-day Saint refugees is one of them. This Wikimedia Commons public domain photo — taken in the town’s St. Peter’s Cemetery — illustrates another.

But back to speaking of movies: My wife and I took two second-generation units and a third-generation unit to see Minions & Monsters this afternoon. The 3GU seems to have really enjoyed it. We had a good time.

And speaking yet further of “movies,” the 35-second teaser for the latest installment of Becoming Brigham, Episode 24, is now available for your entertainment, enlightenment, and edification: “Who Didn’t Hate the ‘Mormons’?” The full version of the episode will appear on Monday. Prepare to be amazed!

Here’s a photograph of me and several other A-listers at Madison Square Garden yesterday. We were there for the Swift-Kelce wedding (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

Now that it’s over, I’m free to confess that I was actually there in New York City last night, at the wedding of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in Madison Square Garden. It was fun. (Being on the A-list certainly has its privileges.) True fact: They had tried to rent the Manhattan New York Temple for their wedding, forgetting that it’s closed right now for extensive renovations. But Madison Square Garden proved, at least in some regards, to be an adequate second choice. Congratulations to the happy couple!

The Mesa Arizona Temple was Arizona’s first. (LDS Media Library)

This may seem a rather unusual item for the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ but, if you consider how much better the building might have been had it only been an AI data center or the headquarters building for the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles or American Atheists or a regional office of the pipe fitters’ union, you’ll readily see that it definitely belongs in the Hitchens File: “Renovated Mesa Arizona Temple Wins Prestigious Award.”

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