George Washington, Trump, and the End of Humility
by Russell Shorto
January 19, 2017
On April 16, 1789, George Washington stepped into a carriage at Mount Vernon, his Virginia estate, and rumbled off toward New York and the Presidency. Far from feeling flush with imminent power, he told his diary that he contemplated the task ahead “with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express.”