Post

I was offered a crown. I declined. This is not modesty — it is principle. The moment a general becomes a monarch, the revolution becomes a conquest. I fought a king; I did not fight to become one. I pray that the republic I leave behind will prove strong enough to survive men less committed to this principle than I was. My fear — which I have expressed in my Farewell Address — is that faction and ambition will slowly accomplish what the British could not.