[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 160 (Thursday, September 27, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H9146-H9148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GEORGE WASHINGTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Cheney). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciated so much hearing the 
fantastic presentation about George Washington. It was interesting in 
the last several months to hear a presentation by a biographer of 
Benjamin Franklin over at the Library of Congress.
  He was asked: Do you see anybody in America today, in politics, that 
reminds you of Benjamin Franklin?
  He said:

       Well, I see, basically, a lot of different people with 
     different parts of Franklin. He was brilliant, genius, funny, 
     and clever.
       But it is not like he was George Washington. There was only 
     one of those.

  We heard from the director of the Society of the Cincinnati, which 
has been around since the Revolution and is dedicated to the study of 
the Revolution. It is particularly named for the Roman General 
Cincinnatus who had come from the farm, won a great campaign, and went 
back to the farm.
  George Washington, it is very clear, could have been emperor or czar, 
whatever title he wanted. There were at least a couple efforts to have 
a military coup when the government was falling apart.
  Washington replied to one effort. They told him he didn't even have 
to participate in the coup. They would even agree, when he didn't want 
to serve or passed away, that they would honor whomever he chose as his 
subordinate. Basically, his response was: If you have any regard for me 
or this Nation, you will never mention such a notion to anyone again.
  What an incredible man George Washington was. He was a man of honor 
and a man of integrity. His word was his bond.
  That is why, for example, when he found out about Benedict Arnold, a 
man who was really the hero of the Battle of Saratoga--it wasn't 
General Gates; it was really Benedict Arnold--he couldn't believe it. 
It just crushed him to his soul that this great leader, Benedict 
Arnold, had turned on him and was ready to surrender him to the enemy. 
He just couldn't believe, as such an incredible person of honor, that 
somebody he trusted would be such a traitor.
  We had a service in what was the largest Christian church in 
Washington for 60 or so years. That happened to be the old House 
Chamber down the hall. We had that last night led by Pastor Dan 
Cummins; his wife, JoAnne; and an incredible singer, Steve Amerson.
  I told people about the story of Isaac Potts. The big Potts family 
had land in Pennsylvania where Washington wintered his Army at Valley 
Forge. That was mainly on Potts land. Isaac Potts himself was a Quaker. 
He didn't believe Christians should ever fight.
  He was out in the woods. A painting that depicted that scene was 
painted by Friberg. I am advised that there had been more prints made 
of that painting than any other American painting in history. It was 
Washington down on one knee beside his big, gray horse. He was praying 
to God.
  He had made mistakes as Commander of the United States, the 
Revolution. Potts heard him pray. He prayed out loud. In the painting 
he is seen with eyes closed basically looking down. My understanding is 
normally he looked up and spoke out in prayer.
  Alexander Hamilton found him on his knees praying in his tent many 
times early in the morning when he had to interrupt him for something 
important.
  But there he was, out in the snow. Potts listened to him. When 
Washington got on his big, gray horse and rode back into Valley Forge, 
Potts hurried home.

  First, he told his wife and told others. This was something that was 
passed from Potts and his wife. They told it, and they retold it.
  It had an incredible impact on this strong, Christian Quaker, because 
he was totally against the Revolution. He thought it was a disastrous 
mistake. He felt like no one who was a Christian could participate in a 
revolution, in any kind of military operation.
  But there was fake news back in those days, too. There was a 
biographer in the early 1800s who was trying to disprove that George 
Washington was a man of faith, a Christian.
  Peter Lillback in his big, wonderful book regarding George Washington 
takes on all of that fake news back in the day. That includes the early 
biographer's account that everyone had heard the story about Isaac 
Potts. But he said that, in essence, he had talked to witnesses or 
people who thought it actually may not have ever happened.
  Kind of like news today, you don't talk to the people who were actual 
witnesses. You talk to people who don't know firsthand anything. All 
they know is hearsay, and they just happen to support your particular 
position.
  By the way, ``George Washington's Sacred Fire'' is the name of Peter 
Lillback's book.
  That night, Potts came back. We know what was said because it was 
repeated over and over again by Isaac Potts and by his wife. His 
granddaughter reduced it to writing. He said that Washington prayed out 
loud, and in his prayer, and this is quoting, ``He utterly disclaimed 
all ability of his own for this arduous conflict.''
  We are talking about George Washington, 6 foot 4, even though 
Chernow's book said he was a little shorter than 6 foot 2. That was one 
of the numerous mistakes in Chernow's book. There is no question at 
all. It is indisputable that when Washington in 1799 was flat on a 
slab, he was 6 foot 3\1/2\.
  But, in any event, this big, athletic, courageous man of faith, 
according to Potts, ``wept at the thought of that irretrievable ruin 
which his mistakes might bring on his country.'' Potts said: ``And with 
the patriot's pathos spreading the interests of unborn millions before 
the eye of Eternal Mercy, he implored the aid of that arm which guides 
the starry host.''
  Now, that is an incredible human being. His biographers, as the 
director of the Society of the Cincinnati had pointed out, say that 
there has never been anybody like him.
  When I was on islands south of India some years back on a trip where 
we had gone to check on our Special Forces, I had a leader there tell 
me:

       We are a new democracy, and we are always hearing about a 
     potential military coup to overthrow our elected government.

  He paused. He looked at me, and he said:

       We never had a George Washington to set the proper example 
     here, so we are always worried about a coup.

  He was an incredible man.
  Potts said: ``I have seen this day what I shall never forget. Till 
now, I have thought that a Christian and a soldier were characters 
incompatible; but if George Washington be not a man of God, I am 
mistaken, and still more shall I be disappointed if God do not through 
him perform some great thing for this country.''
  So Isaac Potts was talking about a man known since 1755 in the French 
and Indian War for his relentless courage, his leadership, and his 
faith. As he said of a battle of the French and Indian War:

       That night when I took off my coat, I had bullet holes 
     through and through my coat, but I had not a scratch on me. I 
     took off my hat, and it had bullet holes through it.

  But he shook out his hair. Fragments flew everywhere.
  He said: Truly, I was protected by divine providence.
  And he truly was.
  Indians referred to him from that battle as the man God would not let 
die.
  He was such a man of honor and integrity that set this country on a 
path to freedom and into being a light on the hilltop.
  As a former President of the Czech Republic told me last night here, 
he said: America has always been seen, even when we disagreed with it, 
as that light on the hilltop. It was a beacon. It was showing the way 
for truth.
  He said: You don't have that light on the hill here anymore.
  We can get it back. But Washington, of course, in his ``Farewell 
Address''

[[Page H9147]]

warned about the dangers of political parties. He encouraged us not to 
use them and not to have them. But we have.

                              {time}  1745

  As I think about things that I was told by Africans in West Africa, 
what the former President of the Czech Republic said last night, and so 
many comments in so many parts of the world about even when they 
disagreed with this, they knew America wanted to do what was right. 
They wanted to create fairness in the world. Yet, they provided hope 
for people around the world, like Natan Sharansky talked about in the 
Soviet Gulag when he heard the courageous comments of President Reagan.
  But when political parties, political operatives have more of the 
characteristics of the former hero of the Battle of Saratoga when he 
became a traitor, more desirous of their own political gain, their own 
personal gain, their own political power, than just doing what is 
right, this country as we have known it as a light on the hill, as so 
many countries around the world have known us for so long, it won't be 
there.
  I deeply regret when I hear how some of our children have been 
educated, and you talk to some young people who think that socialism is 
a better way to go. They have never been taught that socialism, though 
it sounds lovely, has never worked.
  The only way you can have a socialist country is if the government 
has all the power; the individual has no rights against the government; 
and the government takes all, provides all, has complete discretion in 
what it thinks is fair and what is not fair. Individual rights, as we 
have been afforded in our Bill of Rights and our Constitution, have to 
go, in order to have a socialist country.
  It is heartbreaking to hear even people on this House floor talk 
about how important it is to move on to being a progressive--meaning a 
socialist, communist country--which basically is a denial of the rights 
and the limited power in the Constitution. It is actually a breach of 
our oath to our Constitution to be pushing such an idea as socialism, 
communism, or progressivism, because you can't have the rights under 
our Bill of Rights and have socialism, progressivism, communism.
  Back around 1960, 1961, Khrushchev appointed a committee to come up 
with a plan of how the Soviet Union would conveniently move to that 
nirvana type of state where there was no more government and everyone 
shared and shared alike. But he eventually realized you can never have 
socialism or communism without a totalitarian government that does not 
afford its citizens rights that Americans have had in our history.
  Victor Davis Hanson has a great article from September 25, entitled: 
``We Are Living Orwell's 1984.'' It is well written, well reasoned.
  I said some months back--and was actually accurately quoted--when I 
said the only thing Orwell appears to have gotten wrong was the date. 
It wasn't 1984. Instead of the eye in our homes watching for the 
government, they do it through our phones; they do it through our 
computers. They can do it through listening devices.
  Of course, what did we do on the House floor yesterday? We voted to 
given more power to the Federal Government to get our bank records. 
Without the need of honoring the Fourth Amendment, honoring the 
doctrine, the requirement of probable cause, without a warrant, the 
government can get your bank records.
  It won't be too difficult to do, as if we needed to add more power to 
the Patriot Act at a time when we have seen how weaponized the 
Department of Justice, the FBI, and, to a lesser extent, some of our 
intel has been weaponized.
  They need more power to just disregard warrants? Really?
  Hanson says:
  ``Truth, due process, evidence, rights of the accused: All are swept 
aside in pursuit of the progressive agenda.
  ``George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel `Nineteen Eighty-Four' is no 
longer fiction. We are living it right now.
  ``Google techies planned to massage Internet searches to emphasize 
correct thinking. A member of the so-called deep state, in an anonymous 
op-ed, brags that its `resistance' is undermining an elected President. 
The FBI, CIA, DOJ, and NSC were all weaponized in 2016 to ensure that 
the proper President would be elected--the choice adjudicated by 
properly progressive ideology. Wearing a wire is now redefined as 
simply flipping on an iPhone and recording your boss, boy- or 
girlfriend, or coworkers.
  ``But never has the reality that we are living in a surreal age been 
clearer than during the strange cycles of Christine Blasey Ford's 
accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
  ``In Orwell's world of 1984 Oceania, there is no longer a sense of 
due process, free inquiry, rules of evidence and cross-examination, 
much less a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Instead, 
regimented ideology--the supremacy of state power to control all 
aspects of one's life to enforce a fossilized idea of mandated 
quality--warps everything from the use of language to private life.
  ``Senator Dianne Feinstein and the other Democrats on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee had long sought to destroy the Brett Kavanaugh 
nomination. Much of their paradoxical furor over his nomination arises 
from the boomeranging of their own past political blunders, such as 
when Democrats ended the filibuster on judicial nominations in 2013. 
They also canonized the so-called 1992 Biden Rule, which holds that the 
Senate should not consider confirming the Supreme Court nomination of a 
lame-duck President . . . in an election year.
  ``Rejecting Kavanaugh proved a hard task, given that he had a long 
record of judicial opinions and writings--and there was nothing much in 
them that would indicate anything but a sharp mind, much less any 
ideological, racial, or sexual intolerance. His personal life was 
impeccable, his family admirable.
  ``Kavanaugh was no combative Robert Bork, but congenial, and he 
patiently answered all the questions asked of him, despite constant 
demonstrations and pre-planned street theater interruptions from the 
Senate gallery and often obnoxious grandstanding by `I am Spartacus' 
Democratic Senators.

  ``So Kavanaugh was going to be confirmed unless a bombshell 
revelation derailed the vote. And so we got a bombshell.''
  He goes on to talk about what has happened to Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
  He, in part, basically has indicated today, still showing class and 
respect, that he doesn't doubt the allegations by Ms. Ford, but it 
certainly was not him.
  But if you look at her testimony, she has no hesitation in pulling 
out what she claims was an incident 35 years ago, maybe it was 34, 
maybe it was 36. Maybe it was at a home, maybe it wasn't.
  Yet, she regales us with statements like she will never forget these 
details. Basically, they have haunted her whole life, even though we 
had been led to believe this was some type of repressed memory that 
didn't come out until she needed marital counseling and she was trying 
to save her marriage.
  But there was a time in America when someone who was shown to be a 
class person, a true, iconic judge, a Justice, would have hesitation by 
anyone wanting to destroy or assassinate their character. In America, 
if you are going to destroy the reputation of someone who spent a life 
building an excellent reputation as demonstrated by all those who knew 
him well, then you would be reluctant to come forward with a very hazy 
memory that had all kinds of holes in it. You would be reluctant to 
call names and name names that you haven't named for 36 years.
  There was a time when character mattered so much. For someone who 
felt an injustice, a terrible thing, had been done to them, they would 
care so deeply and have such sympathy for others, wanting to avoid the 
kind of heartache they say they had experienced, that they would never 
want to falsely accuse anyone with a very faulty memory of something 
decades before.
  That was back, though, at a time when America was that light on the 
hill that other national statesmen from other countries had seen the 
United States as being. That was a time when character mattered.

[[Page H9148]]

  That was a time when people felt that our Founders had the right 
idea. We are not going to be like England and say you are guilty until 
you can prove yourself innocent. We were not going to take up such 
Orwellian standards.
  Under the Founders' principles, they felt it would be better to let 
somebody guilty go free than to imprison an innocent person.
  But things have changed. I think the light on the hill is still 
there. It is flickering. It may go out soon. But God has given us a 
chance to rekindle the fire.
  It won't be rekindled, and it will be snuffed out for good if people 
in this building continue to put partisan politics ahead of truth, 
honor, justice, and decency.

                              {time}  1800

  So what happens from here is up to us. Those of us who are elected to 
serve in this government, we can follow the track that has been laid in 
recent days, or we can say we are going to get back to where character 
matters, people are innocent until proven guilty, and we don't 
assassinate characters simply because we disagree with them 
politically, so any allegation we make, as Ted Kennedy once did of 
Robert Bork, as Harry Reid did of Mitt Romney--it is okay to lie about 
people if you are able to prevent them from serving honorably in 
government.
  We are at a crossroads, and I hope and pray--as Robert Frost was able 
to say--we can say someday, ``. . . and I took the road less traveled 
by. And that has made all the difference.''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________