When George Washington Quoted Micah 6:8

‘… to do Justice, to love mercy,’ he instructed in his ‘Circular Letter to the States.’

In the summer of 1783 there was much confusion and fear about the future of the country. The war of independence had been won, but the states were still scrambling to decipher how they would interact with each other and with Congress. Before George Washington resigned from his post as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he wrote a letter to all the governors (it was intended for the entire American community as well). This letter is known as the “Circular Letter to the States.” 

Washington begins, “I think it is a duty incumbent on me, to make this my last official communication, to congratulate you on the glorious events which Heaven has been pleased to produce in our favor.” Here, and in other correspondences and speeches, Washington clearly holds that God had a hand in supplying the American project with the strength to be victorious. He concludes his letter with reference to that divine help:

“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination & obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field.”

“And finally,” Washington ended, “that he [God] would most graciously be pleased to dispose of us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with that Charity, humility & pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion & without an humble immitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

Justice. Mercy. Charity. Humility: This is Micah 6:8.

It sounds as if Washington is writing a sermon, not a letter to government officials, in invoking the “Divine Author.” 

Living out justice makes us like our Author because we are giving others what they are due. Each person is due respect and reverence because each has infinite value given to them by God. Living out mercy allows us to see that others are not defined by their worst actions. Living out charity enables us to act for the other person’s good, even when it requires sacrifice. Finally, humility makes us more willing to see that we are not the center of the universe and that it is possible that others know better — and God, the author of life, knows better than anyone else.

As we can see, this letter from Washington — written before he became our nation’s first president — gives insight into what he hoped for our fledging nation.

On Presidents’ Day and always, may our prayer be the same.