Let me conjure you, in the name of our common country,
as you value your own sacred honor,
as you respect the rights of humanity,
and as you regard the military and national character of America,
to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes,
under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our country,
and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord
and deluge our rising empire in blood.
By thus determining and thus acting,
you will pursue the plain and direct road.
You will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies,
who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice.
You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue,
rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings.
And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say,
when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind,
"Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage
of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining."
General George Washington to the Officers of the Continental Army, March 15, 1783
