Mount Rushmore: Exemplifying America's Spirit
Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are memorialized through their images carved in stone. The Mount Rushmore Memorial seeks to exemplify the best of each of these presidents.
Washington
George Washington was president of the United States between 1789 and 1797. He commanded to victory and independence the Continental Army during the American Revolution (1775-1783), presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the United States Constitution (1787), and was elected unanimously by the Electoral College in 1787 to serve as the first president of the United States. Washington would take the oath of office in 1789 on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City.
Washington could have chosen to be a king but decided to be a president. The United States could have been a monarchy but became a republic. George Washington’s influence and character set the tone for the birth of a new republic. George Washington is rightly the “Father of Our Country.”
Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was one of the Founding Fathers and the third president of the United States. He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, which declared that “all men [people] are created equal.” Despite Jefferson’s sad legacy of owning slaves, Jefferson did abolish the slave trade in the United States in 1807. He was instrumental in creating a form of government that would eventually view slavery and all forms of injustice as incompatible with human dignity and the American spirit--“all men [people] are created equal” and deserve to be treated as such.
Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States between 1901 and 1909. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for facilitating the end of the Russo-Japanese War. He enabled the construction of the Panama Canal. He improved food quality with the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. He regulated work safety by regulating railroads and combating monopolistic business practices.
Roosevelt was a great conservationist. Roosevelt protected natural resources and animal and plant habitats—a radical departure for his time. He established the United States Forest Service and set aside Federal land for national parks and nature reserves: he created five national parks, 150 national forests, and fifty-one bird reserves.
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was president between 1861 and 1865. Lincoln led a fractured nation during the American Civil War. He saved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and gave the country a modern economy. He assured that the United States would be a “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people…. Abraham Lincoln is rightly known as the Great Emancipator, the Great Liberator.
In Conclusion
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is not a depiction of canonized saints or gods. Instead, Mount Rushmore memorializes four presidents who would become emblematic of the best of the American spirit.
