Young Washington Gives Gen Z An Aspirational Hero For The Ages
The movie’s message about the value of strength and endurance has clearly resonated with Americans in an age of despair.The movie’s message about the value of strength and endurance has clearly resonated with Americans in an age of despair.Young Washington Captures The Spirit Of America
Young Washington emphasizes the uniquely American character of the Father of Our Country, while honoring his 'wild, beautiful, dangerous, but free' life.The forgotten July 4th story: Betrayal, assassination plots, and the true birth of America
While millions of Americans participate in Fourth of July festivities, many don’t know what exactly it is they’re celebrating; others may vaguely know, but the complete history of the United States is something they’ve long forgotten or were never taught.
On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn revisits a powerful but largely forgotten story about America’s dramatic birth — the hidden plots, betrayals, and extraordinary character that defined the days right before July 4.
“All of us celebrate Fourth of July — everybody does. But nobody knows what's happening the days before the Fourth of July. ... This is when this country was being born in two cities at the same time and on two completely different tracks,” says Glenn, “and those two tracks slam together on one morning.”
“Because while [Thomas] Jefferson is writing ... what kind of men we could be [in the Declaration of Independence], George Washington is discovering the kind of men that we already have among us. The British fleet are coming,” he continues.
But a bloody war wasn’t the only plot to foil America. While the British fleet sat in the harbor awaiting the signal to invade New York, British Crown-appointed New York Governor William Tryon and New York City Mayor David Mathews were scheming to assassinate or kidnap George Washington.
“[Tryon and Matthews] are quietly buying off Continental soldiers, paying them to switch sides the moment the British land. ... The minute the British land, they're to turn their guns around and blow the powder magazines, seize the bridge at the north end of Manhattan, so Washington's whole army is trapped on that island like fish in a barrel,” Glenn recounts.
One of the men in Washington’s personal “lifeguard” (secret service) — Thomas Hickey — was in on this plot.
“Hickey gets himself thrown in jail for passing counterfeit money, and he couldn't keep his mouth shut. He bragged to another prisoner about the conspiracy ... well, that prisoner talked, and it landed in front of a secret committee tasked with sniffing out exactly this kind of treason committee led by a young New Yorker named John Jay,” says Glenn, highlighting Jay’s contributions from writing the famous Federalist Papers to becoming the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jay’s task force, he says, is often described by historians as “the first American intelligence agency.”
Hickey’s trial for treason happened at the same time Jefferson was penning the Declaration of Independence — two “tracks” Glenn says “come together” in a remarkable way.
On Monday, June 28, 1776, Hickey was publicly hanged for treason, making him “the first soldier this country ever executed for treason before we were a country,” Glenn explains.
At that same time, Jefferson went to Independence Hall with the finished draft of the Declaration of Independence in tow.
“One single morning, in one young nation that didn't legally even exist yet, in one city, the words of who we wanted to become were first being read into the record. And another city just up the road, a man was being hung by a rope for trying to strangle that nation in its cradle,” Glenn summarizes. “The promise and the betrayal in the same hour — 90 miles apart.”
Four days later on July 2, Congress voted to approve a resolution for independence.
“The ink isn't even dry and the enemy is already in the water,” says Glenn.
“It would have been so easy in that moment of terror — invasion coming, traitors in the ranks, the mayor himself in on it — for Washington to become the very thing that they were fighting.”
Instead he refused to become a tyrant, choosing to uphold the rule of law and the ideals of the revolution even when it was risky and difficult.
“In the middle of the most dangerous month of their life, with a knife already at the Republic's throat, they chose process over panic, law over vengeance. And in the same breath, in the same week, they put their names down on this document that said power has to answer to something higher than its own power,” says Glenn.
“That's who we are. That's who we were. That's who we can be every day going forward.”
To hear more, watch the video above.
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What happened to British Gen. Cornwallis after his Yorktown surrender — the final battle of the Revolutionary War?
It's common knowledge that Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively ended the Revolutionary War — but what happened to the British general after that humiliating defeat?
According to the Library of Virginia, the Siege of Yorktown — which turned out to be the final major military engagement of the Revolutionary War — took place in the autumn of 1781.
'He refused, however, to surrender in person and delegated the humiliating duty to his second in command.'
The British Army and its commanding general, Charles Cornwallis, were headquartered in the coastal Virginia town.
However, a French fleet under the command of Admiral François-Joseph-Paul de Grasse drove a British fleet from the Capes of Virginia, which made it impossible for Cornwallis to receive supplies and reinforcements, the Library of Virginia said.
American Gen. George Washington led his army from New York to Virginia, and — along with a large French and American army under Comte de Rochambeau — Washington laid siege to the British at Yorktown, the Library of Virginia said, adding that those forces joined the Marquis de Lafayette, who was commanding an American army that had been fighting the British in Virginia for six months.
More from the Library of Virginia:
The siege began on October 6, 1781, as the Americans and French formed a semicircle outside of the town and began an artillery bombardment. A successful storming of two British redoubts, or small temporary defensive enclosures, convinced Cornwallis that his position was untenable, and he surrendered his army to the combined American and French forces on October 19. He refused, however, to surrender in person and delegated the humiliating duty to his second in command. Washington consequently directed his second in command to receive the surrender.
Below is one of several famed clips from Mel Gibson's starring Hollywood turn in "The Patriot" depicting Cornwallis' disbelief that an army of "peasants" actually had defeated him:
RELATED: BREAKING: Cornwallis surrenders in Yorktown; end of war may be in sight
Nine days after his surrender, Cornwallis signed a parole document, the Library of Virginia said; under its terms, Cornwallis was allowed to leave Virginia and return to Great Britain on the condition that he would engage in no further military action against the United States.
However, Cornwallis' army remained in the U.S. as prisoners of war until they were exchanged or paroled, the Library of Virginia said, adding that Cornwallis — "an able military commander" — was "received warmly in England and served as governor-general of India from 1786 until his death in 1805."
The Library of Virginia noted that a formal peace treaty ended the Revolutionary War nearly two years after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, and King George III recognized the independence of the United States of America.
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George Washington was no deist: Exposing the modern myth about America’s founding
Bestselling author and cultural commentator Eric Metaxas set out with the intention to tell the true story of the American Revolution.
“I said, ‘I just want to write a very compelling, very readable, fun, gallop-through-our-history [book],’” he tells Glenn Beck.
But as Metaxas researched, he kept coming across details from our history that “astonished” him.
One of those details had to do with none other than America’s first president. Many modern historians have labeled Washington a deist — that is, one who believes in a distant God who created the world but does not intervene in human affairs. These are generally the same people who argue that America was not founded as a Christian nation.
Metaxas calls the claim that Washington was a deist "baloney."
“Washington was no deist. What a joke. What a lie,” he exclaims.
“These were men of profound Christian faith who set about doing something that had never been done since the Israelites were in the Sinai wilderness, where they left Pharaoh and left Egypt and looked directly to God without an earthly king. ... This is what the founders were trying to do,” he explains.
All of the founders, he argues, understood that the goal was to “bring the Bible into government.”
“I was so overwhelmed by the explicitly Christian nature of what was going on. ... Everywhere you look, this narrative comes out. It is inescapable,” Metaxas tells Glenn, noting that his book is not “a Christian book” but “a book of American history.”
For years, Glenn has been trying to debunk the same misleading narrative.
“In this one letter [George Washington wrote], I think it’s 24 different scriptures are quoted without him quoting it. It’s just part of his language,” he says.
Glenn notes that there are numerous accounts of the founders, including Washington, speaking about miracles.
“A deist cannot believe in miracles,” he remarks.
Agreeing, Metaxas says, “It is our duty to know this.”
But he could never find a book that told the full truth about America’s birth.
This gap is what inspired him to write “Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World,” which just released last month.
“This is our 250th,” he says. “This is our last exit before the toll. We the people need to understand how our government works, ... that all of our founders understood our liberties come from God.”
To hear more about Metaxas’ new book, watch the video above.
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Their likenesses were toppled, yet they still cast long shadows
Radicals worked with revolutionary gusto in recent years to erase America's past. In addition to melting down busts, digging up graves, renaming species, knocking out church windows, hiding artwork, killing off iconic brands, and advancing revisionist narratives, they did what all envy- and resentment-driven demolitionists — from the Jacobins to the Taliban — have done: They toppled and removed statues.
Among the giants whom the radicals fell but could never slay — a long list that includes Spanish missionary Junípero Serra and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln — are two men in particular whose greatness not only secured for them pedestals and the ire of barbarians but made the nation today possible: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.
'Washington laid the groundwork for the steady march toward emancipation and liberty.'
Every toppled statue tells three stories: the first, about the people who raised it and the kind of person they thought worthy of public memorialization; the second, about the people who tore it down and what they want forgotten; and the third, about the kind of figure who can cast a shadow over lesser men even after his likeness is shattered.
Over two decades after becoming an American, Italian-born sculptor Pompeo Coppini produced — at the request of Henry Waldo Coe, a pioneer doctor and close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt — a 1,920-pound, roughly eight-foot bronze sculpture of his adopted homeland's first president, George Washington.
The statue, which the Portland Monuments Project currently lists as being "in storage in need of repair," depicts the great general who commanded the Continental Army to victory in the American War of Independence standing tall with a walking stick in his right hand and a tricorn hat in his left.
Coe, who would not live long enough to attend the statue's dedication ceremony on July 4, 1927, gave the monument to Portland, Oregon, to honor the 1926 sesquicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
RELATED: 4 Confederate statues make their return — but their fate hangs in the balance
The statue was installed outside the German American Society in northeast Portland's Rose City Park neighborhood and presented by Rev. William Wallace Youngson, the clergyman who established the Rose City Park Methodist Episcopal Church.
One comment shared during the recent city-led conversations about the statue reflects the apparent understanding of those who helped raise the statue a century ago:
The purpose of these statues is not to make a statement that these men are saints, but rather to honor their achievements and place in history. I want to briefly touch on Washington. Besides his leadership in the American Revolution and founding our country, Washington was remarkable in his commitment to republicanism. He refused an offer to be King, in the 18th century, in the age of absolute monarchs. This was the same time as Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great, and the height of the French ancien regime (before its demise during the French Revolution). He and the other founders created one of the first democratic bodies since the Roman Senate. True, our democracy was imperfect in the 1790s (and is today). But, Washington laid the groundwork for the steady march toward emancipation and liberty we have seen through 230 years of American history.
The barbarian horde evidently couldn't tolerate the sight of this great man.
On the eve of June 19, 2020, iconoclasts lit a fire on the statue's head, then tore it down. Vandals then spray-painted leftist slogans such as "genocidal colonist," "you're on native lands," "BLM," "1619," and "Big Floyd" on the toppled figure.
Rather than restore it to its pedestal, the city sent a tow truck to remove the first president's likeness and toss it into storage. No arrests were made in connection with this destructive episode.
According to the city of Portland, the statue will be returned to the public "pending relocation, restoration, repair, and the addition of new interpretive signage."
Regardless of whether this statue — paid for by a pioneer doctor, sculpted by an immigrant, and presented by a clergyman — will ultimately be restored, Washington's indelible mark can never be honestly denied, certainly not in an American state neighboring his namesake.
Christopher Columbus — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag and whose four transatlantic voyages set the stage for American civilization — was one of the 2020 iconoclasts' most popular targets, with over 30 statues bearing his likeness toppled and/or removed during that leftist spasm of violence.
One of those monuments was a 7.3-foot statue carved in Italian Carrara marble by sculptor Mauro Bigarani, dedicated to the city of Baltimore by its Italian community and the Italian American Organization United of Maryland in commemoration of the discovery of America, and unveiled on Oct. 8, 1984, in Columbus Piazza by then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan.
The statue's marble base, itself nearly eight feet tall, stated, "Discoverer of America," and depicted the three ships of the Columbus fleet: the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina.
Reagan stated at the unveiling, "Americans of Italian descent have given a great deal to this country. Their contribution began 492 years ago when Christopher Columbus, the son of a Genoa weaver, set forth on a voyage of discovery that changed the world."
"The ideals, which many successive Italian immigrants brought with them, are at the very heart of America. I'm speaking of hard work, love of family, patriotism, and respect for God," continued the president. "Columbus challenged the unknown when he sailed westward in 1492. He was a man of vision who saw an opportunity, set down a plan, and then worked diligently to carry it forth."
Highlighting why Columbus is still remembered and why, in part, he is so hated by the forces of darkness, Reagan noted further, "When Columbus discovered America, he set in force a motion mightier than the world had ever known."
On July 4, 2020, the barbarian horde marched through Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood in search of a target. After harassing restaurant patrons and other residents, they set to work on bringing down Columbus' likeness.
After finally yanking down the statue, members of the horde jumped on the broken figure and paraded around with marble fragments. An activist yelled over a megaphone, "Get him in the harbor. Get rid of this n****r," then the horde dragged the remains into the harbor.
The radicals marching across the city at the time of this particular iconoclastic episode reportedly demanded the defunding of police, reparations for blacks, and the removal of all statues "honoring white supremacists, owners of enslaved people, perpetrators of genocide, and colonizers."
Again, there were no arrests in connection with the incident. In fact, city officials effectively sanctioned the destruction.
A spokesman for then-Mayor Bernard Young said that the statue's destruction was part of a "re-examination taking place nationally and globally around some of these monuments and statues that may represent different things to different people."
'Christopher Columbus was the original American hero.'
Current Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, then serving as city council president, rushed to remind everyone that he previously advocated for the statue's removal: "I support Baltimore’s Italian-American community and Baltimore’s indigenous community. I cannot, however, support Columbus."
Like Washington, Columbus' memory could not be so easily erased from the minds of the many by a radical few. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump made sure that this particular statue would be raised in the nation's capital for all to see.
RELATED: America turns 250 with a broken heart
With pieces of the statue recovered from the harbor by the Knights of Columbus, local artist Tilghman Hemsley and his son Will built a 9.5-foot, 2,000-pound replica with the help of funds raised by Italian-American businessmen and $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
After the city of Baltimore refused to install the replica in public, the Italian American Organizations United Inc. gifted it to the White House, which installed it on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 22.
Trump thanked the Italian-American groups for the statue, noting that "Christopher Columbus was the original American hero and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the Earth."
"Guided by steadfast prayer and unwavering fortitude and resolve, Columbus' voyage in 1492 carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas — paving the way for the ultimate triumph of Western civilization less than three centuries later on July 4, 1776," added Trump.
The toppled Washington and Columbus statues each tell three stories, but in both cases, only the stories of the great and the grateful really matter. America is, after all, not the product of bitter demolitionists but of discoverers, pioneers, builders, and protectors — and those who carry on their legacy.
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The American Revolution Was Fought And Won In Neighborhood Bars
American taverns became rooms where our founders could leave without making every disagreement permanent.Glenn Beck: In an anti-American Hollywood, ‘Young Washington’ is a ‘love letter to America’
At a time when many Americans feel disconnected from their nation’s history, filmmaker Jon Erwin is changing that with his film “Young Washington” — a tribute to America’s founding story in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary.
Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck loved the film, telling Erwin that he watched it “with such pride and admiration.”
“It’s a great story and a great movie,” he adds.
“I just wanted to write kind of a love letter to the country for our 250,” Erwin says, “and it’s the only film in theaters nationwide that celebrates American history as we go into the 250.”
“We really want to do more of these stories. We want to do more stories on the life of George Washington. We want to do more stories on the founding of America,” he explains, noting that the story is “unbelievable.”
“As you know, it lives up to the hype. And you’re just filled with a sense of gratitude and awe and wonder and pride that this nation exists at all. And it really is something to celebrate together. It is a miracle. I mean, talk about low statistical odds of success,” he says.
And so far, audiences have loved the film as well.
“When our audience unifies our voice around something and shocks Hollywood, millions and millions of people see it that wouldn’t otherwise see it because of the fear of missing out. And that’s my hope, and that’s my prayer,” Erwin says.
Erwin tells Glenn that as the film has been screened across the country, audience members have chanted “USA” at the end.
“But what I love is a lot of people say, ‘I was up on Google all night researching, like, did this really happen,’ because some of the most extraordinary things in the movie actually happened. So, that’s my hope,” he says, adding, “is that it will serve as a spark of curiosity for Americans everywhere.”
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The Founders Built America, But Their Museums Just Apologize For Them
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