Free A Nation Like No Other by Newt Gingrich

delegates took comfort in the
willingness of the great man presiding over their debates to serve as the country’s initial chief executive. Washington’s ensuing presidency, along with his character and probity in setting hundreds of precedents for all subsequent presidents, were instrumental to the successful launch of the new republic.
    As America’s commander in chief, Washington prioritized the safety and security of the American people. He sent an army in 1793 to defeat hostile Indian tribes that were attacking settlers on the frontier in the Ohio River Valley, and the following year he personally led a military force that disbursed the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania without firing a shot.
    Washington recognized that peace and safety required vigilance and military readiness. In addition to building up America’s coastal and frontier defenses, he ensured the militias were well-equipped and prepared for battle. As the Anglo-French wars came perilously close to American waters and threatened America’s trade, Washington recommissioned the navy.
    However, Washington undertook these and other military preparations with the aim of forestalling war, not provoking it; his hope was that a well-armed, well-defended America would force other powers to leave the young nation alone to grow and prosper in peace. Striving to keep the United States neutral in the Anglo-French wars of the early 1790s, he warned his countrymen in his 1796 presidential farewell address of the danger of foreign entanglements.
    Subsequent presidents heeded Washington’s caution to prepare for war while seeking to avoid it. When the Barbary States of North Africa began capturing U.S. merchant ships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, holding American sailors for ransom and even enslaving them, our earliest diplomats, notably New York’s John Jay, first tried to find a diplomatic solution. When those efforts failed, the war-weary federal government adopted the European practice of paying the Barbary States an annual tribute to prevent further attacks.
    By 1801 the situation had become intolerable. The bribes paid to the pirate states exacted a heavy toll on the federal budget and enraged the American people while failing to end the pirates’ maritime terrorism.
Refusing Tripoli’s demand for further tribute, newly elected president Thomas Jefferson sent a group of American frigates to the Mediterranean to protect the merchant fleet. After skirmishes with enemy ships, Congress authorized the president in 1802 to “employ such of the armed vessels of the United States as may be judged requisite . . . for protecting effectually the commerce and seamen thereof on the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and adjoining seas.”
    Although the conflict only comprised a few short battles and a successful blockade, the campaign against Barbary piracy—the United States’ biggest military engagement since the Revolutionary War—secured a treaty ending the pirates’ depredations. Preferring armed action over the continued payment of tribute, America showed the world that, though it did not seek war, it would defend itself from foreign attack and would protect its citizens’ God-given rights to life and property.

    American Exceptionalism is the remarkable and dynamic result of the American nation, sustained by the moral convictions of the American people, living out its freedoms through the people’s habits of liberty. Such a dynamic society cultivates extraordinary creativity, courage, and allegiance, implanting the optimistic belief that any person can succeed who works hard and plays by the rules.
    Five habits of liberty—faith and family, work, civil society, rule of law, and safety and peace—have been practiced by the American people as both public and private virtues. As responsibilities of a free people, these habits support and protect the unalienable rights of liberty and allow