WASHINGTON   –  “To many, Presidents' Day comes and goes with little notice or fanfare. It's just another cold day in February with no school or postal service. But the reason we set aside the day is to honor two of America's greatest presidents.

Those two men are, of course, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and they are notable for many accomplishments. But the reason they endure is because they are two true portraits of selfless and patriotic leadership. It is difficult to distill the remarkable philosophies of service of those two presidencies in simple quotes, but I will give it my best shot.

George Washington: "To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable."

Abraham Lincoln: "The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."

It is no mistake that we celebrate the lives and achievements of the president who helped forge our Union and the president who helped preserve our Union together. Washington and Lincoln weren't so much about campaign promises or high rhetoric; their popularity stemmed from their obvious and sincere desire to serve others. The example they set in that regard can be valuable not just in the presidency, but at every level of government and in every community in our nation.

The Union we are blessed with endures not because the ideas on which it was founded were so great, though they were. Our Union persists today because loyal patriots through the centuries have been willing to sacrifice for it. In uniform, in public service, by carefully learning the history of our great nation and then by ensuring it will not be forgotten. So from each generation to the next we pass down the blessings of freedom and a responsibility to maintain our Union.

Washington knew that, for our Union to be worth inheriting, it must have a government that worked in the best interests of all of the people of our nation, so when he decided not to seek the presidency beyond two terms he explicitly entrusted the Union to the people. And Lincoln, in his struggle to preserve the Union, put the rights of all people at the center of his just cause and ahead of his fear of failure.

Both of these great presidents would be glad to see, today, that the spirit of service is alive and well today, that the public debate over the direction of our country is lively and robust, and that Americans continue to fight to preserve the blessings of liberty for our posterity. These are high ideals, but fitting remembrances on this Presidents' Day.”