Liberty When It Begins To Take

Written on March 2, 1788, in a letter from Mount Vernon to James Madison, who had written to Washington about political affairs in France. Washington was reflecting on King Louis XVI's attempts to restrain revolutionary sentiment among the French people, warning that such suppression would likely "kindle a flame which may not easily be extinguished." Washington's observation about liberty proved prescient: the French Revolution began the following year, in 1789.