George Washington "a Prophet"

[Danth]

It's been said that Napoleon Bonaparte, even after his own downfall, couldn't fathom why Washington willingly stepped down.

As a tidbit, Washington was more or less murdered by his doctors. He got sick and his inept doctors bled him 5 pints of blood. Unsurprisingly the old man died. Until relatively recent times it was oftentimes safer to take your chances with illness than visit a doctor.

Daywolf: I would argue that benefiting from the status quo isn't why Americans don't care about remaining slavery in the world. Rather I think it's more of a case of "Out of sight, out of mind." People tend not to care much about things which aren't immediately apparent. Instead of going overseas, look at how badly we treat our own aged and infirm. We lock them away in nursing homes--essentially jailing them for having committed no crime except getting old--siphoning away whatever money they saved up and mistreating and neglecting them. A few thousand years of civilization isn't sufficient to fully elevate us as a species above our instinctual tendency to care mainly about ourselves and nearest tribe members.

Danth