House speaker drama, McCarthy's exit: Surprise lesson George Washington could teach us today

Since the U.S. was created, there have been small groups of rebels who rock the status quo. I thought about this recently when eight Republicans managed to bring down Speaker McCarthy.

Washington called partisanship a threat to our unity, leading to excess and "a spirit of mischief." He called it "a fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume."  Bret Baier is the Chief Political Anchor of Fox News Channel, and the Anchor and Executive Editor of "Special Report with Bret Baier." He is the author of five presidential biographies. His fifth biography, "To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment" is out October 10, 2023. 

On September 15, 1787, as delegates to the Constitutional Convention prepared to sign the new Constitution, Edmund Randolph, a delegate from Virginia, rose to announce that he could not sign the document unless it contained amendments. George Mason, also from Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts followed, making their own statements of refusal. These men had been deeply engaged throughout the convention, and now they were turning their backs on the result. 

For George Washington, the president of the convention, each defection came as a blow, but none more than that of George Mason, his neighbor and close friend. Mason had been by his side since the early days. Long before a revolution was imagined, the two men would sit together and discuss the issues of the day, including the frustrations of having a capricious ruler across the ocean.