Names are tricky things.

What was the federal holiday at the start of this week? Most people say “Presidents Day,” but there is no such animal. The real name is “George Washington’s Birthday.”

But Monday was not his birthday. Washington was born on Feb. 22, an occasion marked in the early republic by public readings of his farewell address and other expressions of decorous patriotism. Like a lot of things, though, the Civil War changed how America dealt with such matters.

After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and subsequent apotheosis as a civic saint, many people began to celebrate his birthday — 10 days before Washington’s — as well. But as you might imagine, not many folks in the former Confederacy were eager to acclaim the great emancipator. So the country continued on in that way for a bit: All states celebrating Washington, some states celebrating Lincoln.

In 1879, though, Congress was looking for a more formal arrangement and established Washington’s birthday as a holiday for federal workers and for the District of Columbia. But the split persisted. Some Republican states maintained holidays for both great leaders, while Democratic ones mostly continued to snub Lincoln.

This was not good enough for the Yankees, who wanted attention to be paid. They would make noise about pushing Feb. 12 as a federal holiday, but Democrats were not having any of it. The pro-Lincoln-ists then took another tact and pushed for the establishment of a Presidents Day holiday to celebrate all presidents — wink, wink — and eventually got a bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1951, but Democrats killed it deader than old Abe himself.

Also, Presidents Day is a pretty foolish idea. That’s the “everybody gets a trophy” approach to history. You don’t set good examples when you put John Tyler and James Buchanan on the same page as Lincoln and Washington. And neither should the office of the presidency be any further adulated than it is. The presidency is a dangerous necessity required to avoid even greater threats. It is only a blessing because the presidency is preferable to the........

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