Presidents Day should cause us to reflect on the importance of open and free elections and the peaceful transfer of power.

Agree or disagree with the President — whether it is this president, a past president, or one in the future, we should all accept and embrace the ideals of the American presidency.

If you don’t think so, look at the rest of the world — the violence or overwhelming intimidation in bringing or keeping a leader in power.

We have always — almost always — been better than that.

Since the formation of our nation, we have been able to support and respect the office of the presidency, even when some of us may disagree with the administration’s policies or ideologies.

Even when it is a President of one party replacing a President from another party, peacefully transferring power from one administration to the next is simply the American Way.

Our way is for the President whose term has come to a close to peacefully leave the White House, while the incoming President, who may have been the sitting President’s opponent, assumes power.

That is who we are. It is what we do.

From its earliest days, our nation has been blessed.

We were blessed with having a George Washington as our first President rather than a Hosni Mubarak, or a Fidel Castro, or a Vladmir Putin, or any number of other leaders throughout history who have refused to relinquish power.

Given his success in defeating the British, his command of the nation’s military, the esteem in which his countrymen held him, Washington could have been president for life, a new king, or dictator.

Instead, he surrendered his sword at war’s end. He stepped aside after being elected to two terms as President.

Washington attended the peaceful transfer of power to John Adams as the second President. Adams did not stick around to see his political rival Thomas Jefferson inaugurated as the third President. But Adams peacefully allowed the transfer of power to an opposing party’s President-elect.

So, the precedent had been established.

In the American Revolution, we were blessed with a Washington. In France, revolution ushered in the guillotine and Napoleon.

People should think long and hard about the ramifications of toppling a freely elected government or not accepting the outcome of an election.

History has revealed there are far more Mubaraks than Washingtons.

On this Presidents Day week, it is a lesson we should remember well as more people foment the ideals of revolution at home.