Georgie Washington's Farewell Address

George Washington's farewell address, 1796:

President George Washington


Friends and Fellow Citizens: The period for a new election of a citizen, to
administer the executive government of the United States, being not far
distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed
in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust,
it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct
expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the
resolution I have formed to decline being considered among the number of
those out of whom a choice is to be made.
. . .
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no
longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment
of duty or propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained
for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you
will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions, with which I first undertook the arduous trust, were
explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will
only say, that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the
organization and administration of the Government, the best exertions of
which a very fallible judgement was capable. Not unconscious, in the
outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes,
perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to
diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years
admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary
to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given
peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation
to believe, that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political
scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
. . .
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which
cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to
that solicitude urge me on an occasion like the present, to offer to your
solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some
sentiments; which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable
observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your
felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom,
as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend,
who can possibly have no personal motive as his counsel.
. . .
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no
recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear
to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your
real independence, the support of your tranquility at home; your peace
abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you
so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes
and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices
employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is
the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of
internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though
often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that
you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to
your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a
cordial, habitual and immoveable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves
to think and speak of it as the palladium of your political safety and
prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety;
discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any
event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of
every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to
enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by
birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. The name of 'American', which belongs to you,
in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism,
more than any appelation derived from local discriminations. With slight
shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits and
political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed
together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint
councils, and joint efforts; of common dangers, sufferings and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to
your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more
immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the
most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of
the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the
equal laws of a common Government, finds in the production of the latter,
great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and
precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South in the same
intercourse, benefitting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture
grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the
seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation envigorated; and
while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the
general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection
of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in
a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive
improvement of interior communications, by land and water, will more and
more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad,
or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite
to its growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of still greater
consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable
outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future
maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an
indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which
the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own
separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any
foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While then every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular
interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united
mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource,
proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent
interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable
value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars
between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries, not
tied together by the same government; which their own rivalships alone
would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances,
attachments and intrigues would stimulate and imbitter. Hence, likewise,
they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments
which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty and which
are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this
sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your
liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear you to the
preservation of the other.
. . .
Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere?
Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were
criminal. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful
and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our country, while
experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will
always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may
endeavor to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, it occurs as a
matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for
characterizing parties by geographical discriminations: Northern and
Southern; Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite
a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One
of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular
districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You
cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings
which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to
each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.
. . .
To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a Government for the whole is
indispensable. No alliances however strict between the parts can be an
adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and
interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible
of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the
adoption of a Constitution of Government, better calculated than your
former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your
common concerns. This Government, the offspring of your own choice
uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature
deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its
powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a
provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and
your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws,
acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims
of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the
people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the
constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and
authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very
idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established
government.
. . .
Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your
present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily
discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but
also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to
effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the
energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly
overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember that
time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of
governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest
standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of
a country; that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and
opinion exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis
and opinion; and remember especially that for the efficient management of
your common interests in a country so extensive as ours a government of as
much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is
indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers
properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed,
little else than a name where the government is too feeble to withstand the
enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the
limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and
tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with
particular reference to the founding of them on geographical
discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in
the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party
generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root
in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different
shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed;
but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is
truly their worst enemy.
. . .
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public
administration. It agitates the community with illfounded jealousies and
false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments
occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence
and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself
through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one
country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon
the administration of government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of
liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of
a monarchial cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor,
upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in
governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From
their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that
spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of
excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and
assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to
prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should
consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country
should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to
confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding
in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the
departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a
real despotism.
. . .
If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the
constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an
amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no
change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument
of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are
destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil
any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man
claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great
pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties of men and
citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect
and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with
private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security
for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious
obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in
courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to
the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason
and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail
in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of
popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to
every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can
look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the
general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a
government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public
opinion should be enlightened.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit.
One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding
occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely
disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater
disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not
only by shunning occasions of expense, but by exertions in time of peace to
discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not
ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought
to bear.
. . .
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and
harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be
that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free,
enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the
magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted
justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and
things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantage
which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence
has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The
experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which enobles human
nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate
attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just
and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in
some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection,
either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its
interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more
readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of
umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling
occasions of dispute occur.
So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a
variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the
illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays
the former into a participation in the quarrles and wars of the latter
without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions
to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly
to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with
what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a
disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are
withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who
devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice
the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with
popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation,
a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public
good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or
infatuation.
. . .
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe
me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly
awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of
the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be
useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very
influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive
partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause
those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil
and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may
resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and
odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the
people to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in
extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political
connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let
them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very
remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the
causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore,
it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the
ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and
collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a
different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government,
the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external
annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality
we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when
beligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us,
will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace
or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to
stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of
any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to
do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to
existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to
private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat,
therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in
my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a
respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances
for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy,
humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal
and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or
preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and
diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing;
establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable
course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the Government
to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present
circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to
be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances
shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to
look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion
of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that
by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given
equivalents for nominal favors, and yet being reproached with ingratitude
for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or
calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
. . .
Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of
intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to
think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may
be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to
which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country
will never cease to view them with indulgence, and that, after forty-five
years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults
of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon
be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that
fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it the
native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I
anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself
to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of
my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free
government - the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as
I trust, of our mutual cares, labors and dangers.
Geo. Washington.

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Herbert Jamieson