George
Washington's Farewell Address to the nation as he left office is
considered by historians to be one of the most important speeches in
American history. For many years this speech by our
First
President was studied in American Public Schools.
Sadly this
speech is no longer required reading, and today many students don't
know much about George Washington much less his speech.
In
this speech
the Father of Our Nation warns the country of the many dangers that
can cause the country to fail. We warned that political
parties
could become divisive and tear the country apart, which seems to be
happening today. He warned that various parts of the country
might want to gain more power over other parts, as if seeing a future
Civil War. He warns America that future people might subvert
the
Constitution in an attempt to gain dictorial control of the
people. He points out that America will only enjoy the
Freedom's
of Liberty if the people remain a religious and moral society, and
religion are the best supports for the American style of government.
And he warned America from becoming entangled in European
conflicts. He warned that mobs and riots could led to
instability
which might weaken and topple our government. Lastly, it is
the We the
People
that have to guard Freedom and Liberty, and make sure those in
government are following the laws of the Constitution.
If you haven't read
Washington's Farewell Address it is well worth your time. It
should once again be required reading for students if we want America
to remain a Free Nation.
Washington's Farewell
Address 1796
1796
Friends and 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 beg you, at the same
time, to do me
the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken
without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the
relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in
withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might
imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future
interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but
am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and
continuance
hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me
have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and
to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped
that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with
motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that
retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my
inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to
the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature
reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs
with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to
my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.
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 towards the organization and administration of
the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment 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.
In looking forward to the
moment which
is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do
not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of
gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has
conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which
it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of
manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and
persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have
resulted to our country from these services, let it always be
remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals,
that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every
direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes
dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in
which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of
criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the
efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected.
Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my
grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may
continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union
and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution,
which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its
administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and
virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States,
under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a
preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to
them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and
adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to 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 to bias his counsel. Nor can I
forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my
sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.
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 immovable attachment to it; accustoming
yourselves to think and speak of it as of 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 appellation
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 counsels,
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 productions of the latter great additional
resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials
of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse,
benefiting 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 invigorated; 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 governments, which their own rival ships alone would be
sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances,
attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. 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 to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations
speak a
persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit
the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire.
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. We are authorized to hope that a proper
organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for
the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the
experiment. 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 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 heartburnings
which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien
to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal
affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a
useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the
Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the
treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event,
throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the
suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government
and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to
the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two
treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to
them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations,
towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to
rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which
they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those
advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren
and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and
permanency of your
Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance,
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 our 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.
All obstructions to the
execution of
the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible
character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe
the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are
destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They
serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary
force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the
will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of
the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different
parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the
ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the
organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and
modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or
associations
of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are
likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by
which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to
subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins
of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted
them to unjust dominion.
Towards 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.
The alternate domination
of one
faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to
party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated
the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this
leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders
and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek
security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner
or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more
fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes
of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward
to an
extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out
of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party
are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to
discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to
distract the
public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the
community with ill-founded 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 finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the
channels of party passions. 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 the
government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within
certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical
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
entrusted 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. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to
abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to
satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal
checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing
it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of
the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by
experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under
our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute
them. 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 vigorous exertion in time of
peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have
occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which
we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to
your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should
co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is
essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the
payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must
be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less
inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment,
inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a
choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid
construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a
spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the
public exigencies may at any time dictate.
Observe good faith and
justice towards
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 advantages 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
ennobles 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 towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges
towards another a habitual hatred or a 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. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate,
envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and
resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the
best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in
the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would
reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient
to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other
sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the
liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
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 quarrels 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.
As avenues to foreign
influence in
innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the
truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do
they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of
seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public
councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and
powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
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 belligerent 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 it, 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 of
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.
In offering to you, my
countrymen,
these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they
will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they
will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation
from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of
nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive
of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and
then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the
mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of
pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the
solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.
How far in the discharge
of my
official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been
delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must
witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own
conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by
them.
In relation to the still
subsisting
war in Europe, my proclamation of the twenty-second of April, I793, is
the index of my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that
of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that
measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to
deter or divert me from it.
After deliberate
examination, with the
aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our
country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take,
and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having
taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain
it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which
respect the
right to hold this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to
detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the
matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent
powers, has been virtually admitted by all.
The duty of holding a
neutral conduct
may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which
justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is
free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity
towards other nations.
The inducements of
interest for
observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections
and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to
gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent
institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of
strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly
speaking, the command of its own fortunes.
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 towards 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.
