FAREWELL ADDRESS (1796)
George Washington
George Washington had been the obvious choice to be
the first president of the United States, and indeed, many people had
supported ratification of the Constitution on the assumption that
Washington would be the head of the new government. By all measures,
Washington proved himself a capable, even a great, president, helping to
shape the new government and leading the country skillfully through
several crises, both foreign and domestic.
Washington, like many of his contemporaries, did not
understand or believe in political parties, and saw them as fractious
agencies subversive of domestic tranquility. When political parties
began forming during his administration, and in direct response to some
of his policies, he failed to comprehend that parties would be the chief
device through which the American people would debate and resolve major
public issues. It was his fear of what parties would do to the nation
that led Washington to draft his Farewell Address.
The two parties that developed in the early 1790s were
the Federalists, who supported the economic and foreign policies of the
Washington administration, and the Jeffersonian Republicans, who in
large measure opposed them. The Federalists backed Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton's plan for a central bank and a tariff and
tax policy that would promote domestic manufacturing; the Jeffersonians
opposed the strong government inherent in the Hamiltonian plan, and
favored farmers as opposed to manufacturers. In foreign affairs, both
sides wanted the United States to remain neutral in the growing
controversies between Great Britain and France, but the Federalists
favored the English and the Jeffersonians the French. The Address
derived at least in part from Washington's fear that party factionalism
would drag the United States into this fray.
Two-thirds of the Address is devoted to domestic
matters and the rise of political parties, and Washington set out his
vision of what would make the United States a truly great nation. He
called for men to put aside party and unite for the common good, an
"American character" wholly free of foreign attachments. The United
States must concentrate only on American interests, and while the
country ought to be friendly and open its commerce to all nations, it
should avoid becoming involved in foreign wars. Contrary to some
opinion, Washington did not call for isolation, only the avoidance of
entangling alliances. While he called for maintenance of the treaty with
France signed during the American Revolution, the problems created by
that treaty ought to be clear. The United States must "act for ourselves
and not for others."
The Address quickly entered the realm of revealed
truth. It was for decades read annually in Congress; it was printed in
children's primers, engraved on watches and woven into tapestries. Many
Americans, especially in subsequent generations, accepted Washington's
advice as gospel, and in any debate between neutrality and involvement
in foreign issues would invoke the message as dispositive of all
questions. Not until 1949, in fact, would the United States again sign a
treaty of alliance with a foreign nation.
For further reading: Burton I. Kaufman, ed.,
Washington's Farewell Address: The View from the 20th Century (1969);
Paul A. Varg, Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers (1963); Alexander
De Conde, Entangling Alliances (1958).
FAREWELL ADDRESS
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....
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 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....
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for
your welfare which can not end 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 permanency of your felicity as a people.... 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 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
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 same 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 rivalships 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....
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 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 can not 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....
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 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....
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
can not 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 con-fine 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
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 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 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 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 vigorous 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 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 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
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....
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, 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....
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.
Source: J.D. Richardson, ed.,
Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol.1 (1907), 213.
