[Senate Document 105-22]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
105th Congress, 2d Session - - - - - - - - - - Senate Document 105-022
WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES
105th Congress 2nd Session
Senate Document No. 105-22, Washington, 1998
WASHINGTON'S
FAREWELL ADDRESS
TO THE PEOPLE
OF THE UNITED STATES
105th Congress 2nd Session
Senate Document No. 105-22, Washington, 1998
INTRODUCTION
Prepared by the United States Senate Historical Office
In September 1796, worn out by burdens of the presidency and
attacks of political foes, George Washington announced his decision
not to seek a third term. With the assistance of Alexander Hamilton
and James Madison, Washington composed in a ``Farewell Address'' his
political testament to the nation. Designed to inspire and guide future
generations, the address also set forth Washington's defense of his
administration's record and embodied a classic statement of Federalist
doctrine.
Washington's principal concern was for the safety of the eight-
year-old Constitution. He believed that the stability of the Republic
was threatened by the forces of geographical sectionalism, political
factionalism, and interference by foreign powers in the nation's
domestic affairs. He urged Americans to subordinate sectional
jealousies to common national interests. Writing at a time before
political parties had become accepted as vital extraconstitutional,
opinion-focusing agencies, Washington feared that they carried the
seeds of the nation's destruction through petty factionalism. Although
Washington was in no sense the father of American isolationism, since
he recognized the necessity of temporary associations for
``extraordinary emergencies,'' he did counsel against the establishment
of ``permanent alliances with other countries,'' connections that he
warned would inevitably be subversive of America's national interest.
Washington did not publicly deliver his Farewell Address. It first
appeared on September 19, 1796, in the Philadelphia Daily American
Advertiser and then in papers around the country.
In January 1862, with the Constitution endangered by civil war, a
thousand citizens of Philadelphia petitioned Congress to commemorate
the forthcoming 130th anniversary of George Washington's birth by
providing that ``the Farewell Address of Washington be read aloud on
the morning of that day in one or the other of the Houses of
Congress.'' Both houses agreed and assembled in the House of
Representatives' chamber on February 22, 1862, where Secretary of the
Senate John W. Forney ``rendered `The Farewell Address' very
effectively,'' as one observer recalled.
The practice of reading the Farewell Address did not immediately
become a tradition. The address was first read in regular legislative
sessions of the Senate in 1888 and the House in 1899. (The House
continued the practice until 1984.) Since 1893 the Senate has observed
Washington's birthday by selecting one of its members to read the
Farewell Address. The assignment alternates between members of each
political party. At the conclusion of each reading, the appointed
senator inscribes his or her name and brief remarks in a black,
leather-bound book maintained by the secretary of the Senate.
The version of the address printed here is taken from the
original of the final manuscript in the New York Public Library
provided courtesy of The Papers of George Washington. The only changes
have been to modernize spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS
To the people of the United States
_____
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 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 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, 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 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 government, 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.
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 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. 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 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, until 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 councils 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 hypotheses and opinion exposes to perpetual change
from the endless variety of hypotheses 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 the 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 find 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 depositories 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 exertions 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 cooperate. 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 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. 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 forgo 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 respectably 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 to 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 22d of April 1793 is the index to 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, perseverence, 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
United States
19th September 1796