[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 19 (Friday, February 18, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1703-S1708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, is designated to read 
Washington's Farewell Address.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I am honored today to take part in the 
Senate's annual tradition of reading George Washington's farewell 
address to the Nation. I am truly humbled to add my name to the list of 
Senators who have been privileged to read the address.
  The address, delivered by Washington in the form of an open letter to 
his fellow countrymen, appeared in newspapers across our young Nation 
over 200 years ago. Then, as now, we struggle sometimes with 
Washington's words. We debate meaning and we debate intent, but perhaps 
our discourse is what Washington himself intended. Our independence and 
our freedom is, in fact, the source of our strength.
  I believe that the address is President Washington's call for 
Americans to look beyond divisions and to gain strength in our unity of 
purpose.
  Washington's Farewell Address to the people of the United States of 
America:

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 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

[[Page S1704]]

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 political 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 movement 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

[[Page S1705]]

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 yourself 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 they 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 opposition to its acknowledged authority but 
also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its 
principles, however specious the pretext. 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 fraction, 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

[[Page S1706]]

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 purpose 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 in 
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, forments occasional 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 monarchial cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, 
if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the 
popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not 
to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will 
always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there 
being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of 
public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, 
it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it 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 of 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 the 
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 but, 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 attachment 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

[[Page S1707]]

the animosity of the nation's 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 inducements or justifications. 
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 jealously, 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 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 jealously 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 for 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 alliance 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 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--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 is 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, 
uninfuenced 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.

[[Page S1708]]

  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.

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