[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 37 (Monday, February 27, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S487-S492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                READING OF WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the Senate 
of January 24, 1901, as modified by the order of January 21, 2023, the 
Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford, will now read Washington's 
Farewell Address.
  Mr. LANKFORD. In 1781, the Revolution had actually ended. The war had 
stopped. George Washington, then as the Commander in Chief of the 
Continental Army, continued to be able to stay on to be able to lead 
the Army until 1783, until the new government could be formed. In 1783, 
he came to Annapolis, MD, and Commander in Chief George Washington 
resigned his commission of the military.
  Now, we don't see that as a significant event, but it is one of the 
most significant events at the beginning of our Nation because, in the 
past, if you led the Army and you won the war, you would become the 
leader based on the fact that the Army is behind you. That is the way 
it had always been in every place, in every country. If you had the 
Army, you have the power.
  George Washington approached the civilian government in the 
beginnings of a new Republic, resigned his commission, and stepped back 
to being a private citizen. That event is so significant, John 
Trumbull, his painting hangs in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol right 
now. That painting has been hanging there since 1824. In fact, the 
painting of George Washington resigning his commission is actually 
older than the dome that it is under.
  We don't think about a military leader taking over the United States. 
That is unthinkable for us because of the path that George Washington 
laid down behind us.
  He did a lot of firsts in a lot of his leadership. He was our first 
President. He was a civilian leader. After one term, he wanted to be 
able to step down. In fact, he and Madison actually wrote together a 
letter to be able to go out to the American people after his first 
Presidency, but so many people came to him and encouraged him to be 
able to run again that he relented and ran again. But at the end of his 
second term, he would not relent and had determined he was not a King, 
he was not the only person who could lead these new United States, but 
it was time, after 45 years, for him to step aside.
  And this time, with the help of another gentleman whom he had worked 
with for a long time named Alexander Hamilton--they had served 
together, even since the Continental Army. He and Alexander Hamilton 
wrote an address to the American people. This was to be the end of his 
Presidency and of his public service. It was actually--interestingly 
enough, it is referred to as ``George Washington's Farewell Address,'' 
but he never actually spoke it. They wrote it, and then they published 
it together.
  Many people don't know that George Washington didn't like speaking in 
public and wasn't akin to coming to make big public speeches. So they 
published it, and it became a signature.
  This speech begins with a farewell to the Nation, saying: I am 
stepping aside as President of these United States. Then he goes on to 
be able to challenge the Nation in multiple areas, beginning with being 
careful in the days ahead.

[[Page S488]]

He saw the seeds of factions and of political parties beginning to 
rise, and he challenged the Nation. He challenged the Nation to be able 
to hold fast to its faith and to be able to live the principles of its 
faith.
  He challenged the Nation on the issue of debt and to be able to say 
don't be a nation that carries a lot of debt. You will have times of 
war when you will have to carry it, but pay it off as quickly as 
possible.
  He challenged the Nation in the issue of foreign entanglements and 
foreign alliances, and he challenged the Nation to forgive him of any 
mistakes that he might have made while he was leading the Nation.
  This nonspeech speech that he presented to the Nation has become a 
signature for now more than two centuries. It wasn't set aside. In 
fact, during the Civil War, for the first time, Members of Congress 
gathered on the other side of the building in the brandnew House 
Chamber in 1862, where House and Senate, with all the military 
leadership, gathered together in one room and read it out loud as a 
reminder to the Nation of our beginnings and as an encouragement to all 
the legislators during the Civil War.
  It was set aside again until 1893 when the Senate picked it back up 
again and a Senator was chosen to be able to read it out loud to the 
Senate. It was done in 1893 and 1894 and then stopped in 1895 but then 
picked up again in 1896 and has been read every single year since 1896, 
in this Chamber, right around George Washington's birthday--a fitting 
tribute to a President who did much to be able to establish who we are 
as a country.
  I am honored today to be the one selected to be able to speak this 
speech. I am also honored to be able to note that I am the first 
Oklahoman in the history of the Senate to actually read this speech out 
loud in the Senate.
  Now, we are a young State. We have only been a State since 1907, but 
we have only been reading it out loud since 1893. So we have been there 
for most of the time. So I am honored to be able to give to you 
``George Washington's Farewell Address'' and his look to the future of 
our Nation to say: These are the things I would request that you do not 
forget.
  Mr. LANKFORD at the rostrum, read the Farewell Address, as follows:
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

[[Page S489]]

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.

[[Page S490]]

  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 govern ment, 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.

[[Page S491]]

  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 re-main 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, rival-ship, 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,

[[Page S492]]

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.

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