[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2251-2255]
[From the U.S. 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 amended by the order of February 14, 2012, the 
Senator from New Hampshire, Mrs. Shaheen, will now read Washington's 
Farewell Address.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN, at the rostrum, read the Farewell Address, as follows:
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     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

[[Page 2252]]

     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

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     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

[[Page 2254]]

     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, 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, 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.

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page 2255]]

  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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