President George Washington's Farewell Address
1796
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 appraise
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 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 toward the organization and administration of the Government,
the best exertions of which a very fallible judgement was capable. Not
unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications,
experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has
strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the
increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of
retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if
any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were
temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that while choice and
prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid
it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a
solicitude for your welfare, which 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 as his counsel.
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 immoveable attachment to it;
accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as 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 production 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 you to the preservation of
the other.
Is there a doubt whether a common
government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To
listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. It is well worth
a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to
union affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have
demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust
the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its
bands.
In contemplating the causes which may
disturb our union, it occurs as a 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.
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 your
own choice uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and
mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the
distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing
within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your
confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with
its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the
fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is
the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of
government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by
an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory
upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to
establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the
established government.
Toward the preservation
of your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is
requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions
to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the
spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts.
One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution
alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to
undermine what 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 hypothesis and opinion exposes to perpetual change,
from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember
especially that for the efficient management of your common interests in a
country so extensive as ours a government of as much vigor as is
consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty
itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed
and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name
where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of
faction, to 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.
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 passion.
Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy
and will of another.
There is an opinion that
parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of
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 its bursting
into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free
country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration
to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres,
avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon
another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all
the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of
government, a real despotism.
If in the opinion
of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional
powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in
the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by
usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good,
it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The
precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or
transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain
would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert
these great pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties
of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man,
ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their
connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked,
Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense
of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of
investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the
supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may
be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar
structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary
spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less
force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to
it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the
fabric? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions
for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of
a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public
opinion should be enlightened.
As a very
important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One
method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding
occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that
timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater
disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not
only by shunning occasions of expense, but by exertions in time of peace
to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not
ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought
to bear.
Observe good faith and justice toward
all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality
enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good policy does not equally
enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant
period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel
example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a
plan would richly repay any temporary advantage which might be lost by a
steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the
permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least,
is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it
rendered impossible by its vices?
In the
execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent,
inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate
attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just
and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in
some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection,
either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its
interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more
readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of
umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling
occasions of dispute occur.
So, likewise, a
passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of
evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an
imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists,
and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a
participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate
inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite
nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the
nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to
have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition
to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and
it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the
interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with
popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of
obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal
for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption,
or infatuation.
Against the insidious wiles of
foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the
jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and
experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of
republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial,
else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided,
instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign
nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to
see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of
influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the
favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and
dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their
interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in
regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to
have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we
have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good
faith. Here let us stop.
Europe has a set of
primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence
she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise
in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary
vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions
of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and
distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If
we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far
off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may
take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time
resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under
the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard
the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our
interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the
advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon
foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of
Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with
any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty
to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing
infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to
public than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. I
repeat, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine
sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend
them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by
suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely
trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are
recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial
policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor
granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of
things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in
order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our
merchants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional
rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual
opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time
abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for
disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its
independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such
acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given
equivalents for nominal favors, and yet being reproached with ingratitude
for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or
calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am
unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my
defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.
Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or
mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the
hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence, and
that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an
upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to
oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated
by that fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in
it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations,
I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise
myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the
midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free
government - the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward,
as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors and dangers.
Geo. Washington.