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        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 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 rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal,
no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the
sentment 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
conemplation, 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 yo 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 appelation 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 envigorated; 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 imbitter. 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 illfounded 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 repl 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 enobles
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 quarrles 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; an 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 beligerent
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 swet 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.
 
   George Washington

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