The Datafile PD-CD 1B/DATAFILE_PDCD1B.iso/_gutenburg/gutenberg/freenet/washngtn_t/WASHNGTN_T

Text File | 1994-04-01 | 27KB | 500 lines

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 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
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 moti