This is Washington’s
complete second Farewell Address of September 19, 1796 as published in the American
Daily Advertiser in Philadelphia. This is a different address than the Farewell to his Troops in New York at Fraunces Tavern on December 4, 1783.
David Claypoole, editor
of the Advertiser, was so moved by the address that he told Washington he was
loath to return it to the President. It was the only copy. Washington showed
his modesty by allowing Claypoole to keep the original. It has never been
found.
Most of us have
heard snippets of this address as proof of one issue or another over the years.
It is used as a “proof” of one political bent or the other. In reality it was a
scathing denunciation of the events of his Presidency and the problems he had
with his Cabinet in connection with establishing the fledgling government.
However, many parts of the address are still applicable today. It’s worth the
time it takes to read.
Friends and Fellow Citizens:
The period for a new election of a citizen to administer
the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the
time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the
person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper,
especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice,
that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being
considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be
assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all
the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen
to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in
my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your
future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but
am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the
office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform
sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what
appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much
earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to
disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly
drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last
election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you;
but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs
with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my
confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as
well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible
with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality
may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our
country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous
trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I
will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the
organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a
very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the
inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more
in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself;
and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that
the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied
that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were
temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence
invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to
terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend
the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved
country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the
steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities
I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services
faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits
have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered
to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under
circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable
to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often
discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has
countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the
essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were
effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my
grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you
the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection
may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands,
may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be
stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of
these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful
a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them
the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of
every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your
welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger,
natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer
to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some
sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable
observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your
felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as
you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who
can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as
an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former
and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament
of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm
the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people
is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the
edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home,
your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different
causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices
employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this 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 counsels, 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, benefiting 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 governments, which their own rival ships 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 heartburnings 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 alliance, 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,
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.
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 counsels and modified by
mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above
description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the
course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning,
ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the
people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying
afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you
steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority,
but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to
effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the
energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit
are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other
human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the
real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in
changes, upon the credit of mere 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.
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 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 finds 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 depositaries,
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 exertion 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 co-operate. 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 a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness
is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection,
either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer
insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty
and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence,
frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation,
prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government,
contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes
participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason
would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient
to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations,
has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for
another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation,
facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no
real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other,
betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter
without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to
the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to
injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what
ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a
disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are
withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the
interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity;
gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable
deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or
foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such
attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent
patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic
factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to
influence or awe the public councils? Such an attachment of a small or weak
towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the
latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I
conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought
to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that
jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the
very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive
partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those
whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even
second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the
intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its
tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender
their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign
nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little
political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements,
let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a
set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation.
Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us
to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her
politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or
enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us
to pursue a different course. If we 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 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 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 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 twenty-second of April, I793, is the index of 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, perseverance, 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.
United States
19th September,
1796
Geo. Washington
