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The First U.S. President Takes His Hat - Washington in 1796
Washington's Farewell Address
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George Washington.
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Washington's Farewell Address.
It follows the full text transcript of
George Washington's Farewell Address, published
on September 19, 1796, in the
American Daily Advertiser.
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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.
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