Which President Warned the Nation Again Political Parties?

In 1796, as he neared the end of his 2nd term, President George Washington was 64 years old and suffering from ills both physical and political. Plagued by painful dentures and rheumatism, and facing increasing attacks from opponents of his policies, the former Revolutionary War general decided he would non seek a 3rd term in the nation's highest office.

As he did then, he and his longtime friend and protégé, Alexander Hamilton, drafted a farewell address. In the seven,641-discussion document, the nation'south outset president chosen for the American people to remain unified, resist the rise of political factions and avoid the influence of foreign powers.

Washington was not bound past a 2-term limit. Only if he died in office, he feared information technology would constitute a precedent that the presidency was a lifetime date. Instead, he stepped aside to brand way for a successor, proving to future generations (and his gimmicky critics) his commitment to democracy rather than power.

A Cheerio Accost to the Nation

President George Washington (seated) with Alexander Hamilton.

Ed Vebell/Getty Images

Four years earlier Washington actually left office, when he had considered retiring afterward his offset term, he had asked James Madison to draft a farewell address. In the jump of 1796, Washington found Madison'south draft, made some additions of his own, and turned it over to Hamilton, who ended up drafting his own version.

Washington and Hamilton worked closely together on the address, which took the grade of a public letter of the alphabet to the American people. It was published in the Daily American Advertiser, a Philadelphia newspaper, on September 19, 1796, and after reprinted in papers throughout the country. The letter included iii chief principles:

ane. Importance of Unity

After opening with an caption of his choice not to seek a tertiary term, Washington'due south farewell accost urged Americans not to put their regional and exclusive interests above the interests of the nation every bit a whole. "You have in a common crusade fought and triumphed together," Washington declared. "The Independence and Liberty you possess are the piece of work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of mutual dangers, sufferings, and successes."

Regions such as Due north, Due south, East and West should meet their common interests rather than their differences, he continued. "Your Spousal relationship ought to exist considered as a master prop of your liberty and...the love of the one ought to endear you to the preservation of the other."

2. The 'Worst Enemy' of Government: Loyalty to Party Over Nation

Co-ordinate to Washington, one of the primary dangers of letting regional loyalties dominate loyalty to the nation as a whole was that it would lead to factionalism, or the evolution of competing political parties. When Americans voted co-ordinate to party loyalty, rather than the common interest of the nation, Washington feared information technology would foster a "spirit of revenge," and enable the rise of "cunning, aggressive, and unprincipled men" who would "usurp for themselves the reins of regime; destroying subsequently the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

In fact, political parties had already begun to emerge past the fourth dimension Washington stepped aside. Federalists, who drew their support largely from New England, advocated a strong national authorities and the financial programs created by Hamilton, the nation's showtime secretary of the treasury. Republicans (later Autonomous-Republicans) led by Southerners like Thomas Jefferson and Madison, opposed Hamilton's economic policies. They too split with the Federalists in strange policy, favoring a closer relationship with France over Slap-up United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland.

Washington supported Hamilton'south financial programs and sided with the Federalists in supporting the Jay Treaty with United kingdom. By the end of his presidency, Washington was weathering increasingly bitter attacks from his Republican critics, and his farewell address represented his response to such attacks, likewise equally a more than full general statement of his principles.

iii. Danger of Foreign Entanglements

Just as regionalism would lead to the formation of political parties, Washington believed, partisanship would open the door to "foreign influence and abuse." While he advocated for the United States to exist on skilful terms with all nations, especially commercial relations, he argued that "inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should exist excluded."

Europe had its own, very complicated, set up of interests, and the Us should proceed its distance from European affairs, Washington believed. A foreign policy based on neutrality was the safest mode to maintain national unity, and stability, in the United States. Although Washington saw the demand for the nation to involve itself in foreign affairs in the instance of war or other emergency, he argued that it must "steer clear of permanent alliances with whatsoever portion of the strange world."

Legacy of Washington's Bye Accost

Washington's goodbye accost was rooted in the specific challenges he saw facing the United States at the time, including increasing internal divisions and the ongoing external threat of invasion by stronger nations. But his eloquent message of unity and his warnings against regionalism, partisanship and foreign influence ensured the accost would become one of the virtually widely reprinted documents in American history, with powerful implications that continue to resonate today.

George Washington'southward momentous decision to footstep aside after two terms set a precedent that would be followed by every succeeding president except Franklin D. Roosevelt, and would be formalized in the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1951. In a tradition dating back to the years following the Civil War, a member of the U.S. Senate reads Washington's bye address aloud each yr to observe Washington'south birthday; the reading assignment alternates betwixt members of each political party.

Meet images of the original document of Washington'southward Farewell Accost in a higher place, and the full text beneath.

Full Text of George Washington's Farewell Address

Friends and Boyfriend Citizens:

The menstruum for a new election of a denizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must exist employed in designating the person who is to exist clothed with that important trust, information technology appears to me proper, especially every bit it may conduce to a more singled-out expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise y'all of the resolution I accept formed, to pass up being considered amid 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 non 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 involvement, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the pace is compatible with both.

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages accept twice called me accept been a uniform cede of inclination to the stance of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that information technology would take been much earlier in my ability, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The force of my inclination to practise this, previous to the final election, had even led to the training of an address to declare it to y'all; merely 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 country of your concerns, external likewise equally 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 nowadays circumstances of our state, you volition 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 accept, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Non unconscious in the beginning 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 than that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as information technology will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances take given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I accept the consolation to believe that, while pick and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does non forbid it.

In looking frontwards to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings practice not permit me to suspend the deep acquittance of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved state 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 zipper, past 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 instance 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. Greatly penetrated with this idea, I shall comport it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may proceed to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may exist perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may exist stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may exist made complete past so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this approval as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the amore, and adoption of every nation which is nevertheless a stranger to information technology.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot finish only 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 volition be offered to you with the more freedom, as yous tin can but 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 information technology, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not different occasion.

Interwoven equally is the love of freedom with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or ostend the zipper.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is as well at present dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a master pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your repose at home, your peace abroad; of your condom; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which y'all so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will exist taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the confidence of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will exist most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of space moment that you should properly gauge 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 call up and speak of information technology as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may advise even a suspicion that it can in any consequence be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the kickoff dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our state from the balance, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the diverse parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by nascency or selection, of a common land, that land has a correct 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 than whatever appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same faith, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a mutual cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of mutual dangers, sufferings, and successes.

Only these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your involvement. Hither every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the spousal relationship of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common regime, finds in the productions of the latter bang-up boosted 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 agronomics abound and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the N, information technology finds its detail navigation invigorated; and, while information technology contributes, in dissimilar ways, to nourish and increment the full general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The E, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and h2o, will more and more find a valuable vent for the bolt which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at abode. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of withal 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 Spousal relationship, directed by an indissoluble community of interest equally one nation. Whatever other tenure by which the West tin hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an backslider and unnatural connection with any strange power, must exist 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 betwixt themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the aforementioned governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, only 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 grade of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to exist regarded as peculiarly 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 dearest of the i ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and showroom the continuance of the Union every bit a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government tin can comprehend so large a sphere? Let feel solve information technology. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to promise that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary bureau of governments for the respective subdivisions, will beget a happy consequence to the experiment. It is well worth a off-white 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 business concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may try to excite a belief that there is a existent difference of local interests and views. 1 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 also much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be spring together by fraternal amore. The inhabitants of our Western country accept lately had a useful lesson on this caput; 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 consequence, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated amongst them of a policy in the Full general Regime and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of 2 treaties, that with Keen Uk, 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 ? Volition they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such in that location 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 tin be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times take experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, past the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious direction of your common concerns. This authorities, the offspring of our ain selection, 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 but claim to your confidence and your back up. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the central maxims of true freedom. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of regime. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed past an explicit and authentic deed 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 regime.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to straight, control, annul, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted regime, are subversive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal trend. They serve to organize faction, to give information technology an artificial and extraordinary forcefulness; to put, in the identify of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, oftentimes a modest but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of dissimilar 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 past common interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and and so answer popular ends, they are probable, in the course of fourth dimension and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men volition be enabled to subvert the ability of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of authorities, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

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Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your nowadays happy country, it is requisite, not merely 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 organisation, and thus to undermine what cannot exist directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you lot may be invited, remember that time and addiction are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments every bit 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 multifariousness of hypothesis and opinion; and retrieve, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so all-encompassing as ours, a government of as much vigor equally is consequent 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. Information technology is, indeed, little else than a proper 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 accept already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Allow me at present accept a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner confronting the baneful furnishings of the spirit of political party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human listen. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more than or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular grade, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of 1 faction over another, sharpened past the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in dissimilar ages and countries has perpetrated the about 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 primary 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 exist entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of political party are sufficient to brand 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 role against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the authorities itself through the channels of political party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and volition of some other.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the authorities and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within sure limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if non with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to exist encouraged. From their natural trend, it is sure there will ever exist enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And in that location beingness constant danger of excess, the effort ought to exist by strength of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, information technology demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, information technology should eat.

Information technology is important, as well, 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 do of the powers of one section to interlope upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, any the course of government, a existent despotism. A but estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the man heart, is sufficient to satisfy usa of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the practice of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal confronting invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our land and nether our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary equally to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular incorrect, let information technology exist corrected past an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may exist the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon past which gratis governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil whatever partial or transient benefit, which the utilise can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which atomic number 82 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 human being, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Permit it just 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 permit the states with circumspection indulge the assumption that morality tin be maintained without organized religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined pedagogy on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both prevent us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Information technology 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 gratuitous government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can expect with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the textile?

Promote so, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general improvidence of cognition. In proportion as the construction of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of forcefulness and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to utilise it equally sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to gear up for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel information technology, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, only past 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, just 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 listen that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to take revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes tin be devised which are non more than or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is ever a choice of difficulties), ought to exist a decisive motive for a aboveboard construction of the conduct of the regime in making information technology, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any fourth dimension dictate.

Observe proficient faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and tin can information technology be, that good policy does not equally enjoin information technology? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no afar period, a smashing nation, to give to flesh the magnanimous and as well novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benignancy. Who can uncertainty 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 information technology be that Providence has non connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at to the lowest degree, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles homo nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible past its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, zip is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in identify of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards some other a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its antagonism or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to atomic number 82 it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in ane nation confronting another disposes each more than readily to offer insult and injury, to lay concur 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, opposite 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 oftentimes, sometimes maybe 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 involvement 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 departing 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 stance, or a laudable zeal for public proficient, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are specially alarming to the truly aware 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 exist the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, beau-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and feel bear witness that strange influence is one of the nigh baneful foes of republican authorities. Only that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to exist avoided, instead of a defence force against it. Excessive partiality for ane foreign nation and excessive dislike of some other cause those whom they actuate to encounter 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 conviction of the people, to surrender their interests.

The not bad rule of conduct for the states in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them equally fiddling political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect skillful faith. Hither let us stop. Europe has a ready of primary interests which to u.s.a. 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 past artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant state of affairs invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If nosotros remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when nosotros may have such an mental attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to exist scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, volition not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or state of 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 role of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, sense of 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 at present at liberty to exercise 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 information technology, therefore, permit those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. Simply, 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 fifty-fifty our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial manus; 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 and then disposed, in order to give trade a stable form, 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 await for disinterested favors from another; that information technology must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such credence, it may identify 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 simply pride ought to discard.

In offering to yous, my countrymen, these counsels of an erstwhile and appreciating 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 fifty-fifty flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional skilful; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of political 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 earth. To myself, the assurance of my ain conscience is, that I take at least believed myself to exist guided by them.

In relation to the withal subsisting state of war in Europe, my annunciation of the twenty-2d of April, I793, is the alphabetize of my program. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and past that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that mensurate has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

Afterwards deliberate test, with the assist 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 have, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, equally far as should depend upon me, to maintain information technology, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.

The considerations which respect the right to hold this comport, information technology is non necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, co-ordinate to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by whatever of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted past all.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without annihilation 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 comport will best exist referred to your ain reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to effort to gain time to our land to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without intermission to that degree of force and consistency which is necessary to requite information technology, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional mistake, I am yet likewise sensible of my defects non to think information technology probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may exist, I fervently beseech the Omnipotent to avoid or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall too behave with me the hope that my state will never end 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 before long be to the mansions of residual.

Relying on its kindness in this equally in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is then natural to a human who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I conceptualize with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweetness 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 centre, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

United States

19th September, 1796

Geo. Washington

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Source: https://www.history.com/news/george-washington-farewell-address-warnings

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