Part 1:
This is the first in a series of articles treating a work that is universally regarded as one of the most important of our founding documents: Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796. Old letters and speeches near the founding of the country give us a good idea of why the Founders believed in their government, and how they expected it to work.
For historical reference, it is necessary that a reader be acquainted with the politics of the time. In those days, one did not actively run for president. One was selected, usually due to one’s standing as a national hero, and votes were cast. Members of the Electoral College each cast two votes. In two elections Washington had received one vote from each Elector and so still stands as the only President to receive a unanimous election. While his administration was under fire at the end of eight years, there is no doubt that he would have won a third election.
The purpose of this Address was to tell the body of Electors that he would not accept a nomination from them again. He had wanted to say this in 1792 after one term in office, but his peers and the uneasy situation that the United States found itself in compelled him to accept a second term as President.
Washington’s most famous reason for getting out of the Presidency was that he wanted to retire. Depending on who’s counting, he had retired three times already, and longed to spend his days at his domicile. He says, “I constantly hope…to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn.”
Washington, being the character that he was, had an odd notion of what “retirement” meant. For him retirement was moving from working very hard publicly to working very hard privately. While most politicians were lawyers, Washington was a farmer and a surveyor by trade. He was known for his silence, unless he rode spoke with a local farmer; then he wouldn’t stop talking. He was determined to enjoy his last years on his farm and go on to die from working too hard.
But Washington had another motive for getting out of office. Traditionally Washingtons didn’t live very long, and he had speaking fatalistically of his own death since he turned 50 during the Revolution. His popularity produced a scary possibility that should he die in office, America would go on electing its Presidents for life. He recognized the dangers this might pose for his country and was determined to retire before dying. It was a necessary duty pulling on hismas surely as his need to get his mind and body back to his farm.
George Washington says in his Address, that he has done his job with “the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.” This is, perhaps, his most humble statement of all time. Washington’s judgment was sound in all things, from Indian affairs to cabinet members, from military engagements to the nature of power itself. He was a most capable President because he had the ability to make important judgment calls. So when he speaks in his Farewell Address, this is not just some yahoo yammering. This is George Washington, and we need to listen.
Part 2:
After announcing and justifying his decision to retire from politics, Washington tells us, “Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, and the apprehension of danger… urge me… to offer… some sentiments which are the result of much reflection.” Here, Washington begins his advice column.
We are presented with a list of items that Washington believes may threaten our liberties. Having spent the first half of his life living under a regime abusive to his liberty, and the second half of his life fighting to establish one that was not, he has particular insight into this dichotomy. Experience, energy, and excellent judgment allow him to give us very poignant warnings. No one was more acquainted with the inner workings of the new Republic’s government than he, and no one knew how better it may be abused.
From the outset, one will notice that the arguments in this paper vigorously defend a strong, central government. Modern readers might take that and say, "That's exactly what we've been establishing." But Washington's insistence on a strong, central government is not what today's reader might think. He was not saying that a government ought to impose its will on its citizens. That's exactly what he's NOT saying. Such a government could abuse the liberty of its people. The government he proposes would be effective in defending those liberties.
If we read closely we find very adamant statements about the unity of the nation. Generally, modern Americans do not understand feeling more loyalty to our local state government than to the Federal government, but the people in Washington's day invariably did, and Washington knew this could be disastrous.
Washington wants two things. First, he wants people to feel as though they are one nation, not a loose confederation of states. During the Revolution, Washington commanded an army made up of soldiers from all thirteen colonies. A problem he often had was that while waging a war in New York, soldiers from the South or from New England would wonder why they had to suffer and die defending a different state. As the General, Washington needed a unified army, not one riven with territorial jealousies. He needed them to think of themselves as Americans first and citizens of respective states second.
The next thing Washington wanted was to celebrate the strength of the new Constitution, which he describes as "better calculated than your former for an intimate union." The "former" he speaks of was the previous American constitution, the Articles of Confederation, which were ponderous and weak. The new government was effective enough to protect its interests. The North, South, East and West, he tells us, are strong when we are unified, and weak if "alienated." He warns against men who will use regional parties to disrupt the union and tear the states apart. Against this threat he speaks of a strong, central government.
"Every part of our country… cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger…."
Again, on the topic of unity: "…Your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other."
Washington is not saying that we need to have an enormous government with fingers in every pie; he just wants us to think and behave like Americans above any other loyalty. No attachment can mean so much to us that we would threaten to leave the government that unified us.
While the threat of disunion seems very remote today, the vehicle that Washington feared would drive us apart is very real: political parties.
Why was Washington so concerned with this? We will find out in part 3.
Part 3:
This Address is most famous for being “anti-party,” that is, Washington tells us that he hates parties and wants to see them thrown out. A careful reading of his warnings reveals that he did not think parties will destroy the nation, but that individuals will use parties to disrupt the government and take power for themselves.
Washington's personal history with parties was very difficult. He rose to power not as a candidate of any party, but because he was the iconic American. He was their General, and was respected by all states, back when state lines were the most poignant boundaries. During his two terms in office, however, he watched as parties began to tear down some of the best men in his cabinet.
His Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, believed that the Federal government should be as small as possible and would go on to found the Democratic Republican Party. His Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton bordered on monarchism and went on to found the Federalist Party. These two men fought each other desperately. Washington’s personal beliefs wanted a stronger government than Jefferson did, and he was maligned brutally. The election of 1800 saw two rival parties and two rival politicians commit every dirty trick in the campaign book in seeking the nation’s top office.
One might be tempted to picture a sentimental Washington, wistfully longing for better days when partisanship did not dominate the political picture. But Washington was never that romantic. He was a realist who studied the movement of power and ably demonstrated his capacity to control it. His mortality weighed heavily on him, and while he bested the intriguers of his day, he would not be there to help future generations. So he gives us the necessary tools to defeat scheming politicians of any age. He tells us with precise detail how a power-grabber would grab power.
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissention… is itself a frightful despotism.” Think of how Republicans and Democrats play off each other. Doesn’t this “spirit of revenge” describe them perfectly? Despotism may come by one party overexerting itself, or by policies enacted to serve one ideology over the whole nation.
“Disorders and miseries … gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual… chief of some prevailing faction.” Terrorists allowed George W Bush to take great power no President had before. A severe recession allowed Barack Obama to add to the presidential power. In both instances the powerful party answered its concerned citizens by giving themselves great leniency in what they did, whether it was warrantless surveillance or inane spending.
Washington admits that he presents an extreme scenario, but tells us to expect it, because, “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.” We should have rejoiced as Obama promised an era of bi-partisanship, and we needed to be outraged when he failed to produce it. By continuing to support the vigorous rivalry between our national parties we allow them to grow and ambitious members to take advantage of us.
In his excellent judgment, Washington does not expect that our government is perfect, but it is good. It is good for the “efficacious management of your common concerns.” It is “the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and… adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation.” If, however, change is necessary, it is not through a greedy party that it will come about. Change is written right into the Constitution. “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and alter their… 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.”
We can amend at any time, and we should. But until we do it is not the right of the government to change itself. Sovereignty does not reside with the government. It resides with the people, and it is us who can change it legally, not the “chief of some prevailing faction.”
Part 4:
We have established that Washington saw in his fellow politicians the capacity to usurp power. But Washington does not stop there in his address, he tells us exactly how such usurpation will occur. And, as with most things, history has proven him prophetic.
We are warned that certain men, ambitious to a fault, will use their popularity to win the hearts of the people. He says that while their words will sound nice we must be alert enough to stop it from running wild. “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.”
The great danger is violation of the Constitution, which was specifically constructed to protect the liberties of the people. He tells us to beware “the exercise of 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…a real despotism.”
What departments is he talking about? Without saying directly, he tells us about this extreme danger to liberty. “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.” We have a tripartite system, do we not? Checks and balances? We have great power in our government but that power is divided up into three distinct areas, aren’t they? Maybe not as much as originally intended.
This should be review, but the government is separated into three parts: the Legislative, which may create laws; the Executive, which may enforce said laws; and the Judicial, which has the responsibility of interpreting the laws made or, if necessary, declaring said laws in violation of the Constitution. All three are accountable to each other.
We have strayed quite profoundly from the original intentions of this division with the creation of executive agencies, such as the EPA or FDA. An executive agency is not accountable to voters, does not answer to any higher power, and combines all three powers in one. They have the power to write laws, to enforce those laws, and they have their own internal judicial system to review those laws. If someone were to appeal a ruling of an agency’s court, an outside court would only have the power to review the proceedings, not the ruling itself.
Is Washington being a little paranoid when he tells us to be vigilant of our elected leaders? “A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.” No, he is being realistic, as he ever was all through his life.
He warned us of the dangers of allowing all three powers to be consolidated. He told us that keeping them separate was a duty of any patriot. We have failed, and now we can find example after example of abuse from agencies. They are extremely powerful, and accountable to no one. Doesn’t that sound like a loss of liberty?
Part 5:
George Washington, undeniably, lived in a very different time than we do. One of the manifestations of that fact is his insistence that political characters also be religious ones. In today’s world we promote tolerance even to extend to agnostic beliefs. Washington was tolerant enough not to name any particular church, but he is quite insistent that politicians be religious.
In his own life, Washington never subscribed publicly to any one church until political expediency mandated that he attend worship services. This does not, in any way, make him disingenuous. Washington’s own religious feelings were deeper and more personal than religions allowed. He never expressed a desire to attend church but failed to mention an aversion to do so. Attending church, then, was a societal expectation with which he complied. Like eating with a fork.
However, his religious convictions ran extremely deep. He tells us, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” He calls religion and morality two “great pillars of human happiness,” and the “firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”
This statement should require little supporting evidence, except that religion has fallen out of favor with current popular opinion.
At several times throughout his military career, Washington’s life was spared as if by a miracle. These miracles caused great reflection in the General who considered how God spared him while men around him fell. This in turn manifested itself as gratitude to God, whom Washington only ever referred to as “Providence.” At times when he might have taken great power and did not, what thoughts of Providence persuaded him to act benevolently?
While we may never know what thoughts actually crossed his mind at the time, we do know that he asked in his Farewell Address, “Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life…” without “the sense of religious obligation?” He says, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” This was not a feeble old timer bestowing a trite platitude upon his posterity, this was a world-renowned leader telling his successors that morality without religion is a sapling in the wind.
Religion, especially the Christianity of his day, tells us that there is an omniscient Eye watching, even if no one else is. It tells us that our sufferings in this life bring us closer to joy in the next. A belief in a life hereafter allows us to endure shame, poverty, and obscurity in this life, as we await justice in eternity. Religion has immediate psychological checks upon men. If one man might feed his family if he commits a crime for which he knows he will not be caught, he will gladly spare himself the shame of asking for charity except he believe in the Almighty who will condemn his actions. If another man could crown himself king with the support of his entire nation, gratitude to Providence could compel him to risk everything to set up a just government, after risking everything already to put down an unjust one.
In case anyone misunderstand Washington, and think that religion was the sole source of morality, I will conclude this essay with a paragraph that should resonate very strongly with a modern audience.
“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.”
Be educated. Know the world and how the world works. Seek both the learning of man and the learning of God to be a good American public, and good American politicians.
Part 6:
“Cherish public credit.”
Washington wasn’t his own Secretary of the Treasury, but he was a meticulous business owner. With the marriage of Martha Custis he was, when adjusted for inflation, a millionaire. For the first years of his new-found wealth he spent money on everything his wife and children wanted. As mountain debts threatened to destroy his home and family, however, he took control of his finances, paid his creditors, and lived well within his means, marking every penny that got out of his purse.
This course of action may seem overly prudent but it kept him in the black so that he died a wealthy man, while his financial superior, Thomas Jefferson, died in debt far beyond his ability to repay, as well as others of of his peers. So when Washington says “cherish public credit” he is not speaking vainly; he is speaking practically.
Of course, credit was a different sum back them. The total debt acquired by the Revolutionary War amounted to just over ninety million dollars, spread unequally over the several States. It was Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, who founded the first Federal Bank, unifying the debt and increasing the nation’s ability to pay it off. When that happened, the worth of the dollar and old IOUs that Revolutionary War vets were paid with skyrocketed. This is the meaning of public credit. The nation stayed in the black after that until the Louisiana Purchase, which was worth it.
Listen to Washington’s prescience: “Use [public credit] 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…” Not only that, but listen to this: “Avoid…the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts….”
Who was the last President to follow that advice? When was the last Congress that acted along these lines? And why is doing it so incredibly difficult?
“…Toward 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…”
Once we had good credit. Once we operated with a balanced budget. We’re too good for that now days. Now we have to live beyond our means. Our governmental leaders have convinced us that if the government stopped spending it would mean the end of the world. This is not correct. We may be a spoiled nation of whiners but we still have it genetically programmed in us to pull together and beat any evil.
Liberty, our wisest of Presidents tells us, could be threatened by a loss of that good credit. As long as we go on ignoring him we are marching on the highway to destruction.
Part 7:
This Address flows straight from his discussion on public credit to his famous “entangling alliances” section. Odd thing about that is, the phrase “entangling alliances” never occurs. Here what he has to say:
“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it.”
This is an excellent summary, and no coincidence, it sounds an awful like Hamilton’s prose. How can it be that this Address is so famous for warning against “entangling alliances” when it really doesn’t? That’s where another short history lesson comes into play.
We like to think of our Founding Fathers as sages of one mind and one heart. Nothing could be further than the truth. These men were all honorable in their own way but disagreed with each other as much as any fraternity ever did. The heat between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson was particularly interesting. They respected each other and worked together for years, but were sharply divided by a powerful wedge: the French Revolution.
The American Revolution was liberty flexing her arms. Jefferson saw the French Revolution as Act Two of the great play Liberty. “What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?” he asked, while vowing to his supporters to help the new French government out as well as he could, all the while publicly damning their erstwhile European enemies, the British. It wasn’t until those “few lives” filled the gutters of Paris that he realized how wrong his ties to France had been.
Washington’s judgment proved, once again, of a most excellent caliber. He saw the French Revolution for what it was: the systematic murder of an entire class of society—to which he and Jefferson belonged. Rather than let gratitude for the French’s aid during the American Revolution and bitterness for Britain’s antagonistic role lead him astray, Washington sought to sever ties with the fleur de lis and reconcile the colonies with the Crown. He could see how the future was shaping, that Britain would continue to dominate affairs around the world, and that France was only weakening itself. In a controversial move he signed a treaty with Britain that distanced us from their war against France, and proved advantageous in the end.
From his farewell: “In the execution of such a [treaty], nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded.” It wasn’t alliances he found alarming, it was the permanence of those alliances. A small nation like the United States was at the time was in danger of becoming “a slave to its animosity or to its affection… sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”
In great detail Washington spells out the ills of entanglement. He had seen what dangers a Francophile philosophy was capable of luring us into, or an anti-Anglo sentiment. When it comes to foreign affairs, all he is asking is that we use common sense, not blind emotion.
“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence…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 woes of republican government.”
Liberty, he tells us, is enhanced by keeping ourselves as distanced as possible from foreign powers. Antipathy for Iraq and fealty for China might not be the best of ideas, though both of our national parties have gone on acting this way. Let’s look back to Washington with more than a glance.
Part 8:
What Washington has given us in this Address is a list of things that may threaten our liberty: Regional factions; ideological factions; seekers of power; consolidation of power; foreign debt; political or commercial foreign entanglements. Our nation now faces each of these threats.
“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.”
For years it was tradition to read this Address in Congress on the old General’s birthday. In the House they still do, but in the Senate they discontinued this practice in 1984. Perhaps out of guilt. Perhaps they thought they knew better. Either way they need to hear it.
Washington had nothing to gain by offering this advice. He was retiring from politics, he was escaping to his farm where he could ride his horse and give fatherly attention to his slaves. He had no posterity to set up for success, as both of Martha’s children had already died. He was telling us this because we needed to hear it.
And today, distant from his age and his time, we might be arrogant to assume that his wisdom and judgment no longer matter. We might think that foreign debt and budget deficits are justified. We might believe we can constantly attack one part of the world and embrace another without consequence. We may set up our parties as the most important political engines out there, immortal empires that will outlast the nation itself. We may boost politicians up and listen to their flattery and their deceit, all the while believing without justification that they care for us above all else.
And if we do, we do not deserve the nation that the Continental Army and its prescient General gave us.
Washington came from a unique perspective. He had known what it was like to live under an oppressive regime. He had led the new government in its conception and infancy. He knew exactly what inner workings occurred. He could pinpoint the precise details of governments. He saw the atoms of power flow and could predict their patterns perfectly.
If we are so arrogant we do not believe him, we will let his warnings slide, and we will fall into the helpless despair that a loss of liberty brings. All he sought to do was warn us. He considered it his duty. And today, when everything he told us is happening, it is our duty to listen and to act.
“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 ans 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.”
