George Washingtons Farewell Address December 15, 2008 1 Comment

Quotes from George Washingtons Farewell address. These are just quick snippets. Anyone interested in the details should give his whole address a read. Great stuff that gives some insight into what the founding fathers of this nation were thinking.

Washington on political ads:

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.

Washington on political parties:

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… 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 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.

Washington on government debt/credit:

…cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible…avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt….it is essential that you…bear in mind, that towards the payments of debts there must be Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not…inconvenient and unpleasant…

Washington on the military:

…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.

Washington on foreign alliances:

The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an 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… So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. (Washington goes on to explain these evils more in detail here.)… 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.

Washington on religion:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… 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.

Washington on education:

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.

Washington on himself:

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 45 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.

200 plus years later and George would still have the same warnings today as he did then. Since the Civil War we have been going in the opposite direction. The Civil War was the end of the Union and the beginning of federal power. After that the tone was set - stay in the Union or get blasted. It’s not much of a Union if your forced to be part of it. Secession is allowed according to the Constitution, so why did 600,000 Americans die?

The history books in our government schools portray Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents, but this reminds me that history books are written by the winners. Our schools tell kids that Lincoln freed the slaves. That was just a by-product of the war, not Lincolns goal.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. - Abraham Lincoln

The Civil War is debatable in a thousand different ways but what if the South had been allowed to secede as they should have? No hateful feelings, no dead soldiers, and without question a close alliance between the two nations would have existed. Slavery was on the way out anyway with the industrial revolution.

Ugh. I’m pooped out.