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 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 to 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 pursuaded, 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
toward 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 political 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 guaranty 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 can not 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 appears 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
near to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity 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 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 councils 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 same agency of
the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand,
Turning partly into its own channels the sea men 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 can not 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 rivalships alone would be sufficient
to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and
intrigues would stimulate and imbitter. 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 the 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 2 treaties - that with Great Britain and that with Spain -
which secure to them everything they could desire in respect to our
foreign relations toward 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 alliances, 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 off-spring 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 until 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.
Toward 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 can
not 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; the 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 persons 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 occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door
to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to
the government itself through the channels of party passion. 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 live the
spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in
governments of 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 intrusted with its
administration to confirm themselves within their respective
constitutional spheres, avoiding 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
depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal
against invasions by 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 exertions in time of peace to discharge
the debts which unavoidable wars 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 cooperate. To facilitate to
them the performance of their duty it is essential that you should
practically bear in mind that 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; 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 toward 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 possible 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 toward all should be
cultivated. 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. 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 toward 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 combination 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, 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 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
[1793-04-22], is the index to 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 toward 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 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 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.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by
that fervent love toward 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.
Geo. Washington.
The Address was published in David C. Claypoole's
American Daily Advertiser on
September 19, 1796, and read to the House of Representatives.