Friends and Citizens:
The period for a new election of a citizen to administer
the executive government of the United States being not far distant,
and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in
designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust,
it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more
distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you
of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the
number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be
assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard
to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a
dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of
service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by
no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of
grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full
conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the
office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform
sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for
what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have
been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was
not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I
had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this,
previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an
address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then
perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and
the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me
to abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as
well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination
incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded,
whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the
present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my
determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous
trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this
trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed
towards the organization and administration of the government the best
exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not
unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications,
experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others,
has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the
increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade
of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied
that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services,
they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while
choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism
does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to
terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to
suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe
to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me;
still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me;
and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my
inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in
usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country
from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as
an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which
the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead,
amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often
discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success
has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support
was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by
which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall
carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows
that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence;
that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free
Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly
maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped
with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of
these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so
careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will
acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the
affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for
your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension
of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the
present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to
your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much
reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me
all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These
will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in
them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly
have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an
encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a
former and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament
of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or
confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people
is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in
the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility
at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that
very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee
that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains
will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the
conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political
fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies
will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and
insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should
properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your
collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial,
habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to
think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and
prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety;
discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in
any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning
of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest,
or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various
parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and
interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that
country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of
American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always
exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived
from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have
the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have
in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and
liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts
of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they
address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those
which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of
our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding
and preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the
South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the
productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and
commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry.
The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the
North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning
partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its
particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in
different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the
national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime
strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like
intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive
improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and
more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from
abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East
supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of
still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure
enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the
weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic
side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as
one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential
advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an
apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be
intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an
immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined
cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater
strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from
external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign
nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union
an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so
frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same
governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to
produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and
intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will
avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which,
under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which
are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In
this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop
of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you
the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to
every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the
Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether
a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve
it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are
authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the
auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will
afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and
full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union,
affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have
demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to
distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to
weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union,
it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been
furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations,
Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may
endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local
interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire
influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions
and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much
against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these
misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who
ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of
our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they
have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous
ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the
universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a
decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them
of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States
unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have
been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great
Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they
could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming
their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the
preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were
procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such
there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them
with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a
government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict,
between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably
experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all
times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have
improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of
government better calculated than your former for an intimate union,
and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This
government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed,
adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely
free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting
security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its
own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.
Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in
its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true
liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people
to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till
changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is
sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right
of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every
individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all
combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with
the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular
deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive
of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to
organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to
put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a
party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the
community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different
parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the
ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the
organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and
modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above
description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in
the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which
cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the
power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of
government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted
them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that
you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged
authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation
upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of
assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution,
alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to
undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to
which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as
necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human
institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test
the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that
facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion,
exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and
opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of
your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government
of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty
is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with
powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is,
indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to
withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the
society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all
in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and
property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in
the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on
geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive
view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful
effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our
nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It
exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled,
controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen
in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another,
sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which
in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid
enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length
to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries
which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and
repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the
chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his
competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own
elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind
(which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common
and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make
it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain
it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and
enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with
ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one
part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It
opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a
facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of
party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are
subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are
useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to
keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is
probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may
look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But
in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it
is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is
certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary
purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to
be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not
to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting
into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking
in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its
administration, to confine themselves within their respective
constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one
department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends
to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which
predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the
truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the
exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into
different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the
public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by
experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under
our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute
them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or
modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong,
let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no
change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the
instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free
governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly
overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which
the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to
political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should
labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest
props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally
with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume
could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.
Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for
reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the
oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ?
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be
maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence
of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and
experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail
in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a
necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with
more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a
sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake
the foundation of the fabric?
Promote then, as an object of primary importance,
institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as
the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is
essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
As a very important source of strength and security,
cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as
sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating
peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for
danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it,
avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning
occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to
discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not
ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves
ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your
representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should
co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is
essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the
payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must
be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less
inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment,
inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a
choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid
construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a
spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the
public exigencies may at any time dictate.
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations;
cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this
conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it 7
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a
great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example
of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who
can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a
plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by
a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected
the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at
least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.
Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more
essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be
excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings
towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards
another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a
slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of
which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to
offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and
to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of
dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and
bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment,
sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best
calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the
national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would
reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient
to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other
sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the
liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for
another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation,
facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases
where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the
enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the
quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or
justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of
privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation
making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to
have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a
disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are
withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens
(who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or
sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes
even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense
of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a
laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of
ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways,
such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and
independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper
with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead
public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils 7 Such an
attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms
the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I
conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free
people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove
that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican
government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it
becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of
a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and
excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see
danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of
influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of
the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools
and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender
their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign
nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as
little political connection as possible. So far as we have already
formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here
let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have
none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent
controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our
concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate
ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her
politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her
friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables
us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an
efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy
material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an
attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon
to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the
impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard
the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our
interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our
destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and
prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest,
humor or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we
are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of
patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no
less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is
always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements
be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is
unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable
establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust
to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are
recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial
policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor
granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course
of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed,
in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our
merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional
rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual
opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time
abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for
disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of
its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that,
by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having
given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with
ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to
expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an
illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to
discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an
old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong
and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual
current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even
flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit,
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the
fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign
intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this
hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by
which they have been dictated.
How far in the discharge of my official duties I have
been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public
records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to
the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I
have at least believed myself to be guided by them.
In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my
proclamation of the twenty-second of April, I793, is the index of my
plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your
representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure
has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or
divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best
lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all
the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in
duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I
determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with
moderation, perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which respect the right to hold this
con duct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only
observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right,
so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been
virtually admitted by all.
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred,
without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity
impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to
maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other
nations.
The inducements of interest for observing that conduct
will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a
predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to
settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without
interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is
necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own
fortunes.
Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration,
I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible
of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many
errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert
or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with
me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with
indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to
its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities
will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions
of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and
actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man
who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for
several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that
retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet
enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign
influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite
object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual
cares, labors, and dangers.
Geo. Washington.
