The main reason for neutrality has been to gain time for our national institutions to mature, so we could chart our own course. I have never intentionally erred, although I have likely erred often due to my inexperience. I am praying that God will avert any evil which may result from such errors.
After 45 years of service to the nation, I hope that it will be gracious in forgetting my errors as undoubtedly; I will soon be lain to rest. There I will share with you the benefits of good laws under our free government. This is the favorite object of my heart and the happy reward of our mutual cares, labors and dangers.
An outline on the Farewell Address with modernized language. Sign me up! Paragraphs After explaining that he would not serve a third term, and had actually wanted to retire after his first term, he thanked the nation for its support that had encouraged him in the face of challenges and criticism.
The Need for National Unity. Paragraphs Knowing that the new nation loved liberty, he insisted that national unity was necessary to preserve American independence and peace. Paragraphs Encroachment of One Branch of Government upon Another Paragraph 26 Each branch of government should confine itself to its respective constitutional sphere. The Necessity of Religion, Morality and Education. Paragraphs Political success must have the support of religion and morality.
Good Credit and Paying National Debt. Paragraph 30 The government should value its right to borrow by using the right sparingly and promptly paying its debts. Honesty and Justice in International Relationships Paragraphs The nation must keep its word and be just toward all nations which is the way to seek peace and is required by religion, morality and good policy. Conclusion Paragraphs 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?
The republic would be safe in the hands of a new president. Having done his best to assuage fear, Washington then offered his final counsel to the people as their president. He stressed the importance of the Union that bonded all Americans together and provided for their freedom and prosperity.
To safeguard their hard-won system of republican government in a federal union, the country had to remain united. He cautioned against three interrelated dangers that threatened to destroy the Union: regionalism, partisanship, and foreign entanglements.
In particular, Washington feared that geographic identities would serve as the foundation for the development of political parties. During these times, people with PTSD were not able to adequately express what occurred in the war; Norman Bowker was one of those people. The first new philosophy is that Whitman installs in the poem is that the nation goes about its missions without the help of the people.
In his previous works, Whitman claims the assignments given to the government are then executed by the people, but now, Whitman depicts a scene where Lincoln, his captain, returns from their trip and approaches the people who are on the shore, meaning they did not take part in this trip. Next, Whitman shows the people interactions with Lincoln while still on the port. In the last stanza, Whitman turns the focus off of the people and looks at the country.
In his farewell address, George Washington expressed the importance of putting America above any local or foreign identity. We disagree with Washington's absolute take on patriotism as this may create a populous which blindly adopts the decree of an unjust government. This fear was forwarded by events such as the creation of the Articles of Confederation and, later on, the Toledo and Civil Wars. George Washington made his farewell to the political world in his letter in the s. In addition, he also gave valuable advice for the overall country.
His letter provides an interesting contrast against the current government today. The majority of his warnings ring true today, as there are many examples of where his warnings have been ignored. Essays Essays FlashCards.
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