Washington's Farewell Address

Overview

A twenty-five page open letter to the American people, published in a Philadelphia newspaper in September 1796, announcing that Washington would not seek a third term. Drafted with help from Madison and Hamilton, it urges the union of the states above sectional loyalties, warns against the spirit of party and against permanent alliances with foreign nations, and calls religion, morality and public credit the supports of good government.

The Harvard Classics also prints his First Inaugural Address of April 1789.

What happens

The announcement. Washington declares that he will not be among those considered for the presidency at the coming election, thanks the country for its confidence, and asks leave to offer some counsels as a parting friend.

Union. He argues that the union is the main pillar of the people’s independence and prosperity, that North and South, East and West each need the others, and warns against those who would set the sections against one another or speak of the government as a threat to the states.

Faction and party. Washington warns against combinations that would obstruct the laws, against the spirit of party, which he calls the worst enemy of popular governments, and against changes to the Constitution by usurpation rather than amendment.

Religion, morality and credit. He calls religion and morality the indispensable supports of political prosperity, urges the spread of knowledge, and asks that public credit be cherished and debt avoided, so that one generation does not throw its burden on the next.

Foreign nations. Washington counsels good faith and justice toward all nations, warns against permanent hatreds and permanent attachments to any, and lays down the rule of as little political connection as possible, with temporary alliances only for extraordinary emergencies.

The First Inaugural. In the address of April 1789 he confesses his reluctance to leave retirement, commends the government to the Almighty, declines any salary beyond his expenses, and leaves the recommendation of measures to the Congress.

How to read it

Read the announcement of retirement as the address’s first lesson, the precedent that held until 1940 and was then written into law, taught by example before it was argued.

Pay close attention to the warning against party, and to the fact that Hamilton, who helped draft it, and Madison, who had drafted an earlier version, were by then leading the parties it condemned.

Notice the counsel on foreign nations, and weigh how much of the later argument between isolationists and internationalists rests on the word permanent.

Consider the address’s afterlife, read aloud in the Senate every year since 1896, and ask what a nation wants from a civic scripture it recites most fervently when most divided.

Read this address alongside the Federalist Papers to see the case for the union argued at length by the men who then helped Washington make it in a page.

Questions it raises

• Was the warning against party wisdom or naivety, given that parties were already forming and that later republics found them indispensable?
• What did Washington mean by permanent alliances, and does the counsel have any application to a nation that has kept standing alliances for eighty years?
• How much of the address is Washington’s and how much Hamilton’s, and does the answer change what it means for a president to speak in it?
• Why does the address treat religion and morality as the supports of government rather than the Constitution’s checks, and what does that say about how the founders thought republics survived?
• What does the annual reading in the Senate do to a text, and has the ritual preserved the address or embalmed it?
• Is the precedent of two terms a matter of principle or of Washington’s fatigue, and what changed when it became law?