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Constructing the Farewell Address
On 19 September 1796, word quickly spread throughout Philadelphia of what many had suspected for months: George Washington would neither seek nor accept a third term as president of the United States. His closest friends and advisors knew that Washington had longed for retirement almost since the day he took office in 1789 and that he had attempted to step down at the end of his first term before reluctantly agreeing to stand for reelection. Republicans and Federalists alike had been plotting for months over whom they would support and where they could secure victory should Washington bow out. While the fact of his retirement did not surprise anyone, the form in which he chose to announce it did. Rather than issuing a simple statement to Congress or to the states declaring his intention, Washington produced a lengthy tract addressed directly to the people of the United States.1 This valedictory, now known as the Farewell Address, did more than just announce his retirement; Washington used it to hand down âthe disinterested warnings of a parting friendâ and to offer âsome sentiments; which are the result of much reflection ⌠and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a People.â2
Washington touched on many aspects of American life in the Farewell Address, from the dangers of political parties to the fundamental importance of preserving and strengthening the union of the states, but his most impactful advice focused on the conduct of foreign policy and the countryâs relationship with the outside world. Formal diplomacy was primarily the responsibility of the federal government, but informally, Washington conceived of international relations as a national project carried out by the entire populace. He wrote about foreign policy in an expansive and sophisticated way, but this section of the Address can be boiled down to a few key principles. First among these was the principle of fairness in dealings with other nations. âObserve good faith and justice towds. all Nations,â Washington urged. âCultivate peace and harmony with all. ⌠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.â3 Not yet a great nation, the United States would someday gain in stature, not only through economic and military advancement but also through fairness and justice. As one writer would later say of Washington himself, greatness would be accomplished only if America first demonstrated goodness.4
A second key principle, which Washington treated at length in the Farewell Address, was that of national interest. Proposing that the protection and advancement of the nationâs best interests must necessarily underlie all foreign policy, he argued that a careful and honest determination of the nature of those interests was integral to the construction of such a foreign policy. For this reason, Washington cautioned that âpermanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded.â In their place, âjust and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.â A nation that âindulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness,â he argued, is âin 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.â Antipathies caused people and nations to take up arms when wise policy would dictate peace. Passionate attachments encouraged âthe illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists,â leading to actions that wise policy would likewise overturn. The appearance of favoritism especially concerned Washington; the âattachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful Nation,â he warned, âdooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.â The United States, at that time both small and weak, could not become the inferior party in a foreign partnership if it was to maintain its independence. âExcessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another,â Washington concluded, confused the assessment of national interest by causing âthose whom they actuate to see danger only on one side,â while serving to âveil and even second the arts of influence on the other.â When such attitudes are taken to the extreme, he added, âreal Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.â As a result, the âjealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awakeâ to the âinsidious wiles of foreign influence.â5 American interests cannot be protected if the people are serving the will of a foreign power.
Stemming from the principles of fairness and national interest, Washington developed a âgreat rule of conductâ for the United States. He advised that as the United States extended its âcommercial relationsâ with foreign nations, it should âhave with them as little political connection as possible.â Antipathies and attachments aside, it was essential for Americans to remember that âEurope has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation.â These interests would cause Europe to âbe engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.â Given the gulf between European and American interests, âit 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.â Policies of fairness toward and political separation from Europe were in the United Statesâ best interest, given both the countryâs status and global conditions. One of Americaâs greatest advantages was the wide ocean that physically separated the United States from Europe and that made political separation easier to maintain. âOur detached and distant situation,â as Washington described it, âinvites and enables us to pursue a different course.â In arguably the most important passage of the Farewell Address, Washington predicted that if Americans could âremain 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.â6 The protection of American interests would not only allow short-term survival and long-term greatness, but also enable the United States to increasingly make its own way in the world free from fear of foreign abuse. The United States should always be a just nation, but its interests would necessarily evolve as its position in the world changed over time. All of this would be possible, though, only if the American people diligently protected their countryâs interests by remaining separate from Europe.
Washington believed that protecting this separation should be a straightforward undertaking. With no interests at stake, what reason would Americans have to âforego the advantages of so peculiar a situation [of having an ocean between Europe and America]? 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, Humour or Caprice?â The United States relied on European commerce but should otherwise let the rest of the world alone. Washington concluded that it was the âtrue policyâ of the United States to âsteer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.â Alliances were the primary mode through which America could be made to serve European interests and abandon its own, and given the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, such an alliance could do little to safeguard the United States. Under these conditions, the United States should avoid permanent alliances at all costs. In âextraordinary emergencies,â it could âsafely trust to temporary alliancesâ for assistance, but even here it was incumbent upon Americans âto keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectably defensive posture.â Near the end of the Address, Washington disclosed that a âpredominant motiveâ for him had been âto endeavour 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.â Washington believed with all of his being that with timeâtime free from foreign interference, time dedicated to the development of an American character and the strengthening of the American union, time spent staying true to these guiding principlesâthe United States would become a great power, equal, if not superior, to any in Europe.7
In the years after its publication, the Farewell Address took on a multitude of interpretations and vastly divergent meanings, but Washingtonâs adviceâas he intended it to be takenâcan be distilled down to two core principles: fairness and interest. It was the responsibility of policy makers and all Americans to act with integrity toward the outside world and honestly identify the best interests of the United States in shaping relationships with it. In 1796, while the United States was still a small and weak nation, those interests were commercial expansion and political separation from Europe, as well as the avoidance of permanent alliances. As the nation grew and prospered, as its citizenry and institutions matured and solidified, and as the international context changed, those interestsâand the specific policies that would best promote themâwould change as well. The recognition of change over time, of the evolution of national interest, was an integral aspect of Washingtonâs adviceâone that would be largely forgotten by subsequent generations of Americans. Washington was not prescribing a permanent foreign policy, but rather permanent principles to guide the construction of wise foreign policies to meet evolving global challenges. Beyond suggesting that in the future the United States would more easily be able to force other nations to respect its rights and principles, Washington was careful not to predict what his nationâs future interests or policies might be; to do so would necessarily undermine the entire point of the Farewell Address. Washington clearly believed that the avoidance of permanent alliances and the maintenance of neutrality in international affairs would be enduring ideals, but he urged their promotion not as ends in themselves but as the best means of protecting the nationâs interests.
Washington did not possess the wisdom he expressed in the Farewell Address from the moment he took the oath of office in April 1789. While many of the ideas expressed in it were already present in his thinking on U.S. foreign policy at the outset of his presidency, they would be tested, refined, and revised over the ensuing eight years of his administration. To better understand the intent of the Farewell Address, it is instructive to explore the development of his guiding principles for the nationâs foreign policy and place in the world.
The Evolution of Washingtonâs Foreign-policy Thought
Historians of Washingtonâs presidency and foreign policy have focused a great deal of attention on his second termâmore than on his first. This is understandable given how critically important the crisis of the French Revolution was in shaping Americaâs politics and relationship with Europe. Historians have also regularly linked these developments to specific recommendations in the Farewell Address. While the events occurring during Washingtonâs second term clearly influenced his discussion of foreign policy in the valedictory, these events only served to solidify foreign-policy ideas and ideals that had been evolving in his mind since the end of the American Revolution. Lessons from the Confederation period and from his first term as president helped give specific shape to the foreign-policy principles Washington tested during his second term and expounded upon in the Farewell Address.8
A critical element in the development of these principles was Washingtonâs conception of American government. His experience as the head of the Continental Army during the Revolution allowed him to see firsthand the weakness of the Confederation and its inability to provide the army with adequate men, supplies, and funds.9 The ascendancy in the states of local viewpoints over national interests plagued both the war effort and the nascent government. At the end of 1778, Washington described the young country as being âon the brink of ruin,â and he implored a fellow Virginian to send âyour ablest and best Men to Congress; these characters must not slumber, nor sleep at home, in such times of pressing danger; they must not content themselves in the enjoyment of places of honor or profit in their own Country [Virginia], while the common interests of America are mouldering and sinking into irretrievable (if a remedy is not soon applied) ruin, in which theirs also must ultimately be involved.â10 Local interests would suffer greatly if the Revolution failed, yet the states consistently remained unwilling to give Congress the power necessary to successfully prosecute the war. In 1780, Washington lamented âthat unless Congress speaks in a more decisive tone; unless they are vested with powers by the several States competent to the great purposes of War, or assume them as a matter of right ⌠our cause is lost. ⌠I see one head gradually changing into thirteen.â11 The independent nation they were fighting to create was crumbling before the task of completing it had even been accomplished.
Washingtonâs aide-de camp throughout much of this period, Alexander Hamilton, shared the generalâs tremendous concern for the weakness of the central government. Hamilton was a masterful writer who expressed in compelling and persuasive ways the same concerns preoccupying Washington. The âfundamental defectâ of the current government, Hamilton wrote in 1780, âis a want of power in Congress.â This was felt as a âwant of sufficient means at [Congressâs] disposal to answer the public exigencies and of vigor to draw forth their means.â The system also suffered, Hamilton observed, from âan excess of the spirit of liberty which has made the particular states show a jealousy of all power not in their own hands.â The danger was that the âuncontrollable sovereignty in each state ⌠will defeat the other powers given to Congress, and make our union feeble and precarious.â12 As Washington had feared two years earlier, the interests of individual states were being allowed to trump national ones.
Yet despite the weakness and inefficiency of the war effort, the United States did successfully attain their independence from Great Britain, in no small part because of the monetary and military assistance of France, with whom the United States had negotiated a formal alliance in 1778 to bring about that countryâs entry into the war.13 With the approach of peace in 1783, Washington wrote to Hamilton that the end of war marked an opportunity to effect the changes necessary to âmake us a great, a respectable, and happy People,â but cautioned that achieving such changes required âother means than State politics, and unreasonable jealousies and prejudices.â14 Independence had been secured, but the national project would work only if the statesâ individual interests could be subordinated to those of the confederation as a whole.
The United Statesâ first framework of government, the Articles of Confederation, did not provide the solution Washington had hoped for, proving just as ineffectual as the Continental Congress.15 When a constitutional convention met in Philadelphia in May 1787, Washington once again hoped that that it would afford the opportunity for change. During the early days of debate, Washington, who had been chosen as the presiding officer of the convention, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, then serving as the American minister to France, predicting national ruin if something was not done soon. âThat something is necessary, all will agree,â Washington observed, âfor the situation of the General Governmt (if it can be called a governmt) is shaken to its foundationâand liable to be overset by every blast. In a word, it is at an end, and unless a remedy is soon applied, anarchy & confusion will inevitably ensue.â16 The new country was at a dire crossroads. Hamilton, representing his state of New York at the convention, shared Washingtonâs belief that this was âthe critical opportunity for establishing the prosperity of this country on a solid foundation.â Hamilton feared âthat we shall let slip the golden opportunity of rescuing the American empire from disunion anarchy and misery. No motley or feeble measure can answer the end or will finally receive the public support.â17 By July, Washington had grown pessimistic about the prospect of success, writing to Hamilton that the progress of the convention revealed âlittle ground on which the hope of a good establishment can be formed. In a word, I almost dispair [sic] of seeing a favourable issue to the proceedings of the Convention, and do therefore repent having had any agency in this business.â Washington was especially critical of the men âwho oppose a strong & energetic governmentâ as being ânarrow minded politicians ⌠under the influence of local views.â18 In spite of the struggles the c...