1) 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.
2) 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.
3) 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.
4) 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.
5) 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.
6) 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.
7) 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.
8) 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.
9) 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.
10) 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.
11) 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.
12) 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.
13) 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.
14) 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.
15) 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?
16) 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.
17) 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.
18) 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.
19) 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.
20) 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.
21) 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.
22) 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.
23) 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.
24) 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.
25) 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.
26) 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.
27) 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.
28) 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?
29) 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.
30) 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.
31) 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 - 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?
32) 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.
33) 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.
34) 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 towards a
great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite
of the latter.
35) 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.
36) 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.
37) 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.
38) 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?
39) 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.
40) Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable
establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely
trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
41) 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.
42) 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.
43) 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.
44) 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.
45) 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.
46) 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.
47) 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.
48) 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.
49) 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.
50) 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.
