Friends and Fellow-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 our 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 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 the 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 our 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 of 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 wishes
that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence;
that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free
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 motives
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 tranquillity 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 of 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 councils 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 your
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 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, proportionately 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 government, which
their own rivalships 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 a 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 yourself 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 of
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 alliances, however strict, between the parts
can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the
infractions and interruptions which 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 system is the right of the people to make and to alter the
Constitution of Government. But the Constitution which at any time
exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole
people, is sacred and 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 councils 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 afterward
the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of
your present happy state it is requisite, not only that you speedily
discountenance irregular opposition 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 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
States, with particular reference to the founding of them on
geographical discrimination. 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 dissensions, 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 channel of party passion. 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 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 intrusted 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 invasion by the other, 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 destinies of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the
pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace
all their connection 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 natural morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principles.
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 exertions 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 cooperate. 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 the 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? 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, in
the course of time and things, that fruits of such a plan would richly
repay any temporary advantages that 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 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 an habitual
hatred, or an 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 animosity of the nation subservient to projects of
hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives. The peace often, and 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 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! Such an
attachment of a small or weak nation toward a great and powerful one
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 defence
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
and 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
and 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?
'Tis 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,
in a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary
alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony and a 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 mischief of foreign intrigues; 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 22d of April, 1793, is the index to 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 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.
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 reflection 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 services
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 toward 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 expectations that retreat in
which I promised 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 - that ever favorite object of my
heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors,
and dangers.
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