Skip to main content

George Washington's Farewell Address

Here are some excerpts from Washington's Farewell Address. What advice does he give us? Do you agree or disagree?

There is a difference between strength of arms and a large military establishment.
“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 … 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.”
Both hostilities and relationship with foreign nations should be approached with care.
“The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. … 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.”
A unified nation is far stronger than an alliance of independent states.
“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. … 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.”
An educated nation is an enlightened and moral one.
“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.”
Power must be tempered by humility.
“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 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.”



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flannery O'Connor Analysis on "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

               Grace and Theology: A Necessary Discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Heather Chandler             D.H. Lawrence asserts in his Studies in Classic American Literature, that “the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it” (8). While this approach is helpful and necessary in many works of literature, it is both misleading and damaging to do so with Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A popular new way of interpreting her work is to look through a secular lens, but separating her Catholic beliefs and allusions reduces her work to a simplistic ambiguous tale, molded to suit our own postmodern desires; and, this is essentially as misguided as looking at Da Vinci’s Last Supper and refusing to note its religious connotations. Instead, we should look at the larger picture,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tiny House Living and Transcendentalism

This week's class will explore transcendentalism, Emerson, and Thoreau. But like most of the topics we've studied so far, we can find modern connections. Transcendentalism was a religious movement that grew out of Romanticism between 1836-1860. We can define it as a spiritual, philosophical, literary movement with ties to the Unitarian Church around Boston. Like Romanticism, this movement emphasized individual rights and inspiration, the latter, especially within nature. Transcendentalists believed that individuals can discover truth for themselves, rather than learning it through tradition. It differs from Romanticism in that it focused on God. Transcendentalists believed that God was everywhere and could be discovered through intuition and that all people have a divine inner light. By accessing this light or intuition, they can transcend the ordinary and experience the spiritual. The five tenets of Transcendentalism: 1. Nonconformity 2. Self-Reliance 3. Importanc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Welcome to U.S. History and American Literature

Class, I'm glad to have each of you join me for this journey into American history, literature, art, and music. Our goal this year is to gain a broader sense of our American culture, its major events and movements, our greatest artists and musicians, and the influences and shifts that have shaped our nation into what it is today. There is a great deal of information to cover, but I want to emphasize to you that we will not be experts by the end. In fact, learning is a lifelong pursuit. What I hope we can accomplish this year is to lay a healthy foundation, introducing you to the major players and events. We will break history down into units. Those units will have many sub-topics. Your task is to pick a couple of those sub-topics each week and research them more in-depth and prepare yourself for both class discussions and debates. You have some freedom here with your choices. If you are more interested in battles, then you can focus there. If you are more interested in the politica...
Post a Comment
Read more