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....
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 toward 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....
Here,
perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your
welfare which can not end 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 permanency
of your felicity as a people.... 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
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.
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
our 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 same
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.
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 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....
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. 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 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
can not 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....
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 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....
Toward
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 can not 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 con-fine 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.
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.
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....
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 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 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.
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....
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 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.
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 have occasioned,
not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we
ourselves ought to bear....
Observe
good faith and justice toward 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?
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 toward all should
be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward 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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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?
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, 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 on a
respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary
alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
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....
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.
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 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.