On September 19, 1796, President George Washington’s Farewell Address to ”The People of the United States” was first published. He wrote it to inform his “friends and fellow citizens” of his decision to retire at the end of his second term in office. More importantly, he wrote it to give us all “the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel.”
Every individual American should read and fully understand his warnings, for what is wrong in America today is the direct result of the exact dangers President Washington warned us about 203 years ago. If only we would have listened to him, and forced our representatives in Congress to be guided by the same principles Washington was, things would be much different today.
I’m launching FREE & INDEPENDENT™ on this weekend with this specific post, to remind my friends and fellow citizens of Washington’s sage warnings. Please read this and spread the word to your friends and families. It’s time for We the People to finally heed Washington’s counsel, take back the power and exercise sufficient control over government. This is the only way to make government safe for all of us.
Washington’s first warning related to the “unity of government,” which he knew to be vital to our freedom and independence.
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… 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; …watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; …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.
Back then, the split that threatened the unity of government was a geographical and cultural one — North vs. South. Today’s split is based on political party and ideology. America is divided into two enemy camps — red vs. blue, right vs. left, Republican vs. Democrat. Even our current president is speaking in ”us vs. them” terms — he recently told supporters of his health care plan, “They can’t stop us. Let’s go get this done.”
George Washington never spoke in such terms. He was guided by different principles. Returning to his Farewell Address, he was wise to divisive tactics and the dangers of selfish factions and special interests, and in warning us he hoped we would also recognize and reject them.
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 heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection…
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… 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.
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.
Further, Washington warned us to ” resist with care the spirit of innovation” upon basic principles for he wanted us to know that not all change is good. We must always remember that any change that undermines basic principles and our original form of government must be resisted and soundly rejected.
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 our 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.
Washington then warned us “in the most solemn manner” against the destructive effects of the very “spirit of party” that has split and crippled Congress to the point of irrelevance, and that has opened the American people to the dangerous habit of looking to presidents for hope and solutions to every problem. Accepting his counsel, we must reject political parties and their leadership roles in our government; we must not allow special interests to exert undue influence over our representatives in Congress; we must resist the temptation to look to our presidents as saviors who need more power to solve our problems.
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.
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 find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions…
Look around you today. Doesn’t it seem like Washington is describing today’s America? He went on to warn against the dangers of consolidating power in one branch or department, and of the resulting despotism (a ruler with absolute power and authority). We cannot allow this to continue to happen. Congress must serve as a check on the powers of the president and the Executive Branch. We must reject any changes to our form of government and the Constitution by usurpation (taking or seizing without right or legal authority).
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 depositories, 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.
Washington didn’t stop there. He made several other important recommendations we must finally accept and put to use, like avoiding the accumulation of debt and paying down our current debt.
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 burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.
And recommendations to “cultivate peace and harmony with all,” to set a good example, and to avoid firmly fixed dislikes or ”passionate attachments” for other nations. We must avoid habitual hatred towards some countries, and habitual fondness for others. We should steer clear of permanent alliances.
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all… It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence…
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… 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… The peace often, 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 a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation…
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 connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop…
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…
In closing, Washington hoped his counsels would “make the strong and lasting impression” and would “recur to moderate the fury of party spirit” and “guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” We must bring them back to the attention of the American people so they will, in fact, recur and achieve Washington’s purposes in writing them for our benefit.
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.
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.
If only our recent presidents (both Republican and Democrat) would have been be guided by these same principles; if only our current president was guided by these same principles; if only Congress would be guided by them. Our government would be safer.
It’s up to us to get them back to basics, to get them to operate on these very principles. It’s time for We the People to take back the power and begin to exercise sufficient control over government. That’s what FREE & INDEPENDENT™ is all about.
Let’s start by shaping an EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK FOR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. This Handbook will contain basic principles, policies and procedures that will guide their behaior as our representatives in government. We will ask every Senator and Reprsentative to sign an acknowledgement that they have read and understand everything in the Handook. We will give each one an annual review every fall, based on the Handbook, and whether or not they get reelected should be based on these reviews. Check it out and let us know what you think.
This is a time for bold action.
We the People are Sovereigns, not subjects. Let’s start acting like it.
JOIN US. CONTROL GOVERNMENT. BE FREE AND INDEPENDENT.
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