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 the 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 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 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 estimable value, they must derive from lion
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 imbitter. Hence,
likewise, they will avoid 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 ia 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 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.
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 find 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 power 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.
