The ‘Right’ View by Francis P. Sempa

Why We Should Still Revere Washington’s Farewell Address

Every February on or near the birthday of George Washington (February 22), a member of the United States Senate reads George Washington’s Farewell Address. The tradition of reading the Farewell Address in the Senate goes back to 1862, when the country was torn by civil war. Secretary of the Senate John Forney read the address on that occasion to mark the 130th anniversary of Washington’s birth. After 1893, senators of both political parties, alternating year-to-year, have read the address. Four Senators from New York—Chauncy Depew in 1910, Elihu Root in 1915, James Wadsworth Jr. in 1921, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 2000—have had the honor of reading the address on the Senate floor. This tradition honors both the man and the wisdom of the Farewell Address.

Washington undertook to write the Farewell Address with the assistance of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, after he announced his decision not to seek a third term as president. Beginning on September 19, 1796, it was published in the Philadelphia “Daily American Advertiser” and in other newspapers throughout the country.

In domestic policy, the Farewell Address called for political unity. “Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country” Washington wrote, “that country has a right to concentrate your affections.” We have, he continued “an indissoluble community of interest as one nation.” Washington expressed great concern about sectional or political “obstructions to the execution of the laws,” which he believed was “destructive of [the] fundamental principle” of the Union. Such obstructions, he wrote, “serve to organize faction…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.”

Such obstructionists, he continued, are the work of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” who will seek to “subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” We have recently observed political “obstructions to the execution of the laws” by “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled” state and local officials in Portland, Oregon, Minneapolis, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere in the country. Washington would undoubtedly be appalled at the organized, well-funded and state-supported resistance to the execution of the laws passed by Congress.

In foreign policy, Washington’s Farewell Address counsels prudence, realism and, dare I say, an America First approach to the world. “[N]othing is more essential,” he wrote, “than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded . . .” We should have no “habitual hatred” or “habitual fondness” for any other country. Our foreign policy, Washington continued, should be based solely on our interests, not those of any other nation. We should “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” while trusting to “temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.” Contrary to the hysterics of the globalists and neoconservatives among us, President Trump’s foreign policy has a venerable tradition.

Washington’s Farewell Address, then, is not just an important piece of our nation’s history, it is also a practical guide to sound statesmanship.

Francis P. Sempa is the author of the books “Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century” and “America’s Global Role.” He is a contributing editor to “The American Spectator” and writes a regular column for “Real Clear Defense.”

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT NECESSARILY THE VIEW OF ALLOTSEGO AND ITS AFFILIATES.