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January 24, 2024 20 mins

On this episode of Our American Stories, Dr. Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope reads Washington's Farewell Address...given in the middle of our first public political divisions.

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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America
series with Bill McLay, Billsdale College professor and author of
Land of Hope. Up next, a story about Washington's farewell address.
Let's get into it.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
We have the golf between these two visions, the golf
between Jefferson and Hamilton, their visions of America was a
dramatic golf. The partisanship, the level of conflict, the polemics.
They were bitter, extremely bitter bitter, because everyone involved believe

(00:54):
the national future was at stake. It was no small thing.
This was right at the beginning. It was the country
going to fail again with its constitution, as it failed
with the arctics of confederation. Was it possible that here,
at the very outset of getting what we wanted, we
were going to blow it and dissolve into quarreling factions,

(01:17):
or worse, if it was going to produce violate the
very fundamental principles that brought it into being. Was it
going to just produce another monarchical tyranny, which is what
the Jeffersonian faction feared their opponents thought about the Jeffersonians
that they were radicals and atheists and believers in all

(01:38):
kinds of wild doctrines that would eliminate America as it
had formerly been known. Both sides honestly and sincerely believe
the other side was going to endanger that future. In addition,
there were Charlatan's mischievous actors galore, which they always are,

(02:03):
lurking around the edges of politics and sometimes occupying the
center of politics, and that added to the nature of
these divides. But out of respect to Washington, the parties
as such didn't really come into being in a formal
way until after President Washington had stepped down. Everybody knew

(02:24):
how Washington felt about parties. Everybody respected him enormously. He
was almost a symbol of national unity. To do something
offensive to him was quite literally to act against the
well being of the nation. So Washington managed to hold

(02:48):
things together until he stepped down. And Washington had this
in mind when he delivered his farewell address. It was
on September seventeenth, seventeen ninety six, which, if you remember
the date September seventeenth, this was the ninth anniversary of

(03:08):
the Constitution. Signing this farewell address of Washington was one
of the most important speeches in American history and worthy
of review, and we're going to spend a lot of
time with it today. It represented Washington's deepest thoughts about
the condition of the country and his hopes and fears

(03:29):
for the future. You could say that it's an effort
to project his own influence ahead into the future of
the country that he had served in love. He had
assistance in writing it from both Hamilton and Madison, but
it very much was his product, his baby, his production,

(03:50):
his view. So let's read some of the passages from
this sterling speech, which for most of American history has
been studied, memorized in portions, or in its sutality, taken
as a guide in looking forward to the moment which

(04:17):
is intended to terminate the career of my public life.
My feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep
acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to
my beloved country for the many honors that has conferred
upon me, still more for the steadfast confidence with which
it has supported me, and for the opportunities I've thence

(04:40):
enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment by services faithful and persevering,
though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. That's an amazing sense.
Let me continue. If benefits have exulted to our country

(05:01):
from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise,
and as an instructive example in our animals that, under
circumstances in which the passions agitated in every direction were
liable to mislead amid appearances, sometimes dubious vicissitudes of fortune,
often discouraging, in situations in which not infrequently want of

(05:25):
success has countenanced the spirit of criticism. The constancy of
your support was the essential prop of the efforts and
a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected.
Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with

(05:47):
me to my grave as a strong incitement to unceasing
vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens
of its beneficence, that your union and brotherly affection may
be perpetual, That the free constitution, which is the work
of your hands, may be sacredly maintained, that its administration

(06:11):
in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue,
That infined. The happiness of the people of these states
under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by
so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of
this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of

(06:33):
recommending it to the applause, the affection, and the adoption
of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
It's a wonderful introduction. He's echoing here the sentiment that
we found in Federalist number one, expressed by Hamilton, that

(06:55):
the success, the happiness of these states under the auspices
of liberty will acquire to them the glory of recommending
these institutions to the applause, affection, and adoption of every
nation which is yet a stranger to it. In other words,
not only will the rest of the world admire us,

(07:18):
but they will seek eventually to adopt institutions that have
brought such felicity to us. So there's that sense that
America is an experiment. The rest of the speech has
a very very clear theme unity unity. In contemplating the

(07:47):
causes which may disturb our union, it occurs as a
matter of serious concern that any ground should have been
furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations Northern, Southern, Atlantic,
and Western. Whence, designing men may endeavor to excite a
belief that there's a real difference of local interests and views.

(08:09):
One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within
a particular district 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 their misrepresentations.
They tend to render alien to each other those who

(08:30):
ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. Washington's warning
us about the fact that when you have parties whose
objective is to win, to enact their favored policies, when
that's in the driver's seat, there's very little to restrain
the description of the enemy of the other side, of

(08:54):
the opponent as being far worse than they actually are.
They're devils. You could see that possibility ahead if there
was not a rigorous attempt to encourage civic virtue. And
civic virtue meant the participation by all citizens as citizens,
not as Democrats, Republicans, federalists, whatever the party might be called,

(09:18):
but as citizens in the governance of their commonwealth.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
When we come back more with Bill McClay here on
our American Stories, And we returned to our American Stories
and our series about us, the Story of America series

(09:45):
with Hillsdale College professor and author of Land of Hope,
doctor Bill McLay. When we last left off, doctor McClay
was reading from Washington's Farewell Address, in particular Washington's section
on factionalism. Let's return to the story. Here again is
Bill McLay.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Now here's Washington on the dangers in perils of political
parties and political partisanship. 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

(10:27):
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

(10:49):
of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness,
and is truly their worst enemy. The alternative 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.

(11:12):
But this leads at length to a more formal and
permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually inclined
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

(11:37):
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 the duty of
a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves

(12:01):
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. And now here's Washington and some very

(12:23):
important words, words that have rung down through the centuries
about the importance of religion and morality of all the
dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity. Religion and
morality are indispensable supports in vain. Would that man claim

(12:44):
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 men 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

(13:09):
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 it may be conceded to the influence

(13:32):
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

(13:55):
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

(14:16):
force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion
should be enlightened. Here's Washington, what may be the most
important part of his farewell Address, the most consequential. Cautioning
Americans against passionate attachment to foreign nations, or cause of

(14:38):
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 of the
enmities of the other betrays the farmer into a participation

(14:59):
in the 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 abtdoubly to
injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with
what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy

(15:21):
and will in 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 guilding with the

(15:45):
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
as avenues to foreign influence. In innumerable ways. Such attachments

(16:06):
are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.
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

(16:33):
applicable to public than private affairs. At honesty is always
the best policy. But I repeated therefore that 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

(16:54):
a respectably defensive posture, we may safely trust to temper
alliances for extraordinary emergencies. Dusk includes Washington and what undeniably
is one of the great speeches of American history, laying
out in his precedent minded way, Because remember, Washington is

(17:16):
always thinking about how the words he utters, the gestures
that he performs. Everything he does is laying down a
president for those to follow him. And if good precedents
beget good behavior, beget a good nation. So he saw

(17:40):
this speech, this farewell speech, as his way of taking
almost and putting in a package the things he tried
to do and communicate and established precedence for in his
first two terms of office as the very first president.
How successful was he? It's an inter question. Certainly the

(18:03):
notions about unity have an evergreen quality about them. We
are a fractious nation. We have been a fractious nation.
We will continue to be a fractious nation, where the
lots of differences of opinion. The key to our national
unity is not to suppress the differences of opinion, but
to keep them within bounds, to subordinate them to a

(18:26):
respect for the fundamental ruling law, that is the Constitution.
The Constitution forms that element patterning our unity henceforth for
all time. So his message of unity is not lost, nor,
i think, is his warning about entangling alliances. As it

(18:50):
happens that the United States hasn't really followed that dictum,
certainly in the years of the twentieth century and made
a decisive break from them. But he reminds us when
we read the Farewell Address, of what kind of nation
the framers and founders envision creating, and why ideally a

(19:12):
lack of consequential involvement of attachment to other nations affairs
was something that we should avoid for the sake of
our own republican institutions. It's an interesting and important point
from someone who we see as the father of our country,
as the founder of this national andre Greate national feast,

(19:34):
as the indispensable man so when the indispensable Man is
telling us something that is at odds with what we've
been doing, we ought at least to listen and bought
Washington is always there for us.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Had a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery, himself a Hillsdale College graduate,
and a special thanks to Professor Bill maclay, who teaches
at Hillsdale College. He's the author of Land of Hope
and the Terrific Young Readers Edition. Go to Amazon or
the usual suspects wherever you buy your books. The story
of Us Washington's farewell address here on our American Stories
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