152 De-Stress Politics by George Washington

Politics stress got you down? Some people said that this 2020 election was the most stressful day in their life. Good grief people!! Get a grip!!

In 1796, George Washington gave a farewell address and talked about the dangers of political parties and how they divide people - ultimately causing us great stress.

"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." - George Washington

"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." - George Washington

https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=15&page=transcript