Posted on 02/22/2004 7:14:13 PM PST by Ohioan
The link above will take you to the Address. It was thus that Washington, early in the effort, defined his purpose:
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but 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. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.
We urge all to read this, on the occasion of Washington's 272nd Birthday. You will find much of it not only relevant to today, but more relevant than anything any of our contemporary politicians are saying.
Thank you for suggesting that Freepers read these words again, today.
Congressman Billybob
What never fails to impress me, is how current it really remains. And the basic appeal to honor and integrity in public life needs to be heard, every chance we get!
"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 purpose of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty."
I believe that in most schools, a century ago, they would have a bright student read the address also. That is a custom that we should seek to revive, anywhere that we may have influence. (Unfortunately, some of us have been so critical--with very good reason--of the ways that public school systems operate, that we do not have a lot of clout with School Administrators.)
But Happy Washington's Birthday!
Obvuously UNION was of paramount importance to him, and he foresaw difficulties between competing regional interests between the South and the North and also East to the West.
Interestingly -- and something to think about -- he called for the formation of a national university, to which a national military academy (West Point) was an secondary proposal. He argued that nation needed the resource to train our young, and only a nationally funded school could pay the level of professorial salaries needed. That was in his eighth annual address, 7 December 1796.
The topic of national funding of college education is of current concern, and clearly Washington believed that to some extent it was a proper national expense, for the common defense.
To that end, national defense, he also wondered -- asking in open questions -- as to the level of national support for domestic "manufacture", a term as he used it the includes both industry and agriculture. He appeared to think that some level of national support was appropriate for those manufactures needed for that common defense, and that to allow outsourcing (modern term, not his) was a dangerous and unacceptable risk.
He even brought his own household staff from Virginia to Philadelphia, so as not to burden the Government with providing same--a fact which has now apparently led some dysron in the National Park Service, to make a completely unnecessary social statement, which will give touring kids precisely the wrong impression of the gesture. But Washington was the perfect example of a statesman, who put his people first, and himself second. We have not often seen his like in human history.
Washington openly espoused the Swiss militia system, where teenaged boys are trained in the use of military grade small arms, in a society where every home is armed.
God Bless America!
The idea of a two party system is something which got started during Washington's second term--more or less as it had grown up in Britain. But his admonitions went, I think, without the text before me at the moment, to the spirit of faction, or party, interfering with duty. He specifically warned against the idea of wholly sectional party or the spirit of sectional contention or antagonism.
The baiting of the traditional South, that some Northerners indulge in, would have been considered way beyond the pale of what was acceptable--as would the sometimes acrimonious Southern response. Washington was the epitome of the American who treats others with respect and expects it to be returned. Honor and civility were very important. He also had a very orderly mind, and put first things first. The modern two party system, with the cheap shots and maneuvering for advantage, while ignoring the written Constitution and the true interests of the Republic, would have been intolerable to Washington.
William Flax
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