My Favorite President

Annamaria on Thursday This Week

I gave over this past Monday's slot to Stan so we could celebrate our 10th birthday, which means  I am composing my blog on Wednesday instead of Sunday this week.  This unprecedented switch produced one of those amazing coincidences that often make my life feel charmed.  I have been planning today's topic for some time.  As it happens, I have ended up writing what comes below on a historic day in the American Presidency.   Today, for only the fourth time in US history, public hearings are being held to investigate whether a sitting President of the United States should be impeached.

My original motivation here stems not at all from that fact.  But this serendipitous timing greatly increases the importance of my points.

Allow me to explain why I want to tell you why George Washington is my favorite American President, and what that has to do with what's going on in the nation today and the divisiveness that has been going on for a few decades now.

A couple of months ago, conversing with a fellow writer of historical crime novels, I brought up George Washington and his frequent use, in his own writings, of the Biblical phrase "his own vine and fig tree" as a metaphor for peace and contentment, especially in retirement.  Washington used it in speaking about his decision not to run for a third term.  I take a keen interest in that choice of our first President.

Washington's stepping down, and thereby making way for the the peaceful transfer of power to someone else through an election, was the most important decision any President ever made.  It is the reason why the American Revolution succeeded in birthing a viable nation, while other revolutions have so often led to war, bloodshed, despotism.  Viz, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution.

Sister Mary Catharine O'Connor, my teacher and mentor, had her writing classes read Washington's Farewell Address to the nation as one of the first examples of elegant, cogent American prose.  Washington composed it with the help of Alexander Hamilton.  After talking about it with my friend, I decided to go back and reread it for the first time in decades.  What I found astonished me in its relevance to what I consider the greatest threat to democracy in the United States today: greater loyalty to party than to the country.  Politicians of both parties, as a matter of course, now put winning ahead of the Constitution and our precious democracy.

This is why - today - I am bringing back Washington to warn us.  Here is what he said in 1796, speaking about what was the most important way to preserve our freedom and the greatest threat to its future:

 ...that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, 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...


...a solicitude for your welfare... and the apprehension of danger...urge me... to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, ...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...

The unity of government...a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility 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; ...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. 

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. 

 ...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.

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 cannot 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. 

...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.

...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. 

However combinations or associations...may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

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. 

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. 

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 duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. 

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 finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. 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.

PS: You can find the full text of the address here.  You will see it, probably in Alexander Hanilton's handwriting.  Click on "transcript" to see the print version.