_Washington, February 18, 1862_.
I. The following concurrent resolutions of the two Houses of the
Congress of the United States are published for the information of the
Army:
_Resolved_, That the two Houses will assemble in the Chamber of the
House of Representatives on Saturday, the 22d day of February instant,
at 12 o'clock meridian, and that in the presence of the two Houses of
Congress thus assembled the Farewell Address of George Washington to the
people of the United States shall be read; and that the President of the
Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives be requested to
invite the President of the United States, the heads of the several
Departments, the judges of the Supreme Court, the representatives from
all foreign governments near this Government, and such officers of the
Army and Navy and distinguished citizens as may then be at the seat of
Government to be present on that occasion.
_Resolved_, That the President of the United States, Commander in Chief
of the Army and Navy, be requested to direct that orders be issued for
the reading to the Army and Navy of the United States of the Farewell
Address of George Washington, or such parts thereof as he may select, on
the 22d day of February instant.
II. In compliance with the foregoing resolutions, the President of the
United States, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, orders that the
following extracts from the Farewell Address of George Washington be
read to the troops at every military post and at the head of the several
regiments and corps of the Army:
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts,
no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the
attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now
dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity 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; that
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it;
accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of
your political safety and prosperity; 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.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by
birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. 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.
With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners,
habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and
triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the
work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings,
and successes.
* * * * *
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to
find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater
resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less
frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and, what is of
inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those
broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict
neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which
their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which
opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate
and imbitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those
overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government,
are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as
particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is 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.
* * * * *
To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole
is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be
an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions
and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced.
Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first
essay by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated
than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious
management of your common concerns. This Government, the offspring of
our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation
and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the
distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing
within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to
your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance
with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the
fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems
is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of
government. But 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.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this
fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. 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.
* * * * *
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that
man claim 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 man,
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 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 may be conceded to the influence 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 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 force to public opinion, it is essential that
public opinion should be enlightened.
* * * * *
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and
harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it
be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a
free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to
mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided
by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course
of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any
temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?
Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of
a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by
every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered
impossible by its vices?
* * * * *
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by
policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should
hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive
favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things;
diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but
forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give
trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to
enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of
intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will
permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or
varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping
in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors
from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for
whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it
may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for
nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not
giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate
upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and
affectionate friend I dare not hope they will make the strong and
lasting impression I could wish--that they will control the usual
current of the passions or prevent our nation from running the course
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even
flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some
occasional good--that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury
of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to
guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism--this hope will be
a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have
been dictated.
* * * * *
Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious
of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not
to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever
they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the
evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that
my country will never cease to view them with indulgence, and that,
after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an
upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to
oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that
fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it the
native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I
anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise
myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the
midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a
free government--the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy
reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
By command of Major-General McClellan: