Dates of addresses by George Washington in this eBook:
January 8, 1790
December 8, 1790
October 25, 1791
November 6, 1792
December 3, 1793
November 19, 1794
December 8, 1795
December 7, 1796
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State of the Union Address
George Washington
January 8, 1790
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents itself
of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public
affairs. The recent accession of the important state of North Carolina to
the Constitution of the United States (of which official information has
been received), the rising credit and respectability of our country, the
general and increasing good will toward the government of the Union, and
the concord, peace, and plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances
auspicious in an eminent degree to our national prosperity.
In resuming your consultations for the general good you can not but derive
encouragement from the reflection that the measures of the last session
have been as satisfactory to your constituents as the novelty and
difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further to realize their
expectations and to secure the blessings which a gracious Providence has
placed within our reach will in the course of the present important session
call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and
wisdom.
Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of
providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be
prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a
uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest
require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them
independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed indispensable
will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be
made respecting it it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable
support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy.
There was reason to hope that the pacific measures adopted with regard to
certain hostile tribes of Indians would have relieved the inhabitants of
our southern and western frontiers from their depredations, but you will
perceive from the information contained in the papers which I shall direct
to be laid before you (comprehending a communication from the Commonwealth
of Virginia) that we ought to be prepared to afford protection to those
parts of the Union, and, if necessary, to punish aggressors.
The interests of the United States require that our intercourse with other
nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to
fulfill my duty in that respect in the manner which circumstances may
render most conducive to the public good, and to this end that the
compensation to be made to the persons who may be employed should,
according to the nature of their appointments, be defined by law, and a
competent fund designated for defraying the expenses incident to the
conduct of foreign affairs.
Various considerations also render it expedient that the terms on which
foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens should be speedily
ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.
Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is
an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended
to.
The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures by all proper
means will not, I trust, need recommendation; but I can not forbear
intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well
to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad as to the
exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home, and of
facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a
due attention to the post-office and post-roads.
Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion that there
is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of
science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of
public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their
impressions so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours it is
proportionably essential.
To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways--by
convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration that
every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened
confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and
to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of
them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of
lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their
convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society;
to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of
licentiousness--cherishing the first, avoiding the last--and uniting a
speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable
respect to the laws.
Whether this desirable object will be best promoted by affording aids to
seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a
national university, or by any other expedients will be well worthy of a
place in the deliberations of the legislature.
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:
I saw with peculiar pleasure at the close of the last session the
resolution entered into by you expressive of your opinion that an adequate
provision for the support of the public credit is a matter of high
importance to the national honor and prosperity. In this sentiment I
entirely concur; and to a perfect confidence in your best endeavors to
devise such a provision as will be truly with the end I add an equal
reliance on the cheerful cooperation of the other branch of the
legislature.
It would be superfluous to specify inducements to a measure in which the
character and interests of the United States are so obviously so deeply
concerned, and which has received so explicit a sanction from your
declaration.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I have directed the proper officers to lay before you, respectively, such
papers and estimates as regard the affairs particularly recommended to your
consideration, and necessary to convey to you that information of the state
of the Union which it is my duty to afford.
The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and
efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction from a
cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our
fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a
free, efficient, and equal government.
***
State of the Union Address
George Washington
December 8, 1790
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
In meeting you again I feel much satisfaction in being able to repeat my
congratulations on the favorable prospects which continue to distinguish
our public affairs. The abundant fruits of another year have blessed our
country with plenty and with the means of a flourishing commerce.
The progress of public credit is witnessed by a considerable rise of
American stock abroad as well as at home, and the revenues allotted for
this and other national purposes have been productive beyond the
calculations by which they were regulated. This latter circumstance is the
more pleasing, as it is not only a proof of the fertility of our resources,
but as it assures us of a further increase of the national respectability
and credit, and, let me add, as it bears an honorable testimony to the
patriotism and integrity of the mercantile and marine part of our citizens.
The punctuality of the former in discharging their engagements has been
exemplary.
In conformity to the powers vested in me by acts of the last session, a
loan of 3,000,000 florins, toward which some provisional measures had
previously taken place, has been completed in Holland. As well the celerity
with which it has been filled as the nature of the terms (considering the
more than ordinary demand for borrowing created by the situation of Europe)
give a reasonable hope that the further execution of those powers may
proceed with advantage and success. The Secretary of the Treasury has my
directions to communicate such further particulars as may be requisite for
more precise information.
Since your last sessions I have received communications by which it appears
that the district of Kentucky, at present a part of Virginia, has concurred
in certain propositions contained in a law of that State, in consequence of
which the district is to become a distinct member of the Union, in case the
requisite sanction of Congress be added. For this sanction application is
now made. I shall cause the papers on this very transaction to be laid
before you.
The liberality and harmony with which it has been conducted will be found
to do great honor to both the parties, and the sentiments of warm
attachment to the Union and its present Government expressed by our fellow
citizens of Kentucky can not fail to add an affectionate concern for their
particular welfare to the great national impressions under which you will
decide on the case submitted to you.
It has been heretofore known to Congress that frequent incursions have been
made on our frontier settlements by certain banditti of Indians from the
northwest side of the Ohio. These, with some of the tribes dwelling on and
near the Wabash, have of late been particularly active in their
depredations, and being emboldened by the impunity of their crimes and
aided by such parts of the neighboring tribes as could be seduced to join
in their hostilities or afford them a retreat for their prisoners and
plunder, they have, instead of listening to the humane invitations and
overtures made on the part of the United States, renewed their violences
with fresh alacrity and greater effect. The lives of a number of valuable
citizens have thus been sacrificed, and some of them under circumstances
peculiarly shocking, whilst others have been carried into a deplorable
captivity.
These aggravated provocations rendered it essential to the safety of the
Western settlements that the aggressors should be made sensible that the
Government of the Union is not less capable of punishing their crimes than
it is disposed to respect their rights and reward their attachments. As
this object could not be effected by defensive measures, it became
necessary to put in force the act which empowers the President to call out
the militia for the protection of the frontiers, and I have accordingly
authorized an expedition in which the regular troops in that quarter are
combined with such drafts of militia as were deemed sufficient. The event
of the measure is yet unknown to me. The Secretary of War is directed to
lay before you a statement of the information on which it is founded, as
well as an estimate of the expense with which it will be attended.
The disturbed situation of Europe, and particularly the critical posture of
the great maritime powers, whilst it ought to make us the more thankful for
the general peace and security enjoyed by the United States, reminds us at
the same time of the circumspection with which it becomes us to preserve
these blessings. It requires also that we should not overlook the tendency
of a war, and even of preparations for a war, among the nations most
concerned in active commerce with this country to abridge the means, and
thereby at least enhance the price, of transporting its valuable
productions to their markets. I recommend it to your serious reflections
how far and in what mode it may be expedient to guard against
embarrassments from these contingencies by such encouragements to our own
navigation as will render our commerce and agriculture less dependent on
foreign bottoms, which may fail us in the very moments most interesting to
both of these great objects. Our fisheries and the transportation of our
own produce offer us abundant means for guarding ourselves against this
evil.
Your attention seems to be not less due to that particular branch of our
trade which belongs to the Mediterranean. So many circumstances unite in
rendering the present state of it distressful to us that you will not think
any deliberations misemployed which may lead to its relief and protection.
The laws you have already passed for the establishment of a judiciary
system have opened the doors of justice to all descriptions of persons. You
will consider in your wisdom whether improvements in that system may yet be
made, and particularly whether an uniform process of execution on sentences
issuing from the Federal courts be not desirable through all the States.
The patronage of our commerce, of our merchants and sea men, has called for
the appointment of consuls in foreign countries. It seems expedient to
regulate by law the exercise of that jurisdiction and those functions which
are permitted them, either by express convention or by a friendly
indulgence, in the places of their residence. The consular convention, too,
with His Most Christian Majesty has stipulated in certain cases the aid of
the national authority to his consuls established here. Some legislative
provision is requisite to carry these stipulations into full effect.
The establishment of the militia, of a mint, of standards of weights and
measures, of the post office and post roads are subjects which I presume
you will resume of course, and which are abundantly urged by their own
importance.
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:
The sufficiency of the revenues you have established for the objects to
which they are appropriated leaves no doubt that the residuary provisions
will be commensurate to the other objects for which the public faith stands
now pledged. Allow me, moreover, to hope that it will be a favorite policy
with you, not merely to secure a payment of the interest of the debt
funded, but as far and as fast as the growing resources of the country will
permit to exonerate it of the principal itself. The appropriation you have
made of the Western land explains your dispositions on this subject, and I
am persuaded that the sooner that valuable fund can be made to contribute,
along with the other means, to the actual reduction of the public debt the
more salutary will the measure be to every public interest, as well as the
more satisfactory to our constituents.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:
In pursuing the various and weighty business of the present session I
indulge the fullest persuasion that your consultation will be equally
marked with wisdom and animated by the love of your country. In whatever
belongs to my duty you shall have all the cooperation which an undiminished
zeal for its welfare can inspire. It will be happy for us both, and our
best reward, if, by a successful administration of our respective trusts,
we can make the established Government more and more instrumental in
promoting the good of our fellow citizens, and more and more the object of
their attachment and confidence.