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In early 1796, President George Washington decided not to seek reelection for a third term and began drafting this farewell address to the American people. The address went through numerous drafts, in large part due to suggestions made by Alexander Hamilton.
In the 32-page handwritten address, Washington urged Americans to avoid excessive political party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances with other nations.
The address was printed in Philadelphia’s American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796. Washington’s final manuscript is at The New York Public Library.
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In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my
political life my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment
of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors
it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it
has supported me, and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting
my inviolable attachment by services faithful and persevering, though in
usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from
these services, let it always be remembered to your praise and as an instructive
example in our annals that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated
in every direction, were liable to mislead; amidst appearances sometimes
dubious; vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging; in situations in which not
unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the
constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and guaranty of
the plans by which they were effected.
Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave as a
strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest
tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be
perpetual; 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 as will acquire to them the
glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every
nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare which can not
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 appears 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.
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 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.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your
sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to
your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding
motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal
laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great
additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious
materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse,
benefiting by the same agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its
commerce expand, Turning partly into its own channels the sea men of the North,
it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes in
different ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national
navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to which
itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West,
already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by
land and water will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities
which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The West derives from the
East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of still
greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of
indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the
future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an
indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the
West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate
strength or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power,
must be intrinsically precarious.
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.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and
virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of
patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so
large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a
case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the
whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions,
will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full
experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts
of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its
impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of
those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
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
the 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 inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this
head. They have seen in the negotiation by the executive and in the unanimous
ratification by the Senate of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal
satisfaction at that event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how
unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the general
government and in the Atlantic states unfriendly to their interests in regard to
the Mississippi. They have been witnesses to the formation of 2 treaties - that
with Great Britain and that with Spain - which secure to them everything they
could desire in respect to our foreign relations toward confirming their
prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these
advantages on the union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be
deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their
brethren and connect them with aliens?
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 off-spring 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 til 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.
However combinations or associations of the above description 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.
Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present
happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular
oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care
the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One
method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations
which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what can not
be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember
that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of
governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest
standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a
country; the facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion
exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion;
and remember especially that for the efficient management of your common
interests in a country so extensive as ours a government of as much vigor as is
consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself
will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted,
its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name where the government
is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of
the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the
secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of persons and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with
particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations.
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 occasional
riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption,
which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of
party passion. 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 live the spirit of liberty.
This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of 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.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should
inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confirm themselves
within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding the exercise of the
powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment
tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of
that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human
heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity
of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and
distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian
of the public weal against invasions by others, has been evinced by experiments
ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To
preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If in the opinion of
the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in
any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the
Constitution designates, but let there be no change by usurpation; for though
this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon
by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly
overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can
at any time yield.
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.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One
method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding
occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely
disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater
disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only
by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to
discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not ungenerously
throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.
The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives; but it is
necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the
performance of their duty it is essential that you should practically bear in
mind that toward the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have
revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or
less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable
from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of
difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the
conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the
measures for obtaining revenue which the public exigencies may at any time
dictate.
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?
In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent,
inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for
others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings
toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an
habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave
to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another
disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight
causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling
occasions of dispute occur.
Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation
prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government
contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes
participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason
would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to
projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations
has been the victim.
So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a
variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of
an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and
infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a
participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement
or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of
privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the
concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and
by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties
from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted,
or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to
betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes
even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of
obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for
public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or
infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are
particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many
opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the
arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public
councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful
nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. Against the insidious
wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the
jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and
experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of
republican government, but that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else
it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a
defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive
dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side,
and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real
patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become
suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and
confidence of the people to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending
our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as
possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled
with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests which to use have none or a very remote
relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of
which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be
unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary
vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combination and collisions of her
friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different
course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is
not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we
may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time
resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the
impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving
us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by
justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand
upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of
Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition,
rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of
the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me
not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that
honesty is always the best policy. I repeat, therefore, let those engagements be
observed in their genuine sense, but in my opinion it is unnecessary and would
be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable
defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary
emergencies.
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 foriegn 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.
How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the
principles which have been delineated the public records and other evidences of
my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my
own conscience is that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.
In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe my proclamation of
[1793-04-22], is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice and by
that of your representatives in both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that
measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or
divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I
was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case,
had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take a neutral
position. Having taken it, I determined as far as should depend upon me to
maintain it with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not
necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my
understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the
belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more,
from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases
in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and
amity toward other nations.
The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to
your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to
endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its recent
institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength
and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of
its own fortunes.
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 45 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.