210 years ago, in 1796, George Washington delivered his farewell address to the young United States of America. He had served two terms as President, and then, incredibly, stepped away from power. He left with words of wisdom to the young republic, some of which we are all aware of, as he famously advised to avoid entangling foreign alliances and political parties. However, his reasoning for warning against parties is fascinating and eerily applicable.
Follow me below to read some of what the first President of the United States of America said:
Washington begins by specifically warning about parties based on geography, as he was concerned about the nation splitting between interests in the North, South, and West. He wanted to keep the Union whole for its own interests (an idea more fully flushed out in Federalist No. 11), but what he stresses is that the government has been created by the will of the whole people and that
all, even the President, exist under the power of the Constitution.
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.
Washington then goes on to point out the problems of one party being in power:
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.
As I sat reading Washington's words from an entirely different era, when his fears were based on very different precedents and political realities, I was struck by how he accurately predicted the current crisis with the current one party government and a president bent on gaining more and more executive power:
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.
Towards 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 cannot be directly overthrown.
The first President points to the best defense of individual freedom, as well as the kind of government that can take it away:
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 person and property.
<snip>
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.
George Washington was clearly worried about the usurpation of power by a tyrant who would crown himself king and end the American democratic experiment. While I have no doubt the current President would not dare take that step, the increase of power in one man is exactly what Washington warned against and feared. As he later said:
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.
As the quest for temporary security may permanently endanger our liberty.
Finally, we, the people, are not holding up our end of the bargain and Washington saw it, we are not inspiring caution in those elected and appointed to run our government and protect the Constitution (Throw the bums out; that'll learn 'em):
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.
The whole of the Farewell Address is worth taking the time to read, and everyone in office should do it at least annually to be reminded of some of the values and ideas on which this nation was founded. While some of his ideals may seem quaint, or we might not agree with, such as GW's belief that leaders needed "religion and morality." The world is vastly different now than the one in which Washington warned against entangling alliances, but his reasoning should still be kept in mind while dealing with diplomatic relations. I would finally point out that he would be none to pleased with us, either, as George Washington wanted a country without political parties at all, though even in his lifetime, maybe even during his presidency, the first American political parties formed.