Washington's Farewell Address, Pub. in "Massachusetts Spy, or Worcester Gazette"

4pp of a bifolium, measuring 11.25" x 18", Worcester, Massachusetts, dated September 28, 1796. An issue of the "Thomas' Massachusetts Spy, or Worcester Gazette", Volume XXV, No. 1224, containing a published version of President George Washington's Farewell Address. Published by Isaiah Thomas. Light dampstaining and toning throughout. With a partial signature at the top edge. Slightly rough left edge with pin holes from being removed from a larger volume.

In the final days of his presidency, Washington sent an open letter to Congress, emphasizing the importance of unity and issuing a warning about political parties and foreign interference. He was aided by Alexander Hamilton, whose second draft was the basis for the final address. It warned against sectionalism and "the insidious wiles of foreign influence", closing with an appeal for continued American isolationism. Although the U.S. did not heed Washington's concerns about political parties, it did forego joining any permanent alliances for more than 150 years - finally doing so during WWII.

In part:
"The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself, and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it…"

"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…"

"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… 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."

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