George Washington: Farewell Address

Audience

Washington's Farewell Address had two primary audiences: his immediate constituency and all American posterity. In May 1792, Madison (who served unofficially as Washington's protocol secretary) suggested to Washington that the presidential Farewell Address should originally be published in newspapers—unlike Washington's June 1783 farewell as commander in chief, which was sent as a handwritten circular letter to the state governors, who then submitted it to the state legislatures. The situation had changed. The president's constituency was the people, and newspapers were the best medium in which to address them. Washington agreed, and the address was first printed in the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser addressed to “Friends and Fellow Citizens.” Washington hoped to diffuse the political turmoil and partisanship raging in American politics, which he saw as an imminent danger to the continuance of the Union.

Washington also intended that the ideas, warnings, and admonitions in his farewell be addressed to the American posterity in the hope that in the future Americans would be instructed on how best to preserve the Union. Washington had little success in defusing the current political animosity, but after the election of 1800 the American public and public officials accepted Washington's advice and avoided military alliances. In fact, it was not until 1949 that the United States entered into a permanent military alliance with European powers via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).