George Washington: Farewell Address

Impact

Washington's birthday has been celebrated ever since his presidency. The Farewell Address became part of that celebration, and for years into the 1970s it was read in the U.S. Senate on February 22 as an expression of the American national credo, only to be supplanted by Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address and more succinctly by Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Washington's advice was revisited whenever treaties were considered. The country continued to abide by Washington's sage advice on avoiding permanent military alliances until 1949, when the United States joined NATO. Despite Washington's fear of political parties, these parties persisted after his retirement. At times, the bitter partisanship that Washington spoke of greatly endangered the Union. The geographical sectionalism that ideologically divided the United States in the 1850s actually dismembered the Union, which was reassembled after the American Civil War.

Two hundred years after Washington's Farewell Address, party politics have become so bitter that the national government has been much less effective than Washington would have hoped. The politics of compromise seems to be a thing of the past. Pleas are continually made to revert to the “brotherly affection” advocated by Washington, but American politicians of the twenty-first century seem to have little interest in doing what Washington advised.