A LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON

By Edwin Cooney

Dear General Washington,

Two hundred and fifteen years have passed since you announced the close of your magnificent service to “we, the people of the United States,” in the message that has come to be known as your “Farewell Address.” September 19th was on a Monday in 1796, as it is this year, but the world is so very different today from the world of your generation.

Forty-two other men, five of whom were of Your Excellency’s acquaintance, have succeeded you in the office you conducted so well. Today, a brilliant man whose social ranking would have only been equal to one of yours and Mrs. Washington’s slaves occupies the presidential mansion which you didn’t live to see completed. The country you sought to guide and govern now possesses fifty states in the Union rather than merely sixteen as when you passed away on the night of Saturday, December 14th, 1799 in the sixty-eighth year of your age. Then we were agrarian, now we’re superconductive or cyberspatial -- take your pick. Then we were isolated by weeks of travel from the old world. Now there is instant communication and only hours in time physically separate us from the “old world.”

Yet, with all these differences, we look back with reverence at the form of government we’ve inherited by your grace. Still, as much as we revere you, just as our own children react to our advice, we’ve heeded little of the six main themes of your Farewell Address. Even categorizing it as an “address” demonstrates our inexactitude in recall since your farewell was a letter, not a speech.

First sir, you urged us to revere our federal government as “a…main pillar in the edifice of your ... independence...your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty which you so highly prize.” Yet today, many among us show ideological and doctrinaire contempt for the federal government as you once did toward the British officer corps and the Parliament.

Second, you warned us of political parties which you insisted would distract the public councils (you probably meant congress) and enfeeble the public administration (the presidency, the function of which you gave such careful consideration). You asserted further that parties would agitate the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, and would kindle the animosities of one against the other which would open the door to foreign influence and corruption thus subjecting us to the policies and will of other nations. Your wisdom is borne out today by those who depend on Liberal and Conservative doctrines rather than on a careful study of history for their political faith.

Third, you stressed the importance of religion and morality as the security of property and reputation as well as solemn oaths that give integrity to lawful investigation in the courts of justice. Sadly, today logic and science too often trump faith and trust.

Fourth, you insisted on stable public credit advising that such credit should be used sparingly to avoid the accumulation of debt. In so doing, you reminded us that in order to pay off public debt there must be revenue and thus unpleasant taxes which you implied could poison the body politic. So it has, especially since your small community and semi-barter society has become a money-based society.

Fifth, you warned against permanent foreign alliances. You doubtless vividly recall the controversy caused by the Jay Treaty because it failed to halt England’s practice of boarding American merchant ships on the high seas and inducting American sailors into the Royal Navy. Surely you recall being branded “cowardice” for not standing up to Britain by allying with France in her latest war with England. Your idea of “national safety” was separation from European politics. Today, “collective security” is equated with national safety because since World War II we’ve abandoned isolation due to the power of “foreign influences.”

Sixth, and finally, you warned us to “….avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments” which you insisted under any government are to be regarded as being hostile to Republican Liberty.” In twenty-first century, America patriotism is too often measured by an individual’s reverence for the military over civilian authority.

Still, we must keep in mind that the Constitution, which you helped to create and to see to its adoption, modestly sought “a more perfect”-- not an absolutely perfect -- union. The young America you shepherded into being, marred as it was by religious persecution, chattel slavery and other examples of intolerance, remains humankind’s greatest and most enduring promise of ultimate justice.

Thus, with all of the imperfections of your day and ours, with all of the seemingly wasted wisdom of yesterday and today, your wish for us in the largest sense has truly been realized.

We devoutly offer you our gratitude because America, overall, has fared quite well!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY