Posted on 02/15/2008 4:45:24 AM PST by Loud Mime
Below is from George Washington’s Farewell Address!
Warns against the party system.
“It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....
agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....
against another....
it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...
thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
Stresses the importance of religion and morality.
“Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths,
which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?”
On stable public credit.
“...cherish public credit.
One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible...
avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt....
it is essential that you...bear in mind, that towards the payments of debts there must be Revenue,
that to have Revenue there must be taxes;
that no taxes can be devised, which are not...inconvenient and unpleasant...”
Warns against permanent foreign alliances.
“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world...”
“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world...”
Kooky libertarian kook!
What exactly is the incident Washington is talking about?
Thanks for that addition!
Washintgon’s Farewell Address should be the subject of an entire course in high school, a required course.
It is human nature to not value that which you have not earned.
I believe the treaty discussed is the Treaty of Paris, which "ended the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the United States, recognized American independence and established borders for the new nation."
I'll get back to this after today's labors are finished. Sorry I couldn't do more at this time.
Bump!
Thanks very much for the background material.
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
George Washington
Washington knew the score. He learned it the hard way.
Its too bad that personal hard knocks seems to be the only way individuals can be indelibly impressed with truth (reality).
Most don’t have the wisdom to learn from those who have the substantive, uncocooned life experiences that give them the ability to teach others.
The Framers never got tired of pointing out that government in any form is a necessary evil, and should be kept small and close to the people, themselves, so as not to become an out of control monster taking on a life of its own.
Thanks so much federal government, for failing to heed every one of his warnings.
Well said! Well said indeed!
It really is sad that we humans have to keep learning the same lessons over and over again but if history teaches anything at all it is that we must.
Hear Hear!
“Amazing the wisdom of our first President. Sadly little of it got passed down through our history. Modern America got fat, lazy and forgetful.”
“What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & falacious!”
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris had been signed, and Sir Guy Carleton boarded his troops on ships from their New York garrison, and they all headed back to England. It was time for Americans to govern themselves according to the Articles of Confederation without a common enemy to unite them. It didn't work.
It was time for the troops to go home, and they hadn't been paid in hard money. (If you check an earlier Loud Mime thread, you'll see my explanation of America's early financial woes and Hamilton's solution to them.) They had been paid in Continental Dollars, a paper fiat currency backed with the promise to pay in Spanish Milled Dollars. Unfortunately, the federal government didn't have a pot to piss in and had little in the way of Spanish Milled Dollars -- or anything else. As a result, the Continental Dollar began to get discounted by creditors even though the words "legal tender" (forced tender) were printed on them. During the war patriots had been willing to accept this paper currency because there was a war on. (Loyalists preferred British gold and silver.) Once the war was over, that patriotic sentiment was set aside because there were debts to be paid to creditors, and the troops, who were mostly yoeman farmers, were holding paper money that was now becoming worthless. The Confederation Congress was not up to the job of fixing what was wrong because the Articles weren't up to the job.
Robert Morris, proprietor of the Bank of North America in Philadelphia, decided to act. With the assistance of Gouveneur Morris, not a relation, they approached Hamilton and asked him to approach Washington with a proposal. Washington was to take his army to Philadelphia, overthrow Congress and set himself up as King George I of America. The nation's finances would be placed on a firm footing, and America would be ruled by a wise monarch. Many of Washington's officers at the Newburgh encampment thought this was the way to go, and Washington found himself with a budding fascist movement on his hands.
In an acting tour de force, Washington borrowed from "Cato" by Addison, his favorite play, and read an address to his troops cautiously arguing against the plot without mentioning the plot or its ringleaders. He put on his glasses publicly for the first time and hinted that he had been losing his sight in the service of his country. When we was finished there wasn't a dry eye in the house, and the plot quickly fell apart.
In 1785, the Bank of North America collapsed, triggering the final collapse of the Continental Dollar. The Pennsylvania Militia revolted and took over Philadelphia, forcing the Confederation Congress to flee to Princeton. Hamilton fulminated that Washington return to the military and put down the rebellion in Philadelphia, but it all blew over. What didn't blow over was the collapse of the basic currency unit. (I'll leave Loud Mime to link to my earlier full explanation of how that collapse led to Shay's Rebellion and the Constitutional Convention.)
A final note. At Newburgh, Hamilton had warned the Morrises that Washington would never go for the coup d'etat proposal. When the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia, Washington was having dinner in one of the better taverns in town with Hamilton and some other members of his old wartime staff. Robert Morris, now disgraced because of the loss of his bank, made himself scarce, but Gouveneur Morris happened to be having dinner there at the same time. Morris had asked Hamilton if he could approach His Excellency, and Hamilton, who knew damn well Washington's opinion of the man, smiled and suggested he try it. (Hamilton had a puckish sense of humor and was fond of practical jokes.) Morris clapped Waashington on the shoulder and gave him a loud welcome. Washington gave Morris a look that would have frozen brimstone, and Morris skedaddled out of the tavern with Hamilton laughing up his sleeve.
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