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ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE
February 18, 1862
I. The following concurrent resolutions of the two Houses of the Congress of
the United States are published for the information of the Army:
Resolved, That the two Houses will assemble in the Chamber of the
House of Representatives on Saturday, the 22d day of February instant, at 12
o'clock meridian, and that in the presence of the two Houses of Congress thus
assembled the Farewell Address of George Washington to the people of the United
States shall be read; and that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of
the House of Representatives be requested to invite the President of the United
States, the heads of the several Departments, the judges of the Supreme Court,
the representatives from all foreign governments near this Government, and such
officers of the Army and Navy and distinguished citizens as may then be at the
seat of Government to be present on that occasion.
Resolved, That the President of the United States, Commander in Chief
of the Army and Navy, be requested to direct that orders be issued for the
reading to the Army and Navy of the United States of the Farewell Address of
George Washington, or such parts thereof as he may select, on the 22d day of
February instant.
II. In compliance with the foregoing resolutions, the President of the United
States, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, orders that the following
extracts from the Farewell Address of George Washington be read to the troops at
every military post and at the head of the several regiments and corps of the
Army:
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no
recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to
you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real
independence. the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of
your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize.
But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different
quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your
minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political
fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be
most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed,
it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should
cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming
yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety
and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety;
discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event
be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt
to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred
ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by
birth or choice of a common country, that country, has a right to concentrate
your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national
capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any
appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of
difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political
principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The
independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint
efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular
interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to find in the united
mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably
greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their
peace by foreign nations, and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive
from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves which so
frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same
governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce,
but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate
and imbitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown
military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to
liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican
liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main
prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the
preservation of the other.
To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is
indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an
adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and
interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of
this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of
a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate
union and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This
Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted
upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its
principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and
containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to
your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its
laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental
maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the
people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the
constitution which at any time exists till changed by a.n explicit and authentic
act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the
power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty
of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to
direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the
constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of
fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and
extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the
will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the
community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties. to
make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous
projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans,
digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality. are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim
the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of
human happiness--these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere
politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A
volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.
Let it simply be asked, 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? And let us with caution
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of
popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every
species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with
indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then,
as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of
knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public
opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and
harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that
good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free,
enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the
magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted
justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the
fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be
lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected
the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is
recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered
impossible by its vices?
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy,
humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and
impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences;
consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle
means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so
disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our
merchants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of
intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit,
but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as
experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it
is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it
must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under
that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of
having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with
ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or
calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate
friend I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could
wish--that they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our
nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations.
But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial
benefit, some occasional good--that they may now and then recur to moderate the
fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to
guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism--this hope will be a full
recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated.
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.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that
fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native
soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, 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.
By command of Major-General McClellan:
L. THOMAS,
Adjutant-General.
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