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WASHINGTON'S
FAREWELL ADDRESS
WEBSTER'S
FIRST BUNKER HILL ORATION
LINCOLN'S
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
HORACE E. HENDERSON
HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, PAWLING SCHOOL
ALLYN AND BACON
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
COPYRIGHT. 1922, BY
HORACE E. HENDERSON
PREFACE
No group of addresses could better illustrate Ameri-
can political ideas than that contained in this volume.
As the utterances of three great statesmen, at three
important periods in our national history, they com-
bine to present a valuable lesson in true American-
ism.
The first, written at the very beginning of our na-
tional existence, shows prophetic instinct, not only
as to inevitable dangers, but also as to methods of
meeting those dangers. The second, written at the
end of our first half century, emphasizes the impor-
tance of American Uberty in its e£fect upon the world
at large, and reiterates the duty of maintaining the
principles upon which that liberty, and all national
Hberty, depends. The third, written at the time
when the supreme test of Union was in progress,
emphasizes still more emphatically the duty of every
American citizen.
Studied in the order here given and as a group, they
present a lesson in the patriotic principles of liberty
and union that every American youth should learn.
H. E. H.
October, 1922
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TAGE
WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS ... 1
WEBSTER'S FIRST BUNKER HILL ORATION . . 27
LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS .... 59
NOTES
Washington's Farewell Address 61
Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration .... 76
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 87
QUOTATIONS
From Washington 91
From Webster 92
From Lincoln 94
OUTLINES
Farewell .Address 95
First Bunker Hill Oration 97
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Bunker Hill Monument Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
George Washington 1
Daniel Webster 27
Abraham Lincoln 59
VI
George Washington
WASHINGTON'S
FAREWELL ADDRESS
To the people of tite United States.
Friends and Fellow Citizens : The period for
a new election of a citizen to administer the execu-
tive government of the United States being not far
distant, and the time actually arrived when your
thoughts must be employed in designating the per-s
son who is to be clothed with that important trust,
it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce
to a more distinct expression of the pubhc voice,
that I should now apprise you of the resolution I
have formed, to decline being considered among theio
number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice
to be assured, that this resolution has not been taken,
without a strict regard to all the considerations ap-
pertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful 15
citizen to his country ; and that, in withdrawing the
tender of ser\dce which silence in my situation might
imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal
for your future interest; no deficiency of grateful
respect for your past kindness ; but am supported 20
I
Washington's Farewell Address
by a full conviction that the step is compatible with
both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto
in the office to which your suffrages have twice
5 called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of inclina-
tion to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for
what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped
that it would have been much earlier in my power,
consistently with motives which I was not at Hberty
lo to disregard, to return to that retirement from which
I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my
inclination to do this, previous to the last election,
had even led to the preparation of an address to
declare it to you ; but mature reflection on the
15 then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs
with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of
persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to
abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external
20 as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of
inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty
or propriety ; and am persuaded, whatever partiality
may be retained for my services, that, in the present
circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove
25 my determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the
arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion.
In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that
I have, with good intentions, contributed towards
2
Washington's Farewell Address
the organization and administration of the govern-
ment the best exertions of which a very falHble judg-
ment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset
of the inferiority of my quahfications, experience,
in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes ofs
others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence
of myself; and every day the increasing weight
of years admonishes me more and more, that the
shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will
be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances lo
have given pecuKar value to my services they were
temporary, I have the consolation to believe that,
while choice and prudence invite me to quit the
pohtical scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is to 15
terminate the career of my pohtical Hfe, my feelings
do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledg-
ment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my
beloved country, for the many honors it has conferred
upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence 20
with which it has supported me ; and for the oppor-
tunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my
inviolable attachment, by services faithful and per-
severing, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal.
If benefits have resulted to our country from these 25
services, let it always be remembered to your praise,
and as an instructive example in our annals, that
under circumstances in which the passions, agitated
in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst
3
Washington's Farewell Address
appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of for-
tune often discouraging — in situations in which,
not unfrequently, want of success has countenanced
the spirit of criticism, — the constancy of your sup-
5 port was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guaran-
tee of the plans, by which they were effected. Pro-
foundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it
with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to un-
ceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the
lo choicest tokens of its beneficence — that your union
and brotherly aft'ection may be perpetual — that
the free constitution, which is the work of your hands,
may be sacredly maintained — that its adminis-
tration in every department may be stamped with
15 wisdom and virtue — that, in fine, the happiness of
the people of these states, under the auspices of Hb-
erty, may be made complete by so careful a preser-
vation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will
acquire to them the glory of recommending it to
20 the applause, the affection, and adoption of every
nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude
for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life,
and the apprehension of danger, natural to that so-
25 Hcitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present,
to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recom-
mend to your frequent review, some sentiments
which are the result of much reflection, of no incon-
siderable observation, and which appear to me all
4
Washington's Farewell Address
important to the permanency of your felicity as a
people. These will be offered to you with the more
freedom, as you can only see in them the disinter-
ested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly
have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor 5
can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indul-
gent reception of my sentiments on a former and
not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every
hgament of your hearts, no recommendation of 10
mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attach-
ment.
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 inde- 15
pendence ; the support of your tranquilKty at home :
your peace abroad; of your safety; of your pros-
perity; of that very hberty which you so highly
prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from differ-
ent causes and from dift'erent quarters much pains 20
wiU be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken
in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this
is the point in your poKtical fortress against which
the batteries of internal and external enemies will be
most constantly and actively (though often covertly 25
and insidiously) directed; it is of infinite moment
that you should properly estimate the immense value
of your national union to your collective and indi-
vidual happiness ; that you should cherish a cordial,
5
Washington's Farewell Address
habitual, and immovable attachment to it ; accustom-
ing yourselves to think and speak of it as of the
palladium of your political safety and prosperity;
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety;
s 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 ahenate any portion of our country
from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which
10 now Hnk together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy
and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a com-
mon country, that country has a right to concentrate
your affections. The name of American, which be-
15 longs to you in your national capacity, must always
exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any ap-
pellation derived from local discriminations. With
sHght shades of difference, you have the same reHgion,
manners, habits, and political principle. You have,
20 in a common cause, fought and triumphed together ;
the independence and liberty you possess are the
work of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common
dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully
25 they address themselves to your sensibihty, are greatly
outweighed by those which apply more immediately
to your interest. Here, every portion of our coun-
try finds the most commanding motives for carefully
guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
6
Washington's Farewell Address
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with
the South, protected by the equal laws of a common
government, finds in the productions of the latter
great additional resources of maritime and commercial
enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturings
industry. The South, in the same intercourse,
benefiting by the same agency of the North, sees its
agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turn-
ing partly into its own channels the seamen of the
North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated ; lo
and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish
and increase the general mass of the national navi-
gation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime
strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The
East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, is
and in the progressive improvement of interior com-
munications by land and water, will more and more
find a valuable vent for the commodities which it
brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The
West derives from the East, suppKes requisite to its 20
growth and comfort — and what is perhaps of still
greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the
secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its
own productions to the weight, influence, and the
future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the 25
Union, directed by an indissoluble community of
interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which
the West can hold this essential advantage, whether
derived from its own separate strength or from an
7
Washington's Farewell Address
apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign
power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While then every part of our country thus feels
an immediate and particular interest in union, all
5 the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united
mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater
resource, proportionably greater security from exter-
nal danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace
by foreign nations ; and, what is of inestimable value,
lo they must derive from union an exemption from those
broils and wars between themselves, which so fre-
quently afflict neighboring countries not tied together
by the same government, which their own rivalship
alone would be sufficient to produce, but which op-
15 posite foreign alhances, attachments, and intrigues,
would stimulate and embitter. Hence likewise,
they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown
military establishments, which under any form of
government are inauspicious to liberty, and which
20 are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republi-
can 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.
25 These considerations speak a persuasive lan-
guage to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and
exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary
object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether
a common government can embrace so large a sphere ?
8
Washington's Farewell Address
Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation
in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to
hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the
auxihary agency of governments for the respective
subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the ex- 5
periment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment.
With such powerful and obvious motives to union,
affecting all parts of our country, while experience
shall not have demonstrated its impracticability,
there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism 10
of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to weaken
its hands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb
our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern,
that any ground should have been furnished for char- 15
acterizing parties by geographical discriminations, —
Northern and Southern — Atlantic and Western; whence
designing men may endeavor to excite a behef that
there is a real difference of local interests and views.
One of the expedients of party to acquire influence 20
within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opin-
ions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield
yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-
burnings which spring from these misrepresentations :
they tend to render ahen to each other those who 25
ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.
The inhabitants of our western country have lately
had a useful lesson on this head : they have seen, in
the negotiation by the executive, and in the unani-
9
Washington's Farewell Address
mous ratification by the senate of the treaty with
Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at the event
throughout the United States, a decisive proof how
unfounded were the suspicions propagated among
5 them of a poHcy in the general government and in
the Atlantic states, unfriendly to their interests in
regard to the Mississippi. They have been witnesses
to the formation of two treaties, that with Great
Britain and that with Spain, which secure to them
lo everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign
relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will
it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation
of these advantages on the union by which they
were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to
15 those advisers, if such they are, who would sever
them from their brethren and connect them with
aliens ?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union,
a government for the whole is indispensable. No
20 alliances, however strict, between the parts can be
an adequate substitute ; they must inevitably ex-
perience the infractions and interruptions which all
alHances, in all times, have experienced. Sensible
of this momentous truth, you have improved upon
25 your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of
government better calculated than your former
for an intimate union, and for the efficacious man-
agement of your common concerns. This government,
the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and
10
Washington's Farewell Address
unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature
deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the
distribution of its powers, uniting security with en-
ergy, and containing within itself a provision for its
own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence s
and your support. Respect for its authority, compli-
ance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are
duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true
Uberty. The basis of our poKtical systems is the
right of the people to make and to alter their con- lo
stitutions of government. But the constitution
which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit
and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly
obHgatory upon all. The very idea of the power and
the right of the people to establish government, is
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey
the estabhshed government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all
combinations and associations under whatever plausi-
ble character, with the real design to direct, control, 20
counteract, or awe the regular deliberations 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 dele- 25
gated will of the nation the will of 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 administra-
II
Washington's Farewell Address
tion the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous
projects of faction, rather than the organ of consist-
ent and wholesome plans digested by common coun-
cils and modified by mutual interests. However
5 combinations or associations of the above descrip-
tion may now and then answer popular ends, they
are likely, in the course of time and things, to become
potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the
lo power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the
reins of government ; destroying afterwards the very
engines which have Hfted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government
and the permanency of your present happy state,
15 it is requisite, not only that you steadily discounte-
nance irregular opposition to its acknowledged author-
ity, but also that you resist with care the spirit of
innovation upon its principles, however specious the
pretext. One method of assault may be to effect,
20 in the forms of the constitution, alterations which
will impair the energy of the system, and thus to
undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
In all the changes to which you may be invited, re-
member that time and habit are at least as necessary
25 to fix the true character of governments, as of other
human institutions; that experience is the surest
standard by which to test the real tendency of the
existing constitution of a country; that faciUty
in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and
12
Washington's Farewell Address
opinion, exposes to perpetual change from the endless
variety of hypothesis and opinion: and remember,
especially, that, for the efficient management of your
common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a
government of as much vigor as is consistent with the s
perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty
itself will find in such a government, with powers
properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian.
It is, indeed, Httle else than a name, where the govern-
ment is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of fac- lo
tion, to confine each member of the society within
the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain
all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights
of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of is
parties in the state, with particular references to the
founding them on geographical discrimination. Let
me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn
you in the most solemn manner against the baneful
effects of the spirit of party generally. 20
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our
nature, having its root in the strongest passions of
the human mind. It exists under different shapes in
all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or
repressed ; but in those of the popular form it is seen 25
in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over
another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural
to party dissension, which in different ages and
13
Washington's Farewell Address
countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities,
is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at
length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
The disorders and miseries which result, gradually
5 incline the minds of men to seek security and re-
pose in the absolute power of an individual; and,
sooner or later, the chief of some prevailing faction,
more able or more fortunate than his competitors,
turns this disposition to the purpose of his own
lo elevation on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this
kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely
out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs
of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the
IS interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and
restrain it.
It serves always to distract the pubhc councils, and
enfeeble the pubHc administration. It agitates the com-
munity with ill founded jealousies and false alarms ;
20 kindles the animosity of one part against another;
foments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens
the door to foreign influence and corruption, which
find a facilitated access to the government itself
through the channels of party passions. Thus the
aspoHcy and the wall of one country are subjected to
the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries
are useful checks upon the administration of the
government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of
.14
Washington's Farewell Address
liberty. This within certain limits is probably true ;
and in governments of a monarchial cast, patriotism
may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon
the spirit of party. But in those of the popular
character, in governments purely elective, it is as
spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural
tendency, it is certain there will always be enough
of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there
being constant danger of excess, the effort ought
to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and as- lo
suage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a
uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame,
lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important Hkewise, that the habits of think-
ing in a free country should inspire caution in those in- 15
trusted with its administration, to confine themselves
within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding
in the exercise of the powers of one department, to en-
croach upon another. The spirit of encroachment
tends to consoHdate the powers of all the depart- 20
ments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form
of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of
that love of power and proneness to abuse it which
predominate in the human heart, is sufficient to sat-
isfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity 25
of reciprocal checks in the exercise of poHtical power,
by dividing and distributing it into different deposito-