Washington's Farewell Address: George Washington, "Eighth Annual Message to Congress" (December 7th, 1796)

    Washington's Farewell Address: George Washington, "Eighth Annual Message to Congress" (December 7th, 1796)

      Washington's final address to Congress (a.k.a. the State of the Union address) was given a few months after he published his farewell address.

      Much like his 1795 State of the Union, Washington devotes a lot of time to the various recent treaties that the United States has been working on. First, he sums up the early-American goals with regard to Native Americans—at least, the nicer goals:

      […] to guard on the one hand our advanced settlements from the predatory incursions of those unruly individuals […] and on the other hand to protect the rights secured to the Indians by treaty–to draw them nearer to the civilized state and inspire them with correct conceptions of the power as well as justice of the Government. (Source)

      Mutual protection for both sides, but also, Native Americans have to function within the legal system of the United States. That idea set the stage for a century of removals of rights and territory from Native American tribes. But at least Washington is still acknowledging that they should be protected from settlers.

      Washington goes on to review all the same treaties that he talked about in the 1795 speech, including the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, the Treaty of San Lorenzo with Spain, and getting captives back from Barbary pirates in Algiers.

      He also argues for the formation of a navy because "[t]o secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval force organized and ready to vindicate it from insult or aggression" (source). If the United States wants to stay out of all Europe's messy affairs and not have those countries mess with American trade, they need to beef up their defenses.

      He also argues for the creation of some kind of government-funded industry to manufacture certain products, questioning, "Ought our country to remain in such cases dependent on foreign supply, precarious because liable to be interrupted?" (source). Having experienced trade interference in recent years, he seems eager to make the United States less dependent on foreign imports. Washington does pointedly say, though, that the government shouldn't start making anything if a private manufacturer is already planning to. They don't want to be in competition with citizens, after all.

      Washington also encourages the formation of a national university and military academy because "a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation" and "the art of war is at once comprehensive and complicated" (source).

      The national military academy was actually Alexander Hamilton's idea, and it was established in 1802 in West Point, New York (source).

      Washington also admits that "circumstances of a very unwelcome nature have lately occurred" (source) due to French interference with American maritime trade…which is probably part of the reason why a military academy was looking pretty good at that point. He doesn't want to throw away the United States' relationship with France (especially since they based their revolution on America's), but he says more needs to be done on that front.

      After that, it's just about taxes and revenue. Once again, we see Washington's real focus on foreign relations, and even though he gives this speech only a few months after publishing the farewell address, he doesn't say much on the domestic front. All the party politics he talked about at length back in September get left behind.

      That's strange because historically, every time you tell Congress to be bipartisan, it works like a charm.