by Dr. Harold W. Pease
On September 19, 1796, just prior to leaving the presidency, President George Washington issued his famous Farewell Address. He said that he offered his advice as the “warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel.”
In his usual stately manner, as the father of this great nation, he warned posterity of possible pitfalls that could undermine or destroy liberty. His warnings may well be even timelier today as we commemorate his birthday.
In strong terms he cautioned us to avoid debt. He said: “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit … use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense … [Use the] time of peace, to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.”
Today our national debt exceeds 14 trillion—the highest in our history—three trillion of which has come about in the last two years. This is about $127,700 for every taxpayer in America growing at $171 per week (See USDebtClock.org). The President’s 3.73 trillion dollar new budget, 2 trillion of which will be passed on to posterity, does not suggest that we are following this wisdom.
Washington pleaded with the nation to keep religion and morality strong. He said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.… 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? … Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
The Founding Fathers never supported the notion of separation of religion and government—only the separation of an organization of religion from government. What would Washington say of the immorality that prevails today?
His warning about foreign aid was especially good. He basically told us that gift giving in foreign affairs is a good way to be universally hated. He said it placed us “in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.” Today there is hardly a nation in the world, dictators and tyrants alike, that does not have its hand out, and when the amount is reduced or terminated we are hated all the more for it.
He warned against the origin of “combinations and associations” whose intent was to suppress the desires of the majority in favor of that of the minority. He called them artificial power factions. We call them special interest groups. Such factions, he said, “may answer popular ends and become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.…” The antidote for this, Washington explained, was “to resist with care the spirit of innovation” upon basic constitutional principles or premises no matter how flowery, appealing or “specious the pretext.”
Washington worried about posterity not holding their elected officials strictly to the limits imposed by the Constitution. He knew many would seek to undermine that document by twisting it to give power they could not acquire without the distortion. He said: “But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” Today much of what the federal government does is not even mentioned in the Constitution.
But patriots are not likely to be popular. “Real patriots,” he said, “who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”
Our practices are largely the opposite of what George Washington advised. No wonder we have all the problems he predicted and are losing our freedom.