George Washington Warns America

IN THE CONSTITUTION

Political Parties—George Washington Warns America

After sixteen years and a summer in America’s leadership role, George Washington knew about politics and conflict. He counseled succeeding generations on the survival of representative government in his famous Farewell Address. One of the topics he dwelt on was the emergence of the political party in the United States. His counsel is as true today as it was 225 years ago.

Washington had led the Revolutionary War against the British. He was selected in 1775 to lead an unorganized army to fight an undeclared war for a country that did not yet exist--American independence was declared a year later. While the Declaration of Independence gave us liberty, Washington’s war leadership made it “stick”. Without his dominance our bid for freedom would have been snuffed out under British fire.

During the summer of 1787 Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention which created a new system of government.  The process was daunting. Washington held the convention together during its heated debates until it could bring forth an original, highly successful governing system.

As our first president, Washington transformed a one-dimensional document into a living, workable government; fleshing the skeleton with policies, procedures and positions. Thereafter, he knew, uniquely, what would both preserve and destroy representative government. Thus, his views are invaluable.

As his tenure expired, Washington pled with future Americans to shun destructive politics. His Farewell Address, printed in the newspapers, offered wise, almost paternal, counsel.

Washington warned about the emergence of political parties in the United States, counseling that they divide the country, rather than unify. He said one of the “expedients” of political parties is that they misrepresent the opinions and aims of other parties. He admonished, “[I wish to] warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party.” He counseled that the “alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by a spirit of revenge natural to party dissention…has perpetrated the most horrid enormities”--what he called a “frightful despotism”.  He advised that the party system “agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms…(their) common and continual mischiefs…are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it [ the party system].”

Today we understand what he meant, largely because Americans have ignored his counsel and now live with the results he described. We watch a government paralyzed by partisan factions. We see destructive programs and policies inflicted on us by power hungry politicians determined to upstage each other. We flinch at the absurdities of political correctness. Careful observers understand that the political scene is a game—a play with assigned parts, an obscure plot, and rotating main characters. Infighting, outfighting—it all sounds the same after awhile. It has become obvious that the objective of most politicians is not truth, good government, or the welfare of America’s citizens. Our two major political parties want power above all else. Americans are being sold down the river, wholesale.

Washington was right. We are now the recipients of “frightful despotism”, delivered at the hands of those responsible to protect our liberties. How do we fix it? We can begin by protesting in no uncertain terms to those we elected. We can study the Constitution so we know what government should do. We can elect wise, good individuals. We can get involved at the local and state levels. That would be a good start.

If you wish to study Washington’s Farewell Address, please read a pre-1950 edition; later versions have “sanitized” his comments about God’s influence on our nation.