THE FAREWELL ADDRESS: ITS FOREIGN POLICY AND ITS PLACE IN AMERICAN HISTORY
John R. Emery (1899)

In this extraordinary scholarly paper, Professor Emery explores the historical roots and reexamines the meaning of Washington’s Farewell Address and his insistence on avoiding foreign entanglements in the shocking wake of a Spanish-American War out of which the United States emerged as an imperial power with possessions to administer in the Caribbean and the Far East.

The topic for our address today has been fixed, as it has seemed to me, by the circumstances under which we meet. It has been the custom for the members of our Association who have had the honor of addressing you, on these annual pilgrimages to a spot made historic by its association with the life of Washington, to select a topic which in some way touched upon his life or services, or upon those of the statesmen or soldiers of the opening eras of our national life.
The Farewell Address of Washington, as one of the most important and useful acts in his career, would always have been, in itself or in the historic incidents connected with it, an appropriate theme for any occasion like the present. And the momentous events and changes which have occurred in our national history since we last assembled here, have made the address and its foreign policy a subject of vital interest to all Americans during the course of the eventful year. The shock of war, reaching from the Antilles to the Philippines, has moved our own government from its ancient political moorings, has changed the interests and relations which existed between the powers of two continents, and has affected the control of the great seas, which, to use the words of a modem English statesmen, no longer separate, but connect the nations. The United States within the year, and as the result of war, has displaced Spain in the sovereignty or control of its last remaining colonies on the Western Continent, and in its greatest colonies of the East, and has assumed the political control of distant islands and of races of the tropics.

This assumption of sovereignty is a departure from the policy of the Address -- the so-called American policy -- of avoiding all political connection with foreign powers or their controversies. Many of our patriotic citizens, none too sure of our hold on good and stable government for ourselves, or apprehensive that the free institutions to which we owe all our liberties and happiness, may themselves be shaken to their foundations, when put to the strain of compelling peace and order among races unfitted for self-government, have seen in this departure from the policy of the Address a source of danger and disaster to the Republic. And they have often and anxiously turned to the Farewell Address as to a beacon light of the nation, still shining aloft to show the true path of the nation's progress, outside the circle of whose radiance and protection no safe advances can be made.

Others, and, as it seems, the great body of the people, secure on the stable and slowly wrought foundations of our national institutions, now at last welded into indestructible unity, are ready with courage, confidence and hopeful trust, to take on the burdens and responsibilities, which seem to them to be imposed by the demands of justice and humanity, and to set forth on the advance to the wider power and influence for civilization and humanity, which seem to await the nation. These look backward to the policy of the address, as to a distant lofty landmark erected by the fathers, which has safely guided and directed the nation during its steady and rapid expansion to the limits which seemed to have been set by nature itself for the national boundaries, but as to a landmark -- ever precious in their memories -- which they must leave behind them, on the nation's unexpected call to duties beyond the seas.

But whether the policy of the Address be to each of us as the nation's still shining beacon or as a landmark in its progress, to all of us, as Americans who love their nation, its glorious history and the memory of its great founders and patriots, the Farewell Address still is the perpetual memorial of the wisdom and patriotism of the great exemplar of our nation. It is the most enduring monument of Washington, and like the stately column which rises from the plain on the banks of the Potomac -- the loftiest and most majestic structure of our capital -- the Farewell Address is, to all of us, a fit emblem of his stable, pure and lofty character, and a noble memorial worthy alike of Washington and of the great, free and enlightened nation of Americans, which in his address he hoped for and foretold.

On this day, the first recurrence since the recent war, of the day set apart for reviving and cherishing his memory, and on this spot, what theme could strike more surely a responsive chord in the hearts of all, than one which touched upon this Farewell Address? I shall speak to you, therefore, of the foreign policy of the Farewell Address; its origin. the form it assumed, and its application hitherto; in briefer phrase, its place in American history.

Not, Mr. President and gentlemen, for the purpose of renewing here the discussions with which the press, the platform and the pulpit have so long abounded; for discussion on the policy of expansion ended when the nation, after long travail, took its final resolution to assume the burdens of a new and unwonted sovereignty. Nor is it an occasion to speculate upon the inevitable questions of the future, for the facts upon which their discussion and decision must depend, have not yet clearly emerged into view. The nation, with that clear apprehension of present emergencies, and with that single mind and purpose to meet them, which brings out its best and strongest qualities is now devoting itself to the immediate question of the hour, the establishment in the new territories of that peace, security and order, which must be the permanent and solid foundation for any future structure. And days such as this set apart to commemorate the character and deeds of the great men of the nation, best serve their purpose, when from the contemplation of the great historic events of our past, to which the day and the place invites us, we derive strength and inspiration for the patriotic duties of the future.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE ADDRESS

Something should be said at the outset in reference to Washington's personal relation to this historic paper.
In the general mind, and from the time when it was first announced to the American people, the Farewell Address has always been associated with the personality of Washington, and with his personality alone. The investigations into its authorship, which have since been made, especially within the last half century, have, it is true, established as an historical fact, that from the time when Washington first conceived the idea of an address of this character, up to the time when he published the completed document to the world, he received a few suggestions from Madison and very substantial assistance from Hamilton in the structure and general form of the paper.

But this disclosure has not had the effect, in any degree, of disparaging the influence of the address, or of lessening the veneration of his countryman for the address, as a last testament and memorial bequeathed to them by Washington alone. The reason of this is not difficult to discover.

It arose, as it seems to me, from the singular relation which this great leader and ruler of men sustained to the free people who chose him to govern -- a relation which was exceptional, not alone in his time and in his nation, but for all times and for all nations. No other President of the United States, no other ruler or governor of nations, has ever rested so firmly and securely on the affection, confidence and support of a people during the whole period of his leadership or rule. Washington had participated in every phase of the career of the people he had so loved to serve; what wonder that he turned to bestow on his well beloved countrymen, and what wonder that a reverent and expectant nation turned gratefully to receive his last message of admonition, counsel, encouragement and hopeful trust!

Other Presidents have, from time to time, and in the performance of public and official duties, addressed to the nation, or its representatives, messages which the nation has received into its heart, and made the guide of its policies; but in the whole history of the nation, to Washington alone, has it been reserved, with the approval of the nation to elevate an occurrence, which with any other would have been a private and personal act, into a national event. On such an occasion, and with such a nation, no counsels other than those which came as from the heart of Washington and were delivered to his beloved countrymen as with the seal of his own trusted judgment, would have been loyally given or loyally received. It was the constant habit of this great man to avail himself to the utmost of the counsel and assistance of trusted advisers, in the preparation of all his public communications, reserving absolutely to himself, however, the responsibility of final approval, and that as to form as well as essentials. His own letter to Hamilton, written after he had enclosed a draft of the address to Hamilton, and in which he requests Hamilton to confer with Jay, reveals Washington's innermost purpose in these consultations. “Having,” he says, “no other wish than to promote the true and permanent interests of this country, I am anxious always to compare the opinions of those in whom I confide, with one another, and these again. (without being bound by them) with my own, that I may extract all the good I can.” How this disclosure deepens our veneration for his supreme patriotism and his calm, serene and self-reliant final judgment! Washington, therefore, as appears throughout the whole Address, was giving his own judgment and his own counsel and was fully sensible of the profound trust and confidence reposed in him alone by those whom he addressed. And whatever aid or assistance he received from any source in the structure or form of the Address (for the fundamental thoughts were all his own), it derived all its force from the final seal of his judgment; and it was published and received, as it has been ever preserved, solely as the final message and last memorial from the heart and soul of him, who has always been “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

THE POLICY OF ALLIANCE

The foreign policy of the Address, which has been called the policy of political isolation, was not the first American policy, and it had its origin in the desire to free the nation, for all future time, from a recurrence of some of the difficulties and dangers which had arisen out of the original American policy, that of a permanent alliance with one of the European nations. We are able to fix the time when the necessity for abandoning the policy of such alliances arose in the mind of Washington, and the occasion for its recommendation.

Washington profoundly desired to retire to private life at the end of his first term, in March, 1793, and contemplated a public announcement of this intention, to be accompanied by a v valedictory address. On May 20, 1792, he wrote to Madison upon the subject and gave a sketch or outline of the subjects or topics which, as he thought, ought to be treated in such a paper. These points embrace many of the fundamental thoughts or ideas which were wrought into the Address finally published four years later, but with the important exception that there is no allusion whatever to the foreign policy of the United States. Evidently the occasion for any change in policy had not then arisen. Washington yielded to the solicitation of all the leading statesmen of the day, consented to an election for another term, and the circumstance of Madison's draft of a Farewell Address does not seem to have been disclosed to more than one or two persons until the preparation of the final Address in 1796.

In January 1793, and before the end of his first term, however, there was struck in France the blow that startled the kingdoms of Europe -- the execution under the guillotine of King Louis XVI. This act was followed by war between England and France, and by the formation of the first coalition of the kingdoms of Europe against its new republic. And the sentiments and passions aroused in America by this war, produced among our people for years such disturbances of its peace, tranquility and unity, that we may well doubt whether the storm would have been safely weathered had any other American than Washington been at the helm. The ship of state did ride out the tempest in safety and under Washington; and as he left the post of guidance and control, he first uttered to his countrymen his solemn counsel and warning against passionate antipathies and attachments to other nations, against the wiles of foreign influence in the counsels of the nation and against any future permanent alliances; and it was then that, for the first time, he advised entire political independence of Europe as the permanent policy of the nation.

It seems clear, then, that to reach to the origin and reasons of the second American policy, that of political isolation, we must go back one step to the original policy of permanent alliance; and I will refer briefly to this treaty of permanent alliance, and the features of it which were likely to involve the United States as a permanent ally of France, in her future English or European controversies from the perils of which the United States was afterwards delivered by the adoption of Washington's distinctive American policies of neutrality and political isolation.

Two treaties between France and the United States were made on February 6, 1778 -- one a public and open treaty of amity and commerce, which was to be announced to England and to the world; the other a secret treaty of alliance, which was to go into effect if war should break out between France and Great Britain. The provisions of the open treaty were such as to make this war inevitable on its publication, and this was the immediate result. The treaty of alliance is most interesting, even now, as the only treaty of permanent alliance with any nation which the United States ever had, or will ever probably have.

Taken in connection with the provisions of the public treaty, it was a convention of permanent alliance between America and France, as the recompense of France for its indispensable aid in securing the independence of America. Both nations, America as well as France, bound themselves mutually to this independence in government as well as commerce, as the essential end and object of the treaty, and gave mutual pledges not to lay down arms until this independence was secured. The imaginary conquests which might be made, either separately by either of the parties or together, in obtaining this end, were (in true alliance fashion) parceled out in advance. The United States was allowed, if it chose, to attempt the reduction of Canada and the Islands of Bermuda, which would then belong to her; France, on her part, was to be allowed to conquer and retain any of the British Islands in or near the Gulf of Mexico.

The clauses of the treaties in which were planted the dragons' teeth of future wars for America, as France's ally, were the provisions giving to the warships and privateers of France privileges in our ports in her future wars, and denying them to her enemies, and the far reaching clause of guaranty, by which the United States guaranteed to France, from the time of the treaty of alliance, and against all other powers of the world, the then possessions of the French Crown in America, and all that it might acquire by the future treaty of peace. France still held its colonies in the West Indies -- Haiti or San Domingo, Martinique and several smaller islands, with their valuable commerce; and as England still controlled the seas and the commerce of the Atlantic, the object of these provisions and guaranty, as appears from the diplomatic correspondence, was to assure to France in any of her future wars with England, the assistance and protection of the United States for its possessions and commerce in the West Indies.

The French Alliance accomplished the great object which the high contracting parties intended and hoped, and without it the independence of America, in all probability, would not have been secured at that time. But the French alliance, although it ultimately secured the independence of the United States, had great immediate drawbacks and disadvantages. It alienated from America many of its strongest English adherents and united the English nation against its ancient enemy for a continuance of the conflict: it intensified the hatred and opposition of the American Tories or Loyalists, and undoubtedly tended to prolong the conflict by straining to the utmost the passions and energies of all participants.

It was only after a further struggle of nearly four years, in which the issue was often in doubt, that the final blow for freedom and independence was struck, when the allied armies and the navy of France, all under the direction of Washington, enclosed the army of Cornwallis on Virginia's historic peninsula and compelled its surrender at Yorktown, in October, 1781.

Independence attained, and its free expansion within its enlarged boundaries secured, the new republic emerged as one of the acknowledged nations of the world, to possess and develop its wide domains. But it was still in form a confederacy or league of thirteen independent States, and, when the pressure of the war for independence, which had held them together for mutual defense, was withdrawn, the attachments to local independence and State rights and the fierce impatience against restraints upon personal freedom, soon rent asunder the ties of the Confederacy as ropes of sand. From this anarchy and confusion the country was rescued by a final appeal to its underlying sentiments of patriotism and attachment to Union, and by the supreme effort of its statesmen to construct a system of government which was to constrain within the bounds of harmonious law and order, the forces and powers of a free, vigorous and expanding people, devoted absolutely to the ideas and practice of individual liberty and local self-government. Our Federal Constitution was the grand result of the efforts of these statesmen, and the final adoption of this fundamental constitution by the suffrages of the citizens of the different States, exhibited to the world the first instance in history when a great system of government was established by the actual and express consent of the governed. One of the pledges for the future made in the immortal Declaration thirteen years before was then first carried out.

THE POLICY OF NEUTRALITY

The independence of the new government in its foreign relations was, from the commencement, hampered by the French treaties of alliance and commerce made by the Revolutionary Congress, to whose obligations it had succeeded. These treaties, by their provisions favoring the privateers and warships of France, and by the clause of guaranty, threatened the complication of America in France's future wars with England; for, as the mistress of the seas, England's first blows had always been directed against the colonies and the commerce of her enemies. And when the next contest between England and France expanded into a contest between France, a republic, and the united kingdoms of Europe, combined to repress it and restore its ancient tyranny, it seems certain that the entanglement of America's republic in the European wars of France would have been inevitable had the loose Confederacy and league of States, which preceded the Federal Constitution, been the only central government to represent and protect the American people. Happily, before the supreme test came on of the power of the American nation and its government to resist the power and influence and wiles that would have drawn it into European wars with which it had no interest or concern, there intervened the four years of Washington's first term. In these eventful years, the blessings of peace and order secured by the new Union, penetrated deeply into the hearts of the people and laid the sure foundations of an attachment to the prlnciples of the government by a Federal Republic.

The first opponents of the Federal system (thence called anti-Federalists) became, even before the expiration of Washington's first term, its professed defenders, and the internal contests of Washington's time between the Federalists and anti-Federalists were as to the limitations of the powers given to the Federal Government by a constitution which all parties upheld, and to which all finally appealed. The rapid growth of the sentiment among the people is shown by a letter from Washington written in 1791, the middle of his first term, after he had made a three months’ journey of eighteen hundred miles in his private carriage, from Mount Vernon to Savannah, passing through the principal coast towns and returning through the interior towns. “Every day’s experience of the government of the United States,” he writes, “seems to confirm its establishment and to render it more popular.” During these four years the wise control and exercise by Washington of the powers of the Executive, relieved the fears of the enthusiasts for liberty, who had foreseen in the powers given to a president the foreshadowing of the future king. It is true that disputes threatening the Union appeared and that even at this early date a rift had appeared that crossed the national structure, but the desire of North and South to hold to the great Union was voiced by Jefferson in his appeal to Washington to accept a second term. “he confidence of the whole Union,” writes Jefferson, “is centred in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter of violence and secession. North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on.”

Washington did reluctantly yield to the pressure, and fortunately for the independence of the nation and for the world as well. Foreign relations had assumed a critical aspect after his letter to Madison, and in January, 1793, before the commencement of his second term, the execution of the French King united the kingdoms of Europe, under the lead of England, in a series of wars against France, that with varying alliances and separations, continued over twenty years and until these kingdoms finally replaced the Bourbon Kings on the throne of Napoleon. The Republic of France, proclaimed four months before this execution, had decreed that France should grant aid and fraternity to all peoples who should wish to recover their liberty. Antagonism to existing governments or rulers of any nation and separation of the rulers from the people of a nation was a fundamental principle of the diplomacy and action of this new power, and it was in the line of a direct attempt to separate the American people from the support of its own freely elected rulers that the first antagonism between this country and France arose after the Revolution.

Immediately after the execution of its King, France itself declared war against England, and this war, declared by France and not by England, brought upon Washington a decision as to the interests and duties of this nation, under the treaty of alliance, which on the face of it was called a defensive alliance. There was no doubt that the true and permanent interest of the nation lay in perfect neutrality, and Washington saw this clearly, but the great questions were, whether the treaties between the nations precluded neutrality, and whether Washington as President had the right to decide the question of neutrality, or should withhold all action for the declaration of Congress. His cabinet was equally divided upon the question of the continued obligation of the treaties. Hamilton anti Knox thought the treaties were defensive only and did not reach to an offensive war on France’s part, and that the internal changes in France’s government since the treaty (which was with the French King and his successors) and the instability of the French Executive Government suspended the treaties Jefferson and Randolph thought the treaties binding. But whatever might be the future obligations of the government under the treaties, all agreed with Washington, that the true interests of the country and the laws of nations demanded that the citizens of the country should not individually aid either belligerent, and a proclamation was issued exhorting the citizens to friendly and impartial conduct towards the belligerents and warning them against aiding or abetting hostilities against either, or the carrying of contraband goods under penalty of prosecution by the Federal Courts.

This proclamation did not in terms speak of neutrality, but it was universally accepted by the nation and by France as such proclamation. Washington, after a sort of protest by Jefferson that a special session of Congress should be called to settle all the questions of neutrality and the obligation of treaties, assumed the sole responsibility as the Chief Executive in issuing the proclamation. It was issued on April 22, 1793, seventeen days after receipt of news of the declaration of war, and brought on at once that acute and noted conflict between Genet, the French Minister, and the government of this country, under Washington, which lasted for months and was finally ended nine months later by the demand of our government for Genet’s recall, and his withdrawal.

Genet, instructed, as we now know, to involve the country in the war on the side of France as an ally under the treaties, had landed at Charleston some days before the issuing of the proclamation, probably going to this port instead of Philadelphia, the capital. with the design of securing a more convenient place for his proposed operations against the West Indian trade of England. He brought with him blank commissions (30, it is said) for privateers, and after a royal reception from the inhabitants of Charleston, who welcomed this opportunity for reviving the Revolutionary sympathy for France and the enthusiasm for the new Republic, he proceeded to the actual business of making war. He issued commissions as French privateers to American vessels, manned for the most part by American seaman, and sent them out from Charleston to prey upon British commerce, with the approval of the governor of South Carolina. Acting under authority of the French convention and claiming this right under the treaties, he constituted the French Consuls in America, Admiralty Courts, independent of any American jurisdiction, to condemn and sell the French prizes. All this, before he had presented his credentials or was authorized legally to be present in the country in any other relation than that of a private person. Having initiated his war against Great Britain on the seas, he left the frigate, which had brought him over, to sail to Philadelphia, while he proceeded overland, apparently with the purpose of allowing the enthusiasm of the people toward the French Republic to show itself and put him in a position of greater strength in the conflict with the American government, which he was prepared to initiate, if necessary, for carrying out his instructions. His journey from Charleston to Philadelphia was indeed somewhat in the nature of a triumphal procession.

The nation generally was still enthusiastic for its sister republic and ancient ally, which had not yet plunged into the excesses of the Reign of Terror. Parades and processions, with addresses, greeted him at the towns on the way; and his approach to Philadelphia was announced with signals of guns, and thousands marched out to Gray's Ferry to escort him within the city limits.

Washington, altogether unmoved by these excitements, received Genet officially two days later, with a dignity and calmness worthy of the President and his station, but which affronted the French Minister by its contrast with the passionate expressions of the American people to the French nation, and Genet began, in conversations, speeches, and at last in his official documents, his efforts to antagonize the people and the government, even with Washington at its head. The people, somewhat through the instrumentality of a noisy and violent faction, which was using the foreign war as a weapon of internal politics, were aroused and excited almost to a state of craze, as it now appears to us in cold history, on the question of the alliance of France and America, the two republics, for the accomplishment of their joint aspirations. “Liberty and Equality” was now the cry. Fourth of July, Independence Day, and the 14th of July-- Bastille Day -- were both celebrated as French-American days, and dinners, ox-roasts and feasts without number took place, at which the “Marseillaise” was sung, and the red liberty cap of France was passed around and placed on the head of each guest or reveller. The craze for equality and repudiation of all distinctions, traditional or historical, extended in every direction.

Historical names of streets were changed by larger cities and after the French fashion. New York, for instance, changed King street to Pearl, and Queen street to the present Liberty street.

“ Mr.” and “Mrs.” were titles that were discarded as infringing on equality, and “Citizen” became the man's title, while the English language, unequal to this strain on its vocabulary, vibrated between “Citizeness” and “Citess” for the women of the day. The craze for equality in a mild and inoffensive form on this side of the Atlantic accompanied that awful craze of bloody fury on the other side of the ocean where the guillotine was the dreadful instrument for the extinction of thousands whose only crime was that the ancient laws of their country had made them nobles.

These passions of the people, and their general attachment to France. were intensified by the newspapers of the day and by the efforts of political clubs, now for the first time organized in the country, and mainly devised in aid of the movement for France, and on the model of the Jacobin clubs of France. Supported by these elements, which included not alone the noisiest as well as the most violent, but also men like Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania, Genet, following the then French line of diplomacy, felt prepared for a struggle with Washington as the head of the government. His privateers sent from Charleston had already taken British prizes, and his own frigate, on its way to Philadelphia, captured a prize within the capes of Delaware and on United States waters. These prizes were brought into port. All these and other captures, of which the British government complained to our government, were declared illegal by our government, and restitution demanded. Genet proceeded with the enlisting of men and fitting out of privateers from our ports, and with the assistance or connivance of the Governor of Pennsylvania, a privateer eluded the officers of the government and put to sea. American citizens indicted for violation of the neutrality proclamation were prosecuted by the government, defended by Genet, and when the courts declared them guilty the juries acquitted. The United States government threatened to revoke the authority of any French consul who pretended to exercise prize court jurisdiction within its limits, and carried out the threat against a French consul under whose writ a French officer seized a vessel in Boston in the hands of the United States marshal.

'The contest now assumed clearly the aspect of an open conflict between Genet, in the interest of France, and Washington, in the true interest of the nation, for the direction of the Foreign Policy of the American government; and Genet's actions were inevitably leading to war with England. Supported, as he vainly supposed, by the people against its government, Genet began now, in his official communications to the government, openly to appeal to the people. He requested in these the summoning of Congress, and at last had the temerity to venture on a direct appeal from Washington to the people. Washington, in the meantime, wholly unmoved by these temporary excitements among the people, resolute always to hold to the policy of neutrality as right under the law of nations, and true to the permanent interest of the nation, left it for the sober second thought of the people to assert itself, and proceeded to enforce neutrality by all means in his power; to compel the restoration of the prizes taken within United States territory, or by privateers equipped from our ports, so far as practicable, and in certain cases, where a resort to force seemed inadvisable promised compensation. The sober judgment of the people did, in a short time, perceive that support of the acts of Genet against Great Britain tended inevitably to war with Great Britain as the ally of France, and that Genet's open defiance of their government was bringing their own free institutions into contempt and weakening its power to protect themselves and their Union. The government now sustained its dignity and rights by demanding the withdrawal of Genet, and the people, now that the disclosures of his appeals from Washington to them were made, sustained the latter without hesitation or question. This accomplished, the excitement subsided, and in December, 1795, both the Senate and House of Representatives, the former with a Federal and the latter with an anti-Federal, or, as it was now called, a Republican majority, approved the proclamation of neutrality and from that day to this, this policy of neutrality so early initiated by the sound judgment and wise foresight of Washington, became a distinctive policy of the nation, which was destined to become, within a century, a great champion of the rights of neutral nations.

The principle of neutrality between England and France, thus early settled and adhered to, while it involved disputes, more or less acute, with France, under the treaties, enabled the nation to avoid actual entanglement in war with either power. by reason of the acts of its own citizens; but in the following year the controversies with England, because of her aggressive acts, became so acute as to bring the country again to the verge of war. On this second occasion it was resentment against England rather than attachment to France which stirred the people.

The Treaty of Peace, signed in 1783, had never been fully executed and England still held the western posts. Seizures of our vessels trading with France and the West Indies, and impressment of seamen, and other infractions of our rights, aroused, in the rising generation, and renewed in the older, the animosities of the Revolution. The friends of France and the French faction, still active, notwithstanding their first defeat, were ready to take advantage of hatred to Britain as well as attachment to France. Foreign questions so largely predominated at this juncture that parties. which were becoming organized as Federalists and Republican, now began to divide rather as English and French factions. Madison in Congress introduced resolutions for reprisals on Great Britain, which Fisher Ames of Massachusetts characterized as bearing “French” stamped on their face. Parker, of Virginia, replied, “I wish there was a stamp on the forehead of every member to show whether he is for France or England.” A European traveller in America at that time said that there seemed to be in America many English, many French, but very few Americans.

War against England seemed imminent, but Washington, intent on securing peace and, as the only means of averting war, appointed Jay, in 1794, as a special envoy to England, to adjust as far as possible all outstanding differences. Jay negotiated a treaty, the advantages of which, altogether considered, were on the side of England, and it was always claimed by France that its effect was to give Great Britain, without a treaty of alliance, more privileges than France with her still existing treaties. Washington, although he did not fully approve all its provisions, was satisfied that it was the best which could be then obtained and that the best interests of the country required its approval, and he sent it to the Senate. This treaty, which had been kept secret, was approved by the Senate, but only by a single vote, and with a proviso or amendment. This necessitated Washington's second approval, and the treaty having been in the meantime published, the opposition throughout the country against its ratification was general, and meetings held everywhere of representative men, and not of any mere faction, appealed to Washington against the approval. The French government was ready with its aid in opposition, and interviews between the French Minister and Washington’s Secretary of State, gave grounds for charges, never satisfactorily explained by the Secretary, that he had appealed to the French Minister for an advance of money to defeat the ratification. Washington determined, notwithstanding the general opposition, to ratify the treaty, trusting to subsequent negotiations to remove some of the grounds of complaint. Reading now the history of the time it is safe to say that, in the face of the general opposition, no judgment other than that of Washington could have sustained the treaty with the American people. His common sense and sound judgment, unmoved by the great unpopularity of the measure, soundly weighed its benefits and advantages, and even before the close of his term of office, his final decision was abundantly justified by the subsequent course of events.

THE POLICY OF THE ADDRESS

It was under these circumstances, and after this experience with his people and their government and with the control and guidance of its foreign relations, that Washington, in his counsels as to its future policies, declared the foreign policy of the Farewell Address.

He first advised the exclusion of permanent, inveterate antipathies to nations and of passionate attachments to nations; he advised guarding against foreign influence in the policy of the nation, and the abandonment of permanent alliances. Temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies were, however, not discountenanced. These principles were all suggested by the incidents which occurred during his second administration and were intended to prevent the danger of their recurrence. They are, as we may now describe them, the temporary principles of the foreign policy of the Address, for the nation passed out of reach of any of these dangers far sooner than Washington or the statesmen of the day then anticipated.

The permanent policy of the Address, that which the nation took into its heart and made its policy for a century, was the American policy which Washington for the first time announced in these words: “The great rule of conduct by us with regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have as little political connection with them as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.” And again, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are at liberty to do it: for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. 1 repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.”

The existing engagements to which Washington referred in the Address,, as qualifying the future foreign policy of the nation, were of course the engagements arising out of the French treaties, which were still treated by both parties as in force. Washington did not then anticipate the arbitrary and hostile acts of France, which within two years, and before Washington's death, for the third time excited and aroused the nation to actual hostilities, this time, however, against their ancient ally.

France and its ministers, under an exaggerated view of their rights, had not ceased to denounce the Jay treaty with England, as unfriendly to them and a violation of their treaty rights, and when the appropriation in aid of the execution of the treaty was finally passed, after a violent contest in the House of Representatives in the following year (1796), Adet, the French minister, was withdrawn from America. In the then diplomatic custom of the French government Adet utilized the announcement of his withdrawal by an address to the American people, in which he stated that his withdrawal must be considered as an expression of what the French government considered a new treaty of alliance with the enemy of France. He threw the blame on the officers of the government and appealed to the American people and to the memories of the Revolution, and told them to consider his withdrawal as a mark of just discontent to last until the government of the United States should return to sentiments and measures more conformable to the interests of the alliance and sworn friendship between the two nations. 'This address was issued in the fall of 1796, for the evident purpose of controlling the election for President to succeed Washington, then coming on. Another motive was the vain hope and delusion that this appeal of the minister of a country whose object was to involve us in war against England, could, to some extent, counteract the influence of Washington's Farewell Address, which had just been published. It no doubt had (as it certainly would now have) the directly opposite effect, and the incident is only interesting as the first and last instance when any foreign minister attempted a direct appeal to the American people for the purpose of influencing their Presidential election. How far removed we now are from danger of any such interference will occur to all who remember how the unexpected publication of a private letter, written by a foreign minister to a fellow countryman in the United States, expressing his personal preference for a candidate, was considered ample justification for his recall.

The French Directory, the despotic and corrupt body which had now succeeded to the actual government of France, were bent on punishing the United States for making the Jay treaty, and ordered those seizures of our vessels, known in our history as the French Spoliations, which continued for two years or more, and inflicted a loss of over $2,000,000. The country resolutely began to prepare for war, but pending the preparations a final effort was made by President Adams to adjust the difficulty by appointing special envoys -- Chief Justice Marshall, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Elbridge Gerry -- to negotiate a settlement. France was bankrupt and the Directory corrupt, and the Directory refused to negotiate or receive the envoys officially, except on the preliminary condition that the United States should make a loan of some millions to France, and should besides, pay the Directors personally $240,000 (about $50,000 apiece, unless Talleyrand, their negotiator, should take it all) for permitting a treaty to be made. The corrupt proposal was spurned, the envoys were withdrawn, and when the disclosure was made to the American people by the President, the people responded with scarce a dissentient voice in Pinckney's memorable language when the proposal was made to the envoys in France, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."

It needed only this revelation and insult to unite the nation for the war. All French treaties were declared null and void in July, 1798, and in the same month Washington was called from his retirement and made Lieutenant-General of the army. Navy and army bills were passed, and the navy of the United States (always on time) now actually got to war ahead of any declaration, for in February, 1799, Commodore Truxton, in the Constellation, headed the roll of illustrious American commodores by the defeat of the French frigate L'lusurgente in the West Indies. No formal declaration of war was ever made, however, for negotiations were now initiated for a settlement, and, Napoleon soon after coming into power, a treaty was made in July, 1799, between the two nations, by which the old treaties of alliance and commerce, and all claims thereunder, were abandoned by both nations.

By this time the last lingering enthusiasm for a French or any other alliance had expired. The figure first produced and described by the French as the "Man on horseback," had now emerged in their history to overwhelm the rest of continental Europe, and finally France itself, in the wars of his vast ambitions. In an alliance with an emperor bent on wars, there was no place or future for the free and peaceful Republic of the West. The Republic indeed apprehended danger even from contact with the empire of Napoleon, and when Spain in 1800 ceded to France the vast borderland of Louisiana, Jefferson, the steady friend if not champion of France and its republic from its earliest days, recognized at once the vast difference to America when a weak and decaying power gave way to this strong aggressor, and he hesitated not, strict constructionist as he was, to seize the opportunity of purchasing Louisiana. This purchase ended France's power in America, finally closed the historical incident of the French treaties, relieved the United States forever from foreign interference with its development, and removed the first and greatest barrier to its expansion to the Pacific. The central river of the continent, father of waters, which with its tributaries drained the wide expanse between the summits of the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains, ceased to be the boundary line of separate nations, to become thereafter the central artery of a great nation's throbbing life and one of the surest pledges of its permanent unity.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE

The principles of the foreign policy of the Address, which were temporary in their character, and which were the result of the national obligations, attachments and antipathies which attended the early struggle for independence and the later struggle for neutrality, have long since accomplished their purpose, and all the sentiments and passions which threatened harm to the nation, or obstruction to its growth, from these causes have disappeared. The permanent policy -- the new American policy of isolation -- advocated first by Washington in the Address, followed by Adams and Jefferson, in their inaugural addresses and messages, received such a lodgement in the hearts of the American people, that it may safely be said, that never of their own choice, would they have been moved from their firm hold on its protection.

The nation has always been prepared, however, to swerve from a policy of absolute isolation and to interest itself in the policies or projects of foreign powers, when it clearly foresaw that these policies threatened its own permanent security and interests, and for this purpose it has not refused even to avail itself of the proffer of foreign assistance. The great instance of what may fairly be called a modification of the policy of isolation occurred when the emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia (the so-called Holy Alliance)), under the treaty made for the suppression of revolutionary movements among their subjects, threatened interference for the reestablishment of the Spanish authority over its American colonies which had secured their independence. This movement on American soil was prevented by the message from President Monroe in December, 1823, historic in our annals as containing the declaration to the powers of Europe that the United States considered any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.

This is the famous Monroe Doctrine, now an accepted national policy, and this declaration by our President was made after he had received from Canning, the English Minister, letters proposing a cooperation with the United States in support of the independence of South America against the Holy Alliance. The President enclosed the letters to both Jefferson and Madison asking their views upon the proposition. Jefferson, in his reply, says: “The question presented by these letters is the most momentous which has ever been offered to my contemplation since that of the independence that made us a nation; this sets our compass and points the course which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on our view, and never could we embark on it under circumstances more auspicious Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves m the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to meddle in cross-Atlantic affairs.” In the course of his letter and giving his views upon the ultimate control of Cuba and the Isthmus by the United States, if a war should result, Jefferson says “that this would fill up the measure of our political well-being.” This letter was written when Texas and the Rocky Mountains barred the growth of the nation toward the West.

Could he have foreseen the next expansion of his country in its reach to the limits fixed by nature in the Rio Grande and the Pacific, and that an American canal would pierce the Isthmus and make this union of the waters of two world-embracing oceans a new bond and pledge of safety for the nation, would not the Sage of Monticello have written that the measure of the political well-being of his beloved country was filled up and running over?

There was no formal agreement or alliance with England in reference to the declaration, and without any pledges on the part of England the President ultimately made the declaration on the sole responsibility of the United States, but with a conviction of receiving England's aid against the combined kingdoms of Europe, if necessary. The view which was taken in England at the time of the effect of these declarations on the politics of Europe, may be conjectured from the remark made by Canning in the British House of Commons shortly afterwards, that he had called in the New World to restore the balance of power in the Old. This Monroe Doctrine, accepted by every President and Congress since its announcement, has become a permanent national sentiment and doctrine. To some extent it modified or extended the original policy of isolation, and Monroe's letter to Jefferson shows, I think, that before he declared the Doctrine, he considered this to be its effect.
ITS PLACE IN AMERICAN HISTORY
The policy of the Address and the Monroe Doctrine fixed the unalterable lines of the foreign policy of the United States from the time of Monroe down to the day -- the great, the eventful day in its history, at the hour of whose dawn in the far East, Dewey, from the bridge of the Olympia, gave the order, “If you are ready, you may fire, Gridley.” These quiet words of an American commodore woke echoes in Manila Bay, that, like the opening shots at Lexington, resounded around the world. The momentous victory at Manila, bringing glorious triumph to the nation, brought also in its train inevitable burdens and future duties, which the nation could not, in justice or with honor, either separate from its triumph, or refuse to accept. And this victorious nation has been constrained by the claims of justice and humanity, to change the policy of a century and assume its new foreign policy.

And now, Mr. President and gentlemen, fellow citizens and fellow Americans, what of the place in American history of the policy of the Address? Was the light which was kindled by Washington meant by him as the perpetual guide of the nation through all its destiny? Did the Father of His Country, in this great legacy, wise almost to inspiration, give his beloved countrymen a final counsel that was meant to guide them in this momentous crisis of their history?

The answer to these questions must, I think, be fairly sought in an answer to the wider and farther reaching questions:

What was the purpose and the fundamental thought of the whole Address? What was the American nation to whom Washington spoke and what was the nation whom his prophetic vision beheld? The nation was then confined within the limits of the Lakes and the Mississippi, and shut off from the Gulf by two great European powers -- Spain and England -- the rift across the national structure that divided it into geographical sections had appeared and was already widening; the fierce passions for liberty and State rights were fretting and becoming impatient, under the galling pressure of the new and unaccustomed bonds of central and federal law; the passionate attachments and resentments toward other nations that survived the Revolution had not disappeared, and the people had not been able altogether to repel the subtle and dangerous influence of factions inspired by foreign interests and influence.

From the perils and dangers with which the people and the permanence of their government were threatened, there was in the wise, comprehensive and prophetic view of Washington one means of preservation only; that was the Union. The Union was the rock upon which the American nation must be builded and the rock to which it must cling for safety. The Union. says Washington in his address, “is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.” All these blessings, that made up the sum of happiness for the people, could alone he secured, as Washington foresaw, by permanent national unity; this national unity, therefore, was the great idea and purpose of the Address, and all its policies -- the foreign policy as well as others -- all its counsels, its appeals and its warnings to the American people were marshaled as means to accomplish this great end.

If this stable and permanent unity of the nation was the true limit of Washington's view and of the scope of his prophetic look toward the future, in counseling a foreign policy, what a great event in American history it was, worth all and more than all it has cost us, that by the war with Spain, which has called the nation to a new foreign policy, the line of separation in the nation (the greatest of all its perils) that had widened from the little rift to a deep and bloody chasm, has been finally closed, and that the American nation, throughout all its sections, has at last been welded by the fires of a foreign war into the indestructible Union -- the vision and hope of Washington in his Address.

And what renewed patriotic thoughts cluster around him whose memory we celebrate today, as we feel that the sun of heaven, which shone on him and now shines on us, as it ushers in the centennial of the death of Washington, at last beams down upon the great, free and united nation of Americans his vision foresaw.

May it be that the Father of His Country, from his peaceful rest on high, looks down to behold this fruition of his prayers, accomplished by his countrymen after infinite labor and at infinite cost! From these heights the spirit of Washington still points to a light that shines and will ever shine from his enduring memorial -- a light unquenchable, for it was kindled from heaven itself, to guide and control humanity. This light, to which even to-day he points us, can reach and guide the nation always, in its widest stretch and in its most distant seas, can reach and guide it for all its policies and all its duties to itself and to the world. It is the light which glows in the ever ascending aspiration and prayer of the Address, “That this free and enlightened American nation may give to mankind an example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.”