Essay: George Washington’s Farewell Address

Everyone has to say goodbye to a group or a certain individual eventually. In this case, this is a major case for President George Washington of The United States of America. The nation is getting on its feet after fighting so much for their freedom. George Washington is nearing the end of his second term, so he is starting to contemplate whether or not he should run for a third term. The only reason that he went for a second term is because he feels if he did not go for it, there would be so much tension considering Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were going for each others necks. The nation is considered as a child that needs to be attended to for every single aspect of its growth. That is where Washington comes in with leading this nation because of his immense leadership skills. The people are looking at every single thing that happens because they just received their freedom after fighting for so long. This is Washington’s twentieth year serving the nation as president and it’s now time to consider leaving the throne. This started to create such a worry about what the nation will be without him guiding every move, so Washington is starting to write a final address in which all the advice that is needed to grow as a nation will be found here. The different ways that Washington is giving advice, is it worth telling the people or are they going to just ignore it? He writes in so many different appeals in which it makes it so convincing that it is necessary to listen to him otherwise the world will just come to straight turmoil.
The approach that Washington here takes with the emotional appeal is a great way to get the people to think about what he is saying into a depth. Emotional appeal is a trait that every successful politician needs and here Washington being the president, which is the ultimate politician, plays that card so perfectly that it just seems natural. Washington here states, “In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish—that they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations” (Washington). This is the first time he calls his audience “countrymen”. This is a sense of Washington starting to get really personal with his readers as if he was speaking to a close friend. He is starting to create a bigger bond and some may even say in a personal way and it makes the readers want to get more into focus on what advice he is trying to give. Michael J. Hostetler goes into depth of the rhetorical criticism that many people are giving here. Here the author states, “No aspect of the American scene is more notorious than the scale of the landscape and the size of objects in it. Eyes accustomed to European vistas and artifacts may take years to adjust, as one visitor put it, to ‘the unnerving bigness of everything’ in America.”Jean Baudrillard has similarly observed, “As soon as you set foot in America, you feel the presence of an entire continent—space there is the very form of thought” (Hostetler). The vast size of North America is so overwhelming that when you just take that simple breath, it is just uncanny. It is the time of 1796 and people feel that air of freedom because their counter country, also known as England, has finally gave up their portion of fighting towards not letting go of their previous citizens. The landscape that Washington helped depict is just a scene that no one thought that would happen because of a powerful country that is trying to do everything they can keep taking money and power from the foreign country. From what the people have noticed, he is one of the main causes why people can actually breath the way they are today. Here the sense of ethics is really one of the main keys to why the people need to heed to him so they can continue to keep the air fresh for many years to come.
Logic is key situation to helping a nation stay its course on the way to success. Other nations are always trying to make alliances with one another to create a whole sense that they want to be “friendly nations”. That is not the case because life is all about the survival of the fittest, not to just get by. In his farewell, Washington conveys, “So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification” (Washington). He is trying to describe basically that the nation is starting to finally make a presence when discussing a great nation around the world. There is a sense of doubt coming from that making alliances with one another will not make anything better and instead eventually make it worse in the long run when a dispute happens. Common Interest is all in everyone’s head and eventually it will go down the drain when settling something. Timing was key to give this speech out because if he had given this speech earlier, like in his second term, he would not have been taken more seriously. In Mike and Ike’s blog, they start off with a quote from the speech and lead on to say, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence…the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake. Foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican government.”
The message here is quite clear – policies of the United States should not be based upon, or influenced by, the interests of a foreign power, or, in the modern world, international organizations comprised of a variety of foreign powers. Washington provides some guidance as to what should influence American policy, saying,“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible.”In modern America, this would be considered an extraordinarily isolationist policy.” (Mike and Ike). Washington here instills a sense of logic when discussing the different types of guidance he should be giving. Some may say he is starting to be a little bit of hostile because he does not want any type of relationship with other nations, but little do they know that he is doing it for their own well being. The people get to understand that they need to be more open to what he is saying since they just got on their feet to actually be called a nation. If alliances are formed, then mixed attitudes will build for personal gain. While he is claiming some appeals such as logic and ethical appeals, the biggest one is pathos because he is currently giving his farewell.
Emotion drives the world to do many things that may seem questionable. Here there is many times that it may seem like it is a dumb thing to do, but in reality if you look at today, he literally is telling what should not be done. In every politician’s speech here is a great sense of pathos that will be given no matter what because they have to appeal to the people they are trying to get through to. That was definitely the case here because Washington had to make sure that he was not saying anything that can be seen as blunt and hurtful. The biggest quotes are coming from mainly the first few sections because he needs a base to create a proper structure when describing his final address as President. There was a great ending that Washington ends off and states, “Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free government—the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors and dangers” (Washington). In the last paragraph of this memorable speech, he creates a long sentence in which he tried to wrap around his goal of everyone living in a free government. He basically is asking his people of the land to consider that all the of times they went through and noticed that it is worth so much value. Washington appeals to his people by saying, “The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less in- convenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects” (Washington). In this brief section, Washington tries to demonstrate the types of control a democratic government has since the fact there is a equal level among the people of the government and the citizens of this nation. He tries to say that even though the politicians are the ones that are actually making the choices of a certain event or law, the people are basically the reason why the choice of the law got selected in the first place. Hence, he is trying to get them in touch emotionally by saying that the power they hold is very powerful and it can stay that way if they stay together with one another as nation to prosper for a long time to come. He is basically offering them advice by instilling that father figure with himself. He wraps it all up with saying that this country can only be free if the people living in it share mutual consent with one another to grow. If you fast forward to this year, it has been 223 years since this speech has been given.
The year is 2019, where everything has been flipped by a switch as if this speech literally meant nothing. Washington is preaching staying together with one another as a democratic community, but it seems like that has not been done at all. The staff at NPR went into depth discussing today’s situations that are going on and respond by saying, “He came up with a series of warnings that are remarkably prescient, prophetic to us today: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, foreign wars, particularly — and this is almost eerie with the debate we’re having over Russian hacking today — the danger of foreign influence in our politics as a way of subverting sovereignty. The staff literally states that everything that he warned the nation to not do, they actually did it. Arthur Milikh goes into depth by explaining by how Washington wanted to see a nation grow and stay as beautiful as he is leaving it, but sadly that was not the case. He explains, “Washington foresaw that America would become “at no distant period, a great nation.” This would occur partly because North and South, East, and West would eventually become more homogenous on account of internal commerce, and because American commerce would spread throughout the globe. He also saw clearly that other nations would imitate and even adopt America’s constitutional order — if America proved that political liberty could coexist with order and unity” (Milikh). Milikh wants as the nation to be as good as Washington left it, but even he noticed that it is slowly deteriorating into a nation that is losing its “fresh air”. In this day and age, there are many different political parties that are trying to rip each other apart because they all claim so many things to make them “the best”. Washington is trying to preserve the true American heritage that they fought for because that is the only way politicians and the people can feel safe at once for all. The basic sense of if everyone is not together, then the different political parties will start to keep fighting even more. Unity is crucial to anything that needs to grow. For anything to happen negatively, there has to be a base from where it actually started. From there, a whole chain reaction of bad things after that first base problem happens. That is the same case with the parties. The foreign relations are a big problem too now because we as a nation have so many foreign issues with other countries. North Korea has been threatening to send a nuke for a while. Iraq has been a big hater of America because of the wars. These are the series of events that lead to something much bigger. That is one of the many reasons why reasons why The United States have fought In World War 1 and 2. All in all, the world has drastically changed, but Washington’s speech is still casted back upon many times throughout the decades.
Many times advice is taken for granted and is just brushed off. That was the case with Washington giving this speech because he needed to make sure he left the service with a final saying to have the people of the nation understand the simple rules to live in a growing nation. The country is getting on its feet and Washington just completed his second term, which leads him to contemplate what to leave the people with so he can feel confident that he made the people feel less worried and safer. He wants to make sure his “countrymen” are happy with thoughts that they are barely children in a mere free nation. Geographical issues were very important because he wants a be country that does not get into foreign affairs because that can create a series of problems such as: debt, warfare, arguments, etc. He spends a lot of time relating to people in a lot of different ways such rhetorical appeals. He uses the appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos to get through people in many ways so he can have no room for error. He makes sure that this advice that is given to his people will be used for many generations to come because after all, this is the farewells to all farewells.