Existing comment:
Statesman.
Washington's Farewell Address.
Presidential term limits were not part of the original Constitution, and many were surprised when George Washington stepped down in 1796, after serving two terms. He sought Hamilton's assistance in writing a farewell address to a nation that had never known another leader.
Washington sent Hamilton a draft, prepared at the end of his first term by James Madison, along with notes compiled amid the increasingly fractured political climate of his second term. Hamilton reworked Madison's draft but also collaborated with Washington on a different version that was ultimately published. The address recommended measured neutrality toward foreign nations at a time when relations were tense with France and Britain and warned against factionalism at a moment of deep national divisions. Lines like, "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit" have a distinctly Hamiltonian ring.
The passages shown here, in Hamilton's hand and, principally unchanged, in Washington's, are from the section of the address that focuses on American unity. One passage cautions against the dangers of political parties in a democracy, and another reminds Americans that the Constitution is the law of the land, even during periods of volatility: "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all." |