The Advantages of American Isolation

Lastly, on the subject of foreign relations, Washington never forgot that we had interests peculiar to ourselves.  The primary political concerns of Europe, he saw, did not affect us.  We had nothing to do with her balance of power, her family compacts, or her successions to thrones.  We were placed in a condition favorable to neutrality during European wars, and to the enjoyment of all the great advantages of that relation.  “Why, then,” he asks us, “why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?  Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?  Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?”

Indeed, Gentlemen, Washington’s Farewell Address is full of truths important at all times, and particularly deserving consideration at the present.  With a sagacity which brought the future before him, and made it like the present, he saw and pointed out the dangers that even at this moment most imminently threaten us.  I hardly know how a greater service of that kind could now be done to the community, than by a renewed and wide diffusion of that admirable paper, and an earnest invitation to every man in the country to reperuse and consider it.  Its political maxims are invaluable; its exhortations to love of country and to brotherly affection among citizens, touching; and the solemnity with which it urges the observance of moral duties, and impresses the power of religious obligation, gives to it the highest character of truly disinterested, sincere, parental advice.

Washington’s Domestic Policy

The domestic policy of Washington found its pole-star in the avowed objects of the Constitution itself.  He sought so to administer that Constitution as to form more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.  These were objects interesting in the highest degree, to the whole country, and his policy embraced the whole country.

Among his earliest and most important duties was the organization of the government itself, the choice of his confidential advisers, and the various appointments to office.  This duty, so important and delicate, when a whole government was to be organized, and all its offices for the first time filled, was yet not difficult to him, for he had no sinister ends to accomplish, no clamorous partisans to gratify, no pledges to redeem, no object to be regarded but simply the public good.  It was a plain, straightforward matter, a mere honest choice of good men for the public service.

His First Cabinet