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It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

George Washington#51

PoliticsWashingtonUnityNationUnionSafety

About this quote

What does it mean?
The national union is vital for happiness and safety, so citizens must protect it zealously against division.
In plain terms
Union is important for safety and happiness, so protect it.
What can you take from it?
Protect national unity at all costs.

Where it applies

  • political discourse
  • constitutional crises
  • civic education

Putting it to work

  • promoting unity
  • opposing secession
  • civic education

Questions to consider

  • How do we balance unity and dissent?
  • Why is union vital?

Another view

Excessive focus on unity can suppress necessary dissent.

More from George Washington

  1. Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity…

    Permalink to quote #50
  2. While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass …

    Permalink to quote #52
  3. Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that…

    Permalink to quote #49

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