George Washington never delivered his Farewell Address as a speech. Published in newspapers in September 1796, it was a written letter to the American people, intended to explain his retirement and offer counsel for the republic’s future. It remains one of the most cited documents in American political discourse, though individual passages are frequently shortened in ways that alter their meaning.
What the Address Actually Argued
Washington’s address, drafted with substantial help from Alexander Hamilton (who revised and expanded an earlier draft Washington had prepared with James Madison), addressed three main concerns: the dangers of political parties, the importance of maintaining national unity over regional identity, and the risks of permanent foreign alliances.
The word “parties” appears prominently, but Washington’s target was not the modern two-party system — it was factionalism of any kind, including geographic, religious, and interest-based divisions. His warning was about the exploitation of division by those seeking power, not about the existence of organized political competition per se.
The Most Frequently Quoted Lines
One passage is quoted in virtually every discussion of American foreign policy: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” The phrase is accurate, but the surrounding context is consistently omitted. Washington immediately qualified it: “Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”
Washington was not arguing for isolation but for avoiding entanglements that would bind future generations regardless of circumstances. The distinction matters whenever the quote is deployed in contemporary foreign policy debate.
On Political Parties
The Farewell Address contains one of the most quoted warnings about partisanship: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension… is itself a frightful despotism.” Washington continued: “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction… turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
The Annual Senate Reading
Since 1896, the United States Senate has held an annual reading of the Farewell Address, alternating between senators of different parties. The tradition underscores the document’s enduring status as a shared civic text — one of the relatively few documents that members of Congress from opposing parties routinely invoke together, even when they quote different passages to support opposite conclusions.