Friday, September 19, 2025

Let Me Now Warn You in the Most Solemn Manner Against The Baneful Effects of the Spirit of Party

Washington's Farewell Address, September 19, 1796:

The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. 

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. 

They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force—to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.

That first graf is something that Trump particularly misunderstands, not to mention "execution of the laws" in the second...

Selah.

No comments:

Post a Comment