With this being an election year, I'm drawn more than usual to history and events that shaped our nation. Having read this, I'm interested to read other farewell addresses. ( )

the Washington Benevolent Societies started in 1812 as a society in support of the Federalist Party. The Societies thrived for several years but then dwindled, the Worcester County society terminating it existence in 1836. William Trowbridge was a Revolutionary War veteran and the person for whom "Trowbridgeville" was named. He was the grandfather of William Trowbridge Merrifield and the great grandfather of William Trowbirdge Forbes. The record book for the Worcester County Society is at the American Anitquarian Society.

With this being an election year, I'm drawn more than usual to history and events that shaped our nation. Having read this, I'm interested to read other farewell addresses. ( )

George Washington is also known as "the father of our country” in the USA. He left office in September of 1796, and on the occasion of his departure, he gave this farewell address. In it, he does indeed sound fatherly. Unfortunately, as happens with so many parents, most of his good advice went unheeded, and his kids have succeeded spectacularly at fucking up their lives.

George Washington: You kids don’t know how good you have it!

… I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, maybe sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; than, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.


American Public: Aw, Dad! You always say that whenever we complain about anything! [Link 1]
[Link 2]


George Washington: You kids learn to get along, and to help one another. It's a tough world out there!

…The unity of government, which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, 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.

[Note: Who knew Washington was such a madman with the semicolons? Move over, Faulkner!]


Northern States: She started it!
Southern States: He started it!





George Washington: I don’t want to hear about you kids getting into any fights at school, or with the neighborhood kids. You don‘t need that kind of trouble!

… Hence, likewise [you should] avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.


American public: No, no, no! We don’t fight!!! We’re good.





George Washington: There better not be any wild parties around here when I’m away!

…One of the expedients of [political parties is] to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.


American public: We know! We know! No parties!!! Gee, Dad, you can trust us!!





George Washington: Don’t take candy from strangers! You never know who you can trust!

…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 [of liberty] , 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 counsels and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.


American people: We know! We know! You don’t have to keep telling us!



creation of the Federal Reserve system



George Washington: I raised you kids right! You know the difference between right and wrong- you do the right thing, and you’ll always be able to live with yourselves!

…It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.


American people: Sheeesh! Enough with the sermonizing, Dad! We’re not stupid! It’s 2012 now, not like when you were growing up!





George Washington: Well, I guess I prepared you as well as I could. I’ll be on my way now. Good luck to you.

In offerring to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions , or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations.


American people: Finally! We’re old enough to run this place without you!



Two hundred sixteen years later…



George Washington’s bedroom, 3a.m.

[telephone rings] , Washington awakes

George Washinton: (sleepy) Mmmm? Hello?…
Voice on other end: *sob* Dad? *sob* *sniff, sniff*
George Washington: Wha-! Are you okay? What happened? Where are you!?
Voice: *sob* Dad.. I was at this (political) party. I met these cool guys… *sob* bankers… *sob* They were really nice at first… *sniff* *sob* but then they told me they had something to show me in the back alley… *sob*
George Washington: Oh, dear.





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