Washington on the Perils of Party

We often pay attention to President’s inaugural addresses, but far less to their farewell addresses. This is unfortunate, for the farewell addresses are typically more sober, substituting wisdom for optimism and experience for promise. They often alert the nation to the real challenges ahead. Unencumbered by the need to placate or curry favor, farewell addresses may often feature presidents in their most honest public moments.

For my money, no farewell address supersedes the first one, given by President Washington. I could (and probably will) do more than one heritage essay on it, given how broad-ranging and incisive it is. We do well to remember that Washington gave this address at a time when the American project was at its infancy, when our republic was weak and often on the verge of collapse, and when the idea of an extended republic was still considered both a novelty and, by many, a recipe for failure.

Washington’s remonstrances have retained their forcefulness. One of the best-known passages from the address expresses his concern about the bugaboo always attending democratic governance: the problem of faction. I heard a well-known scholar the other day say that, among the founders, only Madison was really concerned about the problem of faction, but I think he was dead wrong in that claim. Many, such as John Jay, didn’t worry about the problem of unity because they believed that America was already united. Others, such as Brutus, had different worries about unity because they assumed America could never be united.

Washington was in a unique position. On the one hand, he was a proud Virginian, and he was also deeply skeptical of any kind of centralization of power. On the other hand, his experience in the war against the British as well as the exigencies of his first administration convinced him of the need for great energy in the executive branch as well as the federal government. But he was also enough of a student of history to know that this raising of the stakes would also intensify divisions rather than relieve them. Washington, in response, tries to remind Americans of what they hold in common:

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.

He also reminds them of the underlying cultural factors that are essential supports to political unity:

Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

He thus warns the country against the development of partisan interests, acknowledging our tendency to ascribe base motives to our opponents, all while assuming ours are most noble. Washington balances his realization of the frailty of human nature with his hope that we can put aside our particular interests in favor of the common good.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

He worries that if parties become too powerful and we become too attached to them, our tendency will be always to think that our particular interests are the interests of the whole, and therefore those who don’t share our interests must be motivated against the common good. And since the common good cannot be maintained without sufficient commitment, perhaps we might have to coerce our opponents, thus setting off a chain-reaction of action and revenge, depending on who’s in charge, that would rip the country apart. And under those circumstances Americans might be more likely to attach themselves to a “leader” who promises to heal their divides and bring the cycle of recriminations to an end.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. 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, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

But if that individual arises out of the party system, he or she is unlikely to be a neutral actor in any disputes. In fact, he or she, because of the increased concentration of power coupled with executive (enforcement) authority, would likely use that power to reward friends and punish enemies, one of the most insidious forms of injustice. Those on the losing side would increasingly come to see such a government as illegitimate, bringing into question the integrity of its fundamental processes. If the pressure builds enough, Washington observed, the result would be … wait for it … insurrection.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the best way to deal with competing interests?

2. How do Washington’s concerns apply to our present age?

3. Are there any underlying principles of unity left in America? What are they? Once lost, how can they be recovered?

By Jeff Polet

Director of the Ford Leadership Forum, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation

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