The much-lauded play HAMILTON honors George Washington's 32-page Farewell Presidential Address in song. Narrating his own work, author John Avlon takes another look at the Founding Father’s once-famous masterpiece, showing how the events of Washington’s time influenced his words—and the history of our nation. Our first president’s views on the "mobocracy" of Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts and the French Revolution, the rise of political parties, and the difficulty of building a new government especially resonated during the Civil War and WWI. Once listeners have the background, the formal language of the speech—presented in full at the end—regains meaning and substance. Avlon ably reintroduces an important contribution to the shaping of our government. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations
Narrated by John Avlon
John AvlonUnabridged — 10 hours, 4 minutes
Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations
Narrated by John Avlon
John AvlonUnabridged — 10 hours, 4 minutes
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Overview
George Washington's Farewell Address was a prophetic letter he wrote to his fellow citizens and signed from a “parting friend,” addressing the forces he feared could destroy our democracy: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, and foreign wars. In it, Washington called for unity among “citizens by birth or choice,” advocated moderation, defended religious pluralism, proposed a foreign policy of independence (not isolation), and proposed that education is essential to democracy. He established the precedent for the peaceful transfer of power.
Washington's urgent message was adopted by Jefferson after years of opposition and quoted by Lincoln in defense of the Union. Woodrow Wilson invoked it for nation-building; Eisenhower for Cold War; Reagan for religion. Once celebrated as civic scripture, more widely reprinted than the Declaration of Independence, the Farewell Address is now almost forgotten. Yet its message remains starkly relevant today. In Washington's Farewell, John Avlon offers a stunning portrait of our first president and his battle to save America from self-destruction.
Washington's Farewell “brings to light Washington's goodbye by elucidating what it meant not only during the early days of the republic, but its lasting effect through the centuries” (Library Journal, starred review). Now the Farewell Address may inspire a new generation to re-center their politics and reunite our nation through the lessons rooted in Washington's shared experience.
Editorial Reviews
Avlon’s timely book makes a strong case for bringing Washington’s final public message back into the national consciousness as a way of strengthening the frayed political fabric of the aging republic. . . . Avlon hopes that a rediscovery of such wisdom might strengthen the union to which Washington dedicated his life; many readers of this powerful and well-argued book will hope the author is right.
Absorbing . . . Avlon’s book could hardly have come at a more opportune time. . . . Avlon compellingly argues that the Farewell Address is not a document only for presidents but rather for all Americans to read and know.
In this lucidly rendered and insightful portrait of George Washington, John Avlon deconstructs the great man’s famous Farewell Address, one of the most influential documents of our political heritage, and employs the component parts as entry points into an illuminating exploration of the first president’s character and legacy. Thus does Avlon give us the real-life Washington and a compelling narrative of his time.
Washington’s Farewell sweeps us into a timeless and humanizing story. Shining a revelatory spotlight on a long forgotten document, more than 220 years old, Avlon melds gloriously raw insight with the Farewell Address, revealing prophetic wisdom into contemporary American politics and the evolving Great American Experiment.
Washington’s Farewell is a brilliant look into one of the seminal documents in American history. Avlon, a gifted writer and researcher, offers an enlightened view of the real George Washington: sage operator, partisan politico, shrewd judge of talent, and indomitable leader. As a plus, he tracks the great influence the Farewell Address has had on the foreign policy thinking of every generation since its delivery in 1796. A fantastic contribution to our national literature.
George Washington’s long, formal farewell address once held enormous power among Americans, and John Avlon summons and contextualizes that relevance in this captivating book. At once a biography of George Washington at his zenith, and a chronicle of a new nation still crafting its traditions, this book makes a powerful case that the first president’s last public message deserves again to hold iconic status in the pantheon of our greatest founding documents.
It’s hard to tell which is more nearly perfect—John Avlon’s argument or his timing. In the wake of a dispiriting campaign, Avlon finds in Washington’s Farewell Address a stunningly topical antidote to excessive partisanship and greedy self-interest. His book is a stake through the heart of political extremism
Timely reading
“Washington’s Farewell could hardly have been published at a better moment. . . . John Avlon’s elegant book about the best-known Founding Father was poised to strike a deep chord in us. . . . If we care about our polity and want to do something to reverse the trend, we would do well to read John Avlon’s wonderful book carefully, and to reflect again on the enduring wisdom of Washington’s Farewell Address.
★ 02/01/2017
George Washington (1732–99) worked on his farewell address to the American people for nearly five years before stepping down as America's first president in 1796. It was a historic moment, a peaceful transfer of power, that would long endure in history. Avlon, editor in chief of The Daily Beast and author of Independent Nation, brings to light Washington's goodbye by elucidating what it meant not only during the early days of the republic, but its lasting effect through the centuries. For much of the 19th century, this speech was the most remembered and admired in American history. Avlon's thesis is that there is much to gain from reexamining this 6,000-word adieu. Within this final address, which was never actually spoken but printed in a national newspaper, Washington implores posterity to value moderation, fiscal discipline, and private virtue. Avlon expertly explores the document by examining Washington's shortcomings; he accrued debt in his youth, was not as educated as his contemporaries, and owned slaves. In time, Washington overcame such flaws, some might argue too late. The full text of the speech can be found in the appendix along with further reading. VERDICT A solid analysis of our first president and his farewell to the American people.—Keith Klang, Port Washington P.L., NY
The much-lauded play HAMILTON honors George Washington's 32-page Farewell Presidential Address in song. Narrating his own work, author John Avlon takes another look at the Founding Father’s once-famous masterpiece, showing how the events of Washington’s time influenced his words—and the history of our nation. Our first president’s views on the "mobocracy" of Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts and the French Revolution, the rise of political parties, and the difficulty of building a new government especially resonated during the Civil War and WWI. Once listeners have the background, the formal language of the speech—presented in full at the end—regains meaning and substance. Avlon ably reintroduces an important contribution to the shaping of our government. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
★ 2016-11-20
Why George Washington's last message proves apposite to our own time.After two terms as America's first president, Washington bid farewell by publishing in a daily newspaper a long, heartfelt address, warning his countrymen about the forces that could threaten democracy. Editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast and former speechwriter for Rudy Giuliani, Avlon (Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America, 2010, etc.) analyzes that address and other of Washington's writings to create a vivid portrait of the struggles that marked the nation's early years. Washington had been a reluctant first president, but his experiences as an army commander served him well as a peacetime strategist facing dissension among the prickly, squabbling members of his administration. Admired as a general, he was "pilloried" as president and saw the rise of opposing political parties, something the Founding Fathers had not foreseen. "There was an idealistic assumption among the founders," writes the author, "that elected representatives would reason together as individuals." Washington clearly saw the perils that the nation still faces: he believed that "partisan impulses needed to be restrained by a wise and vigilant citizenry" or risk the rise of demagogues. Liberal education was vital to an enlightened population who could participate responsibly in civic matters. He worried that self-interest and regional, rather than national, identity could lead to disunity. Citizens needed to recognize the benefits of a central government that provided "equal laws and equal protection." That protection extended to religion, ensuring pluralism so that no sect would "degenerate into a political faction." As for foreign policy, Washington advised independence but not isolationism. Avlon engagingly traces the afterlife of the address, showing how subsequent presidents cherry-picked ideas consistent with their own political views. He argues persuasively that the document deserves the serious reading that he offers. "Armed with a sense of perspective," he writes, "we can take some comfort that our domestic divisions too shall pass." A thoughtful consideration of Washington's wisdom that couldn't be timelier.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171263928 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 01/10/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Washington’s Farewell
He had a genius for goodbyes. Washington’s first farewell occurred thirteen years before, in June 1783, as he prepared to resign his commission as commander in chief of the victorious Continental Army to return to his farm. Like a modern-day Cincinnatus, the modesty of the move guaranteed his greatness. It was a revolutionary gesture, causing King George III to remark, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
After proclaiming a day of jubilee, complete with an extra ration of rum for soldiers, bonfires on mountain-tops and fireworks thundering above the Hudson River, Washington set his mind to retirement, writing a friend that “before I retire from public life, I shall with the greatest freedom give my sentiments to the States on several political subjects.”
He marked the moment by writing a 4,000-word address to the American people, scratching out the text in a stone Dutch farmhouse perched above the Hudson in the hamlet of Newburgh, New York. Washington had lived there in something close to comfort for two years with Martha after the upheaval of combat on the run required him to sleep in more than 200 homes over eight years.
It was a time of celebration but the general called it a moment of “crisis.” Washington offered his parting advice on how to establish the foundation of an independent nation absent the common enemy that had united the thirteen colonies. The ideas flowed from his wartime experiences—struggles with a divided, dysfunctional Congress, insufficient funds, and crippling debt, compounded by a lack of resolve by the new citizens of the United States.
Washington asked that his letter be read aloud by the governors of the thirteen colonies at the commencement of the next session of their state legislatures—a means of distribution known as a Circular Letter to the States, of which he had availed himself eleven times during the course of the war.
General Washington intended this to be his Farewell Address—and it was alternately called his “Legacy” and “Farewell Address” in the decade that separated it from the end of his presidency. Here he established the roots of his concerns and remedies, articulating many of the principles and policies he would execute as president and enshrine in his final farewell.
Yes, this was a time for celebration and appreciation, but the success of the revolution had only brought the American people a heavier responsibility: “At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a nation, and if their citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own.”
“This is the moment to establish or ruin their national character forever,” Washington continued. “It is yet to be decided whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse: a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn millions be involved.”
And so he delineated “four things, which I humbly conceive are essential to the well being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an independent power.”
The first was “an indissoluble Union of the States under one federal head.” Washington wanted to ensure that the states would resist any separatist impulse, believing that a strong central government led by a president was the surest way to preserve the republic. He wrote this without any assumption or intimation that he would be the nominee for this national office.
Second came “a sacred regard to public justice,” by which he meant not only a fair judicial system, but more specifically a congressional commitment to pay the revolutionary soldiers what they were owed. Already, states were skirting their larger commitments once the war had been won. Paying debts was essential to the stable credit of a nation and Washington believed those debts should begin at home with the heroes whose sacrifice had made independence possible.
Third, Washington called for “the adoption of a proper peace establishment,” which was an ornate way of calling for a standing American army. This was controversial. Throughout history republics had been undone by overgrown military establishments, but in a earlier dispatch titled “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” Washington had counteracted this conventional wisdom by arguing that a permanent continental army, supplemented by state militias, could curtail individual state expense while making the prospect of reconquest less attractive to the British and other aggressive colonizers.
Fourth and finally, Washington made a passionate case for cultivating an identity as American citizens that would elevate national unity over local loyalties, inducing “them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.” In the eternal balance between individual rights and community obligations, Washington believed that there were times that the national interest trumped individual self-interest, especially in the early, unstable years of the young republic, when the failure of one could bring the destruction of the other.
“These are the pillars on which the glorious fabric of our independency and national character must be supported,” Washington wrote. He was declaring his personal political credo that would guide him for the rest of his life: the elevation of the common good over narrow self-interest, aided by an energetic central government, animated by the pursuit of justice through moderation.
The response was rapturous. One newspaper correspondent wrote, “When I read General Washington’s circular letter, I imagine myself in the presence of the great General of the twelve United States of Israel.”
Five months later, on November 25, Washington led his troops on a triumphant march from Newburgh into the city of New York—then just 4,000 homes on the southern tip of Manhattan—timing his victorious arrival with the departure of the final British troops on ships packed with loyalists and their furniture headed for the chilly hinterlands of Nova Scotia. The anniversary was celebrated for more than a century as “Evacuation Day.”
They met the first celebrating group of New Yorkers at what is today Union Square, where a statue of Washington on horseback still stands. He traveled down the Boston Post Road and sought a quick break at the Bull’s Head Tavern, a stagecoach stop and cattle market just north of the city limits near the corner of Bowery and Delancey Streets, where he raised a glass to liberty and New Yorkers did the same. A young woman who witnessed the event recalled decades later, “[As] I looked at them, and thought upon all they’d done and suffered for us, my heart and eyes were full, and I admired and gloried in them all the more, because they were weather-beaten and forlorn.”
The party continued for more than a week. On December 4, hours before he was scheduled to resign his commission and return home, Washington summoned Continental Army officers to Fraunces Tavern on Pearl Street for a “turtle feast” and heartfelt farewell to his patriotic band of brothers.
The tavern had been the meeting place for an early group of revolutionaries known as the Sons of Liberty, and its owner—a West Indian immigrant named Samuel Fraunces—had helped stop a poisoning plot against Washington by a member of his own security detail, a group known quite literally as “Life Guards.” Now, in the long room of his restaurant, Fraunces hosted the officers who had won the war and Washington raised a glass: “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you: I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy, as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.” Grown men cried and even the famously self-controlled Washington got a bit teary-eyed. The scope of the party took some of the sting out of the sorrow: the 120 guests drained 135 bottles of Madeira and 60 bottles of beer.
After an early morning departure, Washington made his way by boat to Annapolis, Maryland, where he officially resigned his commission to the members of the Continental Congress, then rode to Mount Vernon.
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