“Is there a doubt, whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? - Let experience solve it.”
George Washington wrote this in his farewell address in 1796. Could a nation that relies on the voice of the people survive when that nation was so large?
I wonder if Washington could have dreamed of the size of the American population today, let alone the volume of their voice.
Washington spoke broadly in his departing message to the young nation, but I will focus on one aspect:
His warning against division.
This warning, as the Civil War demonstrates, went unheeded. But there is good reason to revisit it now.
He tells us that the duty of all patriots is to:
“Indignantly [frown] 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.”
What specific reason does he say we should avoid this division? Interestingly, it is because of the lies each side will tell about the other:
“One of the expedients of Party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of the other districts. – You cannot shield yourself too much against the jealousies and heart burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; – they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.”
Washington is warning against the strawman arguments, the fake outrage, and the vilifying of enemies that so much of public discourse has turned into. If we refuse to meet our opponents as people that possess intelligence of their own and life experience different from ours, and instead conjure them in our minds as whatever devilish villain suits us best, we negate from the start any hope of communion.
The end of this dark road, to Washington, is the flocking of angry crowds to a charismatic, yet narcissistic leader. This state of affairs will:
“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.”
A nation that refuses to see their enemies as people leaves themselves vulnerable to tyrannical, opportunistic leaders to take advantage of the tumultuous nation for their own gain.
This is not to say that discourse is to be stamped out, Washington reminds us. Debate is healthy and disagreement necessary. But taken to its extremity, it can weaken the foundation of a nation. He says debate is:
“A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, lest instead of warming, it should consume.”
Washington, wisely, knows that his words will likely have a small effect on an impassioned and young nation. Of his warnings he remarks:
“I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression, I could wish, – that they will controul the usual current of the passions, or prevent our Nation from running the course which hitherto marked the destiny of Nations.”
Will America run that course set by the nations that came before?
Will the warnings of Washington continue to go unheeded? Will the blind rage of one opinion against another benefit only the opportunistic, power-hungry few, who play on that rage, stoking the fire to dangerous heights, indifferent if the whole thing burns down?
That remains to be seen. But to close I cannot resist putting in full a paragraph that will be familiar to history and musical theater fans alike.
“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my Administration, I am unconscious of intentional error – I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. – Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. – I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”
