At the end of his presidential terms in 1796, George Washington, in his farewell address, (extensively quoted here) expressed confidence in the general health of the union but warned about dangers he worried might threaten its future.
Washington warned of “ambitious leaders who could come to power playing off the differences of a poorly informed public who might sacrifice their own liberties to find relief from divisive politics” because “partisanship, the primary problem of the American republic, agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another and may incline the minds of men to seek security in the absolute power of a chief of some prevailing faction who will pursue his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.”
He believed “political parties are unavoidable and potent engines which may enable cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men 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.”
It has indeed happened here, and now.
Washington’s prescient fears are now embodied in 47th and current president of the United States who is manifestly unfit to lead a republic described in the preamble of our Constitution as “ordained to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
JB Bouchard
Cathlamet
