57 pages • 1 hour read
George WashingtonGeorge Washington's Farewell Address
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1796A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Key FiguresCharacter Analysis
George Washington
Known as “The Father of His Country,” George Washington was the single most important figure in the founding of the United States. He led the Continental Army through years of hardship until victory at the 1781 Battle of Yorktown sealed American independence. He then presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and even though many delegates to the Convention feared a powerful presidency was too similar to a monarchy, they ultimately agreed to a powerful executive in the expectation that Washington would be first and could be trusted to set the right precedent for the office.
Despite his enormous stature (literally and figuratively—at six feet, he was very tall for the era), Washington’s presidency proved highly contentious. The role of the president is not fully delineated in the Constitution, so its precise purview was unclear when Washington was first inaugurated in 1789. As a result, several of Washington’s policies were challenged as not merely unwise but outside the bounds of his constitutional power. For example, by declaring neutrality amid the Anglo-French warfare, Washington unilaterally voided a treaty obligation to France that the Continental Congress had ratified in 1778. In 1794, he personally led an army to suppress an uprising against a tax on whiskey, raising the question of what kind of protest was covered under First Amendment protections of speech, petition, and assembly. Due to Washington’s singular reputation, public criticism was mostly directed against his treasury secretary and key ally Hamilton, who was more than happy to sling mud with his political opponents while Washington hovered above the fray.
Washington’s “Farewell Address” betrays his concern that no one had the prestige to hold the country together as he could. He died in 1799, one year before his rival Thomas Jefferson began a quarter-century of Democratic-Republic dominance over US politics.
Alexander Hamilton
Now the subject of a hit Broadway musical, Alexander Hamilton rose from humble origins to become one of the most powerful and controversial figures of the American founding. The principal author of the “Farewell Address,” he began his service with Washington as a 20-year-old aide to the general during the American Revolution. After witnessing Washington struggle to lead soldiers who all fought for their own states rather than the country as a whole, he came to believe that a strong central government was necessary to establish civic order and defend against foreign threats. As the first secretary of the Department of the Treasury, he instituted a national bank to help pay for infrastructure, a manufacturing sector, and a navy, which he expected would make the US a major power on the world stage.
Hamilton’s influence on the address is most evident in its emphasis on The Importance of National Unity, which he considered more crucial than “local discriminations.” Born in the Caribbean, Hamilton arrived in America as a teenager and lacked the strong state attachments of multigenerational Virginians like Washington and Jefferson. He believed that once the federal government could demonstrate an ability to provide for the common good well beyond what any single state or league of states could achieve, the public’s loyalty would shift accordingly.
After Washington left office, Hamilton remained a key player in the Federalist party. His political maneuverings eventually brought him into conflict with Jefferson’s ally Aaron Burr. In 1804, the two fought a duel in which Burr, then vice president, fatally shot Hamilton.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson is best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States. At the time of the “Farewell Address,” he led the opposition to Washington’s administration, despite having served as secretary of state until 1793, and was preparing his own run for the presidency. Jefferson was closely associated with the Enlightenment, the philosophical movement rooted in the belief that human reason, especially the scientific method of observation and experimentation, had the potential to improve the human condition. The Declaration of Independence reflects Enlightenment thought in its pronouncement that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is “self-evident”—provable by mere observation—and that the only legitimate purpose for government is to protect those rights.
Jefferson spent most of the Revolutionary War and its immediate aftermath in France, where he became friendly with some future leaders of the French Revolution and helped them draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789). Jefferson viewed the French Revolution, which led to the overthrow and eventual execution of its royal family, as a logical and welcome consequence of America’s own revolution. When France went to war with England, the question of whether to support an apparent ideological partner against an old enemy caused an open rupture within the Washington administration, with Jefferson resigning from the office of secretary of state to organize the Democratic-Republican party as a rival to the ruling Federalists. When Washington rails against “the spirit of party” (Paragraph 19), he is undoubtedly referring to Jefferson and his allies.
Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, beginning a winning streak of six presidential elections for the Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
