The Moral Foundations of George Washington's Foreign Policy Choices

The Moral Foundations of Political Choices: George Washington and Foreign Policy

Reason, Religion, Philosophy, Policy, disavow the spurious and odious doctrine that we ought to cherish and cultivate enmity with any Nation whatever. . . . If you consult your true interest Your Motto cannot fail to be “Peace and Trade with All Nations; beyond our present engagements, Political Connection with None.”

Horatius No. II[1]

Two distinct crises during the presidency of George Washington highlight his approach to foreign policy decision making. The first crisis occurred in 1792-93 as Europe became engulfed in the precursor of modern world wars, confronting revolutionary France with the allied princes of Europe. The second crisis occurred in 1795-96 when John Jay ended a long negotiation with Britain to settle outstanding issues from the revolutionary war and the unenforced Treaty of Paris of 1783. The terms of the Jay treaty evoked a wrenching domestic political debate.

The principles to which Washington adhered throughout these crises (besides exhaustive deliberation) consistently focused on a definition of American national interest and identity. Washington clearly articulated those principles in his public addresses and correspondence, but it was only by developing policy that he could demonstrate their efficacy.

The central question during the European war resulted from the 1778 treaty of mutual defense with France, obligating each to come to the defense of the other. Those terms contributed decisively to the successful outcome of the revolutionary war, and the issue in 1793 was whether the United States would honor during France’s hour of peril both its debt of gratitude and its putative legal obligation.

Critical questions arose, however, around the issues of whether the France to which the United States had plighted itself (the monarchy of Louis XVI) still existed and whether a treaty of mutual defense could properly be evoked in the instance of aggressive. The first question was the most important morally, inasmuch as from the beginning Washington harbored doubts about the legitimacy of the French Revolution of 1789, based not upon affection for the monarchy but concern that the revolution’s radicalism threatened the very foundations of republican government. Not the least source of these doubts was the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution. To Washington’s mind this was a direction alien to the progressive affirmation of civil and religious liberty that had anchored his commitment in America. The idea of rising to the defense of a nation whose every bearing ran counter to the expectations of justice and prosperity to which Washington clung presented an unpalatable prospect.

Moreover, Washington believed that the United States owed foremost to secure its own national character before putting itself at risk in an hour of weakness. The first counsel of national interest, therefore, was to secure the United States as far as possible from foreign embroilments. This attitude explains his dealing with the Barbary pirates through the payment of “consular representation fees” that amounted to tacit ransom payments. While the United States was not in a position to “bid defiance” to the world, the United States had of necessity to accommodate to unsavory practices.

The European war, however, presented a more difficult set of circumstances. The response, a “Proclamation of Neutrality” issued in 1793, was both a prudent and wise choice despite creating subsequent difficulties, unfolding in the eventual “quasi war” with France. Prior to issuing the proclamation, Washington prepared a memorandum to his cabinet officers (Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox, Randolph) posing thirteen questions.[2] Within these thirteen questions two were singular: first, had the government been “re-established” and, second, is the “Treaty of Alliance applicable to a defensive war only?” In short, it was doubtful whether a legitimate government existed in France and, if it were thought to do so, it was further doubtful whether it was acting in its defense. After deliberating such matters Washington issued the Proclamation of Neutrality on April 22, 1793. Washington never after wavered in defending his action, despite the immense political opposition that it attracted. At the heart of the decision lay a careful moral deliberation and a settled moral judgment.

Similarly, the Jay Treaty debate demanded every bit as much resolve on Washington’s part, and he repeated ample deliberation. In this case, however, something lay at the heart of the dispute that reveals with stunning clarity how far Washington was willing to respond to moral imperatives. The purpose of the Jay Treaty was to settle outstanding claims on both sides of the revolutionary struggle, to get Britain once and for all to evacuate the western territories of the United States, to settle reasonable terms of commercial exchange, and to effectuate appropriate compensations for damaged or appropriated properties on both sides. Within this last area a sensitive issue arose, triggering immense opposition to the Treaty, albeit usually under other pretexts. One extant claim for compensation was for run-away or “carried away” slaves. The abolitionist Jay simply did not honor this expectation and returned a treaty silent on the question. Washington’s decision to ratify the treaty was effectively a decision to dismiss the justice of the claims for compensation or repatriation of the slaves.

The basis for this decision is laid out in compelling clarity by Alexander Hamilton, who at Washington’s request produced a series of thirty-eight “Defence” essays (under the pseudonym “Camillus”) devoted to the Jay Treaty, and several other essays under the names of “Horatius” and “Philo Camillus.” In short, Hamilton here made a contribution to the literature of the founding fully as substantial as his contribution to The Federalist Papers.

Hamilton saw the problem of slavery as a moral problem, in which terms the request for a repatriation of slaves (the original request by the Confederation Congress in reference to the Treaty of Paris [1783]) was “odious” to the law of nations and natural right. The slaves, whether captured or induced to defect, received their liberty from the British, and the demand for their return amounted to a demand to reduce free men to slavery. Insofar as they were in fact free men, and not property, the demand for compensation was inconsistent with legal norms. More importantly still, if they were taken “as property,” then the laws of war would have treated them as booty, and therefore also not subject to reclaim.

The work Hamilton performed in defending the Jay Treaty parallels the work preparing the “Farewell Address,” in which we find the crystallized statement of Washington’s policy foundations. Washington set Hamilton to work on the Jay Treaty with a long list of considerations to which he sought a response, just as he launched the preparation of the “Farewell Address” with a “draft” that he charged Hamilton to perfect. By such directions Washington revealed his intentions. Thus, it was Washington’s decision to ratify and defend the Jay Treaty without the slavery provision and on the grounds announced by Hamilton in the Horatius letter, which declared that “Reason, Religion, Philosophy, Policy” guided the decisions.

In 1796 French Minister Pierre Adet labeled George Washington a “Machiavellian” on account of Washington’s famous “Farewell Address.” Adet was concerned that Washington was willing to ignore America’s defense commitment to France for the sake of America’s advantage in the world, thus ignoring higher principles for mere national self-interest. Washington, however, believed that a republic needed to enjoy as much freedom of action in the world as do monarchies and principalities.

The only full and fully conscientious response to the charge of Machiavellianism is the “Farewell,” which had been described as

. . . a piece extolling ingratitude, showing it as a virtue necessary to the happiness of states, presenting interest as the only counsel which governments ought to follow in the course of their negotiations, putting aside honor and glory.[3]

Washington, though, believed he had defended principles of “justice and humanity.”

The most significant commentary on the “Farewell Address” was published by Samuel Flagg Bemis in 1934.[4] Bemis demonstrated how, in the midst of belligerent, overpowering states, the newly established, free republic of the United States wended a course designed to secure its liberty. The point is well taken. A strong case can be made for taking the “Farewell” in context. It would be a mistake, however, to read the context too narrowly, as did Bemis. As companion to Bemis’ narrow view, then, I read the “Farewell” in its own terms. This reading explains the posture required of any free society, under any circumstances (the French Minister, Adet, was that far correct). What distinguishes the address, however, is Washington’s conviction of the possibility of an honorable policy. A theoretical consideration, as opposed to one simply historical, responds to the charge of Machiavellianism, and also answers the question, how might a free society make consciousness of its goodness the instrument of its defense?

The “Farewell Address” describes the founding a free society and the conditions of its preservation in a world that offers no sinecure for freedom. It was meant to be a complete account. Not only did it undergo manifold and massive preparations and alterations for a period of some thirteen or fourteen months over the space of four years, with the assistance of two of the nation’s finest minds, but it also provided specific indications of its completeness.

In paragraph five Washington invokes his first inaugural address, which sets forth the ends of government. And paragraph seven invokes his 1783 “Circular Letter to the Governors Upon the Disbanding of the Troops,” in which he urges the consummation of the modern revolution. In this manner, Washington makes those two crucial documents a part of the “Farewell.” Together, they give a complete account of the regime then being instituted in the United States.

The importance of giving so complete an account in the “Farewell” may be gleaned from the fact that the free society did not arise spontaneously but required building. The principles of its architecture alone could provide the basis for judging the uses and practices to which it would be put. Here we are rather concerned with the conditions of its preservation, but we recur to the first inaugural and the Circular Letter as well in order to make the account complete.

Washington’s first inaugural address, setting forth the ends of the government, made perhaps the most puzzling remark of his career. Referring to the “great assemblage of communities and interests” represented in the government, he discerned a pledge that

the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affection of its citizens and command the respect of the world.

When this rare, this daring repose on “private morality” is joined, as Washington joined it, to the call for a “national morality,” one experiences the full force of the paradox. If the foundations are “private morality,” what is the place of “national morality”? Can Washington expect to give to “national morality” the full force of “private morality”? In the “Farewell” he avers as much, citing that,

[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens ... And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.

In the same address Washington described the hand of God as “that Invisible Hand” which authors “every public and private good.” To merit the “propitious smiles” of the “Invisible Hand,” however, the nation must show regard for the “rules of order and right.” These rules establish a strict relationship, “in the economy and course of nature,” between “virtue and happiness” or “duty and advantage” and between “the genuine maxim of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.”

Washington, in other words, regards the public good as the reward for “private morality,” as opposed to considering virtue a means to the end of the public good. The question becomes, what is the nature of the reward? One might recall Bernard Mandeville’s seventeenth century “private vices, public benefits.” It creates the conditions for a form of government which need not aim at virtue, which need not restrain individual interests by principles of command. That is the thrust of the remark in the “Farewell Address” that “public happiness” occasions virtue. The excellence of free government stems from its avoiding resort to moral mandates.

What, then, has this government to do? And whence arises “national morality,” if not from principles of command? These questions lead to the second significant aspect of the discussion of the founding, as Washington saw it, and demonstrate the difference between “private morality” and “national morality.”

When Washington declared that the people need a national morality, he began the chain of arguments that show the effect of their love of being one people. The very first condition, an artificial rule of necessity, for the preservation of the republic, is that the people preserve within themselves an equivalent to the founder’s prudent reason. Washington ultimately calls it “enlightened opinion” but initially he called it national morality. National morality is the means whereby a powerful people secure the pursuit of private morality. But national morality is less a code of conduct or principle of command than an habitual attitude toward the real rule of necessity.

Bearing these aspects of the founding in mind, we better understand the “Farewell.” The people are unable to read the real rule of necessity. Nevertheless, their society is subject to it. In order to attain the needed degree of political dexterity they must employ rules of intercourse derived from and consistent with the principles by which they rule.

A transcendent interest, the product of these principles, sets the tone of those rules of intercourse. It preserves the people’s liberty by setting limits to and authorizing the actions of representatives. It also preserves the nation’s liberty, which is nothing but as great a degree of freedom of action as necessity allows, by dis-allowing principles of supra-national fidelity.

The people’s independence of ties of fidelity is not rooted in Machiavellianism, or the ready will to do what serves one’s momentary interest. This is so because the transcendent interest cannot be transient. Their independence, then, becomes an expression of the permanent quest for justice. It regards justice as incompatible with subordination of the transcendent interest, and hence of the nation, to any other interest whatsoever. Reason, parties, and foreign interests are treated in identical terms: wills competing with the “will of the society.”

The will of the society comes to mean nothing more than a free people’s interest in self-preservation as a people. Similarly, the term, “nation’s will” comes to light as a purely technical term; it suggests that provision for a free people’s interest which is achieved by means of regularized governmental operations.

The free society’s pursuit of its interest, guided by justice, is dependent upon the assurance of its safety. That means assuring the freedom to choose peace or war. To do so, the free society must become the agent of necessity vis-à-vis others, rather than being forced to suffer it (as in Thucydides’s Melian dialogue). Washington implies that the tragedy of political life (which inheres in foreclosing supra-national fidelity) may be resolved; but this requires a political dexterity which democracy may not command – or does it? The problem is to avoid unnecessary claims on public faith; it arises from the fact that such claims as a Machiavellian policy could dispense with easily are enforced in a free society by the requirements of the regime itself (which mainly means through the agency of public opinion).

A free people must preserve their Constitution above all. Necessity, however, is no respecter of constitutions. This is the reason it is necessary to surmount necessity as far as possible. The avoidance of regime changes under necessity is not less important than avoiding speculative regime changes. Those imposed by necessity, however, are evitable only to the degree the rule of necessity does not turn itself against the free society. The Spartans endured the worst of ills, change of regime, by reason of the necessity which made it Athens’ enemy. The war closed with Sparta in command of an empire its regime could not sustain without change. It changed.

The life of a people, therefore, is a life of cares, dangers, and labors. They traverse the snares of an unfree world – where all comes at cost – by means of right, duty, and interest. Washington’s symmetries can be mesmerizing.

A free people require to follow duty, which is to savor peace and to defend their just claims wherever they may be threatened. And they require to pursue the preservation of the free society. The care expended on this goal will reconcile particular interests to the interest of free society. The labor required for its successful completion will be determined both by the rule of necessity and the Constitution of the regime.

In sum, the rule prior to the rule of necessity is a people’s recognition of its own way as good and deserving defense against all dangers. That, in turn, leads to insistence upon the rule of law in security policy (and fosters even oxymorons, such as the “international community”). Where a people’s way admits no transcending interest, the course of policy is plain. It is founded not upon deliberating distinctions of good and evil but upon distinguishing forms of safety necessary to the free society. George Washington made this implicit rule explicit, and in doing so he provided enduring guidance for the foreign policy of a republican regime.

With this argument Washington created the basis for a political definition of liberty. Liberty is expressed by means of the very operations of government, when they are regular and based on habitual expectations rooted in the people’s love of liberty. The character which government will acquire through time is nothing less than development of the power to, and the expectation that it will, confine individuals to the pursuit of rational self interest, “enjoyment of the rights of person and property.” The developed character of the government resists the impulse to apply the right of revolution, to refound, and hence substitutes the rule of law, the nation’s will, for the rule of raw interest.

The alternative to popular government – to the love of the community of interests – is that men and their parties take turns using one another for their own ends. The differences among parties always reflect at least the germ of these extremes; or, what makes parties in fact parties is that their aims, like their interests, are by definition mutually exclusive. But no community can recognize interests mutually exclusive within itself without thereby diluting, poisoning, its wholeness. It can have no will; its voice will always speak the will of another, whether a mere part of the community or some power external to it. It is possible neither to love, nor to defend a city which has no voice, which is only a city in name. That is the reason that Washington’s “Farewell” warnings against excessive partisanship are the reciprocal of his warnings against permanent attachments or enmities to foreign states.

Now, “publlic and private felicity” (as he put it) are the outcomes or rewards of the “virtue or morality” that engenders the free society. But virtue and morality do not tell the whole story of the motive principle of republican government. They do in large measure serve to provide its necessary motion, however. While the aim of this government is human happiness, the public opinion which its structure enthrones conduces to that end only when it is nurtured in principles of decency based on the transcendent expression of interest. Stated in practical terms: civil order and future peace are subject to necessities to which public opinion must be reconciled, else government will lack such ordinary powers, even, as that of raising sufficient revenues.

This might suggest an instrumental account of virtue. That virtue, however, only becomes possible in the presence of “public happiness,” or the consummation of a transcendent expression of interests. Thus, the virtue which preserves the power of government is at the same time the expression of principles of humanity and civilization as the basis of the people’s relationships with all other peoples. The consummation of a transcendent expression of interests makes it possible for the United States to deal with others, not on considerations of mere interest, but on the basis of sentiments “which ennoble human nature.” This must work as follows: the people, whose opinion must rule but will do so only insofar as they repress the sense of interests as differentiating will, in turn, regard other peoples not based on any lesser interests but rather in light of their respective transcendent interests. Their mutual relations will not be as parties within a whole, but rather as distinct, self-sufficient wholes. This will be the case, at least, if the power of human nature, with respect to its vices (the sense of interests as differentiating, alienating) do not overwhelm the perspective of transcendent interest. The foreign policy consistent with this outlook would deny that there are ever grounds for “habitual hatred” or “habitual fondness” between this nation and others, for lesser human interests do not determine that policy.

A nation, above all, a free people, is not free to treat another nation as its own, a thing which, if it could happen, would create obstacles to public happiness as great as those which private interests pose to private happiness. To imagine that another city can be one’s own, as one’s fellow citizen is, creates an “imaginary common interest” where “no real common interest exists.” It introduces injustice in foreign relations, but, still more, threatens the true transcendent interest of one’s own city. For, the imaginary common interest, to be secured, would impose the necessity of obscuring the interest of one’s own city. It is clear, therefore, that such an illusion does no more than create an opportunity for those who are not comprehended by one’s own city to undermine its transcendent interest and hence weaken its authority over lesser interests.

Washington resorts to those ubiquitous teachers, “history and experience,” for the only time in the “Farewell,” as if to underscore the universal force of his account of particularism. What all men say and do, saith Aristotle, is true. To Washington, impartiality towards all foreign cities is the obverse of the consistent preference for one’s own.

A foreign policy of impartiality towards foreign cities – not to be confused with mere neutrality – one based on an equal readiness to harm or benefit any other state as circumstances require, is a thing unheard of. What kind of policy would it produce? One based on interests, Washington answers: extensive commercial connections and the narrowest political connections. That is, a foreign policy based on secondary interests, since “Europe’s primary interests” concern America but remotely at the close of the eighteenth century. How might “Europe’s primary interests” ever concern America? Only as necessity, the threat to America’s existence, might make a political connection the means of defense. But the absence of such necessity at the close of the eighteenth century creates a necessity of its own: that America may so strengthen herself as to be ever independent of political connections for her defense. That eventuality would make permanent the aim of pursuing the course of humanity in foreign relations; that is, America could pursue her own interests, “guided by justice.” The nation is at liberty to make justice its guide in choosing “peace or war” only to the degree that it suffers no compulsion in regard to the safety of its citizens. Washington provided a political definition of self-sufficiency for the city.

In closing the “Farewell” Washington invoked his deeds, just as he invoked his speeches in opening the address, to affirm the degree of his success in pursuing these principles. He pursued them, in other words, in speech and deed. The relation between the two is that only the latter, vitiated by chance and the very necessity he sought to manage, demonstrates how the end inheres in the principles. Washington chose the 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality as his central deed. According to Washington, the mutual defense treaty served its purpose in the Revolutionary War; without it American may have died aborning. But the refusal to apply it in France’s hour of need also served its purpose; it both preserved the fragile, infant republic from ravages of war which may have been fatal to it and preserved to it British commerce which was vital for it. The breaking, as the plighting of faith preserved the transcendent interest of the United States.

Washington justified this deed by evoking the evidence of “right, duty, and interest.” As to right, however, he claimed that, since the belligerents acknowledge it, he need not develop it. In fact, then, Washington derived the duty from the fact that necessity either did not compel the United States to fight, as he might say, or rather compelled the United States not to fight. As to interest, Washington indulged the sole, intentional ambiguity of the essay. One might imagine that interest is nothing other than the pedestrian name for duty, as that has just been described. But Washington meant something yet different, and also different from right. First, he tells the people that they would best remember the interests which justified his courses. The implication is that it satisfied their interests. British commerce was already implied. It had the obverse of American navigation and agriculture, among other things. There was West Indian trade as well, and the vital navigation of the Mississippi at stake (which Washington especially considered before deciding, not whether to uphold the treaty, but whether to join with Britain against France or remain neutral), and other discrete, lesser interests. In all this, what is striking is that it seems unlikely that he expects the people to remember the transcendent interest, which his address labored to develop.

The people were not wholly aware of the nature of their experiment in free government. Washington was so. Thus, he offered a different justification, in light of interest, for his Proclamation of Neutrality. He had a design, he admitted, to assure the country’s capacity to rule its own fate, pursue its own interest. That design depended on two things. The country needed time to build strength sufficient to pursue its interests freely. But secondly, it also needed to discover the interest it had as a country, its transcendent interest. The ambiguity in Washington’s account stems from the fact that the interest which justified his course, to him, was not altogether compatible with the interests which justified it to the people. The latter, however, did contribute to the justification, inasmuch as they provided the necessary condition for Washington’s pursuit of the former.

This architecture was successful, but we understand it best if we recall the gist of the founding itself, which we may glean from brief rehearsal of its defense in the Federalist Papers and then turn in closing to Washington’s 1783 “Circular Address.”

The Federalist Papers describes the manner in which the idea of necessity comes to be distinguished though not separated from interest.[5] This account closely resembles the results of Thucydides’ catalog of the allied forces in the Syracusan War, which distinguished motives for entering the war on grounds of compulsion and voluntary choice (“as profit or necessity severally chanced them,” VII, 57-58). The Federalist essays urge that the first line of necessity is for government itself (#2). From that (the existence of particular cities) there follows the possibility of “causes of war” in proportion to the number of states (#3). Thus, the American states, poised between becoming separate nations or a single nation, are admonished to consult the second line of necessity by forming a single entity in which all are at peace with one another rather by design than by chance.[6]

Full provision against foreign danger required confiding “to the federal councils” requisite power; that power prevailed over the society as over prospective enemies (#41).

The Constitution, therefore, chains the ambitions and sets bounds to the exertions of all interests. This is how the Constitution succeeds in limiting its own forces for offense, while it cannot limit the force for defense.

This absolute freedom for defense, based on the marriage of interests and pre-supposing the rule of necessity, is sometimes regarded as Machiavellian, because it does not extend internal constitutional guarantees to other nations. Noam Chomsky frequently offers such a charge, based on the notion that the free society is just like any other. A typical case:

Typically, the ‘defense of the national interest’ policy is disguised with high-sounding rhetoric, which we dismiss with contempt when the official enemy ‘defends freedom and socialism’ by sending tanks to Berlin, Budapest, Prague or Kabul, while solemnly reciting it when our own state acts in a similar way.[7]

Chomsky failed to see, however, that the rule of necessity is not a justification, per se. Thus, he misses the distinction so carefully drawn in the Federalist between the free society and others.

Bearing these observations in mind, we may then find special vigor in the formulations Washington provided in the most important of his political papers. The locus classicus for Washington’s ideas is the renowned “Circular Address to the Governors of the Thirteen States” of 1783.

The account of Washington’s activities subsequent to the 1783 Treaty of Peace is well documented in a number of fine sources[8] and scarcely requires to be repeated here. The gist of the story is that Washington almost never relented in his private labors to encourage a strengthening of the national government. He maintained an extensive private correspondence devoted largely to this purpose; he pursued projects such as the Potomac-Ohio canal scheme specifically with the view in mind of strengthening the union; and he lost no chance to further opportunities to build the powers of the Confederation or, ultimately, to call a new convention.

Prior to the end of the war, also, Washington had been instrumental in pushing for reform. From his vantage point as Commander in Chief of the American forces he not only lobbied incessantly for a strengthened Congress (and more talented representatives) but also pushed ideas of union over provincialism. As early as 1775, just after being named supreme commander, he addressed his troops with the hope that “all distinctions of colonies will be laid aside; so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole.” He named this whole the “United Provinces of North America,”[9] indicating thereby the substance of his appeal to Canadians later that same year:

Come, then, my Brethren, Unite with us in an indissoluble Union ....We look forward with pleasure to that day not far remote (we hope) when the Inhabitants of America shall have one sentiment and the full enjoyment of the blessings of a free government.[10]

While the first of these appeals may be read as indicating an appeal only to a notion of contingent union, when combined with the second it seems clear that Washington meant to lay aside the “distinctions” of separate colonies once and for all. He had already defined the “united states of America,” which did not get its name officially until July 2, 1776 in the Declaration of Independence. Washington understood the union to follow from reposing on the hope of a specific form of government: republican government. When he was called upon to vindicate his honor and rank against that of General Gage, he did so by invoking that most honorable rank “which flows from the uncorrupted Choice of a brave and free People, the purest source and original Fountain of all power.”[11]

Such an ambition would have required, over and above the vague hope of union, some specific notions of the form to be instituted. That it must be republican is the first level of specificity. That the goal was susceptible of further refinement was suggested by Washington’s continued recourse to it throughout the war. From Valley Forge he returned to the general notion:

If we are to pursue a right system of policy, in my opinion, there should be none of these distinctions. We should all be considered, Congress, Army, etc. as one people, embarked in one cause, in one interest; acting on the same principle and to the same end.[12]

This end entailed not only the framing of a specific constitution, but a constitution understood as creating a regime – a characteristic way of life. Washington and his troops were struggling “for every thing valuable in society” and “laying the foundation of an Empire.”[13] Not surprisingly, therefore, he had considered long before what that may entail in the way of considerations:

To form a new government, requires infinite care, and unbounded attention; for if the foundation is badly laid the superstructure must be bad, too much time, therefore, cannot be bestowed in weighing and digesting matters well . . . every man should consider, that he is lending his aid to frame a constitution which is to render millions happy, or miserable, and that a matter of such moment cannot be the work of a day.[14]

That he saw this as a continental effort may be gathered from his invocation of the fate of future “millions” (since Virginia alone was only a few hundred thousand). But that time would not be indefinite was the burden of the “Circular Address” to show, in addition to the specific character of the regime to be founded.

What, then, is the teaching of the “Circular Address?” Washington described it as affording delight to the “benevolent and liberal mind,” whether viewed in “a natural, a political, or a moral point of light.” Why? The situation was such that the American people enjoyed “a vast tract of continent,” assuring “all the necessaries and conveniences of life,” and possessing “absolute freedom and independency.” In short, Americans lacked nothing of what could be called the ordinary incidents or conditions of prosperity. They did, however, lack the one extraordinary condition for the full exploitation of these blessings – namely, “political happiness.” Washington conveyed this bad news in a characteristically positive fashion; he said that “Heaven” left them the “opportunity” for political happiness.

The notion of an “opportunity for political happiness” was not mere rhetorical gloss, however, for Washington meant by it, also, the availability of those distinctive conditions and instruments for the attainment of the end. Added to the material conditions of American life were those “treasures of knowledge” which had superseded the “gloomy age of ignorance and superstition” and provided specific tools to establish “forms of government.” The tools: “the free cultivation of letters; the unbounded extension of commerce; the progressive refinement of manners; the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation.”

One might ask why, with such blessings, this remains a time of “political probation” for Americans. The answer, according to Washington, is that they had not yet applied the tools available to them to give themselves a “national character”—a regime. He did not fail, therefore, to recommend immediate steps to that end:

1st. An indissoluble Union of the States under one Federal Head

2dly. A sacred regard to Public Justice

3dly. Adoption of a proper Peace-Establishment. And,

4thly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States, which will induce 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.

It does not defy common sense to notice how differently the fourth recommendation is stated in comparison to the first three. The addressee of the fourth recommendation is the people themselves. While the first three recommendations, an adequate national government, appropriate measures to redeem the sacrifices of the soldiers, and provision for continuing defense of the republic, spoke to the institutional requirements of the nation, the fourth addressed the moral condition by which the promise of self-government might be realized.

Before the citizens could become “the purest source, and original Fountain of all power,” they required to be welded into something more than just an aggregate of individual wills. When Washington warned in the “Circular Address” that Americans might learn that “there is a natural and necessary progression from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny;” he meant above all to arraign the notion that individuals could enjoy self-government as anything other than citizens of a common regime.

Finally, Washington made clear in the address that the conditions for achieving the status of “a people” in the United States hinged completely upon the establishment of a rule of justice, not only within the institutions, but within the souls of its people. The precondition for self-government is the accomplishment of that prayer for a disposition in the citizens “to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind” with which Washington closed. A spirit of moderation, understood as a moral proposition – the acceptance of self-government as an objective not only in institutional terms but within the soul of each – is that without which “we can never hope to be a happy nation.” Let us define self-government, therefore, as the power to act in accord with fit purpose. That is the meaning of the Declaration of Independence which elevates the moral outcome (the pursuit of happiness) above the material outcome (property) of liberty.

Washington’s words in his “Circular Address” carried the movement of reform through the Convention. The address made clear that the conditions for achieving the status of “a people” in the United States hinged completely upon the establishment of a rule of justice, not only within the institutions but within the souls of its people.

Washington is pre-eminent among those who developed such policies and institutions, and we may apply to him the words written by Paul about the faith of Abraham: He looked forward to the well-founded city, designed and built by God.[15] His deep religious faith and profound political vision are too little acknowledged today.[16] Indeed, for two centuries, the world has celebrated Washington largely for his actions, especially on the battlefield, more than for his words and thought. Washington’s actions do speak to us and in them we can discern, readily enough, the fine political vision that guided his entire public life. But Washington’s words also eloquently and powerfully declare that vision – a complete and lofty design for the just city.

His unwavering goal in this endeavor was to create a nation dedicated to and capable of sustaining civil and religious liberty – the intertwined end of politics as he saw it. Yet, for all the grandeur of his vision, the work itself was relentlessly pragmatic. Washington made clear in a letter to Jonathan Trumbull (July 20, 1788) that he saw the hand of God at work in the establishment of the nation, as he instructed Trumbull to

… trace the finger of providence through those dark and mysterious events, which first induced the States to appoint a general Convention and then led them one after another (by such steps as were best calculated to effect the object) into an adoption of the system recommended by that general Convention; thereby, in all human probability, laying a lasting foundation for tranquility and happiness; when we had but too much reason to fear that confusion and misery were coming rapidly upon us. (GWC, pp. 411-12.)

Do not think these invocations of Providence and of religious liberty to confirm mere pieties. For Washington was prolix on the subject and made clear that it was more than a nicety. Perhaps the best way to assess this dimension of Washington’s founding contribution and his basic political thought would be to trace from beginning to end the genetic connection between his political goals and the justifications he typically offered for them. Of these justifications none were more frequently and emphatically repeated than “to afford a capacious asylum for the poor and persecuted of the earth.” (GWC, p. 418.[17])

When Washington embraced the idea of rescuing the “poor and persecuted” he embraced the twin goals of fostering prosperity and religious liberty. Nor did he ever conceive that they could be separated, as his encouragements to a wide diversity of religious sects revealed.

These are all elements of a grand design. This was made retrospectively manifest in the instruction Washington provided Alexander Hamilton regarding the crafting of the “Farewell Address:”

Let me pray you, therefore, to introduce a Section in the Address expressive of these sentiments, and recommendatory of the measure [a national university]; … Such a Section would come in very properly after the one which relates to our religious obligations, or in a preceding part, as one of the recommendatory measures to counteract the evils arising from Geographical discriminations. (GWC, 650.) (Emphasis added).

It was natural for Washington to connect his ideas with his understanding of religious liberty and religious obligations, for he already aimed to emphasize in the “Farewell” that,

[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens... And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle...

Promote then as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that that public opinion should be enlightened. (GWC, 521-22.)

Religion, then, constituted a fundamental element and background for “the general diffusion of knowledge,” and both were necessary “in proportion” as the government was founded in “public opinion.”

In his “Eighth Annual Message” Washington had declared the goal of assimilating “the principles, opinions, and manners, of our countrymen,” and that goal coincided with the goal declared in the “Circular Address of 1783.” There he argued that whatever would “dissolve” the Union or “lessen” the sovereign authority of the United States would in fact be hostile to liberty. (GWC, 243) It was no accident, then, that within the same time frame he could write to the Reformed German Congregation that “The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field,” adding to that declaration of intent his “…earnest wish and prayer, that the Citizens of the United States would make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them…” (GWC, 270)

In short, Washington conceived of religious liberty not as a side benefit of independence but rather as the objective for which independence was sought. “In war He directed the sword and in peace He has ruled in our councils,” he told the Hebrew Congregations in January 1790 (GWC, 546):

America, under the smiles of a Divine Providence, the protection of a good government, and the cultivation of manners, morals, and piety, cannot fail of attaining an uncommon degree of eminence in literature, commerce, agriculture, improvements at home and respectability abroad. (GWC, 546)

He was, in other words, suitably modest about his own agency in the transformation of the United States into the land of a chosen people. On the other hand, he was far from immodest in consistently asserting his understanding of what was necessary and his determined pursuit of the goal:

...to establish a general system of policy, which if pursued will ensure permanent felicity to the Commonwealth. I think I see a path, as clear and as direct as a ray of light, which leads to the attainment of that object. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy people. Happily the present posture of affairs and the prevailing disposition of my countrymen promise to co-operate in establishing those four great and essential pillars of public felicity. (GWC, 428.)

The “four great pillars” that Washington discerned in 1789 (letter to Lafayette) just happen to correspond perfectly with the four “pillars” that he prescribed in the 1783 “Circular Address:” indissoluble union, justice, “a proper peace establishment,” and that “harmony” among the people that occasions prosperity” and sometimes requires “sacrifice of individual advantages” in the interest of the community.

Reflection on Washington’s interest in just one of these four pillars – the American union – illustrates how closely interwoven were all aspects of Washington’s master design in founding the city of justice. Washington built up claims of justice sufficient to make lawmaking possible.

He succeeded because he placed the work of the Almighty above personal ambition and self-interest and urged the nation to do likewise. Washington’s deep religious faith and profound political wisdom can be seen, above all, in the way he converted the humble prayer of Micah (“What does God ask of man, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” – Micah 6:8) into an ambitious program to build on the city of justice.

That [God] would graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristicks of the Divine author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation. (GWC, 249)

[1] Alexander Hamilton, July 1795. Printed in Harold C. Syrett. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. New York: Columbia University Press. 1973. Vol. IX. P. 76.

[2]“Questions submitted to the Cabinet by the President,” Philadelphia, April 18, 1793. In Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1940. 32:419. Hereafter, Fitzpatrick.

[3] Correspondence of the French Ministers to the United States, 1791-1797. In Frederick Jackson Turner, ed. Annual Report. American Historical Association, 1903. p. 954. I have provided a full explanation of the counter-Machiavellian tendency of the American founding, or at least Washington’s founding, in “Machiavelli and Modernity,” in Angelo Codevilla, translator and editor. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

[4] Samuel Flagg Bemis. Washington's farewell address: a foreign policy of independence. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1934. p. 250-268; Reprinted from, The American historical review. vol. 39, no. 2. January 1934. Includes bibliographical references.

[5] Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers (numerous editions available, but the numbers used herein corresponding to the Cooke edition. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. Further references in text by essay number.

[6] This argument is presented in detail in Part II, “The Constitutionalism of The Federalist Papers,” in W. B. Allen (with Kevin A. Cloonan). The Federalist Papers: A Commentary “The Baton Rouge Lectures.” Peter Lang, Inc., New York, 2000. (Hereafter, Commentary.)

[7] Wall Street Journal. 24 June 1981. p.11.

[8] See Douglass Southall Freeman. George Washington: A Biography. New York: Scribners, 1948-57. vols. V & VI. Also, see N. K. Risjord. Chesapeake Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. chapters. 3-8, especially pages 84-85. Compare, John Marshall. The Life of George Washington. Philadelphia: James Crissy, 1838. [2d. edition]. chapters III & IV.

[9] General Orders, July 4, 1775, from Cambridge. In Allen, William B., ed. George Washington: A Collection. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1988. Hereafter, GWC.

[10] To the Inhabitants of Canada [1775]. GWC

[11] To General Thomas Gage, August 20, 1775. Fitzpatrick.

[12] To John Bannister, April 21, 1778, Valley Forge. GWC

[13] General Orders, March 1, 1778, Valley Forge. GWC

[14] To John Augustine Washington, May 31, 1776. GWC

[15] Hebrews 11:9-11

[16] One book insists in one chapter that Washington avoided mention of “God,” while in another chapter it quotes him making frequent such references.Os Guinness. Character Counts: Leadership Qualities in Washington, Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Solzhenitsyn. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.

[17] Echoing in a letter to Thomas Jefferson following ratification of the Constitution what, five years earlier, he had said to his troops: “happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this steubendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Indipendency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.” (Original Emphasis) “General Orders.” April 18, 1783, GWC. 237.