In the final installment of this excerpt from George Washington's monumental Farewell Address, the out-going President says that true religion and morality are the same as good policy. Indeed, have we not all learned that "honesty is the best policy?" So, too, then, are a fear of God and fidelity to good morals, the best policy. Such a simple concept, yet missed by ever so many.
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George Washington's Farewell Addres, Complete
The unity of Government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you.
It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of the very Liberty which you so highly prize.But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point on your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most consistently and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union, to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country form the rest; or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
Of 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 labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens.
The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.
Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice*; 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.
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring
of popular government.
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct;; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a peoples always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
* reference to the phrase "...so help me God."
The complete text may be found here:
George Washington's Complete Farewell Address
