opposition to the designed gehry eisenhower memorial and a film about president eisenhower produced by the u.s. army at 10:30 p.m. >> next is the united states senate's annual reading of president george washington's 1796 farewell address. this tradition dates back to 1862. each year the senate selects one of its members to read the address, alternating parties. this year, senator jeanne shaheen of new hampshire was selected. and it was the first time a female senator read the address since 1998. this is 40 minutes. >> washington's farewell address to the people of the united states. friends and fellow citizens, the period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the united states being not far distant and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed and designating the person who is to be clothed with

that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that i should now apprise you of the resolution i have formed. to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made. i beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all of the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country and that in withdrawing the tender of service which silence and my situation might imply, i am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interests. no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness but i'm supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both. the acceptance of and continuance hitherto in the office to which your sufficient

suffrages have twice called me to a deference for what appeared to your desire. i constantly hope it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives i was not at liberty disregard to return to that retirement which i had been reluctantly drawn. the strength of inclination to do previous to the last election had led to the preparation of an address to the declare to to you. but mature reflection on the then-perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence impel me to abandon the idea. i rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or impropriety and many persuaded whatever

partial ity might be retained for my services in the present circumstances of the country you will not disapprove my determination to retire. the impressions with which i first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. in the discharge of this trust i will only say that i have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the government, the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others has strengthened the motives of difficult dense of myself and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. satisfied that if any circumstances have been given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary. i have the consolation to

believe that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it. in looking forward to the moment which is to terminate the career of my political life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgement of that debt of gratitude which i owe to my beloved country. for the many honors it has conferred upon me, still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me and for the opportunities i have since enjoyed of manifesting my unviable attachment by services faithful in persevering though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. if benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals that under circumstances in which the passions agitated in every direction were liable to mislead and missed appearances,

sometimes dubious, the vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging in situations in which not unfrequently one of success has countenance the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and a guarantee of the plans by which they were affected. profoundly penetrated with this idea, i shall carry it with me to my grave as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its be neve beneficence that your union and brotherly affection may be per pep wall, that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue. the people of states under the auspices of liberty may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a

use of this blessing as well acquire to them the gore of recommending it to the applause, the affection and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it. here perhaps i ought to stop but a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occasion like the present to offer to your solemn contemplation and to recommend to your frequent review some sentiments which are the result of much reflection of no inconsiderable observation and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. these will be offered to you with the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend who can possibly have no personal motive to bias this council nor can i forget

as an encouragement to it your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion. interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. the unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. it is justly so for it is the main pillar and the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace aboard of your safety, prosperity, of the very liberty which you so highly prize. but as it's 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 in your

political fortress which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively though often covertly and insidiously directed, it is of infinite movement 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 yourself 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 can be abandoned and indignantly frowning upon the sacred ties which ling together the various parts.

for this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. the name of american, which belongs to you and your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appalachian derived from local discriminations. with slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits and political principles. you have in a common cause fought and triumphed together, the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils. and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings and successes. but these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest.

here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole. the north, in an unrestrained intercourse with the south, protected by the equal laws of a common government, binds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing industry. the south, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of the north, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. turning partly into its own channels the seaman of the north it finds its particular navigation invigorated and while it contributes in different ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally adapted. the east. in a like intercourse with the

west, already finds and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water will more and more mind a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or s at home. the west derives from the east supplies requisite to its growth and comfort and which is perhaps of greater consequence it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence and the future maritime strength of the atlantic side of the union, directed by an indissoluble community of interests by one nation. anyone other continue ur which the west can hole this advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate from unnatural connection with any foreign power must be intrinsically precarious.

while then every part of your country feels an immediate and particular interest in union all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionately greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and what is of an estimable value. they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same government which their own rivalship alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances attachments and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which under any form of government

are inauspicious to liberty and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. in this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other. these considerations speak of persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of patriotic desire. is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? let experience solve it. to listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. we are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions will afford a happy issue to the experiment. it is well worth a fair and full

experiment. with such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability there will always be reason to distress the patriotism of those in any quarter who may ever to weaken its bands. in contemplating the causes which may disturb our union it occur as a matter of serious concern any grant should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, northern and southern, atlantic and western, whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. one of the expedience of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.

you cannot shield yourselves to much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these representations. they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. the inhabitants of our western country have lightly had a useful lesson on this head. they've seen in the negotiation by the executive and in the unanimous ratification by the senate of the treaty with spain and in the universal satisfaction of the event throughout the united states, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the general government and in the atlantic states unfriendly to their interests in regard to the mississippi. they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with great britain and that with spain, which secure to them everything they could desire in respect to our foreign relations

towards confirming their prosperity. will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the union by which they were procured? will they not henceforth be death to those advisers, if such they are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens. to the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable. no alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute. they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances and all times have experienced. sensible of this momentous truth you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a constitution of government, better calculated than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious management of your

common concerns. this government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles and the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment has a just claim to your confidence and your support. respect for its authority compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoyed by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. the basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. that the constitution, which at any time exists, until changed

by an explicit act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. the very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish a government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. all obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract or awe the regular deliberations and action of the constituted authorities are destructive of this fundamental principle and a fatal tendency. they serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of party often as small, but artful and enterprising minority of the community and according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the

ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. however combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious men and unprincipled men will be able to subvert the pow power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reign of government destroying the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. towards the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present, happy state, it is

requisite that you not only steadily discountenance irregular opposition to authorities but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretext. one method of assault may be to affect in the forms of the constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. and all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments, as of other human institutions. that experience is the sure standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of the country. that facility and changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion exposes to perpetual change from end leless variety of hypothesis and opinion and remember especially that for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so

extensive as ours a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. liberty itself will find in such a government with powers properly distributed and adjusted its surest guardian. it is indeed little else than a name where government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws and maintain all in the security and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property. i've already intimated to you the dangers of parties in the state with particular references to the founding of them on geographical discrimination. let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. this spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature.

having its roots in the strongest passions of the human mind, it exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled or repressed, but in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy. the alternate domination of one faction over another sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities is a spiteful despotism. but this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism, the disorders and miseries which result gradual lynn 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 purpose of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty. without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. it serves always to distract the public councils and infeeble the public administration that agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. there is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful

checks upon the administration of government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. this within certain limits is probably true and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism look upon the spirit of party. but in those of the popular character, in government's purely elective it is a spirit not to be encouraged. from their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every s salutary purpose. and constant danger of excess the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. a fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame, less instead of warming it should consume. it is important likewise that

the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional sphere, avoid iing in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. the spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all of the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government a real despotism. a just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominate in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. the necessity of reciprocal checks and the exercise of political power by dividing and distributing it into different depositories and constituting each the guardian of the public wheel against invasion of the others, has been events by experiments ancient and modern some

of them in our country and under our own eyes. to preserve them must be as necessary to institute them. if in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitution designates. but let there be no change by usurpation though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. the precedent must always greatly overbalance and permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. of all of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.

and vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert great pillar human happiness, the props of duty 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 of 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 particular 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. the rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. who is a sincere friend to it can look to indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric. 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 public opinion should be enlightened. as a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. one method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating piece but

remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace which to discharged debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. the execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives. but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate to facilitate to them the performance of their duty. it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payments of debt there must be revenue, that to have revenue there must be taxes, that no taxes can be