The United States has a very rich and eventful history dating from the first settlers to arrive at Jamestown to the present day. Within this time frame, many leaders have emerged to add their own personal achievements and successes to this rich history. One is particular is our first President George Washington. Washington is well known for his tenacious personality, his drive for freedom against Brittan, and finally is desire to keep newly liberated United States unified. Washington shows all of this in his Farewell Address once he stated that he would not run for a third term. In this address he advises the country to abandon a party system, beware of foreign alliances, and establish a country based on religion and morality. The major point that Washington heavily address is the eradication of political parties within the US. According to Washington political parties "agitate[s] the community with ill-founded and false alarms;" meaning that political parties cause a disruption within the community's cohesion. Political parties can cause a huge schism between groups of people. Since parties have a certain platform that expresses a groups moral, economical, and social views, it can be easy and often common place for those of opposing parties to be have tension. Washington knew that this would be the case when if political parties continued. Each party would have their own agenda meaning that they would focus on the parties interest and not truly advocate for the countries
To help us maintain the efficiency of our government, George Washington gave our country words of advice in his Farewell address. His Farewell address was in 1796, on the eve of September 19. He mentioned that he would not be running in the next election and that his time as president was up. Washington, with the country’s welfare in mind, wanted the nation to obtain and maintain felicity. He had decided that he would give the future president and the people of the nation advice based on his experiences as president. His words of wisdom consists of telling us to stay united, follow the constitution, and to stay neutral.
George Washington himself wanted to avoid a party system in America. Unfortunately, even when saying this he was part of the beginning of one of the first parties in United States politics. There have been many different parties surface since the beginning of the American political system. They all have different thoughts, policies, and motivations. Each party has come and gone, some have made significant contributions and others have not. The first split, and beginning of the party system, came with the differentiation between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. These two parties were extremely different in thought, design, and status of people involved. This paper, will deal with
Today America is one of the wealthiest, strongest, and hardworking countries in the world. It has population of over three hundred million and growth rate of 0.97% annually. America as a nation is known to have done many great contributions to the world such as: the idea of presidency, inventing telephone, discovering electricity, inventing planes, the first nation to put a man on moon, and many more. America has grown and multiplied over time and it is still increasing. Even though today America stands out apart from other countries, it was built from nothing but scrap.
If the nation was not neutral in foreign affairs the country would become divided. In Washington’s Farewell Address, he warned the country about having political division because he believed that would also separate the country. George Washington’s contributions were attempts to keep the country unified and out of foreign wars. President Washington’s ideas such as establishing a cabinet and policies such as neutrality helped stabilize government.
Another focus Washington included in his farewell address was his strong support for religion and morality. Washington touched upon explaining how morality cannot be achieved without religion thus proclaiming the importance of religion. He proceeded to talk about how morality was the key to electing popular candidates running for government and if religion is not emphasized in the union, morality is hard to attain which corrupts government. Another main focus Washington promoted was how political parties should be repressed. He felt that the political parties tend to get out of hand in competing with each other and thus cause distractions in the government. The concern he showed was strongly toward the Republican-Democratic Party and the Federalist Party.
One of the main dangers that President Washington sees are the political parties that are, at this point, just starting to be formed by people like Hamilton and Jefferson. Washington doesn’t like the idea of a divided government because he believes it is not in the best interest of the people and nation. He clarifies this when he writes, “The unity of government which constitutes you one people is
Unity was something Washington believed was important. George Washington concluded after 8 years of presidency that unity was key to the success of the United States. In his address, he wrote that “the unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you” (pg 1 paragraph 2). The first president was trying to tell the American people that the unity of our government is important and should be important to the people. After 8 years, Washington watched and saw how Hamilton and Jefferson fought and how they were starting to divide into parties. He knew, as president that division could lead to fighting, which could lead to the weakening of America. The weakness of America
The often told story of America’s founding begins the Founding fathers waged a revolution and created a unique place called the United States of America. This story may include the early Jamestown colony and puritan colonists, and at times deal with the depollution and dispossession of the America’s native inhabitants. However frequently the complex nature of America’s prerevolutionary era is left out. Daniel Richter offers a refreshing non-teleological revision by showing that the United States has a much deeper history. Richter presents America as a nation with multiple pasts that stretch back as far as the middle ages. These pasts, he argues, continue to be felt in the present. Richter’s history utilizes a vast array of primary sources and his cultural history spans more than seven centuries. Richter works to recover the histories of an intermingling sort of individuals from North America, Europe, and Africa. The struggle for control of land and resources of these individuals took place in a global context. This multilayer struggle gradually gave rise to a distinctive American culture. Richter argues that by dissecting and understanding this culture on its own—and not as a build-up to an inevitable revolution—reveals the origins of American history.
EQ: how did the domestic and foreign policies of George Washington’s presidency bridge the new nation together or tear it apart?
There are many individuals in American History, whom we as Americans regard for their courage and audacity in shaping our nation. We learn in our history classes the great accomplishments of our founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin. One other great founding father and our First President, George Washington was one whom we learned much about. We learn in school that he is as a prime example of leadership, citizenship, and overall individual achievement for his many contributions to our nation’s earliest struggles. But although we are taught that George Washington was this man of great disposition, no man is without his flaws. Many scholars have sought to enlighten individuals to these cracks in the Nation’s
Washington saw the countries dividing along political lines, and foresaw endangers of partisan affecting national unity. He urged the American people to avoid political parties, believing that it would lead to the “ruins of public liberty (50).” He strongly believed that the political parties had “served to distract… [and] agitate the Community will ill-founded jealousies and false alarms (51).” Washington exposed the intentions of political parties by saying, “The alternate domination” of one party over another will lead to a “frightful despotism (49).” In other words, hyperpartisan, influenced by a revenge seeking spirit, will hand over trust and absolute power to the
After Washington became president, people started forming political parties based on how they thought the government should be run. Washington did not like the idea of the country being divided into “factions,” as he called them. But the problem was that this was happening
First, Washington held a neutral stance on political parties. The First Party System itself emerged as a result of Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality between the United States, France, and Britain. Federalists and Republicans first differed on the issue of the French Revolution and who to support between France and Britain. Washington states his own neutrality between the two nations in that proclamation, therefore stating his neutrality between the two parties as well. It is impossible for Washington to have been the turning point of the First Party System since he had no affiliation with either Federalists or Republicans. Next, Washington, in his neutral position, was also wildly popular, voted into office unanimously by the electoral college as President. With this massive popularity among the American people, Washington was also able to keep the emerging new political positions around him in check under his authority, easily allowing him to keep the United States generally
Most people have realized that our country has changed over the last 220 years, but most have not realized that the issues our country is facing today are issues that were recognized by our Founding Fathers during the beginning of our country. After careful researching George Washington’s prodigious address to the citizens of America at the end of his second and final term, I believe that his ideas on issues that plague our current government were spot on, and if we had listened to them, we may not be in the position that we are currently
Have you ever wondered what the president's promised us?Well president Barack Obama promised to help improve this country .He helped U.S citizens get affordable health care. Obama states all the problems our nation is having and how we will strengthen them and improve our country.George washington says he wants to help impove the government. He says that our new free government is better than other governments, it shows this by winning the hearts of its citizens and respect of the world.He also says that he wants to make a new and free government that can’t be compared to other governments .