Observe good faith and justice toward 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
not distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided
by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan
would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that
Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended
by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! Is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential that that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable
feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult
and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions
of dispute occur.

Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and
resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government
sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other
times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other
sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the
favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists,
and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the
latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges
denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what
ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom
equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the
favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with
popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public
opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base of foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments
are particularly alarming to the truly
enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to
practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment
of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against
the insidious wiles of the foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free
people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one
of the most baneful foes of republican government.
But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it
becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality
for one foreign nation and excessive dislike fo another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one
side, and serve to veil the even second the arts of influence on the other.
Real patriots who may resist the
intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause
and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending
our commercial relations to have
with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them
be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be
engaged in frequent controversies, the cause of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore,
it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the
ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one
people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury form external
annoyance; when we may take such a attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to
be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will
not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by
justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?
Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the
toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean,
as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing
engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that honesty is always the
best policy. I repeat, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion
it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we
may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even
our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or
preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to
define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of
intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be
from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view
that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its
independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself in
the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for
not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or
calculate upon real favors from nation to nation.
It is a illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend I dare not hope they will
make the strong and lasting impression I could wish--that they will control the usual current of the passions or
prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even
flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good--that they may now and
then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against
the impostures of pretended patriotism--this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by
which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated
the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the
assurance of my own conscience is that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe my proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my
plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice and by that of your representatives in both Houses of Congress, the
spirit of that measurer has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country,
under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a
neutral position. Having taken it, I determined as far as should depend upon me to maintain it with moderation,
perseverance, and firmness.

The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not necessary on this occasion to detail.
I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any
of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without
any thing more, from the obligation which
justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the
relations of peace and amity toward other nations.

The inducement of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your won reflections and
experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and
mature its yet recent institution, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency
which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am
nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.
Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may
tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence,
and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of
incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love toward it which is
so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I
anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet
enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free
government--the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares,
labors, and dangers.

Go Washington.

___________________

James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents
(Bureau of National Literature 1897) 213-216