Union: A Main Prop of Our Liberty—George Washington
Liberty Letters Quote of the Day, George Washington
While, then, every part of our country thus 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, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable 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 governments, which their own rivalships 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.
Source: Farewell Address, 1796.
Liberty Letters are researched, compiled, and edited (with occasional commentary, explanatory notes, spelling modernizations, abbreviation elimination and paragraph reformatting – for easier reading) by Steve Farrell. As amended Copyright © 2011 Steve Farrell and The Moral Liberal.
