Lot 32
  • 32

george washington as first president of the united states

Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 USD
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Description

  • The Legacy of the Father of his Country. Address of George Washington... to his Fellow Citizens on Declining Being Considered a Candidate for their future Suffrages. Boston: John Russell and by David West 1796.
  • Paper, Ink
16mo (6 3/8 x 3 7/8 in; 160 x 98 mm). Original marbled paper wrappers with "Washington’s Farewell Address" handwritten on the first cover. Stain on the upper left corner of the 4 first leaves, and on the upper right corner of the 10 first leaves. 

Provenance

“Ikabod Tucker’s / 1796” (ink inscription on inside of front wrapper). Ichabod Tucker graduated Harvard in 1791, and began to practice law. He served as clerk for the court of Essex for more than 30 years, was president of the Essex Historical Society and Salem Athenaeum, and was a member of Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society.  See the Ichabod Tucker House: http://mass.historicbuildingsct.com/?p=3868

 

Literature

Evans 31530; Sabin 101553.

Catalogue Note

THE NAME OF AMERICAN, WHICH BELONGS TO YOU, IN YOUR NATIONAL CAPACITY, MUST ALWAYS EXALT THE JUST PRIDE OF PATRIOTISM, MORE THAN ANY APPELLATION DERIVED FROM LOCAL DISTINCTIONS.”

EARLY EDITION BY BOSTON PRINTER JOHN RUSSELL. Washington’s Farewell Address was first printed in Philadelphia on September 19, 1796 by David Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser. Other newspapers quickly followed suit. The editors of this edition include a forward justifying their pamphlet; they argue that gazette and newspaper formats were too fragile and would not survive.

Throughout his two terms, Washington was keenly aware of the precedents he was setting for the new nation. Washington issued his Farewell Address in the form of an open letter on 17 September 1796. Despite pleas by members of the Federalist Party to seek a third term, Washington expresses his intention to retire and gives parting advice on domestic and international matters of state. Few of the precedents Washington established were as closely followed as the two-term tradition, and when it was broken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly 150 years later, it prompted the passage of the 22nd  Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which formally limited the presidency to two terms.

A proponent of a strong national government, Washington warns against the dangers of sectionalism, and criticizes “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” referring to the pro-French sentiments of Jefferson and the Republicans. Washington’s policy during the wars between Great Britain and France in the early 1790s had been one of strict neutrality. Washington’s advice against joining a permanent alliance was heeded for more than a century and a half.

Additionally, he warns against political parties and factions, cautions against too strong a military establishment, and stresses the need for good public credit: “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 peace, 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 exertion in time of peace to discharge the 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 co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate. …”