8 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.
9 The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now
dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your
peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty,
which you so highly prize. But as it is 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 against which the
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of
infinite moment, 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 yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of
your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with
jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a
suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly
frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion
of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now
link together the various parts.
Liberty and unity are
interlaced in George Washington's mind. Here was a provincial Virginian
gentleman who had seen the United Colonies become the United States.
G.W. was once a man of Virginia, but now he is an American. During the
American Revolution he had the opportunity to work alongside men from
all parts of the country. While President he traveled to the states of
the new Union, particularly focusing on the North. Here in the 8th and
9th paragraphs he implores the people to closely guard against division from
those who would foment it from within and from without. The people
would not listen and seventy years later the nation descended into Civil
War. Now, to be clear, Washington is not advocating Union at any
cost. He goes on later to talk about this concept. Fake Unity is
employed temporarily to later digress into deeper division. Unity based on nothing isn't unity. But Unity based on a cause, creed, shared dependency, is a lasting union. He is
though warning the people to guard genuine unity closely. Without it,
our great Nation falls. I wonder what George Washington would think of
the 99% vs. 1% debate being discussed today, or the Blue State vs. Red State talked about by the pundits. I wonder what George
Washington would think of Party Politics and pundits division of voting
blocs for upcoming elections. I wonder what George Washington would say about the pandering of our politicians today to every special interest.
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