"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." That is how one of George Washington's famous lieutenants, Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, aptly and poetically described Washington -- the great Southerner, the great Virginian, the great Christian man and master of Mount Vernon. Above all, Washington was the great American soldier and statesman who, with others, secured the political independence of the American States upon their secession from the British Empire.
Since his death in 1799, much has been written on George Washington (1732-1799). But still, over two centuries after his passing, no writer has fully captured by description the whole man in his spirit and genius. And this is so because of the native power of the man himself and the wide diversity of his gifts, combined with the relative narrowness of focus of modern historians. Writers have understandably focused on Washington's remarkable and exciting military and political careers. In the process though, they have neglected Washington the intellect and thinker.
Specifically, the most neglected dimension of the man has been his capacity as speculative moral- and political-philosophical thinker, as evinced in striking philosophical flights and formulations, scattered throughout his famous Rules of Civility, his public addresses, and his private letters and official correspondence with other great men, including Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, John Adams, George Mason, Henry Laurens, Nathanael Greene, Patrick Henry, Comte D'Estaing, the Emperor of Germany, and the Marquis De Lafayette.
Washington's Farewell Address (Sept. 19 1796), in particular, contains timeless philosophical insight and wisdom that we desperately need today. In the Address, the section on foreign influence and alliances is so deep and profound and analytically solid that, as definitive causal explanation of certain central and fundamental phenomena of the human condition, it earns the great soldier and statesman the honorary title of "philosopher."
Washington's greatest fear upon leaving office as our first president was, that passionate attachment or passionate hostility toward this or that foreign Nation, on the part of our citizens and office-holders, would bring the brand-new country, the United States of America, to swift political ruin. His eloquent warnings, often brilliantly studded with deep geopolitical and moral-philosophical insight, should guide us, and indeed, haunt us as needed, today.
Washington's ideas on the dangers of foreign influence and foreign alliance are products of his long career as soldier and then as statesman. As a young man, as a British-colonial subject born and raised in colonial Virginia before the Revolution, he had fought against the French on the American frontier in the French and Indian War. After the American colonies grew to be fully self-governing states and declared their political independence, Washington led Americans, allied with France, in the military struggle to secure the secession of those states from the British Empire.
After the successful conclusion of the War for Independence, Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
To serve the emergent federal democratic republic and voluntary political union styled "the United States of America", Washington was unanimously elected twice to serve two successive terms as the new Republic's first president. In that role, Washington mediated between members of the two sharply-divided, newly-emergent political parties: the Federalists, who favored Britain, and the Democratic Republicans, who favored France. In his own cabinet, Jefferson, the Secretary of State, and Hamilton, the Secretary of Treasury, with their strong mutual antagonisms and unique genius, exemplified this great and passionate divide.
Washington's brilliant reflections on foreign policy in his Farewell Address were forged in the crucible of these military and political struggles and survive as philosophical distillations of that experience.
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George Washington was a Christian man who served as first head of a new Christian nation. His awareness of his own duties and responsibilities under God in that role as leader of a brand-new nation could hardly have been more keenly felt. As his writings and conduct fully attest, Washington was ever concerned to govern, both in domestic and foreign affairs, in strict accord both with the newly-ratified Constitution and with Christian principle as revealed by the (Triune) God in His spoken word (Creation) taken together with His written Word (the Bible).
And the Holy Bible attracts or repels, according to the reader's spiritual condition. And since Washington was a Christian, and since the Christian is ever-called and commanded by His Savior to be Christ-like, it is in no way impious to say, analogously, that close attention by the reader to the following excerpts from Washington's very-Christian Farewell Address will richly reward every thoughtful and truth-loving and peace-loving reader. On the other hand, the Address will bore and irritate and anger the vicious, the power-loving, and the war-mongering truth-haters. A mirror for the soul, it is. And so, dear reader, mind both how you go and what you are as you read the following excerpts [with emphases added]:
"Observe good faith and justice towards 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 no 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 that 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 than 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 towards ALL should be cultivated."
"The Nation, which indulges towards 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 the APPEARANCES of a virtuous sense of obligation a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or 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!"
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I implore 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." [first emphasis Washington's)
"Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and 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."
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And so now, dear reader, it takes very little imagination indeed to see how Washington's powerful and wise words apply to the current dire geopolitical and internal circumstances of our 21st Century America. We need only ask: What foreign Nations have our powers-that-be declared America's "friends" and "allies" and "partners", and what Nations have been declared our "adversaries" or "enemies"? The answers are obvious.
As Christian Americans, actuated by the spirit and wisdom of Washington, let us be clear and intelligent and truly Scriptural about what will truly bless and truly curse our country Let us shun deep and deadly delusion; delusion all the more deadly because based on a thoroughly incompetent and God-hating reading of the Bible.
And so, what is a foreign policy that is truly Christian? It is policy infused with Christian wisdom about fallen and sinful human nature, in citizens and leaders, and in foreign subjects and their leaders. It is a policy that seeks to minimize and to civilize war as much as possible. It is a policy premised on the recognition that officious inter-meddling in the affairs of other nations is contrary to the interests of Americans. It is an America-First, non-interventionist policy that rejects ALL globalist interventionist ventures.
Alliance with a foreign Nation or Nations should be shunned in ALL circumstances where the existential survival and true well-being of one's own Nation is not in question. And, recalling Washington's Revolutionary experience with the French, any alliance for primal existential reasons is to be promptly and formally ended when the threat to the allied parties has passed. So, the problem is not with alliances per se, but only with entangling alliances. And one further interesting and apt point: Christ's praise (John 15:13) of the man who lays down his life for another does not apply in relations between Nations, since the God-ordained role of government is to protect society.
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And so, as we just saw, George Washington, in his philosophical mode, was penetrating, subtle, circumspect, wise, eloquent, and, best of all, Godly. And in his Godliness, he cared for us, his posterity, enough to impart to us vital insight and nation-saving wisdom.
So now, dear reader, remember and take to heart his pious seriousness about true national duty and interest, and his manly Christian devotion to peace and harmony among ALL Nations. Remember too, since your country and family and liberty depend on it, his incisive descriptions: of the connections between national happiness and national virtue; of how favor and disfavor for foreign Nations will lead one's own Nation astray; of the great danger of ignorant, irrational, and deluded citizenry; and of the imperative need to avoid projects of hostility. And, to extrapolate from the aforesaid, Washington, if he were with us here today, would bid us eliminate and outlaw, by wise reform, the enormously powerful and entrenched vested interests in our country that now constantly clamor for murderous projects of hostility under the guise of national interest and defense. These interests include, most notably, the corrupt and traitorous military-industrial complex, a bloody monster that another president (Eisenhower) warned us about in his own farewell address (1960).
And finally, Washington's crowning philosophical insight was that: A necessary condition of knowing and upholding the true interests of our country is obedience to the Lord's express command to us to love without favor ALL of our national neighbors.
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Winston McCuen, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Furman University, holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Emory University and is a John C. Calhoun scholar. A native of Greenville County, South Carolina, he is the son of Dr. William Garrison McCuen and Anne Ballenger King McCuen.
