"If it can be esteemed a happiness to live in an age productive of great and interesting events, we of the present age are very highly favored. The rapidity of national revolutions appears no less astonishing than their magnitude. In what they will terminate is known only to the Great Ruler of events; and confiding in His wisdom and goodness, we may safely trust the issue to Him, without perplexing ourselves to seek for that which is beyond human ken, only taking care to perform the parts assigned to us in a way that reason and our own conscience approve." _From a Speech to Both Houses of Congress, 1790_ "To administer justice to and receive it from every power with whom they are connected will, I hope, be always found the prominent feature in the administration of this country; and I flatter myself that nothing short of imperious necessity can occasion a breach with any of them. "Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one of which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours, it is proportionably essential. To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways; by convincing those who are entrusted with the public administration that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and to provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the latter, and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachment with an inviolable respect to the laws." _From a Speech to Both Houses of Congress, 1794_ "Let praise be given to every description of citizens. Let them persevere in their affectionate vigilance over that precious depository of American happiness, the Constitution of the United States. Let them cherish it, too, for the sake of those, from every clime, daily seeking a dwelling in our land. "Let us unite, therefore, in imploring the Supreme Ruler of nations to spread His holy protection over these United States; to enable us at all times to root out internal seditions and put invasion to flight; to perpetuate to our country that prosperity which His goodness has already conferred; and to verify the anticipations of this government being a safeguard to human rights." * * * * * WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO THE ARMY _Dated at Rocky Hill, near Princeton, New Jersey, November 2, 1783_