At the time Washington composed this address, it was New Englanders that were agitating for secession; not the South. I doubt he had any idea that his words about preserving the Union would be so harshly ignored by people from his own state a few decades later. I also doubt that he understood just how difficult it would be to eradicate slavery. He felt trapped in the culture that promoted it and had hoped that the constitutional slave importation provisions would eventually kill off the practice.

Washington’s words about permanent foreign alliances or animosities have only been partially heeded. There have been great successes and great failures of this since his day. But in a world where rogue states can threaten even nations on the other side of the earth, I wonder what Washington would say about dealing with belligerents like North Korea and Iran.