A bike trip that begins with Washington Monument and ends with Washington’s Mount Vernon home along the Potomac, a river that flows through the nation’s capital, does not only offer a delightful experience of rich marshes and lush woodland and nice views of waterfront houses, marinas, sailing boats, and flights taking off from an airport named by a president, but also time and ample material to eschew: where the nation came from and where it is going.
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George Washington, the first president, intended to step down after his first term, but ran for a second term because he was convinced that the intense tensions between Alexander Hamilton (Secretary of the Treasury then) and Thomas Jefferson (Secretary of State) and divisions between the newly formed Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties led by them would rip apart the country without his leadership. He tried to remain neutral during his terms.
In his farewell address after the second term, Washington warned of the danger of party politics to the State. He pointed out: “One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.”
He said “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism… and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
He advised that political parties must be restrained in a popularly elected government because “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.”
Read full text of his address here.
Indeed, the parties have evolved into living beings of their own over time, and the sole purpose is to win election or get reelected. Today the opposition of parties goes so extreme that obstruction becomes a standard policy. It seems that only a disaster like the Great Depression could bring them temporarily closer. But why does the country have to suffer such tremendous pain for parties to comprise? Where does “for the people” go?
