Did George Washington Really Say This?

by Liberty and Power

Robert Higgs is trying to track down the source of a famous quotation. Can anyone help him? Higgs writes:"I am trying to confirm the following oft-quoted statement by George Washington, for which I have been unable to locate an exact source citation:"

'Government is not reason, it is not eloquence--it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.'

Higgs adds:"Some sites give Washington's farewell address (Sept. 1796) as the source. I checked this address in Commager's collection and failed to find the quotation there, but Commager's version has some ellipses, so he may have left this statement out."

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Sheldon Richman - 1/5/2006

When I researched some years ago, the most I could I find out was that it was in dispute. I think it's one of "those" quotations. Have you checked the book "They Never Said It?" The author went after just such quotes.

Tom G Palmer - 1/5/2006

Bob, I've searched for that quotation for years, as well. I first saw it in the early 1970s. I have looked, but I have never found a reliable source. I doubt that he ever said or wrote it.

Robert Higgs - 1/5/2006

Thank you, Paul. If you google the joint entries "washington" and "fearsome master," you get 535 hits with variations of this famous quotation. Not all the users are writing with crayon on colored paper, either. Evidently, inquiring minds have been too quick to credit this noble statement to the Father of Our Blessed Nation-State.

The more I learn about Washington, the less this statement sounds as if he might have made it. I had simply assumed that it, like nearly everything else he wrote or delivered orally in public from the mid-1770s onward, must have flowed from Hamilton's pen.

William J. Stepp - 1/4/2006

As I was cooling my heels doing a software reinstall this afternoon,
I skimmed through Washington's state papers in vol. 1 of Richardson's compilation and couldn't find the quote. It's definitely not in the Farewell Address.
If he did say it, it probably would have been in a letter to a like-minded compatriot. If he had put that in, say, one of his annual messages, he might have been run out of New York by a lynch mob.

I did find these chestnuts in the Richardson volume:

In the Address of the Senate to GW of Jan. 11, 1790, the senior solons said this:

Literature and science are essential to the preservation of a free constitution; the measures of Government should therefore be calculated to strengthen the confidence that is due to that important truth. Agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, forming the basis of the wealth and strength of our confederated Republic, must be the frequent subject of our deliberation, and shall be advanced by all proper means in our power....

The junior solons replied to GW the next day:

We concur with you in the sentiment that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures are entitled to legislative protection, and that the promotion of science and literature will contribute to the security of a free Government....

GW replied to both thanking them for their "salutary" and "prudent counsels".

What's a little pillage brokering between friends?

John Adams, VP and President of the Senate, wrote in this address to GW of Dec. 10, 1796:

The necessity of accelerating the establishment of certain useful manufactures by the intervention of legislative aid and protection and the encouragement due to agriculture by the creation of boards (composed of intelligent individuals) to patronize this primary pursuit of society are subjects which will readily engage our most serious attention.

A national university may be converted to the most useful purposes....

GW replied back Dec. 12 thanking the chief solon and his cronies for "a concurrence in sentiment with me on the various topics which I presented for your information and deliberation...."

No rebuttal or even mild rebuke to Adams' mercantilism.
So much for his free market bona fides.

Paul A Sand - 1/4/2006

This page: http://www.saf.org/pub/rkba/general/BogusFounderQuotes.htm
indicates that the quote is probably bogus.