https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/28/the-fatal-attraction-of-faction/
So far, 2020 has been a dystopian nightmare from George Washington’s perspective. He was once “first in war, first in peace, and first in the minds of his countrymen,” as Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee eulogized him. But now statues of Washington are being toppled, damaged and defaced.
Our first president, who paid careful attention to setting precedents that might allow America not to only survive, but to “live long and prosper,” would find such acts nearly a mirror image of his hopes for what could make our experiment in liberty last. How do we know? Just look at his emphatic warnings to do everything possible to avoid the violence of faction in his 1796 farewell address in contrast to the violence of faction that has played out on our city streets.
Washington offered “sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.” In particular, he insisted that we keep “indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest.”
One of the expedients of party to acquire influence … is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other[s]. 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.