George
Washington's Farewell Address
A few years ago someone challenged me to find a complete copy of
George Washington's farewell address. I
called the big city library nearby and the party that answered never heard of
such a document. I called another
library and they said, "yes we have it." I asked if it was complete and she said, "yes!" So I checked it out. I also found a copy in a large
bookstore. It had a date of 1990. I compared the one I had checked out with
the one I bought and they were not alike in many places.
Now I wondered what the original was really like compared to
these. Next I looked in a used
bookstore specializing in old books.
Sure enough they had a copy. It
was dated 1928. Realizing that the 1928
model was probably correct, I now made my comparisons. I was astounded that many of the references
George Washington had made about Christianity and his beliefs had been
omitted. The newer versions were
considerably shorter indicating much had been left out.
I later obtained a text version from "Project Gutenberg"
and we now have this on our web site.
It's truly complete and unedited…. the farewell address of the first
president of the United States to congress and the American people. Please take the time to read this and we
invite you to compare it with whatever version you can find. You might even want to print out a copy to
keep.
Editor