By: Kristen English
Blog Post #2
For my Historical Annotation Project, I choose Washington’s Farewell Address to annotate and analyze. George Washington wrote this letter, with the help of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, to “friends and fellow-citizens” as a farewell to his reign as President before retiring to Mount Vernon. His address was originally published in the American Daily Advertiser, September 19, 1796. His address was published under the name “The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on his declining of the Presidency of the United States” (whew! What a title). As popularity of the address continued growing it was reprinted in several newspapers and was even made into pamphlet form.
I think what drew me to this document was the historical significance that the document once held. The document, in it’s time, was celebrated as one of the greatest written works of all time. It was reprinted more than even the Declaration of Independence, and yet in modern history it is barely studied with emphasis being placed on understanding the meaning of the documents of the revolution. I remember briefly talking about the Farewell Address in my high school history class but we never really dove in to the document to interpret meaning and understanding to the tone and language Washington uses. I feel like it is important to bring light to the meaning of this document as Washington tried to directly set a path for the nation to follow after his presidency while also warning against several factors that could tear the new and fragile nation apart.
To fully understand this document, I feel like extensive research must be done on the language and meaning of different words used then vs. how they’re used now, the time period in general, and Washington’s view points on society and how he believed the government should be run to ensure the nation’s survival. A few of the challenges I have encountered while trying to research the document is that a great deal of sources don’t go too in depth with each and every word of the address, rather they take the address as a whole and analyze meaning from the summary of the document. With the annotation project I feel like it is important to be able to gather meaning from almost every sentence in the document and really break down what Washington was trying to convey with every word. I’m confident though that with harder and more extensive research than what I’ve done to date I will be able to properly understand and annotate the Farewell Address!
(side note: please enjoy this gif I found of Washington riding into battle on a puppy :) )