For the context of this post please read – or reread – Part I.
Washington writes: The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power…has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern… To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation…it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
Promote…as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. …it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
….remember, that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it…
…avoiding, likewise, the accumulation of debt…by vigorous exertions…not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives…to facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct…and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?
The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas – is it rendered impossible by vices?
The nation which indulges towards another and habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject…the peace, often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim…
Searcher-Seeker 
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