Red Flags, Bright Hopes: Four Presidential Farewell Addresses

Red Flags, Bright Hopes: Four Presidential Farewell Addresses
In his farewell address, George Washington celebrated American successes and praised the cause of liberty. A detail from "George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait)," 1796, by Gilbert Stuart. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
Updated:
In his article “Presidential Farewell Addresses,” Gleaves Whitney notes that before Harry Truman only three presidents had composed formal farewell addresses to the nation.
As Whitney tells us, three factors likely account for this circumstance. First, some of the early chief executives held George Washington and his farewell address in such esteem that they deemed it improper to deliver one of their own. Then, too, eight of our 45 presidents have died in office. Finally, a president’s last Annual Message to Congress, today called the State of the Union Address, falls near his final days in office, causing some chief executives to combine a farewell with that report.
Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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