GENERAL ORDERS, 
No. 16. 
HEADQUARTERSOE THE ARMY, 
Adjutant General's Office, 
Washington, February J8, 1862 
I--The following concurrent resolutions of the two Houses of the 
Congress of the United States are published for the information of the 
Army: 
Resolved, That the two Houses will assemble in the Chamber of the 
House of Representatives on Saturday, the 22d day of February, 
instant, at 12 o’clock meridian, and that, in the presence of the two 
Houses of Congress thus assembled, the Farewell Address of George 
Washington to the People of the United States shall be read. And 
that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Rep- 
resentatives be requested to invite the President of the United States, 
the Heads of the several Departments, the Judges of the Supreme 
Court, the Representatives from all Foreign Governments near this 
Government, and such Officers of the Army and Navy, and distinguished 
citizens, as may then be at the seat of Government, to be present on 
that occasion. 
Resolved, That the President of the United States, Commander-in- 
Chief of the Army and Navy, be requested to direct that orders he 
issued for the reading, to the Army and Navy of the United States, of 
the Farewell Address of George Washington, or such parts thereof as 
he may select, on the 22d day of February, instant. 
II..In compliance witli the foregoing resolutions, the President of 
the United States, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, orders 
that the following extracts from the Farewell Address of George 
Washington, be read to the troops at every military post, and at the 
head of the several regiments and corps of the Army: 
“Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of our 
hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm 
the attachment. 
“The unity of government which constitutes you one people, is also 
now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice 2 
of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, 
your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very 
liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that 
from different causes, and from different quarters, much pains will be 
taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the convic- 
tion of this truth—as this is the puint in your political fortress against 
which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most con- 
stantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed— 
it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense 
value of your national union to your collective and individual happi- 
ness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable 
attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and to speak of it 
as a palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its 
preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may 
suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and 
indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to 
alienate .any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the 
sacred ties which now link together the various parts. 
“For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. 
Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a 
right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which 
belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just 
pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local dis- 
crimination. With slight shades of difference, you have the same 
religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a 
common cause, fought and triumphed together. The independence 
and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts, 
of common dangers, sufferings, and success. 
“While every part of our country feels an immediate and particular 
interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the 
united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, 
proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent 
interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and, what is of inesti- 
mable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those 
broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neigh- 
boring countries not tied together by the same government, which 3 
their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which 
opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate 
and embitter. Hence, likewise, they would avoid the necessity of 
those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of 
government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded 
as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that 
your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and 
that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of 
the other. 
“To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a government for 
the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the 
parts can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably expe- 
rience the infractions and interruptions which alliances in all times 
have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have im- 
proved upon your first essay by the adoption of a constitution of 
government better calculated than your former for an intimate union 
and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This 
government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and 
unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, 
completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, 
uniting security with energy, and containing within itself provision 
for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your 
support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acqui 
escence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims 
of true liberty. The basis of our political system is, the right of the 
people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But 
the constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit 
and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. 
The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish 
government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the 
established government. 
“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and 
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design 
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberations and 
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this funda- 4 
mental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize 
faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the 
place of the delegated will of the nation the will of party, often a 
small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and 
according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the 
public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous 
projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome 
plans, digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests 
“Of all the dispositions and habits Avhich lead to political pros- 
perity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain 
would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to 
subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of 
the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the 
pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not 
trace all their connexion with private and public felicity. Let it be 
simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for 
life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the 
instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with 
caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained with- 
out religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined 
education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both 
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of 
religious principles. 
“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring 
of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less 
force to every of free government. Who that is a sincere friend 
to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation 
of the fabric? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, 
institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as 
the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essen- 
tial that public opinion should be enlightened. 
“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate 
peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this con- 
duct; andean 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 5 
of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 
Wbo can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such 
a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages that might be 
lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has con- 
nected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experi- 
ment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles 
human nature. Alas ! it is rendered impossible by its vices. 
“ Harmony and a liberal intercourse with all nations are recom- 
mended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial 
policy should hold an equal and impartial hand ; neither seeking nor 
granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course 
of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the stream of 
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed 
(in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our 
merchants, to enable the government to support them) conventional 
rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and natural 
opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time 
abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; 
constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for 
disinterested favors from another—that it must pay with a portion of 
its independence for whatever it may accept under that character—that 
by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given 
equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with 
ingratitude for not having given more. There can be no greater error 
than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It 
is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to 
discard. 
“In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old affec- 
tionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting 
impression I could wish—that they will control the usual current of 
the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which 
has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even flatter 
myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some 
occasional good—that they may now and then recur to moderate the 
fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, 
to guard against the imposture of pretended patriotism—this hope will 6 
lie a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they 
have been dictated. 
“Though in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am 
unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my 
defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many 
errors. Whatever they may bo, I fervently beseech the Almighty to 
avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry 
with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with 
indulgence, and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its 
service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will 
be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of 
rest. 
“Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by 
that fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it 
the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, 
I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise 
myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in 
the midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws 
under a free government—the ever favorite object of my heart, and the 
happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.” 
By command of Major General McClellan: 
L. THOMAS, 
Adjutant General. 
Official: 
Assistant Adjutant General.