It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Address to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, August 17, 1790
I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to John Francis Mercer, September 9, 1786
Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity toward other nations.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
Men's minds are as variant as their faces. Where the motives of their actions are pure, the operation of the former is no more to be imputed to them as a crime, than the appearance of the latter; for both, being the work of nature, are alike unavoidable.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, attributed, Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to the members of the Volunteer Association and other Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland who have lately arrived in the City of New York, December 2, 1783
An army of asses led by a lion is vastly superior to an army of lions led by an ass.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, attributed, The Long Gray Line
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