Still further to promote and secure these inestimable ends there is nothing
which can have a more powerful tendency than the careful cultivation of
harmony, combined with a due regard to stability, in the public councils.

GO. WASHINGTON

***

State of the Union Address
George Washington
December 3, 1793

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Since the commencement of the term for which I have been again called into
office no fit occasion has arisen for expressing to my fellow citizens at
large the deep and respectful sense which I feel of the renewed testimony
of public approbation. While on the one hand it awakened my gratitude for
all those instances of affectionate partiality with which I have been
honored by my country, on the other it could not prevent an earnest wish
for that retirement from which no private consideration should ever have
torn me. But influenced by the belief that my conduct would be estimated
according to its real motives, and that the people, and the authorities
derived from them, would support exertions having nothing personal for
their object, I have obeyed the suffrage which commanded me to resume the
Executive power; and I humbly implore that Being on whose will the fate of
nations depends to crown with success our mutual endeavors for the general
happiness.