1. G. Washington (1796): "The unity of gov't wch constitutes you one people is...a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty wch you so highly prize."
2. "It is easy to foresee that...much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth...batteries of internal & external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed [against it]."
3. "[I]t is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it..."
4. "[You should] accustom yourselves to think & speak of it [national unity] as the palladium of your political safety & prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned."
5. "[You should] indignantly frown 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."
6. Perhaps @JeffFlake could invite @senatemajldr to join him for a group reading of Washington's Farewell Address. Unless Washington is now too much of a RINO for Trump's @gop.
7. "The disorders & miseries which result [from internal division] gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an individual..."
8. "...and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."
9. Full text of Washington's Farewell Address (written primarily by Alexander Hamilton). avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/w…
10. The hip-hop version of the Address.
