As he prepared to leave office in 1796, President Washington wrote, with Alexander Hamilton, an address to the American people explaining his decision to leave office after two terms, as well as giving them advice for the future. Printed in several newspapers around the country, the address included Washington's urgings for the new nation to maintain morality and republican virtue, to promote unity over sectionalism, to avoid partisan divisiveness and political factions, and a warning against entering into "permanent alliances" that might entangle America in European wars.
