This was the man God gave us when the hour
Proclaimed the dawn of Liberty begun;
Who dared a deed and died when it was done
Patient in triumph, temperate in power,—
Not striving like the Corsican to tower
To heaven, nor like great Philip's greater son
To win the world and weep for worlds unwon,
Or lose the star to revel in the flower.
The lives that serve the eternal verities
Alone do mould mankind. Pleasure and pride
Sparkle awhile and perish, as the spray
Smoking across the crests of cavernous seas
Is impotent to hasten or delay
The everlasting surges of the tide.
John Hall Ingham.
On September 19, 1796, Washington issued his "farewell address," declining a third term as President.
WASHINGTON
Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes—one—the first—the last—the best—
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dared not hate,
Bequeath the name of Washington,
To make men blush there was but one!
Lord Byron.
The election was held on November 8, 1796, and the electoral votes were counted February 8, 1797. John Adams received seventy-one, Thomas Jefferson sixty-eight, Thomas Pinckney fifty-nine, and Aaron Burr thirty. Adams assumed office March 4, 1797. Relations with both France and England had become more than ever strained, and a war, especially with the former, seemed certain. These circumstances gave birth to one of the most popular political songs ever written in America.
[1798]
Ye sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought
For those rights which unstained from your sires have descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought,
And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended.
'Mid the reign of mild peace,
May your nation increase,
With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece;
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.