Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
Reading Washington’s Farewell Address
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What if the most important presidential “speech” was never meant to be spoken? We sit down with Samantha Snyder, research librarian at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, to explore why Washington printed his Farewell Address, how he shaped it with counsel from his circle, and what the text reveals about humility, unity, and the burdens of being first.
Samantha pulls back the curtain on the archive: the tactile power of handwriting, the value of drafts and marginal notes, and the very human Washington who joked, worried, and revised. We trace the document’s unusual path to the public—straight to a newspaper—and unpack how that choice amplified ideas beyond elite rooms long before radio or television. Along the way, we tackle authorship and influence, comparing Washington’s plainer cadence to Hamilton’s flash and Madison’s architecture, and we examine why the Farewell was later read aloud annually despite being crafted for the page.
We also widen the cast. Elizabeth Willing Powell emerges as a consequential voice who urged Washington to continue when he wavered, part of a network of women who hosted salons, shaped opinion, and pushed back on dismissive men. From Martha Washington’s choice to burn private letters to the mid‑Civil War tradition of reading the Farewell, we see how privacy, memory, and nation‑building intertwine. The overlooked lesson that hits hardest today: Washington’s apology and open admission of imperfection—leadership grounded in humility rather than performance.
If you’re curious about early American history, women’s political influence, and how primary sources can reset our civic compass, this conversation will recharge your perspective. Dive in, then read the Farewell for yourself and join us in practicing curiosity and humility as we head toward America 250. If you enjoyed the episode, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find these stories.
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School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Welcome back. I am stoked because we have a librarian from my favorite library in America. And I we can get into arguments later, but today's guest is Samantha Snyder. She is a research librarian at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. She supports scholars, engages the public, and helps uncover the archival stories that shape our understanding of early America. I am fangirling and geeking out because I'm excited to bring this fresh insight to Washington's farewell address, its lasting civic significance, just and I was telling Samantha at the beginning of this, I attended a teacher institute at George Washington's Mount Vernon in 2017. So in the universe, Samantha and I have definitely met. And it was an incredibly impactful week. But I was looking scrolling back through my Instagram and I saw the post from the day we went to the library. And I cried because this library is so incredible. So, Samantha, the first question I want to ask when we talk about presidential libraries, right? People think like, oh, Ronald Reagan's, Richard Nixon's, LBJ, like you go and it's more of a museum. But this presidential library is not that. Can you give us a little insight into Washington's presidential library? Sure.
SPEAKER_00:And thank you again for having me, Liz. I'm very excited to be here. And I'm excited to have someone who loves libraries so much and librarians. I feel very honored. So, so yes, so I work at the George Washington Presidential Library, and we recently had a name change. So now we sort of, it sounds even more like we're under that branch of the National Archives with all the traditional libraries, presidential libraries. But here at Mount Vernon, we really try to be not only a library, but a real center for scholarship, for outreach, for programs, for teachers. Like the neat thing is that we take we take all of that knowledge that we have here and share it with the public. So that's something that's really fun and something I didn't necessarily expect. Like I didn't realize when I started here as a librarian, I would be giving tours, I would be listening to leadership institutes, like seeing all these things like from start to finish is so special. Like I just, yeah. So I guess that's where we're different. We don't have a museum, we don't have all of George Washington's papers either. So that's where we really supplement with these different public programs and things like that. So we're more than just, you know, a librarian at a front desk, like sitting there typing and and and that sort of stuff. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is. It's just again, I love librarians. Before this, we were talking about I love libraries, and just think they are the backbone to our civic culture. So today we're talking about Washington's farewell address. And every time I hear this, all I can hear in my head is Christopher Jackson singing one last time from Hamilton. Sing 100%, thousand percent. Because, you know, they they pull pieces from Washington's farewell address. And I'm so glad a new generation of people are getting to know Washington as opposed to just being like, well, he was the first president and moving on. I mean, he was so impactful. So, from your work with this Washington era archives in print culture, how should we understand the farewell address as a document meant to be read rather than spoken and delivered? And what does that choice reveal about Washington's relationship with the public?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a really great question. So I think one thing I found with working up at the library is reading so much of his correspondence already. So a lot of Washington that survives in general is the written word. But I think what's really interesting about the farewell address specifically is how he chose to print it in the newspaper. So in his way, that was sharing it with the broader public as fast as he could, and even before he spoke with Congress about it. And I think I think the the idea of it being written helped to share it because there weren't many people who were in George Washington's immediate circle who were having these types of conversations with him in advance. So you wouldn't necessarily and they didn't have how we think of like these big presidential addresses now, like the State of the Union. Now we, you know, broadcast that to the public, but then that was only internal for Congress. And like this, this sort of thing, I think that's why it's important to think about it being read. However, I do think it's interesting that we have read it out loud now every year since I mean 1862, and then they skipped ahead. So it's like we as a culture where so much is spoken now rather than just written, have adapted it to that because it was never really meant to be read out loud. And you kind of see that with like the sort of lengthy phrases and different things like that, and kind of it it doesn't necessarily read stream of consciousness, but it's definitely an interesting, just just yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So and I'm glad that you put us there, right? Is that these George Washington's not like getting on the radio or getting on TV, he's all of his correspondence is meant to be read, and it is when you look at the document? I like that you said stream of conscience, it's not something that is easily readable out loud, but when you read it just to yourself, that's where it makes the most sense. Yeah. So given your research of the political networks around Washington, especially the ladies like Elizabeth Willing Powell, yeah, how much of the farewell address do you think reflects Washington's own voice versus the influence of his circle of people that you mentioned in these advisors?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I should have said too. I mean, if if this you can add in as an aside. So my research on Elizabeth Powell has actually, I have just gotten a publication date for my book. So it'll be the spring of 2027. Um, and it's with the University of Virginia Press. So as of Friday, it was accepted by the board officially. So Congratulations! Yeah. So that's a new, very exciting thing. I have a tentative title at the moment, but nothing, nothing so firm. So if it's just a biography, it's just a biography of Elizabeth Powell, it's just what I've been calling. Not that's not the title, but I don't have one that's public enough yet. But anyway. Yeah. So yes, so to to go back. So my research. So I guess the question was in looking at the networks of Washington, like the network around Washington, how much of the words seem like their words versus his words? That that is a good question. I I think there is always going to be a bit of both in there, like his own thoughts versus theirs. You know, I thought it was interesting at the beginning how he brought up that. I think it's near the beginning where he brings up the fact that he was set to retire. Like he was so close to considering, like, I'm done. But then the unanimous voice of the people who had his full confidence made him decide to continue. And so you can see at the very least, these words, even if they are specifically his own, the opinions of others really did greatly affect him. And they helped guide him, that sort of stuff, for better or for worse. I think he had he was more self-conscious sometimes, and I think he let on. But but you do see sort of the arguments of like you could see some of the sentiments of of Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison when he brings up the neutrality crisis, like different things like that. But but I do find, I do find that sentiment right at the beginning very interesting, that he he admits it and and acknowledges that it was not him alone that made that choice to serve another term. But it was his choice to step down. He does not say, and my friends said it's time to step down. Like so it's like that in and of itself, I suppose, is his own choice, choice and and sentiment.
SPEAKER_01:So I every time I read the farewell address, you know, I just think about everything he did for this like new nation, and you know, whether it was his military leadership, his presidential leadership. And, you know, every time I go to Mount Vernon, my favorite thing to do is to sit out back and look at the Potomac because I just think of him and think of he this is he just wanted to hang out here. And he ended up, you know, really setting the standard. And, you know, when you talk about him listening to people for better or for worse, I think that's a civic virtue I really appreciate about him is that humility and is the understanding of like, I did not go to a college like all of these other people. I still am smart in my ways, but I want to bring in these people. And what an interesting reflection in the farewell address to think about all of these people who influenced him and who probably helped write parts of it.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly, exactly. And I find that so interesting too, because we all kind of think of Washington, you you you forget sometimes that he had people behind him helping him. I mean, he had the whole cabinet, and and we have presidential cabinets now, of course. But like that's one thing I really admire about him as well, is his ability to seek the guidance of others and and to understand where he has his limits. And so I think to a point, sometimes I think his writing, even in his speech, like I mean, I think some of that he wanted the help of these men who had been classically educated. However, I do see this is just going back to, I guess, your other question. I see less formalities than I would think if Hamilton had written the entire thing or something like that. Because you see, some of these men have these very elegant, eloquent, grandiose thoughts. And long-winded. Long-winded. Like, like I would say his farewell address does not necessarily read like the Federalist papers or something like that. However, those are two very different, you know, types of pieces to write, but still I think it's a yeah, it's it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it is interesting to compare the two because you even with the Federalist papers, it was always a joke in my classroom because there were times where you know I just wouldn't tell students who wrote it, but they would always figure it out. You know, James Madison is a very much a teacher, like how he talks, and Alexander Hamilton just doesn't understand why you don't understand what he's saying. And it's exactly it's so interesting now that you talk about Washington and and how he wrote to just I just love that this, you know, these archives exist. That we can that's how we learn about them, right? Absolutely. There's that is the the data, if you will, that's left over. We don't have photos and we don't have, you know, pictures and things like that.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, there's paintings and there's incredible paintings of Washington, but it is but those words, like seeing it in his handwriting, and that's something, you know, I feel so blessed at Mount Vernon to get to do every day. Like, and and and you really do. I feel like letters and addresses and things like that, they're they're such a like they're the most human part of people because I feel like handwriting is kind of the per like your most unique, like personal thing is handwriting. So, and now granted, they all we all learned how to write similarly, and he's the same thing, but like to see some of those letters and think of him, you know, just the jokes he makes, all that sort of stuff is always very fun too. So I like that's what I've always liked about Washington the most, is the human Washington, the flood Washington. So absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So this I have a question that's off script talking about letters. Yeah. So Martha Washington burned a lot of letters after he passed. Why is that a why was that a thing, right? It's not like she did it out of anger or whatever else. That was actually a common practice, correct?
SPEAKER_00:I think, yes. So, so Martha Washington, before she died, ordered their letters to be burned. And it was a common practice. However, I also think when you think about it, all these words, like George Washington's letters were being published during his lifetime. So these addresses are meant to be published, but his war correspondence is being published, like there's pamphlets of like his circular letters, different things like that. Like it nothing was private for him. And I think he knew that. People were soliciting him to use his papers for their books. Like there's this man, William Gordon, who wrote this history of the Revolutionary War. He started soliciting him during the war for use of his papers. So it's like, I think George and Martha knew that their uh correspondence was going to be the most, you know, intimate of all. The the Washington who was now, I mean, I say intimate, like I mean like just the more, you know, day-to-day things, like his fears, I mean, that sort of thing. Like they that so of course they wanted to to you know preserve them for each other. Now I'm I'm glad we have John and Abigail Adams' letters, though. I love I I love those. I love John Adams. I think he's hilarious.
SPEAKER_01:I will tell you, I was never a John Adams fan until recently your Lindsay Travinsky wrote the book on John Adams, and I met her an NCSS, and I was like, well, I guess I have to read this. And we did a series in Civics in the year on the women of the founding, and one of the episodes was on John and Abigail Adams. And that in itself, too, just these figures and their writing and how it it just is again, I feel like I could talk to you for hours. I know, and I'm going on so fascinating.
SPEAKER_00:Like Elizabeth Towell is a good example of a woman who, I mean, yeah, and we have, I mean, that's how I I see I have known George Washington, you know, at Mount Vern. I came across her letter basically within a month of starting at Mount Vernon. So I've known her alongside George Washington as a political influencer for like almost 10 years, well, nine years, almost nine years now. Like I started in January of 2017. So it's just crazy to think of these women behind the scenes in their own right. But we have that incredible letter where the first term she is is saying, like, do not do not step down, like you need to continue. And he does. And I I actually was thinking today how cool that is that she was one of those people he's talking about in the farewell address. Like, here's this woman, and I'm sure Martha Washington, of course, is included. But to think of all those people in his head that he was thinking about, she was very much included, so it's just very special. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So the farewell address has been used, it's been taught, it's been interpreted in different ways for more than two centuries from a historian's perspective. What parts of Washington's message do you think Americans most overlook or understand today?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I was I was thinking about that. Like I tried to write down a couple of things. Um I I think one thing that they for not misinterpret or forget. I think what one thing they forget is Washington apologizing, like and saying he was, he he hopes that they can forgive him for any of his his you know mistakes and flaws. I think we forget sometimes in modern day that, and they did too, then, that our political figures are human beings. And so a lot of the idea of like the the sort of holding all of these people up on pedestals, and if one thing goes wrong, then oh, they're just they're they're out, and that sort of stuff. Like I think that's something that's really interesting is to remember about the idea of someone apologizing and and the humility. I think that some of the humility today is not so much there. And then I think also, oh god, I don't know. I was trying to think of more. So this is me going like a little bit. So I mean, I don't think I think I I wish more people read it, and and that's another real thing.
SPEAKER_01:So but maybe that can be our call to action for president's Davis yeah, to read Washington's farewell address because even and listen listen to to one last time. And listen to one last time.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, honestly, like, yeah, and I love that I love that that's what Lynn Manuel Miranda pulled from Hamilton is that part. So it's like, I guess that's on my brain, but like I think a lot of you know, I think a lot of it is so just like heavy throughout, but that apologizing and the humility really is what gets me. And I think what what people don't necessarily read as they shift.
SPEAKER_01:So well, and that's the the line in in um the song, because I remember when that first came out, you know, my kids were so excited and it was so fun to have a musical to like bring this to life, and that that piece where he says, you know, I shall always carry with me the hope that my country will never see to view them as you know, all of these things. And it is just it is like an acknowledgement of his humanness. And it's I feel like when I read this, it is him saying, Here's what I've learned, but also I am a flawed individual, and I should not be this, you know, God that you put up on a pedestal. You should learn from what I've done well and what I have messed up on, but also knowing that I did the best that I could and I did what I felt was right at the time, and that I don't know that I see that in any other president after him. And that's not a political theme. No, exactly. Exactly. It is just that. It is I mean, it's yeah, maybe Jimmy Carter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. I mean, maybe like he, yeah, like it's just it's a level of self-awareness that I think we forget. And I think what people forget too about the farewell address and about Washington's presidency in general, this was truly the first time this had ever been done. And I think another thing that that I kind of it's sort of buried in it, but the idea that he's saying, like, we are unified because we just won this war. Like we think of the Revolutionary War as being, you know, it's 200 years ago. But when you really like step back and think about it, how new all of this was, like a whole country had just been formed. All the people who were reading this or having this read to them were were remembering that in that moment. Like, and and I think I find it interesting that it was used, you know, at the in the mid-begning of the or in the midst of the civil war as sort of a way of like soothing people's minds, and and so a different sort of war. And then, you know, I was thinking too about like the whole idea of the precedent of three terms of like two terms, how it took until Franklin Roosevelt, who was in a similar situation of Washington, a war, kind of this figure that was, you know, like beloved by some and not by others, but kept going because people needed him. And I think Washington tried. To stop that. And I don't know. It's just very interesting. So those are all things I have thought about.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and and again, I'm I'm thinking about my time at Mount Vernon, and I've been probably six or seven times. It's my favorite. I love Washington, DC, but my favorite thing to do honestly is just go to Mount Vernon because I I feel like I learned something new every time I'm there or I see something new. And he, you know, you talk about him being self-conscious and him. So he was self-conscious because he did understand. Like Washington was not this figure that everybody was like, he is wonderful, he is loved. There were, and again, when last time or when I was at Mount Vernon in the summer, we saw some of that. And we saw, you know, people, you know, drawing these political cartoons or their writings. And that it seemed to me that that actually really affected him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That people were not happy with the job he was doing. So I think that that just adds to the humanness of him, right? And he's not this perfect first president. Um, but that makes you love him even more almost.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. And I I I do think that's interesting. And I think that's something we have to remember to think about and to think about both then and now. Like every person who is serving in this role is trying to do their best. People over the years in serving in this role have tried to do their best and done to the best of their capabilities. And and I just think it's it it's an incredible, incredible position. I mean, you just, it's like hard to fathom sometimes, and hard to fathom it all starting with Washington, like how truly they did not know what was going to come next. But how how even then people were some were ready for him to go, some were not, like, but but yeah. I think Elizabeth Powell would have been pr plenty happy for him to have just served in perpetuity. There's a letter, and I write about this in my book, that I'm pretty sure is when she found out from him that he, because he was telling people that he was going to step down or was like happily considering it. She writes a very snarky letter that's like, I have let given it some thought and I will have dinner with you tomorrow because I can't let myself just be too mad, basically, and like, and like I will listen to your ideas. What is she? I will listen to your ideas with fortitude or something like that. And I have it just based on timing. I'm like, oh, I think that's when he might have told her that that it was like she's like, you can come for dinner tomorrow and we can talk further.
SPEAKER_01:Like, oh, but that and and I think too, one of the things I didn't learn as a student was the impact of women. And you know, that's kind of why we did a series with Dr. Kirsten Burkhog. And I feel like now you're gonna have to come back on the podcast because we have we're gonna have a series of what we call forgotten founders and people that made a difference in the founding, but they're not the people that we learn about. And I, you know, going through high school and college, I didn't get to learn too much about the women. I learned about Martha Washington and Abigail Adams, but I learned about them as the wives of, not necessarily the impactful people who helped shape our nation. And, you know, you talk about Elizabeth Powell. I'm like, I think I've heard that name, but I don't know enough. And now I'm like, spring 2027 can't be fast enough because these are the things that people eat up because there was this. And the fact that George Washington had these women around him that he trusted and that he took in their counsel and their advice, I think really speaks to him as a person as a whole, because that's not that it didn't seem to me to be the norm back then.
SPEAKER_00:No, and I think these these women, like some of them, it was helpful when they were the wife of someone because that gave them sort of a platform. But but it did take the right man to listen. Like, and some of these men there's a there's an anecdote that's going way off, but there's a Thomas Jefferson with a woman named Ann Willing Bingham, who was a Philadelphian. She was really the first one who kind of she was uh Elizabeth Powell's niece, really brought in like French salons and and very fancy, very opulent, but she was pretty politically charged and had learned a lot from her aunt. Um, and Thomas Jefferson is real, just like dismissive of her and her political thoughts, and she writes a great letter back, and then but it's it's interesting to see how women fought back too, how they didn't just sit there. I mean, you think of remember the ladies with Abigail Adams and and but but there's so many women there that that even like I'm lucky that Elizabeth Powell, the reason why I'm able to write about her is she copied most of a lot of her letters. So I have her letters thanks to her desire to copy them. And so that helps, but a lot of these women, their correspondence doesn't survive. So you think about who all is there that we don't even know about.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, so I have one last question. So looking ahead, you know, we're we're coming up on America 250, which is such a great time to look back and to review, you know, the things we really love about our country and the things that we want to continue that charge to more perfect. What do you think that the average American can gain from Washington as a figure to kind of to take in with America 250?
SPEAKER_00:The boring question I think I think what Americans can take in, like even thinking back to like with the war, even is to be, and I think this is something Washington did his whole life. I think we need to be as Americans, be inquisitive and like look at the world around us, look at it in different ways, talk to different people, get different perspectives, and then stand firm in your opinion. Like you, you deserve to have your opinion, but but but yeah, just listen to others. The inquisitiveness, I think sometimes with how fast news is, how social media all that we all just kind of get in this sort of tunnel, or it just clicks by so fast. But like step back and and be inquisitive about what interests you and excites you. I think is something that Washington did, especially when he was a young man. But and then I also think humility too. Like I think we just need to remember we are not perfect, our our leaders are not perfect, our our teachers, our our parents, everybody. No one is perfect. Washington was not perfect, but we are trying our best, and I think we need to continue to to become more perfect through humility and inquisit and being inquisitive. So I love that.
SPEAKER_01:And I know that the library has a website. I will put that in the show notes. If somebody is coming to Mount Vernon, do you I mean, I think they should stop by the library, but it's hard because so we're not so we have far back.
SPEAKER_00:It is far back, and so we're like weirdly not open to the public because of like for research. Um, since we aren't a museum, like our museum is across the street. However, we host a lot. If they're local, we host a lot of lunchtime programs. We host free evening events, which are more often than not streamed. So, and they're a lot are free. So you can come and sometimes they're at the library, sometimes they're across the street, but you'll get a chance to listen to scholars and different political figures, public figures talking about not only George Washington, but like we've really been doing a lot more, like kind of modern politics and historical politics combining. Like it's just yeah, so so definitely, definitely visit the museum or the mansion has now just reopened too. And we will be having the education center reopening in March. So that is very exciting. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Keep me in mind. I just I appreciate your work as a historian and as a librarian because I think that, you know, especially with students, when they think of librarian, they think of like their school librarian. And I I am a huge proponent of school librarians. Shout out to Mary Kenutsen, who is my librarian at South Valley Junior High. And she was the best person to ask questions. I would go in and say, Mary, my kids are researching this. She's like, bring them in, I can help. And to have a librarian finally on our podcast, especially to, you know, a his historian. And I want people who are listening to this, especially kids, if you love history and you but like these are jobs. You can work at these cool places.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen to me, kid. You can. And I do have to give a shout out to my elementary school librarian, Pat Wendy. She was at Royal Oaks Elementary, but she gave me my first library job. And but but yeah, so very all these ways. Like, it's funny how you can remember your librarians' names. Like, but but yes, you can work this job. And you can work in a school library, you can work at a college, you can work all sorts of different places. But but I did get very lucky here. Like librarians rock is really what we're trying to say here.
SPEAKER_01:And so do teachers. Yes, a thousand percent. And the combination of the two is absolutely unstoppable. Yes. Thank you so much. You're welcome.
SPEAKER_00:You're very welcome.
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