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Introducing The Founder's Enlightenment Project
A New Chapter for FarewellAddress.org
For the past several years, FarewellAddress.org has served as a platform for exploring the warnings and wisdom of George Washington’s Farewell Address — a document that remains one of the most important statements on the responsibilities of citizenship and the dangers that threaten our republic. We are now embarking on a new chapter in our evolution as an organization.
The Founder's Enlightenment Project will become the public home of the organization's work.
This site will continue to feature commentary, analysis, and educational resources rooted in Washington’s insights, while expanding to include the broader canon of our country's Founding era.
This transition reflects a simple truth:
Washington’s Farewell Address is not an isolated artifact — it is the culmination of the Founders’ Enlightenment worldview.
Introducing The Founders’ Enlightenment Project
America’s constitutional republic did not emerge by accident. It was built on a distinctive intellectual tradition — a blend of reason, virtue, natural rights, and republican self‑government that the Founders understood as the American Enlightenment. Today, those principles remain essential to the preservation of our institutions and the character of our civic life.
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, we are reminded that the American experiment rests not only on institutions, but on the ideas and virtues that gave those institutions life. The Founders understood their work as part of a broader Enlightenment tradition — a commitment to reason, natural rights, civic virtue, and republican self‑government.
The Founders’ Enlightenment Project is currently being formed and is intended to operate as a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) social‑welfare organization dedicated to renewing those principles for the challenges of the twenty‑first century.
Our mission is simple: To strengthen America’s civic foundations by promoting the ideas, virtues, and constitutional guardrails articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and George Washington’s Farewell Address.
What We Stand For
The Founder's Enlightenment Project is committed to advancing:
- Civic Virtue — the habits of character necessary for self‑government
- Constitutional Balance — the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the rule of law
- National Unity — the rejection of factionalism and the cultivation of civic friendship
- Reasoned Citizenship — the Enlightenment commitment to inquiry, education, and public responsibility
- Republican Stewardship — the duty to preserve institutions for future generations
These principles are not partisan. They are American — and they are essential as the nation marks 250 years of independence. This is especially true in an era when pressures to expand executive power have raised fresh concerns about maintaining the constitutional equilibrium the Founders envisioned.
What Comes Next
Over the coming months, The Founder's Enlightenment Project will introduce:
- Educational resources on the Founders’ writings
- Public commentary on civic norms and constitutional culture
- Programs exploring the American Enlightenment tradition
- Opportunities for citizens to engage with the ideas that shaped the republic
This landing page is a temporary introduction. A full site relaunch is underway.
A Republic, If We Can Keep It
James McHenry, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, wrote in his journal, about an encounter Benjamin Franklin had upon leaving the last day of the convention. When he offered that now famous warning, he was reminding future generations that a republic survives only through the character and vigilance of its citizens. Keeping our democracy is not a passive inheritance — it is an active responsibility. Each of us has a role to play in sustaining the institutions, norms, and civic virtues that make self‑government possible.
As the nation approaches its 250th year, that responsibility becomes even more urgent. The Founders’ Enlightenment Project exists to help renew that civic inheritance — not by looking backward nostalgically, but by drawing forward the principles that have guided the nation since its beginning.
Thank you for visiting. In the meantime, explore farewelladdress.org site to begin your your own enlightenment journey!