Farewell Address
The true test of America's young democracy was not the election of its first president, but rather the transfer of the office to its second, John Adams. Near the end of Washington's second term he published his famous farewell address, in which he urged all Americans to support the newly formed nation and put aside regional or party divisions. "Your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other."
According to family tradition, George Washington worked on his farewell address by the light of this brass candle stand with reflector.
Transfer from the United States Patent Office
