The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

George Washington made this statement in 1794 amid intense partisan conflict over the French Revolution and the United States’ policy of neutrality. In western Pennsylvania, the Whiskey Rebellion was also testing federal authority. Washington’s administration faced pressure from “Democratic-Republican Societies,” grassroots political clubs that claimed to speak for popular sovereignty and criticized federal policies. In his annual address to Congress, Washington warned against self-appointed associations and emphasized that in the American system the people’s will is expressed through constitutional processes—elections, representation, and lawful amendment—rather than through extra-constitutional agitation.

The quote affirms popular sovereignty: legitimate government rests on the people’s authority, including the authority to revise the constitutional framework itself. At the same time, Washington’s emphasis is procedural and institutional. The “right…to make and to alter” constitutions is not a license for constant upheaval; it is a foundational principle meant to be exercised through established, lawful mechanisms. Read in context, the line balances democratic legitimacy with constitutional stability: the people are ultimate sovereigns, but durable liberty depends on channeling political change through constitutional forms rather than factional pressure or extra-legal movements.