farewell speech
{{short description|Speech given by an individual leaving a position or place}}
File:Montfort - Adieux de Napoleon a la Garde imperiale.jpg at the Palace of Fontainebleau, after his first abdication (1814)]]
A farewell speech or farewell address is a speech given by an individual leaving a position or place. They are often used by public figures such as politicians as a capstone to the preceding career, or as statements delivered by persons relating to reasons for their leaving. The term is often used as a euphemism for "retirement speech," though it is broader in that it may include geographical or even biological conclusion.
In the Classics, a term for a dignified and poetic farewell speech is apobaterion (ἀποβατήριον), standing opposed to the epibaterion, the corresponding speech made upon arrival.{{Cyclopaedia 1728 |url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-idx?type=turn&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&entity=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01.p0155&q1=apobaterion |title=Apobatedion |page=115 |inline=yes}}
U.S. presidential farewell addresses
Many U.S. presidential speeches have been given the moniker "farewell address" since George Washington's address in 1796.{{Cite magazine|url=https://time.com/4624166/presidential-farewell-addresses/|title=Barack Obama's Farewell Address and 6 Other Memorable Presidential Goodbyes|magazine=Time|date=9 January 2017|language=en|access-date=2018-06-19|archive-date=2018-05-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501084744/http://time.com/4624166/presidential-farewell-addresses/|url-status=live}} Some notable examples:
- George Washington – Washington's Farewell Address in which he warned of the dangers of political parties and foreign alliances.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower – Eisenhower's farewell address in which he warned of the military–industrial complex.
- Barack Obama – Obama's farewell address made from Chicago, breaking tradition of holding one in the White House.
- Donald Trump – Trump's first farewell address, delivered as a recorded, online video message from the White House.{{Cite web|title=Remarks by President Trump In Farewell Address to the Nation|url=https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/farewell-address/|access-date=January 20, 2021|website=The White House|language=en-US|archive-date=January 28, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128171852/https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/farewell-address/|url-status=live}}
- Joe Biden – Biden's farewell address in which he warned of the tech–industrial complex.
Other notable farewell speeches
{{Rhetoric}}
- Muhammad – Farewell Sermon, 6 March 632.
- The speech of Aeneas to Helenus and Andromache, Aeneid, Book III.
- Napoleon Bonaparte – First abdication, April 6, 1814 (see Treaty of Fontainebleau (1814)).
- Napoleon Bonaparte – Farewell to the Old Guard, April 20, 1814.
- Napoleon Bonaparte – Second abdication, June 22, 1815 (see Abdication of Napoleon, 1815).
- Abraham Lincoln – Farewell address to the people of Springfield, Illinois before departing to be inaugurated as President of the United States.
- Robert E. Lee – Farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia, the day after the end of the American Civil War.
- Douglas MacArthur – farewell speeches before Congress and U.S. Military Academy; "old soldiers never die, they only fade away" and "duty, honor, country".
- Salvador Allende - Issued a farewell speech during the 1973 Chilean coup.{{cite book |last1=Chandra |first1=G. |title=Narrating Violence, Constructing Collective Identities |date=2008 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan UK |page=134}}