Friends and Fellow-Citizens:
CALLED
upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our
country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my
fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful
thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look
toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is
above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and
awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the
weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread
over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the
rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with
nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to
destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye—when I contemplate these
transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the
hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue, and the
auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble
myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed,
should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see
remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our
Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of
zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then,
gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of
legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with
encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to
steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst
the conflicting elements of a troubled world. |
1 |
| During the contest of
opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions
and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on
strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what
they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation,
announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of
course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in
common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind
this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in
all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must
protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then,
fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore
to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which
liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us
reflect that, having banished from our land that religious
intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have
yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as
despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody
persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient
world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking
through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not
wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this
distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and
feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to
measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a
difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren
of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all
Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve
this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion
may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know,
indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can
not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would
the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment,
abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the
theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best
hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust
not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on
earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of
the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet
invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.
Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government
of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern
him? Let history answer this question. |
2 |
| Let us, then, with courage
and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles,
our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly
separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc
of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the
degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room
enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth
generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use
of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to
honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from
birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by
a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various
forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance,
gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an
overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that
it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness
hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make
us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more,
fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain
men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to
regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is
the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the
circle of our felicities. |
3 |
| About to enter,
fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend
everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should
understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government,
and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I
will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear,
stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal
and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion,
religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with
all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the
State governments in all their rights, as the most competent
administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks
against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General
Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor
of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right
of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses
which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable
remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of
the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no
appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of
despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace
and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;
the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in
the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest
payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;
encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the
diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar
of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press,
and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus,
and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the
bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps
through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our
sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their
attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the
text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the
services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in
moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps
and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and
safety. |
4 |
| I repair, then,
fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience
enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this
the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely
fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with
the reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without
pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first and
greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had
entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined
for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask
so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the
legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong
through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought
wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole
ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never
be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who
may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The
approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me
for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good
opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate
that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be
instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all. |
5 |
| Relying, then, on the
patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work,
ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much
better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite
Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils
to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and
prosperity. |
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