Unwilling
to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I
avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the
profound impression made on me by the call of my country
to the station to the duties of which I am about to pledge
myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So distinguished a
mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate and
tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would
under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude and
devotion, as well as filled me with an awful sense of the
trust to be assumed. Under the various circumstances which
give peculiar solemnity to the existing period, I feel
that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to me
are inexpressibly enhanced.
The
present situation of the world is indeed without a
parallel, and that of our own country full of
difficulties. The pressure of these, too, is the more
severely felt because they have fallen upon us at a moment
when the national prosperity being at a height not before
attained, the contrast resulting from the change has been
rendered the more striking. Under the benign influence of
our republican institutions, and the maintenance of peace
with all nations whilst so many of them were engaged in
bloody and wasteful wars, the fruits of a just policy were
enjoyed in an unrivaled growth of our faculties and
resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improvements of
agriculture, in the successful enterprises of commerce, in
the progress of manufacturers and useful arts, in the
increase of the public revenue and the use made of it in
reducing the public debt, and in the valuable works and
establishments everywhere multiplying over the face of our
land.
It
is a precious reflection that the transition from this
prosperous condition of our country to the scene which has
for some time been distressing us is not chargeable on any
unwarrantable views, nor, as I trust, on any involuntary
errors in the public councils. Indulging no passions which
trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it
has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate
peace by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to
the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their
neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality.
If there be candor in the world, the truth of these
assertions will not be questioned; posterity at least will
do justice to them.
This
unexceptionable course could not avail against the
injustice and violence of the belligerent powers. In their
rage against each other, or impelled by more direct
motives, principles of retaliation have been introduced
equally contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law.
How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite
of the demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has
been given by the United States, and of the fair and
liberal attempt to induce a revocation of them, can not be
anticipated. Assuring myself that under every vicissitude
the determined spirit and united councils of the nation
will be safeguards to its honor and its essential
interests, I repair to the post assigned me with no other
discouragement than what springs from my own inadequacy to
its high duties. If I do not sink under the weight of this
deep conviction it is because I find some support in a
consciousness of the purposes and a confidence in the
principles which I bring with me into this arduous
service.
To
cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations
having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere
neutrality toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all
cases amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of
differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to
exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so
degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to
foster a spirit of independence too just to invade the
rights of others, too proud to surrender our own, too
liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves and too
elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold the
union of the States as the basis of their peace and
happiness; to support the Constitution, which is the
cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its
authorities; to respect the rights and authorities
reserved to the States and to the people as equally
incorporated with and essential to the success of the
general system; to avoid the slightest interference with
the right of conscience or the functions of religion, so
wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to preserve in
their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf
of private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the
press; to observe economy in public expenditures; to
liberate the public resources by an honorable discharge of
the public debts; to keep within the requisite limits a
standing military force, always remembering that an armed
and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of
republics—that without standing armies their liberty can
never be in danger, nor with large ones safe; to promote
by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture,
to manufactures, and to external as well as internal
commerce; to favor in like manner the advancement of
science and the diffusion of information as the best
aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans
which have been so meritoriously applied to the conversion
of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and
wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the
improvements of which the human mind and manners are
susceptible in a civilized state as far as sentiments
and intentions such as these can aid the fulfillment of my
duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me.
It
is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I
am to tread lighted by examples of illustrious services
successfully rendered in the most trying difficulties by
those who have marched before me. Of those of my immediate
predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I may,
however, be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with
which my heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the
benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully bestowed or
exalted talents zealously devoted through a long career to
the advancement of its highest interest and happiness.
But
the source to which I look or the aids which alone can
supply my deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence
and virtue of my fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of
those representing them in the other departments
associated in the care of the national interests. In these
my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed,
next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in
the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose
power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings
have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising
Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout
gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent
supplications and best hopes for the future.
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