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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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