Called
from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for
the residue of my life to fill the chief executive office of
this great and free nation, I appear before you,
fellow-citizens, to take the oaths which the Constitution
prescribes as a necessary qualification for the performance
of its duties; and in obedience to a custom coeval with our
Government and what I believe to be your expectations I
proceed to present to you a summary of the principles which
will govern me in the discharge of the duties which I shall
be called upon to perform.
It
was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that
celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was
observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power
and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom
carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises
made in the former. However much the world may have improved
in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand
years since the remark was made by the virtuous and
indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the
annals of some of the modern elective governments would
develop similar instances of violated confidence.
Although
the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming me the
Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their
part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive
may exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be
supposed to have acted in relation to my principles and
opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who
have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall now
deliver, or, approving them, to doubt the sincerity with
which they are now uttered. But the lapse of a few months
will confirm or dispel their fears. The outline of
principles to govern and measures to be adopted by an
Administration not yet begun will soon be exchanged for
immutable history, and I shall stand either exonerated by my
countrymen or classed with the mass of those who promised
that they might deceive and flattered with the intention to
betray. However strong may be my present purpose to realize
the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I
too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I
shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it
has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands
not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that
Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled
me to bring to favorable issues other important but still
greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my
country.
The
broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the
people a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can
unmake, change, or modify it it can be assigned to none of
the great divisions of government but to that of democracy.
If such is its theory, those who are called upon to
administer it must recognize as its leading principle the
duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest
good to the greatest number. But with these broad
admissions, if we would compare the sovereignty acknowledged
to exist in the mass of our people with the power claimed by
other sovereignties, even by those which have been
considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most
essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited
only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the
contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power
precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by
the parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond. We
admit of no government by divine right, believing that so
far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no
distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and
that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant
of power from the governed. The Constitution of the United
States is the instrument containing this grant of power to
the several departments composing the Government. On an
examination of that instrument it will be found to contain
declarations of power granted and of power withheld. The
latter is also susceptible of division into power which the
majority had the right to grant, but which they do not think
proper to entrust to their agents, and that which they could
not have granted, not being possessed by themselves. In
other words, there are certain rights possessed by each
individual American citizen which in his compact with the
others he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed, he is
unable to surrender, being, in the language of our system,
unalienable. The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to
him a shield only against a petty provincial ruler, whilst
the proud democrat of Athens would console himself under a
sentence of death for a supposed violation of the national
faith which no one understood and which at times was the
subject of the mockery of all or the banishment from his
home, his family, and his country with or without an alleged
cause, that it was the act not of a single tyrant or hated
aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen. Far different
is the power of our sovereignty. It can interfere with no
one's faith, prescribe forms of worship for no one's
observance, inflict no punishment but after well-ascertained
guilt, the result of investigation under rules prescribed by
the Constitution itself. These precious privileges, and
those scarcely less important of giving expression to his
thoughts and opinions, either by writing or speaking,
unrestrained but by the liability for injury to others, and
that of a full participation in all the advantages which
flow from the Government, the acknowledged property of all,
the American citizen derives from no charter granted by his
fellow-man. He claims them because he is himself a man,
fashioned by the same Almighty hand as the rest of his
species and entitled to a full share of the blessings with
which He has endowed them. Notwithstanding the limited
sovereignty possessed by the people of the United States and
the restricted grant of power to the Government which they
have adopted, enough has been given to accomplish all the
objects for which it was created. It has been found powerful
in war, and hitherto justice has been administered, and
intimate union effected, domestic tranquility preserved,
and personal liberty secured to the citizen. As was to be
expected, however, from the defect of language and the
necessarily sententious manner in which the Constitution is
written, disputes have arisen as to the amount of power
which it has actually granted or was intended to grant.
This
is more particularly the case in relation to that part of
the instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and
not only as regards the exercise of powers claimed under a
general clause giving that body the authority to pass all
laws necessary to carry into effect the specified powers,
but in relation to the latter also. It is, however,
consolatory to reflect that most of the instances of alleged
departure from the letter or spirit of the Constitution have
ultimately received the sanction of a majority of the
people. And the fact that many of our statesmen most
distinguished for talent and patriotism have been at one
time or other of their political career on both sides of
each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us
the inference that the errors, if errors there were, are
attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances
of ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the
Constitution rather than the influence of any sinister or
unpatriotic motive. But the great danger to our institutions
does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the
Government of power not granted by the people, but by the
accumulation in one of the departments of that which was
assigned to others. Limited as are the powers which have
been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a
despotism if concentrated in one of the departments. This
danger is greatly heightened, as it has been always
observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of one
department upon another than upon their own reserved rights.
When the Constitution of the United States first came from
the hands of the Convention which formed it, many of the
sternest republicans of the day were alarmed at the extent
of the power which had been granted to the Federal
Government, and more particularly of that portion which had
been assigned to the executive branch. There were in it
features which appeared not to be in harmony with their
ideas of a simple representative democracy or republic, and
knowing the tendency of power to increase itself,
particularly when exercised by a single individual,
predictions were made that at no very remote period the
Government would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not
become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been
already realized; but as I sincerely believe that the
tendency of measures and of men's opinions for some years
past has been in that direction, it is, I conceive, strictly
proper that I should take this occasion to repeat the
assurances I have heretofore given of my determination to
arrest the progress of that tendency if it really exists and
restore the Government to its pristine health and vigor, as
far as this can be effected by any legitimate exercise of
the power placed in my hands.
I
proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion
of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively
complained of and the correctives which may be applied. Some
of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects
of the Constitution; others, in my judgment, are
attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions.
Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a
second term of the Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr.
Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts
have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the
amendatory power of the States to its correction. As,
however, one mode of correction is in the power of every
President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless,
and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in
the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of
the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the
source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather
from it if it continues to disfigure our system. It may be
observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can
commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any
feature in their systems of government which may be
calculated to create or increase the lover of power in the
bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit the
management of their affairs; and surely nothing is more
likely to produce such a state of mind than the long
continuance of an office of high trust. Nothing can be more
corrupting, nothing more destructive of all those noble
feelings which belong to the character of a devoted
republican patriot. When this corrupting passion once takes
possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it
becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom,
grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining
years of its victim. If this is true, it is the part of
wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer
at least to whom she has entrusted the management of her
foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the
command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to
prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not
the principal; the servant, not the master. Until an
amendment of the Constitution can be effected public opinion
may secure the desired object. I give my aid to it by
renewing the pledge heretofore given that under no
circumstances will I consent to serve a second term.
But
if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledged
defects of the Constitution in the want of limit to the
continuance of the Executive power in the same hands, there
is, I apprehend, not much less from a misconstruction of
that instrument as it regards the powers actually given. I
can not conceive that by a fair construction any or either
of its provisions would be found to constitute the President
a part of the legislative power. It can not be claimed from
the power to recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty
upon him, it is a privilege which he holds in common with
every other citizen; and although there may be something
more of confidence in the propriety of the measures
recommended in the one case than in the other, in the
obligations of ultimate decision there can be no difference.
In the language of the Constitution, "all the
legislative powers" which it grants "are vested in
the Congress of the United States." It would be a
solecism in language to say that any portion of these is not
included in the whole.
It
may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the
Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative
body by refusing to them his assent. So a similar power has
necessarily resulted from that instrument to the judiciary,
and yet the judiciary forms no part of the Legislature.
There is, it is true, this difference between these grants
of power: The Executive can put his negative upon the acts
of the Legislature for other cause than that of want of
conformity to the Constitution, whilst the judiciary can
only declare void those which violate that instrument. But
the decision of the judiciary is final in such a case,
whereas in every instance where the veto of the Executive is
applied it may be overcome by a vote of two-thirds of both
Houses of Congress. The negative upon the acts of the
legislative by the executive authority, and that in the
hands of one individual, would seem to be an incongruity in
our system. Like some others of a similar character,
however, it appears to be highly expedient, and if used only
with the forbearance and in the spirit which was intended by
its authors it may be productive of great good and be found
one of the best safeguards to the Union. At the period of
the formation of the Constitution the principle does not
appear to have enjoyed much favor in the State governments.
It existed but in two, and in one of these there was a
plural executive. If we would search for the motives which
operated upon the purely patriotic and enlightened assembly
which framed the Constitution for the adoption of a
provision so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic
principle that the majority should govern, we must reject
the idea that they anticipated from it any benefit to the
ordinary course of legislation. They knew too well the high
degree of intelligence which existed among the people and
the enlightened character of the State legislatures not to
have the fullest confidence that the two bodies elected by
them would be worthy representatives of such constituents,
and, of course, that they would require no aid in conceiving
and maturing the measures which the circumstances of the
country might require. And it is preposterous to suppose
that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that
the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the
country, could better understand the wants and wishes of the
people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a
part of every year among them, living with them, often
laboring with them, and bound to them by the triple tie of
interest, duty, and affection. To assist or control
Congress, then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I
conceive, have been the motive for conferring the veto power
on the President. This argument acquires additional force
from the fact of its never having been thus used by the
first six Presidents and two of them were members of the
Convention, one presiding over its deliberations and the
other bearing a larger share in consummating the labors of
that august body than any other person. But if bills were
never returned to Congress by either of the Presidents above
referred to upon the ground of their being inexpedient or
not as well adapted as they might be to the wants of the
people, the veto was applied upon that of want of conformity
to the Constitution or because errors had been committed
from a too hasty enactment.
There
is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle,
which had probably more influence in recommending it to the
Convention than any other. I refer to the security which it
gives to the just and equitable action of the Legislature
upon all parts of the Union. It could not but have occurred
to the Convention that in a country so extensive, embracing
so great a variety of soil and climate, and consequently of
products, and which from the same causes must ever exhibit a
great difference in the amount of the population of its
various sections, calling for a great diversity in the
employments of the people, that the legislation of the
majority might not always justly regard the rights and
interests of the minority, and that acts of this character
might be passed under an express grant by the words of the
Constitution, and therefore not within the competency of the
judiciary to declare void; that however enlightened and
patriotic they might suppose from past experience the
members of Congress might be, and however largely partaking,
in the general, of the liberal feelings of the people, it
was impossible to expect that bodies so constituted should
not sometimes be controlled by local interests and sectional
feelings. It was proper, therefore, to provide some umpire
from whose situation and mode of appointment more
independence and freedom from such influences might be
expected. Such a one was afforded by the executive
department constituted by the Constitution. A person elected
to that high office, having his constituents in every
section, State, and subdivision of the Union, must consider
himself bound by the most solemn sanctions to guard,
protect, and defend the rights of all and of every portion,
great or small, from the injustice and oppression of the
rest. I consider the veto power, therefore, given by the
Constitution to the Executive of the United States solely as
a conservative power, to be used only first, to protect the
Constitution from violation; secondly, the people from the
effects of hasty legislation where their will has been
probably disregarded or not well understood, and, thirdly,
to prevent the effects of combinations violative of the
rights of minorities. In reference to the second of these
objects I may observe that I consider it the right and
privilege of the people to decide disputed points of the
Constitution arising from the general grant of power to
Congress to carry into effect the powers expressly given;
and I believe with Mr. Madison that "repeated
recognitions under varied circumstances in acts of the
legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the
Government, accompanied by indications in different modes of
the concurrence of the general will of the nation," as
affording to the President sufficient authority for his
considering such disputed points as settled.
Upward
of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of the
present form of government. It would be an object more
highly desirable than the gratification of the curiosity of
speculative statesmen if its precise situation could be
ascertained, a fair exhibit made of the operations of each
of its departments, of the powers which they respectively
claim and exercise, of the collisions which have occurred
between them or between the whole Government and those of
the States or either of them. We could then compare our
actual condition after fifty years' trial of our system with
what it was in the commencement of its operations and
ascertain whether the predictions of the patriots who
opposed its adoption or the confident hopes of its advocates
have been best realized. The great dread of the former seems
to have been that the reserved powers of the States would be
absorbed by those of the Federal Government and a
consolidated power established, leaving to the States the
shadow only of that independent action for which they had so
zealously contended and on the preservation of which they
relied as the last hope of liberty. Without denying that the
result to which they looked with so much apprehension is in
the way of being realized, it is obvious that they did not
clearly see the mode of its accomplishment. The General
Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of
the States. As far as any open warfare may have gone, the
State authorities have amply maintained their rights. To a
casual observer our system presents no appearance of discord
between the different members which compose it. Even the
addition of many new ones has produced no jarring. They move
in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the
central head and with each other. But there is still an
undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked,
the worst apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be
realized, and not only will the State authorities be
overshadowed by the great increase of power in the executive
department of the General Government, but the character of
that Government, if not its designation, be essentially and
radically changed. This state of things has been in part
effected by causes inherent in the Constitution and in part
by the never-failing tendency of political power to increase
itself. By making the President the sole distributor of all
the patronage of the Government the framers of the
Constitution do not appear to have anticipated at how short
a period it would become a formidable instrument to control
the free operations of the State governments. Of trifling
importance at first, it had early in Mr. Jefferson's
Administration become so powerful as to create great alarm
in the mind of that patriot from the potent influence it
might exert in controlling the freedom of the elective
franchise. If such could have then been the effects of its
influence, how much greater must be the danger at this time,
quadrupled in amount as it certainly is and more completely
under the control of the Executive will than their
construction of their powers allowed or the forbearing
characters of all the early Presidents permitted them to
make. But it is not by the extent of its patronage alone
that the executive department has become dangerous, but by
the use which it appears may be made of the appointing power
to bring under its control the whole revenues of the
country. The Constitution has declared it to be the duty of
the President to see that the laws are executed, and it
makes him the Commander in Chief of the Armies and Navy of
the United States. If the opinion of the most approved
writers upon that species of mixed government which in
modern Europe is termed monarchy in contradistinction to
despotism is correct, there was wanting no other addition to
the powers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical
character on our Government but the control of the public
finances; and to me it appears strange indeed that anyone
should doubt that the entire control which the President
possesses over the officers who have the custody of the
public money, by the power of removal with or without cause,
does, for all mischievous purposes at least, virtually
subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman
Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure,
silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it
had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword.
By a selection of political instruments for the care of the
public money a reference to their commissions by a President
would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to
the Roman knight. I am not insensible of the great
difficulty that exists in drawing a proper plan for the
safe-keeping and disbursement of the public revenues, and I
know the importance which has been attached by men of great
abilities and patriotism to the divorce, as it is called, of
the Treasury from the banking institutions. It is not the
divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union of
the Treasury with the executive department, which has
created such extensive alarm. To this danger to our
republican institutions and that created by the influence
given to the Executive through the instrumentality of the
Federal officers I propose to apply all the remedies which
may be at my command. It was certainly a great error in the
framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at
the head of the Treasury Department entirely independent of
the Executive. He should at least have been removable only
upon the demand of the popular branch of the Legislature. I
have determined never to remove a Secretary of the Treasury
without communicating all the circumstances attending such
removal to both Houses of Congress.
The
influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the
elective franchise through the medium of the public officers
can be effectually checked by renewing the prohibition
published by Mr. Jefferson forbidding their interference in
elections further than giving their own votes, and their own
independence secured by an assurance of perfect immunity in
exercising this sacred privilege of freemen under the
dictates of their own unbiased judgments. Never with my
consent shall an officer of the people, compensated for his
services out of their pockets, become the pliant instrument
of Executive will.
There
is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executive
which might be used with greater effect for unhallowed
purposes than the control of the public press. The maxim
which our ancestors derived from the mother country that
"the freedom of the press is the great bulwark of civil
and religious liberty" is one of the most precious
legacies which they have left us. We have learned, too, from
our own as well as the experience of other countries, that
golden shackles, by whomsoever or by whatever pretense
imposed, are as fatal to it as the iron bonds of despotism.
The presses in the necessary employment of the Government
should never be used "to clear the guilty or to varnish
crime." A decent and manly examination of the acts of
the Government should be not only tolerated, but encouraged.
Upon
another occasion I have given my opinion at some length upon
the impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation
of Congress that the article in the Constitution making it
the duty of the President to communicate information and
authorizing him to recommend measures was not intended to
make him the source in legislation, and, in particular, that
he should never be looked to for schemes of finance. It
would be very strange, indeed, that the Constitution should
have strictly forbidden one branch of the Legislature from
interfering in the origination of such bills and that it
should be considered proper that an altogether different
department of the Government should be permitted to do so.
Some of our best political maxims and opinions have been
drawn from our parent isle. There are others, however, which
can not be introduced in our system without singular
incongruity and the production of much mischief, and this I
conceive to be one. No matter in which of the houses of
Parliament a bill may originate nor by whom introduced a
minister or a member of the opposition by the fiction of
law, or rather of constitutional principle, the sovereign is
supposed to have prepared it agreeably to his will and then
submitted it to Parliament for their advice and consent. Now
the very reverse is the case here, not only with regard to
the principle, but the forms prescribed by the Constitution.
The principle certainly assigns to the only body constituted
by the Constitution (the legislative body) the power to make
laws, and the forms even direct that the enactment should be
ascribed to them. The Senate, in relation to revenue bills,
have the right to propose amendments, and so has the
Executive by the power given him to return them to the House
of Representatives with his objections. It is in his power
also to propose amendments in the existing revenue laws,
suggested by his observations upon their defective or
injurious operation. But the delicate duty of devising
schemes of revenue should be left where the Constitution has
placed it with the immediate representatives of the
people. For similar reasons the mode of keeping the public
treasure should be prescribed by them, and the further
removed it may be from the control of the Executive the more
wholesome the arrangement and the more in accordance with
republican principle.
Connected
with this subject is the character of the currency. The idea
of making it exclusively metallic, however well intended,
appears to me to be fraught with more fatal consequences
than any other scheme having no relation to the personal
rights of the citizens that has ever been devised. If any
single scheme could produce the effect of arresting at once
that mutation of condition by which thousands of our most
indigent fellow-citizens by their industry and enterprise
are raised to the possession of wealth, that is the one. If
there is one measure better calculated than another to
produce that state of things so much deprecated by all true
republicans, by which the rich are daily adding to their
hoards and the poor sinking deeper into penury, it is an
exclusive metallic currency. Or if there is a process by
which the character of the country for generosity and
nobleness of feeling may be destroyed by the great increase
and neck toleration of usury, it is an exclusive metallic
currency.
Amongst
the other duties of a delicate character which the President
is called upon to perform is the supervision of the
government of the Territories of the United States. Those of
them which are destined to become members of our great
political family are compensated by their rapid progress
from infancy to manhood for the partial and temporary
deprivation of their political rights. It is in this
District only where American citizens are to be found who
under a settled policy are deprived of many important
political privileges without any inspiring hope as to the
future. Their only consolation under circumstances of such
deprivation is that of the devoted exterior guards of a
camp that their sufferings secure tranquility and safety
within. Are there any of their countrymen, who would subject
them to greater sacrifices, to any other humiliations than
those essentially necessary to the security of the object
for which they were thus separated from their
fellow-citizens? Are their rights alone not to be guaranteed
by the application of those great principles upon which all
our constitutions are founded? We are told by the greatest
of British orators and statesmen that at the commencement of
the War of the Revolution the most stupid men in England
spoke of "their American subjects." Are there,
indeed, citizens of any of our States who have dreamed of
their subjects in the District of Columbia? Such dreams can
never be realized by any agency of mine. The people of the
District of Columbia are not the subjects of the people of
the States, but free American citizens. Being in the latter
condition when the Constitution was formed, no words used in
that instrument could have been intended to deprive them of
that character. If there is anything in the great principle
of unalienable rights so emphatically insisted upon in our
Declaration of Independence, they could neither make nor the
United States accept a surrender of their liberties and
become the subjects in other words, the slaves of their
former fellow-citizens. If this be true and it will
scarcely be denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his
own rights as an American citizen the grant to Congress of
exclusive jurisdiction in the District of Columbia can be
interpreted, so far as respects the aggregate people of the
United States, as meaning nothing more than to allow to
Congress the controlling power necessary to afford a free
and safe exercise of the functions assigned to the General
Government by the Constitution. In all other respects the
legislation of Congress should be adapted to their peculiar
position and wants and be conformable with their deliberate
opinions of their own interests.
I
have spoken of the necessity of keeping the respective
departments of the Government, as well as all the other
authorities of our country, within their appropriate orbits.
This is a matter of difficulty in some cases, as the powers
which they respectively claim are often not defined by any
distinct lines. Mischievous, however, in their tendencies as
collisions of this kind may be, those which arise between
the respective communities which for certain purposes
compose one nation are much more so, for no such nation can
long exist without the careful culture of those feelings of
confidence and affection which are the effective bonds to
union between free and confederated states. Strong as is the
tie of interest, it has been often found ineffectual. Men
blinded by their passions have been known to adopt measures
for their country in direct opposition to all the
suggestions of policy. The alternative, then, is to destroy
or keep down a bad passion by creating and fostering a good
one, and this seems to be the corner stone upon which our
American political architects have reared the fabric of our
Government. The cement which was to bind it and perpetuate
its existence was the affectionate attachment between all
its members. To insure the continuance of this feeling,
produced at first by a community of dangers, of sufferings,
and of interests, the advantages of each were made
accessible to all. No participation in any good possessed by
any member of our extensive Confederacy, except in domestic
government, was withheld from the citizen of any other
member. By a process attended with no difficulty, no delay,
no expense but that of removal, the citizen of one might
become the citizen of any other, and successively of the
whole. The lines, too, separating powers to be exercised by
the citizens of one State from those of another seem to be
so distinctly drawn as to leave no room for
misunderstanding. The citizens of each State unite in their
persons all the privileges which that character confers and
all that they may claim as citizens of the United States,
but in no case can the same persons at the same time act as
the citizen of two separate States, and he is therefore
positively precluded from any interference with the reserved
powers of any State but that of which he is for the time
being a citizen. He may, indeed, offer to the citizens of
other States his advice as to their management, and the form
in which it is tendered is left to his own discretion and
sense of propriety. It may be observed, however, that
organized associations of citizens requiring compliance with
their wishes too much resemble the recommendations of Athens
to her allies, supported by an armed and powerful fleet. It
was, indeed, to the ambition of the leading States of Greece
to control the domestic concerns of the others that the
destruction of that celebrated Confederacy, and subsequently
of all its members, is mainly to be attributed, and it is
owing to the absence of that spirit that the Helvetic
Confederacy has for so many years been preserved. Never has
there been seen in the institutions of the separate members
of any confederacy more elements of discord. In the
principles and forms of government and religion, as well as
in the circumstances of the several Cantons, so marked a
discrepancy was observable as to promise anything but
harmony in their intercourse or permanency in their
alliance, and yet for ages neither has been interrupted.
Content with the positive benefits which their union
produced, with the independence and safety from foreign
aggression which it secured, these sagacious people
respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant
to their own principles and prejudices.
Our
Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the
same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the
exercise of the powers with which the Constitution clothes
them. The attempt of those of one State to control the
domestic institutions of another can only result in feelings
of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of
disunion, violence, and civil war, and the ultimate
destruction of our free institutions. Our Confederacy is
perfectly illustrated by the terms and principles governing
a common copartnership. There is a fund of power to be
exercised under the direction of the joint councils of the
allied members, but that which has been reserved by the
individual members is intangible by the common Government or
the individual members composing it. To attempt it finds no
support in the principles of our Constitution.
It
should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to
cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the various
parts of our Confederacy. Experience has abundantly taught
us that the agitation by citizens of one part of the Union
of a subject not confided to the General Government, but
exclusively under the guardianship of the local authorities,
is productive of no other consequences than bitterness,
alienation, discord, and injury to the very cause which is
intended to be advanced. Of all the great interests which
appertain to our country, that of union cordial,
confiding, fraternal union is by far the most important,
since it is the only true and sure guaranty of all others.
In
consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the
currency, some of the States may meet with difficulty in
their financial concerns. However deeply we may regret
anything imprudent or excessive in the engagements into
which States have entered for purposes of their own, it does
not become us to disparage the States governments, nor to
discourage them from making proper efforts for their own
relief. On the contrary, it is our duty to encourage them to
the extent of our constitutional authority to apply their
best means and cheerfully to make all necessary sacrifices
and submit to all necessary burdens to fulfill their
engagements and maintain their credit, for the character and
credit of the several States form a part of the character
and credit of the whole country. The resources of the
country are abundant, the enterprise and activity of our
people proverbial, and we may well hope that wise
legislation and prudent administration by the respective
governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restore
former prosperity.
Unpleasant
and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes be between
the constituted authorities of the citizens of our country
in relation to the lines which separate their respective
jurisdictions, the results can be of no vital injury to our
institutions if that ardent patriotism, that devoted
attachment to liberty, that spirit of moderation and
forbearance for which our countrymen were once
distinguished, continue to be cherished. If this continues
to be the ruling passion of our souls, the weaker feeling of
the mistaken enthusiast will be corrected, the Utopian
dreams of the scheming politician dissipated, and the
complicated intrigues of the demagogue rendered harmless.
The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for every injury
which our institutions may receive. On the contrary, no care
that can be used in the construction of our Government, no
division of powers, no distribution of checks in its several
departments, will prove effectual to keep us a free people
if this spirit is suffered to decay; and decay it will
without constant nurture. To the neglect of this duty the
best historians agree in attributing the ruin of all the
republics with whose existence and fall their writings have
made us acquainted. The same causes will ever produce the
same effects, and as long as the love of power is a dominant
passion of the human bosom, and as long as the
understandings of men can be warped and their affections
changed by operations upon their passions and prejudices, so
long will the liberties of a people depend on their own
constant attention to its preservation. The danger to all
well-established free governments arises from the
unwillingness of the people to believe in its existence or
from the influence of designing men diverting their
attention from the quarter whence it approaches to a source
from which it can never come. This is the old trick of those
who would usurp the government of their country. In the name
of democracy they speak, warning the people against the
influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History,
ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Caesar became
the master of the Roman people and the senate under the
pretense of supporting the democratic claims of the former
against the aristocracy of the latter; Cromwell, in the
character of protector of the liberties of the people,
became the dictator of England, and Bolivar possessed
himself of unlimited power with the title of his country's
liberator. There is, on the contrary, no instance on record
of an extensive and well-established republic being changed
into an aristocracy. The tendencies of all such governments
in their decline is to monarchy, and the antagonist
principle to liberty there is the spirit of faction a
spirit which assumes the character and in times of great
excitement imposes itself upon the people as the genuine
spirit of freedom, and, like the false Christs whose coming
was foretold by the Savior, seeks to, and were it possible
would, impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of
liberty. It is in periods like this that it behooves the
people to be most watchful of those to whom they have entrusted
power. And although there is at times much
difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit,
a calm and dispassionate investigation will detect the
counterfeit, as well by the character of its operations as
the results that are produced. The true spirit of liberty,
although devoted, persevering, bold, and uncompromising in
principle, that secured is mild and tolerant and scrupulous
as to the means it employs, whilst the spirit of party,
assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vindictive, and
intolerant, and totally reckless as to the character of the
allies which it brings to the aid of its cause. When the
genuine spirit of liberty animates the body of a people to a
thorough examination of their affairs, it leads to the
excision of every excrescence which may have fastened itself
upon any of the departments of the government, and restores
the system to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign
of an intolerant spirit of party amongst a free people
seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to the
executive power introduced and established amidst unusual
professions of devotion to democracy.
The
foregoing remarks relate almost exclusively to matters
connected with our domestic concerns. It may be proper,
however, that I should give some indications to my
fellow-citizens of my proposed course of conduct in the
management of our foreign relations. I assure them,
therefore, that it is my intention to use every means in my
power to preserve the friendly intercourse which now so
happily subsists with every foreign nation, and that
although, of course, not well informed as to the state of
pending negotiations with any of them, I see in the personal
characters of the sovereigns, as well as in the mutual
interests of our own and of the governments with which our
relations are most intimate, a pleasing guaranty that the
harmony so important to the interests of their subjects as
well as of our citizens will not be interrupted by the
advancement of any claim or pretension upon their part to
which our honor would not permit us to yield. Long the
defender of my country's rights in the field, I trust that
my fellow-citizens will not see in my earnest desire to
preserve peace with foreign powers any indication that their
rights will ever be sacrificed or the honor of the nation
tarnished by any admission on the part of their Chief
Magistrate unworthy of their former glory. In our
intercourse with our aboriginal neighbors the same
liberality and justice which marked the course prescribed to
me by two of my illustrious predecessors when acting under
their direction in the discharge of the duties of
superintendent and commissioner shall be strictly observed.
I can conceive of no more sublime spectacle, none more
likely to propitiate an impartial and common Creator, than a
rigid adherence to the principles of justice on the part of
a powerful nation in its transactions with a weaker and
uncivilized people whom circumstances have placed at its
disposal.
Before
concluding, fellow-citizens, I must say something to you on
the subject of the parties at this time existing in our
country. To me it appears perfectly clear that the interest
of that country requires that the violence of the spirit by
which those parties are at this time governed must be
greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or
consequences will ensue which are appalling to be thought
of.
If
parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of
vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within
the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness
ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue,
the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and
eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples of
republics where the love of country and of liberty at one
time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of
citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and
forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualities
remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens. It was
the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer that
"in the Roman senate Octavius had a party and Anthony a
party, but the Commonwealth had none." Yet the senate
continued to meet in the temple of liberty to talk of the
sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and gaze at the
statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, and
the people assembled in the forum, not, as in the days of
Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for
annual magistrates or pass upon the acts of the senate, but
to receive from the hands of the leaders of the respective
parties their share of the spoils and to shout for one or
the other, as those collected in Gaul or Egypt and the
lesser Asia would furnish the larger dividend. The spirit of
liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man,
had sought protection in the wilds of Scythia or
Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same causes
and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums.
A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the
world, must be deprecated by every patriot and every
tendency to a state of things likely to produce it
immediately checked. Such a tendency has existed does
exist. Always the friend of my countrymen, never their
flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high
place to which their partiality has exalted me that there
exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best
interests hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit
contracted in its views, selfish in its objects. It looks to
the aggrandizement of a few even to the destruction of the
interests of the whole. The entire remedy is with the
people. Something, however, may be effected by the means
which they have placed in my hands. It is union that we
want, not of a party for the sake of that party, but a union
of the whole country for the sake of the whole country, for
the defense of its interests and its honor against foreign
aggression, for the defense of those principles for which
our ancestors so gloriously contended. As far as it depends
upon me it shall be accomplished. All the influence that I
possess shall be exerted to prevent the formation at least
of an Executive party in the halls of the legislative body.
I wish for the support of no member of that body to any
measure of mine that does not satisfy his judgment and his
sense of duty to those from whom he holds his appointment,
nor any confidence in advance from the people but that asked
for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to
the legal administration of their affairs."
I
deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn
to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound
reverence for the Christian religion and a thorough
conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just
sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected
with all true and lasting happiness; and to that good Being
who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious
freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our
fathers and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far
exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us
unite in fervently commending every interest of our beloved
country in all future time.
Fellow-citizens,
being fully invested with that high office to which the
partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an
affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your
homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to
discharge all the high duties of my exalted station
according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon
their performance with entire confidence in the support of a
just and generous people.
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