INAUGURAL
ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON 1789 TO
GEORGE BUSH 1989
FORWARD
From
George Washington to George Bush, Presidents have used inaugural addresses to
articulate their hopes and dreams for a nation. Collectively, these addresses
chronicle the course of this country from its earliest days to the present.
Inaugural
addresses have taken various tones, themes and forms. Some have been reflective
and instructive, while others have sought to challenge and inspire.
Invoking a
spirit of both history and patriotism, inaugural addresses have served to
reaffirm the liberties and freedoms that mark our remarkable system of
government. Many memorable and inspiring passages have originated from these
addresses. Among the best known are Washington's pledge in 1789 to protect the
new nation's "liberties and freedoms" under "a government
instituted by themselves," Abraham Lincoln's plea to a nation divided by
Civil War to heal "with malice toward none, with charity toward all,"
Franklin D. Roosevelt's declaration "that the only thing to have to fear
is fear itself," and John F. Kennedy's exhortation to "ask not what
your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country."
This
collection is being published in commemoration of the Bicentennial Presidential
Inauguration that was observed on January 20, 1989. Dedicated to the
institution of the Presidency and the democratic process that represents the
peaceful and orderly transfer of power according to the will of the people, it
is our hope that this volume will serve as an important and valuable reference
for historians, scholars and the American people.
WENDELL H.
FORD,
Chairman
Senate
Committee on Rules and Administration
Joint
Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies for the Bicentennial
Presidential Inaugural, 1789-1989
PRESIDENTS
WHO WERE NOT INAUGURATED
JOHN TYLER
Vice President John Tyler became President upon William Henry Harrison's
death one month after his inauguration. U.S. Circuit Court Judge William Cranch
administered the oath to Mr. Tyler at
his residence in the Indian Queen Hotel on
MILLARD FILLMORE
Judge William Cranch administered the executive oath of office to Vice
President Millard Fillmore on
ANDREW JOHNSON
On
On
GERALD R. FORD
The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives became
Vice President upon the resignation of
Spiro Agnew, under the process of the
25th Amendment to the Constitution. When
President Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Vice President Ford took the executive oath of office,
administered by Chief Justice Warren
Burger, in the East Room of the White House.
EXECUTIVE OATH OF OFFICE
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the
Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
George Washington
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE CITY OF
THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1789 The Nation's first chief executive
took his oath of office in April in New York City on the balcony of the Senate
Chamber at Federal Hall on Wall Street. General Washington had been unanimously
elected President by the first electoral college, and John Adams was elected
Vice President because he received the second greatest number of votes. Under
the rules, each elector cast two votes. The Chancellor of New York and fellow
Freemason, Robert R. Livingston administered the oath of office. The Bible on
which the oath was sworn belonged to New York's St. John's Masonic Lodge. The
new President gave his inaugural address before a joint session of the two
Houses of Congress assembled inside the Senate Chamber.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of
Representatives:
Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have
filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was
transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month.
On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but
with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest
predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the
asylum of my declining years--a retreat which was rendered every day more
necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and
of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by
time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the
voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and
most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his
qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting
inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil
administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In
this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study
to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it
might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been
too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an
affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my
fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as
disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be
palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my
country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.
Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience
to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly
improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that
Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of
nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His
benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the
United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential
purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to
execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this
homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself
that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-
citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and
adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of
the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of
an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of
providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the
system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary
consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can
not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established
without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of
the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising
out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be
suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none
under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can
more auspiciously commence.
By the article establishing the executive department it is
made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such
measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances
under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject
further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are
assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which
your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those
circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to
substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute
that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the
characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications
I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or
attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the
comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of
communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national
policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality,
and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes
which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the
world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love
for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established
than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble
union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the
genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of
public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the
propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards
the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and
since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the
republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as
finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American
people.
Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will
remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power
delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the
present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the
system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead
of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be
guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way
to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good; for
I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might
endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to
await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic
rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will sufficiently
influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be
impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.
To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will
be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself,
and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a
call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for
its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should
renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no
instance departed; and being still under the impressions which produced it, I
must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments
which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive
department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the
station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such
actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.
Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been
awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present
leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human
Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the
American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity,
and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of
government for the security of their union and the advancement of their
happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged
views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success
of this Government must depend.
George Washington
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE CITY OF
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1793
President Washington's second oath of office was taken in
the Senate Chamber of Congress Hall in Philadelphia on March 4, the date fixed by
the Continental Congress for inaugurations. Before an assembly of Congressmen,
Cabinet officers, judges of the federal and district courts, foreign officials,
and a small gathering of Philadelphians, the President offered the shortest
inaugural address ever given. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court William
Cushing administered the oath of office.
Fellow Citizens:
I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute
the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall
arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this
distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the
people of united America.
Previous to the execution of any official act of the
President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about
to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my
administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or
knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional
punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the
present solemn ceremony.
John Adams
INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE CITY OF
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1797
The first Vice President became the second President of the
United States. His opponent in the election, Thomas Jefferson, had won the
second greatest number of electoral votes and therefore had been elected Vice
President by the electoral college. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth administered
the oath of office in the Hall of the House of Representatives in Federal Hall
before a joint session of Congress.
When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle
course for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign
legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less
apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they must
determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would
certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the
whole and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on the
purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and
intelligence of the people, under an overruling Providence which had so
signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this
nation, then consisting of little more than half its present number, not only
broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was
lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched
into an ocean of uncertainty.
The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary
war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient
at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was
early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and
Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and
precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had
ever considered. But reflecting on the striking difference in so many
particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat
of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by
some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that it could not be
durable.
Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its
recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals
but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences-- universal
languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and
commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value
of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of
consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents,
animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening
some great national calamity.
In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not
abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or
integrity. Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. The
public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued in the present
happy Constitution of Government.
Employed in the service of my country abroad during the
whole course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United
States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by
no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great
satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an
experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of
this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested. In
its general principles and great outlines it was conformable to such a system
of government as I had ever most esteemed, and in some States, my own native
State in particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of
suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a
constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs,
I did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public
and in private. It was not then, nor has been since, any objection to it in my
mind that the Executive and Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I ever entertained
a thought of promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves,
in the course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or
expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures,
according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.
Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful
separation from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station
under the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most
serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it has
equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an habitual
attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects
upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation I have acquired
an habitual attachment to it and veneration for it.
What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve
our esteem and love?
There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations
of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of
superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human
mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more
noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been
seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the
Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature,
are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to
make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything
more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds?
Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents
or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from
the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the
people only that are represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected,
and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it
may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time
is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout
the whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing
than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever
justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches,
grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and
benevolence.
In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful
to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if
anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous,
and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of
a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or
corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not
of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained
by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror,
intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American
people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and
not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that
in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or
chance.
Such is the amiable and interesting system of government
(and such are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people
of America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and
virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a citizen
who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice,
temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with the same virtues
and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of liberty to
independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity, has
merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of
foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity.
In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long
live to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily
increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of this country
which is opening from year to year. His name may be still a rampart, and the knowledge
that he lives a bulwark, against all open or secret enemies of his country's
peace. This example has been recommended to the imitation of his successors by
both Houses of Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people
throughout the nation.
On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to
speak with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope,
will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference, upon
principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and serious
reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if an
attachment to the Constitution of the United States, and a conscientious
determination to support it until it shall be altered by the judgments and
wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a respectful
attention to the constitutions of the individual States and a constant caution
and delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal and impartial regard to
the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union,
without preference or regard to a northern or southern, an eastern or western,
position, their various political opinions on unessential points or their
personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men of all parties and
denominations; if a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize every
rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and
every institution for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes
of the people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in
all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only
means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of
sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of
corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of
destruction to elective governments; if a love of equal laws, of justice, and
humanity in the interior administration; if an inclination to improve
agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and
defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of
America, and a disposition to meliorate their condition by inclining them to be
more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an
inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all
nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent
powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so solemnly
sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the legislatures of the
States and the public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained by
Congress; if a personal esteem for the French nation, formed in a residence of
seven years chiefly among them, and a sincere desire to preserve the friendship
which has been so much for the honor and interest of both nations; if, while
the conscious honor and integrity of the people of America and the internal
sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest
endeavor to investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of
complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a reparation for
the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of our fellow-citizens by
whatever nation, and if success can not be obtained, to lay the facts before
the Legislature, that they may consider what further measures the honor and
interest of the Government and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do
justice as far as may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and
maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken
confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, on which
I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of
the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a
knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people
deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by
experience and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add,
if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves
Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for
Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable
me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor
that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.
With this great example before me, with the sense and
spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people
pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt
of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without
hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to the
utmost of my power.
And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of
Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of
virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and
give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His
providence.
Thomas Jefferson
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1801
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the first executive
oath of office ever taken in the new federal city in the new Senate Chamber
(now the Old Supreme Court Chamber) of the partially built Capitol building.
The outcome of the election of 1800 had been in doubt until late February
because Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the two leading candidates, each had
received 73 electoral votes. Consequently, the House of Representatives met in
a special session to resolve the impasse, pursuant to the terms spelled out in
the Constitution. After 30 hours of debate and balloting, Mr. Jefferson emerged
as the President and Mr. Burr the Vice President. President John Adams, who had
run unsuccessfully for a second term, left Washington on the day of the
inauguration without attending the ceremony.
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.
Thomas Jefferson
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1805
The second inauguration of Mr. Jefferson followed an
election under which the offices of President and Vice President were to be
separately sought, pursuant to the newly adopted 12th Amendment to the
Constitution. George Clinton of New York was elected Vice President. Chief
Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office in the Senate Chamber at
the Capitol.
Proceeding, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the
Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again conferred on me,
it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new proof of
confidence from my fellow-citizens at large, and the zeal with which it
inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just expectations.
On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the
principles on which I believed it my duty to administer the affairs of our
Commonwealth. MY conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted up to that
declaration according to its obvious import and to the understanding of every
candid mind.
In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have
endeavored to cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of those
with which we have the most important relations. We have done them justice on
all occasions, favored where favor was lawful, and cherished mutual interests
and intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly convinced, and we act on
that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly
calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history
bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when
recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.
At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done
well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments
and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our
land with officers and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun
that process of domiciliary vexation which once entered is scarcely to be
restrained from reaching successively every article of property and produce. If
among these taxes some minor ones fell which had not been inconvenient, it was
because their amount would not have paid the officers who collected them, and
because, if they had any merit, the State authorities might adopt them instead
of others less approved.
The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles
is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic
comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated
with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and
the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever
sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to
support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with
foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to
extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places
at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected the
revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and
a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied in time of peace to rivers,
canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within
each State. In time of war, if injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes
produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased population and
consumption, and aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet
within the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights
of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War will
then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state of peace, a
return to the progress of improvement.
I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had
enabled us to extend our limits, but that extension may possibly pay for itself
before we are called on, and in the meantime may keep down the accruing
interest; in all events, it will replace the advances we shall have made. I
know that the acquisition of Louisiana had been disapproved by some from a
candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its
union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may
operate effectively? The larger our association the less will it be shaken by
local passions; and in any view is it not better that the opposite bank of the
Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by
strangers of another family? With which should we be most likely to live in
harmony and friendly intercourse?
In matters of religion I have considered that its free
exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General
Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the
religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the Constitution found
them, under the direction and discipline of the church or state authorities
acknowledged by the several religious societies.
The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have
regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties
and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence,
and occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the
stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on these
shores; without power to divert or habits to contend against it, they have been
overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now reduced within limits too
narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture
and the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can
enable them to maintain their place in existence and to prepare them in time
for that state of society which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the
mind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements
of husbandry and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the
arts of first necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of the law against
aggressors from among ourselves.
But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits
their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow
its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances have
powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits of their
bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of
interested and crafty individuals among them who feel themselves something in
the present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other. These
persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors;
that whatsoever they did must be done through all time; that reason is a false
guide, and to advance under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political
condition is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator
made them, ignorance being safety and knowledge full of danger; in short, my
friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and
of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping
things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their
faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of improving our
reason and obeying its mandates.
In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to
arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place,
to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of
public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due to the
sound discretion with which they select from among themselves those to whom
they confide the legislative duties. It is due to the zeal and wisdom of the
characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of public happiness in
wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains for others, and it is due
to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose patriotism has associated them with
me in the executive functions.
During this course of administration, and in order to
disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged
with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an
institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted,
inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety. They
might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved to and
provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation,
but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the
offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public
indignation.
Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment
should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by
power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth--whether a
government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, with zeal
and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should
witness, can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has
been tried; you have witnessed the scene; our fellow-citizens looked on, cool
and collected; they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded;
they gathered around their public functionaries, and when the Constitution
called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict,
honorable to those who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who
believes that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs.
No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the
States against false and defamatory publications should not be enforced; he who
has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity in
reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but the experiment
is noted to prove that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground
against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to
truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false
reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite
line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its
demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule
would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public
opinion.
Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so
generally as auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to
our country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet rallied to the
same point the disposition to do so is gaining strength; facts are piercing
through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren will at length see
that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they can not yet resolve to
act as to principles and measures, think as they think and desire what they
desire; that our wish as well as theirs is that the public efforts may be
directed honestly to the public good, that peace be cultivated, civil and
religious liberty unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights
maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to
every man from his own industry or that of his father's. When satisfied of
these views it is not in human nature that they should not approve and support
them. In the meantime let us cherish them with patient affection, let us do
them justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of interest; and we
need not doubt that truth, reason, and their own interests will at length
prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, and will complete
that entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of harmony
and the benefit of all its strength.
I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens
have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which
they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray;
I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of
justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits of my own
understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your
interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I have heretofore
experienced from my constituents; the want of it will certainly not lessen with
increasing years. I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we
are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted
them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who
has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom
and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me
that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and
prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and
shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.
James Madison
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1809
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office
in the Hall of the House of Representatives (now National Statuary Hall).
Subsequently the oath by Presidents-elect, with few exceptions, was taken in
the House Chamber or in a place of the Capitol associated with the Congress as
a whole. The Vice Presidential oath of office for most administrations was
taken in the Senate Chamber. President Jefferson watched the ceremony, but he
joined the crowd of assembled visitors since he no longer was an office- holder. The mild March weather drew a crowd
of about 10,000 persons.
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.
James Madison
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1813
Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office
in the Hall of the House of Representatives. The United States was at war with
Great Britain at the time of James Madison's second inauguration. Most of the
battles had occurred at sea, and the physical reminders of war seemed remote to
the group assembled at the Capitol. In little more than a year, however, both
the Capitol and Executive Mansion would be burned by an invading British
garrison, and the city thrown into a panic.
About to add the solemnity of an oath to the obligations
imposed by a second call to the station in which my country heretofore placed
me, I find in the presence of this respectable assembly an opportunity of
publicly repeating my profound sense of so distinguished a confidence and of
the responsibility united with it. The impressions on me are strengthened by
such an evidence that my faithful endeavors to discharge my arduous duties have
been favorably estimated, and by a consideration of the momentous period at
which the trust has been renewed. From the weight and magnitude now belonging
to it I should be compelled to shrink if I had less reliance on the support of
an enlightened and generous people, and felt less deeply a conviction that the
war with a powerful nation, which forms so prominent a feature in our
situation, is stamped with that justice which invites the smiles of Heaven on
the means of conducting it to a successful termination.
May we not cherish this sentiment without presumption when
we reflect on the characters by which this war is distinguished?
It was not declared on the part of the United States until
it had been long made on them, in reality though not in name; until arguments
and postulations had been exhausted; until a positive declaration had been
received that the wrongs provoking it would not be discontinued; nor until this
last appeal could no longer be delayed without breaking down the spirit of the
nation, destroying all confidence in itself and in its political institutions,
and either perpetuating a state of disgraceful suffering or regaining by more
costly sacrifices and more severe struggles our lost rank and respect among
independent powers.
On the issue of the war are staked our national sovereignty
on the high seas and the security of an important class of citizens whose
occupations give the proper value to those of every other class. Not to contend
for such a stake is to surrender our equality with other powers on the element
common to all and to violate the sacred title which every member of the society
has to its protection. I need not call into view the unlawfulness of the
practice by which our mariners are forced at the will of every cruising officer
from their own vessels into foreign ones, nor paint the outrages inseparable
from it. The proofs are in the records of each successive Administration of our
Government, and the cruel sufferings of that portion of the American people
have found their way to every bosom not dead to the sympathies of human nature.
As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in
its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no
principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of
courtesy or humanity, have been infringed. The war has been waged on our part
with scrupulous regard to all these obligations, and in a spirit of liberality
which was never surpassed.
How little has been the effect of this example on the
conduct of the enemy!
They have retained as prisoners of war citizens of the
United States not liable to be so considered under the usages of war.
They have refused to consider as prisoners of war, and threatened
to punish as traitors and deserters, persons emigrating without restraint to
the United States, incorporated by naturalization into our political family,
and fighting under the authority of their adopted country in open and honorable
war for the maintenance of its rights and safety. Such is the avowed purpose of
a Government which is in the practice of naturalizing by thousands citizens of
other countries, and not only of permitting but compelling them to fight its
battles against their native country.
They have not, it is true, taken into their own hands the
hatchet and the knife, devoted to indiscriminate massacre, but they have let
loose the savages armed with these cruel instruments; have allured them into
their service, and carried them to battle by their sides, eager to glut their
savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished and to finish the work of
torture and death on maimed and defenseless captives. And, what was never
before seen, British commanders have extorted victory over the unconquerable
valor of our troops by presenting to the sympathy of their chief captives
awaiting massacre from their savage associates. And now we find them, in
further contempt of the modes of honorable warfare, supplying the place of a
conquering force by attempts to disorganize our political society, to dismember
our confederated Republic. Happily, like others, these will recoil on the
authors; but they mark the degenerate counsels from which they emanate, and if
they did not belong to a sense of unexampled inconsistencies might excite the
greater wonder as proceeding from a Government which founded the very war in
which it has been so long engaged on a charge against the disorganizing and
insurrectional policy of its adversary.
To render the justice of the war on our part the more
conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and
strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was
scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable
terms on which it would be resheathed. Still more precise advances were
repeated, and have been received in a spirit forbidding every reliance not
placed on the military resources of the nation.
These resources are amply sufficient to bring the war to an
honorable issue. Our nation is in number more than half that of the British
Isles. It is composed of a brave, a free, a virtuous, and an intelligent
people. Our country abounds in the necessaries, the arts, and the comforts of
life. A general prosperity is visible in the public countenance. The means
employed by the British cabinet to undermine it have recoiled on themselves;
have given to our national faculties a more rapid development, and, draining or
diverting the precious metals from British circulation and British vaults, have
poured them into those of the United States. It is a propitious consideration
that an unavoidable war should have found this seasonable facility for the
contributions required to support it. When the public voice called for war, all
knew, and still know, that without them it could not be carried on through the
period which it might last, and the patriotism, the good sense, and the manly
spirit of our fellow-citizens are pledges for the cheerfulness with which they
will bear each his share of the common burden. To render the war short and its
success sure, animated and systematic exertions alone are necessary, and the
success of our arms now may long preserve our country from the necessity of
another resort to them. Already have the gallant exploits of our naval heroes
proved to the world our inherent capacity to maintain our rights on one
element. If the reputation of our arms has been thrown under clouds on the
other, presaging flashes of heroic enterprise assure us that nothing is wanting
to correspondent triumphs there also but the discipline and habits which are in
daily progress.
James Monroe
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1817
Because the Capitol was under reconstruction after the fire,
President-elect Monroe offered to take his oath of office in the House Chamber
of the temporary "Brick Capitol," located on the site where the
Supreme Court building now stands. A controversy resulted from the inaugural
committees proposals concerning the use of the House Chamber on the second
floor of the brick building. Speaker Henry Clay declined the use of the hall
and suggested that the proceedings be held outside. The President's speech to
the crowd from a platform adjacent to the brick building was the first outdoor inaugural
address. Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office.
I should be destitute of feeling if I was not deeply
affected by the strong proof which my fellow-citizens have given me of their
confidence in calling me to the high office whose functions I am about to
assume. As the expression of their good opinion of my conduct in the public
service, I derive from it a gratification which those who are conscious of
having done all that they could to merit it can alone feel. MY sensibility is
increased by a just estimate of the importance of the trust and of the nature
and extent of its duties, with the proper discharge of which the highest
interests of a great and free people are intimately connected. Conscious of my
own deficiency, I cannot enter on these duties without great anxiety for the
result. From a just responsibility I will never shrink, calculating with
confidence that in my best efforts to promote the public welfare my motives
will always be duly appreciated and my conduct be viewed with that candor and
indulgence which I have experienced in other stations.
In commencing the duties of the chief executive office it
has been the practice of the distinguished men who have gone before me to
explain the principles which would govern them in their respective
Administrations. In following their venerated example my attention is naturally
drawn to the great causes which have contributed in a principal degree to
produce the present happy condition of the United States. They will best explain
the nature of our duties and shed much light on the policy which ought to be
pursued in future.
From the commencement of our Revolution to the present day
almost forty years have elapsed, and from the establishment of this
Constitution twenty-eight. Through this whole term the Government has been what
may emphatically be called self-government. And what has been the effect? To
whatever object we turn our attention, whether it relates to our foreign or
domestic concerns, we find abundant cause to felicitate ourselves in the
excellence of our institutions. During a period fraught with difficulties and
marked by very extraordinary events the United States have flourished beyond
example. Their citizens individually have been happy and the nation prosperous.
Under this Constitution our commerce has been wisely
regulated with foreign nations and between the States; new States have been
admitted into our Union; our territory has been enlarged by fair and honorable
treaty, and with great advantage to the original States; the States,
respectively protected by the National Government under a mild, parental system
against foreign dangers, and enjoying within their separate spheres, by a wise
partition of power, a just proportion of the sovereignty, have improved their
police, extended their settlements, and attained a strength and maturity which
are the best proofs of wholesome laws well administered. And if we look to the
condition of individuals what a proud spectacle does it exhibit! On whom has
oppression fallen in any quarter of our Union? Who has been deprived of any
right of person or property? Who restrained from offering his vows in the mode
which he prefers to the Divine Author of his being? It is well known that all
these blessings have been enjoyed in their fullest extent; and I add with
peculiar satisfaction that there has been no example of a capital punishment
being inflicted on anyone for the crime of high treason.
Some who might admit the competency of our Government to
these beneficent duties might doubt it in trials which put to the test its
strength and efficiency as a member of the great community of nations. Here too
experience has afforded us the most satisfactory proof in its favor. Just as
this Constitution was put into action several of the principal States of Europe
had become much agitated and some of them seriously convulsed. Destructive wars
ensued, which have of late only been terminated. In the course of these
conflicts the United States received great injury from several of the parties. It
was their interest to stand aloof from the contest, to demand justice from the
party committing the injury, and to cultivate by a fair and honorable conduct
the friendship of all. War became at length inevitable, and the result has
shown that our Government is equal to that, the greatest of trials, under the
most unfavorable circumstances. Of the virtue of the people and of the heroic
exploits of the Army, the Navy, and the militia I need not speak.
Such, then, is the happy Government under which we live--a
Government adequate to every purpose for which the social compact is formed; a
Government elective in all its branches, under which every citizen may by his
merit obtain the highest trust recognized by the Constitution; which contains
within it no cause of discord, none to put at variance one portion of the
community with another; a Government which protects every citizen in the full
enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the nation against injustice
from foreign powers.
Other considerations of the highest importance admonish us
to cherish our Union and to cling to the Government which supports it.
Fortunate as we are in our political institutions, we have not been less so in
other circumstances on which our prosperity and happiness essentially depend.
Situated within the temperate zone, and extending through many degrees of
latitude along the Atlantic, the United States enjoy all the varieties of
climate, and every production incident to that portion of the globe. Penetrating
internally to the Great Lakes and beyond the sources of the great rivers which
communicate through our whole interior, no country was ever happier with
respect to its domain. Blessed, too, with a fertile soil, our produce has
always been very abundant, leaving, even in years the least favorable, a
surplus for the wants of our fellow-men in other countries. Such is our
peculiar felicity that there is not a part of our Union that is not
particularly interested in preserving it. The great agricultural interest of
the nation prospers under its protection. Local interests are not less fostered
by it. Our fellow-citizens of the North engaged in navigation find great
encouragement in being made the favored carriers of the vast productions of the
other portions of the United States, while the inhabitants of these are amply
recompensed, in their turn, by the nursery for seamen and naval force thus
formed and reared up for the support of our common rights. Our manufactures
find a generous encouragement by the policy which patronizes domestic industry,
and the surplus of our produce a steady and profitable market by local wants in
less- favored parts at home.
Such, then, being the highly favored condition of our
country, it is the interest of every citizen to maintain it. What are the
dangers which menace us? If any exist they ought to be ascertained and guarded
against.
In explaining my sentiments on this subject it may be asked,
What raised us to the present happy state? How did we accomplish the
Revolution? How remedy the defects of the first instrument of our Union, by
infusing into the National Government sufficient power for national purposes,
without impairing the just rights of the States or affecting those of
individuals? How sustain and pass with glory through the late war? The
Government has been in the hands of the people. To the people, therefore, and
to the faithful and able depositaries of their trust is the credit due. Had the
people of the United States been educated in different principles had they been
less intelligent, less independent, or less virtuous can it be believed that we
should have maintained the same steady and consistent career or been blessed
with the same success? While, then, the constituent body retains its present
sound and healthful state everything will be safe. They will choose competent
and faithful representatives for every department. It is only when the people
become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they
are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy
attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing
instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great
cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and
constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means
of preserving our liberties.
Dangers from abroad are not less deserving of attention.
Experiencing the fortune of other nations, the United States may be again
involved in war, and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to
overset our Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation. Our
distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of our
Government may form some security against these dangers, but they ought to be
anticipated and guarded against. Many of our citizens are engaged in commerce
and navigation, and all of them are in a certain degree dependent on their
prosperous state. Many are engaged in the fisheries. These interests are
exposed to invasion in the wars between other powers, and we should disregard
the faithful admonition of experience if we did not expect it. We must support
our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties. A people
who fail to do it can scarcely be said to hold a place among independent
nations. National honor is national property of the highest value. The
sentiment in the mind of every citizen is national strength. It ought therefore
to be cherished.
To secure us against these dangers our coast and inland
frontiers should be fortified, our Army and Navy, regulated upon just
principles as to the force of each, be kept in perfect order, and our militia
be placed on the best practicable footing. To put our extensive coast in such a
state of defense as to secure our cities and interior from invasion will be
attended with expense, but the work when finished will be permanent, and it is
fair to presume that a single campaign of invasion by a naval force superior to
our own, aided by a few thousand land troops, would expose us to greater
expense, without taking into the estimate the loss of property and distress of
our citizens, than would be sufficient for this great work. Our land and naval
forces should be moderate, but adequate to the necessary purposes--the former
to garrison and preserve our fortifications and to meet the first invasions of
a foreign foe, and, while constituting the elements of a greater force, to
preserve the science as well as all the necessary implements of war in a state
to be brought into activity in the event of war; the latter, retained within
the limits proper in a state of peace, might aid in maintaining the neutrality
of the United States with dignity in the wars of other powers and in saving the
property of their citizens from spoliation. In time of war, with the
enlargement of which the great naval resources of the country render it
susceptible, and which should be duly fostered in time. of peace, it would
contribute essentially, both as an auxiliary of defense and as a powerful
engine of annoyance, to diminish the calamities of war and to bring the war to
a speedy and honorable termination.
But it ought always to be held prominently in view that the
safety of these States and of everything dear to a free people must depend in
an eminent degree on the militia. Invasions may be made too formidable to be
resisted by any land and naval force which it would comport either with the
principles of our Government or the circumstances of the United States to maintain.
In such cases recourse must be had to the great body of the people, and in a
manner to produce the best effect. It is of the highest importance, therefore,
that they be so organized and trained as to be prepared for any emergency. The
arrangement should be such as to put at the command of the Government the
ardent patriotism and youthful vigor of the country. If formed on equal and
just principles, it can not be oppressive. It is the crisis which makes the
pressure, and not the laws which provide a remedy for it. This arrangement
should be formed, too, in time of peace, to be the better prepared for war.
With such an organization of such a people the United States have nothing to
dread from foreign invasion. At its approach an overwhelming force of gallant
men might always be put in motion.
Other interests of high importance will claim attention,
among which the improvement of our country by roads and canals, proceeding
always with a constitutional sanction, holds a distinguished place. By thus facilitating
the intercourse between the States we shall add much to the convenience and
comfort of our fellow-citizens, much to the ornament of the country, and, what
is of greater importance, we shall shorten distances, and, by making each part
more accessible to and dependent on the other, we shall bind the Union more
closely together. Nature has done so much for us by intersecting the country
with so many great rivers, bays, and lakes, approaching from distant points so
near to each other, that the inducement to complete the work seems to be
peculiarly strong. A more interesting spectacle was perhaps never seen than is
exhibited within the limits of the United States--a territory so vast and
advantageously situated, containing objects so grand, so useful, so happily
connected in all their parts!
Our manufacturers will likewise require the systematic and
fostering care of the Government. Possessing as we do all the raw materials,
the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend in the degree we
have done on supplies from other countries. While we are thus dependent the
sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us into
the most serious difficulties It is important, too, that the capital which
nourishes our manufacturers should be domestic, as its influence in that case
instead of exhausting, as it may do in foreign hands, would be felt
advantageously on agriculture and every other branch of industry Equally
important is it to provide at home a market for our raw materials, as by
extending the competition it will enhance the price and protect the cultivator
against the casualties incident to foreign markets.
With the Indian tribes it is our duty to cultivate friendly
relations and to act with kindness and liberality in all our transactions.
Equally proper is it to persevere in our efforts to extend to them the
advantages of civilization.
The great amount of our revenue and the flourishing state of the Treasury are a full proof of the competency of the national resources for any emergency, as they are of the willingness of our fellow-citizens to bear the burdens which the public necessities require. The vast amount of vacant lands, the value of which daily augments, forms an additional resource of great extent and duration. These resources, besides accomplishing every other necessary purpose, put it completely in the power of the United States to discharge the national debt at an early period