INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON TO BILL CLINTON
***
George Washington
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
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.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
George Washington
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
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.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
John Adams
INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
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.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
Thomas Jefferson
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C.
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.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
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