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
Wednesday, March 4, 1801

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

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