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.