_Inaugural Speech._
On Monday, at 12 o’clock, THOMAS JEFFERSON, President of the United
States, took the oath of office, and delivered the following Inaugural
Speech in the Senate Chamber, in the presence of the members of the two
Houses, and a large concourse of citizens:
PROCEEDING, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which
the constitution requires before my entrance on the
charge 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; favor, 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,[17]
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 tax-gatherer of the United States? These contributions
enable us to support the current expenses of the Government;
to fulfil 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.[18] _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 burdening 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
mean time, 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 has 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 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 ægis 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 anti-philosophists, who find an interest in keeping
things in their present state; who dread reformation, and exert
all their faculties to maintain the ascendency 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 levelled 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 reasonings 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
cannot 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. When satisfied of these
views, it is not in human nature that they should not approve
and support them. In the mean time, 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.
After which, the Chief Justice of the United States administered to him
the oath of office prescribed by the constitution; and the oath was, in
like manner, administered to GEORGE CLINTON, Vice President of the United
States; after which, the PRESIDENT and VICE PRESIDENT retired.
Trial of Judge Chase.
TRIAL OF SAMUEL CHASE, AN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
UNITED STATES, IMPEACHED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR HIGH CRIMES
AND MISDEMEANORS, BEFORE THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
[TAKEN IN SHORT-HAND BY SAMUEL H. SMITH AND THOMAS LLOYD.]
This trial was one of the events of the day, greatly exciting party
passions, and taking a scope which gives it historic interest, both for
the persons concerned, and the matters involved. The account of it is
greatly abridged here, but it is believed all is still retained which is
necessary to the full knowledge of the case, and to a just conception of
the skill, learning, eloquence and ability with which the trial (both
the prosecution and the defence) was conducted. The formal charges are
omitted, as being sufficiently shown in the pleadings; the testimony of
witnesses limited to their principal statements; and the speeches only
given in their essential parts.
[The following report of the trial of SAMUEL CHASE has been
drawn up with the greatest care. To guard against misconception
or omission, two individuals, one of whom is a professional
stenographer, were constantly engaged during the whole course
of the trial; and the arguments of the managers and counsel
have in most instances, and whenever it was attainable, been
revised by them. It is with some satisfaction that the editor
of this impression is enabled, under these circumstances,
to submit to the public a tract, whose fidelity and
comprehensiveness, he hopes will amply reward the interest so
deeply excited by the progress and issue of this important
trial.--_Editor National Intelligencer._]