Fellow Citizens: The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an
obligation I cheerfully fulfill--to accompany the first and solemn act
of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me
in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge
so responsible and vast. In imitating their example I tread in the
footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our happiness
to believe are not found on the executive calendar of any country.
Among them we recognize the earliest and firmest pillars of the
Republic--those by whom our national independence was first declared,
him who above all others contributed to establish it on the field of
battle, and those whose expanded intellect and patriotism constructed,
improved, and perfected the inestimable institutions under which we
live. If such men in the position I now occupy felt themselves
overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for this the highest of all marks of
their country's confidence, and by a consciousness of their inability
adequately to discharge the duties of an office so difficult and
exalted, how much more must these considerations affect one who can rely
on no such claims for favor or forbearance! Unlike all who have preceded
me, the Revolution that gave us existence as one people was achieved at
the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with grateful reverence
that memorable event, I feel that I belong to a later age and that I may
not expect my countrymen to weigh my actions with the same kind and
partial hand.
So sensibly, fellow-citizens, do these circumstances press themselves
upon me that I should not dare to enter upon my path of duty did I not
look for the generous aid of those who will be associated with me in
the various and coordinate branches of the Government; did I not repose
with unwavering reliance on the patriotism, the intelligence, and the
kindness of a people who never yet deserted a public servant honestly
laboring in their cause; and, above all, did I not permit myself humbly
to hope for the sustaining support of an ever-watchful and beneficent
Providence.
To the confidence and consolation derived from these sources it would
be ungrateful not to add those which spring from our present fortunate
condition. Though not altogether exempt from embarrassments that
disturb our tranquillity at home and threaten it abroad, yet in all the
attributes of a great, happy, and flourishing people we stand without
a parallel in the world. Abroad we enjoy the respect and, with scarcely
an exception, the friendship of every nation; at home, while our
Government quietly but efficiently performs the sole legitimate end
of political institutions--in doing the greatest good to the greatest
number--we present an aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere
to be found.
How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen, in
his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert himself
in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy! All the
lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content
to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess. Position
and climate and the bounteous resources that nature has scattered with
so liberal a hand--even the diffused intelligence and elevated character
of our people--will avail us nothing if we fail sacredly to uphold those
political institutions that were wisely and deliberately formed with
reference to every circumstance that could preserve or might endanger
the blessings we enjoy. The thoughtful framers of our Constitution
legislated for our country as they found it. Looking upon it with the
eyes of statesmen and patriots, they saw all the sources of rapid and
wonderful prosperity; but they saw also that various habits, opinions,
and institutions peculiar to the various portions of so vast a region
were deeply fixed. Distinct sovereignties were in actual existence,
whose cordial union was essential to the welfare and happiness of
all. Between many of them there was, at least to some extent, a real
diversity of interests, liable to be exaggerated through sinister
designs; they differed in size, in population, in wealth, and in actual
and prospective resources and power; they varied in the character of
their industry and staple productions, and [in some] existed domestic
institutions which, unwisely disturbed, might endanger the harmony of
the whole. Most carefully were all these circumstances weighed, and the
foundations of the new Government laid upon principles of reciprocal
concession and equitable compromise. The jealousies which the smaller
States might entertain of the power of the rest were allayed by a rule
of representation confessedly unequal at the time, and designed forever
to remain so. A natural fear that the broad scope of general legislation
might bear upon and unwisely control particular interests was
counteracted by limits strictly drawn around the action of the Federal
authority, and to the people and the States was left unimpaired their
sovereign power over the innumerable subjects embraced in the internal
government of a just republic, excepting such only as necessarily
appertain to the concerns of the whole confederacy or its intercourse
as a united community with the other nations of the world.
This provident forecast has been verified by time. Half a century,
teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere producing astonishing
results, has passed along, but on our institutions it has left no
injurious mark. From a small community we have risen to a people
powerful in numbers and in strength; but with our increase has gone hand
in hand the progress of just principles. The privileges, civil and
religious, of the humblest individual are still sacredly protected at
home, and while the valor and fortitude of our people have removed far
from us the slightest apprehension of foreign power, they have not yet
induced us in a single instance to forget what is right. Our commerce
has been extended to the remotest nations; the value and even nature of
our productions have been greatly changed; a wide difference has arisen
in the relative wealth and resources of every portion of our country;
yet the spirit of mutual regard and of faithful adherence to existing
compacts has continued to prevail in our councils and never long been
absent from our conduct. We have learned by experience a fruitful
lesson--that an implicit and undeviating adherence to the principles
on which we set out can carry us prosperously onward through all the
conflicts of circumstances and vicissitudes inseparable from the lapse
of years.
The success that has thus attended our great experiment is in itself
a sufficient cause for gratitude, on account of the happiness it has
actually conferred and the example it has unanswerably given. But to
me, my fellow-citizens, looking forward to the far-distant future with
ardent prayers and confiding hopes, this retrospect presents a ground
for still deeper delight. It impresses on my mind a firm belief that
the perpetuity of our institutions depends upon ourselves; that if we
maintain the principles on which they were established they are destined
to confer their benefits on countless generations yet to come, and that
America will present to every friend of mankind the cheering proof
that a popular government, wisely formed, is wanting in no element of
endurance or strength. Fifty years ago its rapid failure was boldly
predicted. Latent and uncontrollable causes of dissolution were supposed
to exist even by the wise and good, and not only did unfriendly or
speculative theorists anticipate for us the fate of past republics, but
the fears of many an honest patriot overbalanced his sanguine hopes.
Look back on these forebodings, not hastily but reluctantly made, and
see how in every instance they have completely failed.
An imperfect experience during the struggles of the Revolution was
supposed to warrant the belief that the people would not bear the
taxation requisite to discharge an immense public debt already incurred
and to pay the necessary expenses of the Government. The cost of two
wars has been paid, not only without a murmur, but with unequaled
alacrity. No one is now left to doubt that every burden will be
cheerfully borne that may be necessary to sustain our civil institutions
or guard our honor or welfare. Indeed, all experience has shown that
the willingness of the people to contribute to these ends in cases of
emergency has uniformly outrun the confidence of their representatives.
In the early stages of the new Government, when all felt the imposing
influence as they recognized the unequaled services of the first
President, it was a common sentiment that the great weight of his
character could alone bind the discordant materials of our Government
together and save us from the violence of contending factions. Since his
death nearly forty years are gone. Party exasperation has been often
carried to its highest point; the virtue and fortitude of the people
have sometimes been greatly tried; yet our system, purified and enhanced
in value by all it has encountered, still preserves its spirit of free
and fearless discussion, blended with unimpaired fraternal feeling.
The capacity of the people for self-government, and their
willingness, from a high sense of duty and without those exhibitions
of coercive power so generally employed in other countries, to submit
to all needful restraints and exactions of municipal law, have also
been favorably exemplified in the history of the American States.
Occasionally, it is true, the ardor of public sentiment, outrunning the
regular progress of the judicial tribunals or seeking to reach cases
not denounced as criminal by the existing law, has displayed itself
in a manner calculated to give pain to the friends of free government
and to encourage the hopes of those who wish for its overthrow. These
occurrences, however, have been far less frequent in our country than
in any other of equal population on the globe, and with the diffusion of
intelligence it may well be hoped that they will constantly diminish in
frequency and violence. The generous patriotism and sound common sense
of the great mass of our fellow-citizens will assuredly in time produce
this result; for as every assumption of illegal power not only wounds
the majesty of the law, but furnishes a pretext for abridging the
liberties of the people, the latter have the most direct and permanent
interest in preserving the landmarks of social order and maintaining
on all occasions the inviolability of those constitutional and legal
provisions which they themselves have made.
In a supposed unfitness of our institutions for those hostile
emergencies which no country can always avoid their friends found a
fruitful source of apprehension, their enemies of hope. While they
foresaw less promptness of action than in governments differently
formed, they overlooked the far more important consideration that with
us war could never be the result of individual or irresponsible will,
but must be a measure of redress for injuries sustained, voluntarily
resorted to by those who were to bear the necessary sacrifice, who would
consequently feel an individual interest in the contest, and whose
energy would be commensurate with the difficulties to be encountered.
Actual events have proved their error; the last war, far from impairing,
gave new confidence to our Government, and amid recent apprehensions of
a similar conflict we saw that the energies of our country would not be
wanting in ample season to vindicate its rights. We may not possess, as
we should not desire to possess, the extended and ever-ready military
organization of other nations; we may occasionally suffer in the outset
for the want of it; but among ourselves all doubt upon this great point
has ceased, while a salutary experience will prevent a contrary opinion
from inviting aggression from abroad.
Certain danger was foretold from the extension of our territory, the
multiplication of States, and the increase of population. Our system
was supposed to be adapted only to boundaries comparatively narrow.
These have been widened beyond conjecture; the members of our
Confederacy are already doubled, and the numbers of our people are
incredibly augmented. The alleged causes of danger have long surpassed
anticipation, but none of the consequences have followed. The power and
influence of the Republic have risen to a height obvious to all mankind;
respect for its authority was not more apparent at its ancient than
it is at its present limits; new and inexhaustible sources of general
prosperity have been opened; the effects of distance have been averted
by the inventive genius of our people, developed and fostered by the
spirit of our institutions; and the enlarged variety and amount of
interests, productions, and pursuits have strengthened the chain of
mutual dependence and formed a circle of mutual benefits too apparent
ever to be overlooked.
In justly balancing the powers of the Federal and State authorities
difficulties nearly insurmountable arose at the outset, and subsequent
collisions were deemed inevitable. Amid these it was scarcely believed
possible that a scheme of government so complex in construction could
remain uninjured. From time to time embarrassments have certainly
occurred; but how just is the confidence of future safety imparted
by the knowledge that each in succession has been happily removed!
Overlooking partial and temporary evils as inseparable from the
practical operation of all human institutions, and looking only to the
general result, every patriot has reason to be satisfied. While the
Federal Government has successfully performed its appropriate functions
in relation to foreign affairs and concerns evidently national, that of
every State has remarkably improved in protecting and developing local
interests and individual welfare; and if the vibrations of authority
have occasionally tended too much toward one or the other, it is
unquestionably certain that the ultimate operation of the entire system
has been to strengthen all the existing institutions and to elevate our
whole country in prosperity and renown.
The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources of discord and
disaster supposed to lurk in our political condition was the institution
of domestic slavery. Our forefathers were deeply impressed with the
delicacy of this subject, and they treated it with a forbearance so
evidently wise that in spite of every sinister foreboding it never until
the present period disturbed the tranquillity of our common country.
Such a result is sufficient evidence of the justice and the patriotism
of their course; it is evidence not to be mistaken that an adherence to
it can prevent all embarrassment from this as well as from every other
anticipated cause of difficulty or danger. Have not recent events made
it obvious to the slightest reflection that the least deviation from
this spirit of forbearance is injurious to every interest, that of
humanity included? Amidst the violence of excited passions this generous
and fraternal feeling has been sometimes disregarded; and standing as
I now do before my countrymen, in this high place of honor and of trust,
I can not refrain from anxiously invoking my fellow-citizens never to
be deaf to its dictates. Perceiving before my election the deep interest
this subject was beginning to excite, I believed it a solemn duty fully
to make known my sentiments in regard to it, and now, when every motive
for misrepresentation has passed away, I trust that they will be
candidly weighed and understood. At least they will be my standard of
conduct in the path before me. I then declared that if the desire of
those of my countrymen who were favorable to my election was gratified
"I must go into the Presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising
opponent of every attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slaveholding States,
and also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest
interference with it in the States where it exists." I submitted also to
my fellow-citizens, with fullness and frankness, the reasons which led
me to this determination. The result authorizes me to believe that they
have been approved and are confided in by a majority of the people of
the United States, including those whom they most immediately affect.
It now only remains to add that no bill conflicting with these views
can ever receive my constitutional sanction. These opinions have been
adopted in the firm belief that they are in accordance with the spirit
that actuated the venerated fathers of the Republic, and that succeeding
experience has proved them to be humane, patriotic, expedient,
honorable, and just. If the agitation of this subject was intended to
reach the stability of our institutions, enough has occurred to show
that it has signally failed, and that in this as in every other instance
the apprehensions of the timid and the hopes of the wicked for the
destruction of our Government are again destined to be disappointed.
Here and there, indeed, scenes of dangerous excitement have occurred,
terrifying instances of local violence have been witnessed, and a
reckless disregard of the consequences of their conduct has exposed
individuals to popular indignation; but neither masses of the people nor
sections of the country have been swerved from their devotion to the
bond of union and the principles it has made sacred. It will be ever
thus. Such attempts at dangerous agitation may periodically return,
but with each the object will be better understood. That predominating
affection for our political system which prevails throughout our
territorial limits, that calm and enlightened judgment which ultimately
governs our people as one vast body, will always be at hand to resist
and control every effort, foreign or domestic, which aims or would lead
to overthrow our institutions.
What can be more gratifying than such a retrospect as this? We look back
on obstacles avoided and dangers overcome, on expectations more than
realized and prosperity perfectly secured. To the hopes of the hostile,
the fears of the timid, and the doubts of the anxious actual experience
has given the conclusive reply. We have seen time gradually dispel every
unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every adverse
circumstance dreaded at the outset as beyond control. Present excitement
will at all times magnify present dangers, but true philosophy must
teach us that none more threatening than the past can remain to be
overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an abiding
confidence in the stability of our institutions and an entire conviction
that if administered in the true form, character, and spirit in which
they were established they are abundantly adequate to preserve to us and
our children the rich blessings already derived from them, to make our
beloved land for a thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness
springs from a perfect equality of political rights.
For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that
will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a
strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it
was designed by those who framed it. Looking back to it as a sacred
instrument carefully and not easily framed; remembering that it was
throughout a work of concession and compromise; viewing it as limited
to national objects; regarding it as leaving to the people and the
States all power not explicitly parted with, I shall endeavor to
preserve, protect, and defend it by anxiously referring to its provision
for direction in every action. To matters of domestic concernment which
it has intrusted to the Federal Government and to such as relate to our
intercourse with foreign nations I shall zealously devote myself; beyond
those limits I shall never pass.
To enter on this occasion into a further or more minute exposition of my
views on the various questions of domestic policy would be as obtrusive
as it is probably unexpected. Before the suffrages of my countrymen were
conferred upon me I submitted to them, with great precision, my opinions
on all the most prominent of these subjects. Those opinions I shall
endeavor to carry out with my utmost ability.
Our course of foreign policy has been so uniform and intelligible as
to constitute a rule of Executive conduct which leaves little to my
discretion, unless, indeed, I were willing to run counter to the lights
of experience and the known opinions of my constituents. We sedulously
cultivate the friendship of all nations as the condition most compatible
with our welfare and the principles of our Government. We decline
alliances as adverse to our peace. We desire commercial relations on
equal terms, being ever willing to give a fair equivalent for advantages
received We endeavor to conduct our intercourse with openness and
sincerity, promptly avowing our objects and seeking to establish that
mutual frankness which is as beneficial in the dealings of nations as
of men. We have no disposition and we disclaim all right to meddle in
disputes, whether internal or foreign, that may molest other countries,
regarding them in their actual state as social communities, and
preserving a strict neutrality in all their controversies. Well knowing
the tried valor of our people and our exhaustless resources, we neither
anticipate nor fear any designed aggression; and in the consciousness of
our own just conduct we feel a security that we shall never be called
upon to exert our determination never to permit an invasion of our
rights without punishment or redress.
In approaching, then, in the presence of my assembled countrymen, to
make the solemn promise that yet remains, and to pledge myself that
I will faithfully execute the office I am about to fill, I bring with
me a settled purpose to maintain the institutions of my country, which
I trust will atone for the errors I commit.
In receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided to my
illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and
so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with
equal ability and success. But united as I have been in his counsels, a
daily witness of his exclusive and unsurpassed devotion to his country's
welfare, agreeing with him in sentiments which his countrymen have
warmly supported, and permitted to partake largely of his confidence,
I may hope that somewhat of the same cheering approbation will be found
to attend upon my path. For him I but express with my own the wishes of
all, that he may yet long live to enjoy the brilliant evening of his
well-spent life; and for myself, conscious of but one desire, faithfully
to serve my country, I throw myself without fear on its justice and its
kindness. Beyond that I only look to the gracious protection of the
Divine Being whose strengthening support I humbly solicit, and whom
I fervently pray to look down upon us all. May it be among the
dispensations of His providence to bless our beloved country with honors
and with length of days. May her ways be ways of pleasantness and all
her paths be peace!