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Fellow-Citizens:
There is no constitutional or legal requirement that the
President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the
people, but there is so manifest an appropriateness in the
public induction to office of the chief executive officer of the
nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to
whose service the official oath consecrates the officer, have
been called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The oath taken in
the presence of the people becomes a mutual covenant. The
officer covenants to serve the whole body of the people by a
faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the
unfailing defense and security of those who respect and observe
them, and that neither wealth, station, nor the power of
combinations shall be able to evade their just penalties or to
wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of
cruelty or selfishness.
My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and
solemn. The people of every State have here their
representatives. Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the
occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people
covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and
defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield
willing obedience to all the laws and each to every other
citizen his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus
solemnly into covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke
and confidently expect the favor and help of Almighty God--that
He will give to me wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our
people a spirit of fraternity and a love of righteousness and
peace.
This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the
Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth
under our Constitution. The first inauguration of President
Washington took place in New York, where Congress was then
sitting, on the 30th day of April, 1789, having been deferred by
reason of delays attending the organization of the Congress and
the canvass of the electoral vote. Our people have already
worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration of
Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of
the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the
institution of the second great department of our constitutional
scheme of government. When the centennial of the institution of
the judicial department, by the organization of the Supreme
Court, shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will be,
our nation will have fully entered its second century.
I will not attempt to note the marvelous and in great part happy
contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold
into its second century of organized existence under the
Constitution and that weak but wisely ordered young nation that
looked undauntedly down the first century, when all its years
stretched out before it.
Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents
which accompanied the institution of government under the
Constitution, or to find inspiration and guidance in the
teachings and example of Washington and his great associates,
and hope and courage in the contrast which thirty-eight populous
and prosperous States offer to the thirteen States, weak in
everything except courage and the love of liberty, that then
fringed our Atlantic seaboard.
The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of
the original States (except Virginia) and greater than the
aggregate of five of the smaller States in 1790. The center of
population when our national capital was located was east of
Baltimore, and it was argued by many well-informed persons that
it would move eastward rather than westward; yet in 1880 it was
found to be near Cincinnati, and the new census about to be
taken will show another stride to the westward. That which was
the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the nation's
robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory,
population and aggregate wealth, marvelous as it has been in
each of those directions. The masses of our people are better
fed, clothed, and housed than their fathers were. The facilities
for popular education have been vastly enlarged and more
generally diffused.
The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of
their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and
over the lives of our people. The influences of religion have
been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity
have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in
higher estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not
all of our people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are
virtuous and law-abiding. But on the whole the opportunities
offered to the individual to secure the comforts of life are
better than are found elsewhere and largely better than they
were here one hundred years ago.
The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General
Government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was
not accomplished until the suggestions of reason were strongly
reenforced by the more imperative voice of experience. The
divergent interests of peace speedily demanded a "more perfect
union." The merchant, the shipmaster, and the manufacturer
discovered and disclosed to our statesmen and to the people that
commercial emancipation must be added to the political freedom
which had been so bravely won. The commercial policy of the
mother country had not relaxed any of its hard and oppressive
features. To hold in check the development of our commercial
marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth of
manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market
for their shops and the carrying trade for their ships, was the
policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with the most
selfish vigor.
Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of
discriminating duties that should encourage the production of
needed things at home. The patriotism of the people, which no
longer found afield of exercise in war, was energetically
directed to the duty of equipping the young Republic for the
defense of its independence by making its people self-dependent.
Societies for the promotion of home manufactures and for
encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of the people were
organized in many of the States. The revival at the end of the
century of the same patriotic interest in the preservation and
development of domestic industries and the defense of our
working people against injurious foreign competition is an
incident worthy of attention. It is not a departure but a return
that we have witnessed. The protective policy had then its
opponents. The argument was made, as now, that its benefits
inured to particular classes or sections.
If the question became in any sense or at any time sectional, it
was only because slavery existed in some of the States. But for
this there was no reason why the cotton-producing States should
not have led or walked abreast with the New England States in
the production of cotton fabrics. There was this reason only why
the States that divide with Pennsylvania the mineral treasures
of the great southeastern and central mountain ranges should
have been so tardy in bringing to the smelting furnace and to
the mill the coal and iron from their near opposing hillsides.
Mill fires were lighted at the funeral pile of slavery. The
emancipation proclamation was heard in the depths of the earth
as well as in the sky; men were made free, and material things
became our better servants.
The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the
tariff discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily
only planting States. None are excluded from achieving that
diversification of pursuits among the people which brings wealth
and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable
when the product is spun in the country town by operatives whose
necessities call for diversified crops and create a home demand
for garden and agricultural products. Every new mine, furnace,
and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the
State more real and valuable than added territory.
Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang
upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice
that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the
incapacities it put upon their communities? I look hopefully to
the continuance of our protective system and to the consequent
development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the
States hitherto wholly given to agriculture as a potent
influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who
have invested their capital in these enterprises, the farmers
who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the men who
work in shop or field will not fail to find and to defend a
community of interest.
Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of
the great mining and manufacturing enterprises which have
recently been established in the South may yet find that the
free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of race, is
needed for their defense as well as for his own? I do not doubt
that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views
of Clay and the constitutional expositions of Webster would
courageously avow and defend their real convictions they would
not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and cooperation,
to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in
establishing correct principles in our national administration,
but in preserving for their local communities the benefits of
social order and economical and honest government. At least
until the good offices of kindness and education have been
fairly tried the contrary conclusion can not be plausibly urged.
I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive
policy for any section of our country. It is the duty of the
Executive to administer and enforce in the methods and by the
instrumentalities pointed out and provided by the Constitution
all the laws enacted by Congress. These laws are general and
their administration should be uniform and equal. As a citizen
may not elect what laws he will obey, neither may the Executive
eject which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute
embraces the Constitution in its entirety and the whole code of
laws enacted under it. The evil example of permitting
individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws
because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices
is full of danger, not only to the nation at large, but much
more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their
just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others.
They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law
for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense
must not deny that use of it to others.
If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their
legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to
complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of
violent interference with their operations. The community that
by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a
portion of its members their plain rights under the law has
severed the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The
evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who
practice it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in
the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose
breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of
dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful
methods, if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that
prompted them, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end
of this.
An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of
government. If the educated and influential classes in a
community either practice or connive at the systematic violation
of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience, what can
they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class
interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well
learned by the ignorant classes? A community where law is the
rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its
penalties is the only attractive field for business investments
and honest labor.
Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the
inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons
applying for citizenship more careful and searching. Our
existing laws have been in their administration an unimpressive
and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen
without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties
of citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are. The
privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties
so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every
person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him of
our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to
immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the
character of it. There are men of all races, even the best,
whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or
a threat to social order. These should be identified and
excluded.
We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference
with European affairs. We have been only interested spectators
of their contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our
friendly offices to promote peace, but never obtruding our
advice and never attempting unfairly to coin the distresses of
other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a
just right to expect that our European policy will be the
American policy of European courts.
It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our
peace and safety which all the great powers habitually observe
and enforce in matters affecting them that a shorter waterway
between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated by
any European Government that we may confidently expect that such
a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.
We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to
maintain and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great
powers, but they will not expect us to look kindly upon any
project that would leave us subject to the dangers of a hostile
observation or environment. We have not sought to dominate or to
absorb any of our weaker neighbors, but rather to aid and
encourage them to establish free and stable governments resting
upon the consent of their own people. We have a clear right to
expect, therefore, that no European Government will seek to
establish colonial dependencies upon the territory of these
independent American States. That which a sense of justice
restrains us from seeking they may be reasonably expected
willingly to forego.
It must not be assumed, however, that our interests are so
exclusively American that our entire inattention to any events
that may transpire elsewhere can be taken for granted. Our
citizens domiciled for purposes of trade in all countries and in
many of the islands of the sea demand and will have our adequate
care in their personal and commercial rights. The necessities of
our Navy require convenient coaling stations and dock and harbor
privileges. These and other trading privileges we will feel free
to obtain only by means that do not in any degree partake of
coercion, however feeble the government from which we ask such
concessions. But having fairly obtained them by methods and for
purposes entirely consistent with the most friendly disposition
toward all other powers, our consent will be necessary to any
modification or impairment of the concession.
We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any friendly nation
or the just rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like
treatment for our own. Calmness, justice, and consideration
should characterize our diplomacy. The offices of an intelligent
diplomacy or of friendly arbitration in proper cases should be
adequate to the peaceful adjustment of all international
difficulties. By such methods we will make our contribution to
the world's peace, which no nation values more highly, and avoid
the opprobrium which must fall upon the nation that ruthlessly
breaks it.
The duty devolved by law upon the President to nominate and, by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all
public officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for
in the Constitution or by act of Congress has become very
burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of
difficulty. The civil list is so large that a personal knowledge
of any large number of the applicants is impossible. The
President must rely upon the representations of others, and
these are often made inconsiderately and without any just sense
of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those
who volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments
shall exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty
and an ambition to improve the service should characterize all
public officers.
There are many ways in which the convenience and comfort of
those who have business with our public offices may be promoted
by a thoughtful and obliging officer, and I shall expect those
whom I may appoint to justify their selection by a conspicuous
efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party
service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification
for public office, but it will in no case be allowed to serve as
a shield of official negligence, incompetency, or delinquency.
It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper
methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be
treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of
Departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation.
Persistent importunity will not, therefore, be the best support
of an application for office. Heads of Departments, bureaus, and
all other public officers having any duty connected therewith
will be expected to enforce the civil-service law fully and
without evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do something
more to advance the reform of the civil service. The ideal, or
even my own ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will
be a safer basis of judgment than promises. We shall not,
however, I am sure, be able to put our civil service upon a
nonpartisan basis until we have secured an incumbency that
fair-minded men of the opposition will approve for impartiality
and integrity. As the number of such in the civil list is
increased removals from office will diminish.
While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a
serious evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary
annual demands upon our Treasury, with a sufficient margin for
those extraordinary but scarcely less imperative demands which
arise now and then. Expenditure should always be made with
economy and only upon public necessity. Wastefulness,
profligacy, or favoritism in public expenditures is criminal.
But there is nothing in the condition of our country or of our
people to suggest that anything presently necessary to the
public prosperity, security, or honor should be unduly
postponed.
It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate
these extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our
ordinary expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no
considerable annual surplus will remain. We will fortunately be
able to apply to the redemption of the public debt any small and
unforeseen excess of revenue. This is better than to reduce our
income below our necessary expenditures, with the resulting
choice between another change of our revenue laws and an
increase of the public debt. It is quite possible, I am sure, to
effect the necessary reduction in our revenues without breaking
down our protective tariff or seriously injuring any domestic
industry.
The construction of a sufficient number of modern war ships and
of their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is
consistent with care and perfection in plans and workmanship.
The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval officers and seamen
have many times in our history given to weak ships and
inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list.
That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but
they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to the
risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should encourage
the establishment of American steamship lines. The exchanges of
commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of
communication, and until these are provided the development of
our trade with the States lying south of us is impossible.
Our pension laws should give more adequate and discriminating
relief to the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and
orphans. Such occasions as this should remind us that we owe
everything to their valor and sacrifice.
It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect
of the admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and
Washington Territories. This act of justice has been
unreasonably delayed in the case of some of them. The people who
have settled these Territories are intelligent, enterprising,
and patriotic, and the accession these new States will add
strength to the nation. It is due to the settlers in the
Territories who have availed themselves of the invitations of
our land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their
titles should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries
confirmed by patent.
It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being
manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have
been for years calling attention to the pressing necessity of
throwing about the ballot box and about the elector further
safeguards, in order that our elections might not only be free
and pure, but might clearly appear to be so, will welcome the
accession of any who did not so soon discover the need of
reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken control of
elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it
jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of
the several States, provided penalties for their violation and a
method of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the State laws
or an unfair partisan administration of them could suggest a
departure from this policy.
It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of
the Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and
provision was wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a
condition of our national life, and no power vested in Congress
or in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain
unused upon occasion. The people of all the Congressional
districts have an equal interest that the election in each shall
truly express the views and wishes of a majority of the
qualified electors residing within it. The results of such
elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing
in other districts that they shall be pure and free does not
savor at all of impertinence.
If in any of the States the public security is thought to be
threatened by ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy
is education. The sympathy and help of our people will not be
withheld from any community struggling with special
embarrassments or difficulties connected with the suffrage if
the remedies proposed proceed upon lawful lines and are promoted
by just and honorable methods. How shall those who practice
election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the
ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good
citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a
juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.
Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party contentions. Let
those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a
better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their
country by promoting fraternity and justice. A party success
that is achieved by unfair methods or by practices that partake
of revolution is hurtful and evanescent even from a party
standpoint. We should hold our differing opinions in mutual
respect, and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the
ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the same respect
that we would have demanded of our opponents if the decision had
been in our favor.
No other people have a government more worthy of their respect
and love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look
upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor.
God has placed upon our head a diadem and has laid at our feet
power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we must
not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition that
justice and mercy shall hold the reins of power and that the
upward avenues of hope shall be free to all the people.
I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent
ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them
all. Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give
us a new demonstration that the great body of our people are
stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. No political party can long
pursue advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and
indecent methods without protest and fatal disaffection in its
own body. The peaceful agencies of commerce are more fully
revealing the necessary unity of all our communities, and the
increasing intercourse of our people is promoting mutual
respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation
which our next census will make of the swift development of the
great resources of some of the States. Each State will bring its
generous contribution to the great aggregate of the nation's
increase. And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle from
the hills, and the ores of the earth shall have been weighed,
counted, and valued, we will turn from them all to crown with
the highest honor the State that has most promoted education,
virtue, justice, and patriotism among its people.
Benjamin Harrison |
