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Called from a
retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the residue
of my life to fill the chief executive office of this great and
free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the
oath which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary
qualification for the performance of its duties; and in
obedience to a custom coeval with our Government and what I
believe to be your expectations I proceed to present to you a
summary of the principles which will govern me in the discharge
of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.
It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that
celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable
in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust
before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the
latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. However
much the world may have improved in many respects in the lapse
of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the
virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination
of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would
develop similar instances of violated confidence.
Although the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming me
the Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their
part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive may
exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be supposed
to have acted in relation to my principles and opinions; and
perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have come here
either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or,
approving them, to doubt the sincerity with which they are now
uttered. But the lapse of a few months will confirm or dispel
their fears. The outline of principles to govern and measures to
be adopted by an Administration not yet begun will soon be
exchanged for immutable history, and I shall stand either
exonerated by my countrymen or classed with the mass of those
who promised that they might deceive and flattered with the
intention to betray. However strong may be my present purpose to
realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people,
I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall
be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the
pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my
chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has
hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable
issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts
heretofore confided to me by my country.
The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the
people--a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake,
change, or modify it--it can be assigned to none of the great
divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its
theory, those who are called upon to administer it must
recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their
measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest
number. But with these broad admissions, if we would compare the
sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with
the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which
have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a
most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited
only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the
contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power
precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the
parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond. We admit of
no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is
concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst
men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate
right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.
The Constitution of the United States is the instrument
containing this grant of power to the several departments
composing the Government. On an examination of that instrument
it will be found to contain declarations of power granted and of
power withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into
power which the majority had the right to grant, but which they
do not think proper to intrust to their agents, and that which
they could not have granted, not being possessed by themselves.
In other words, there are certain rights possessed by each
individual American citizen which in his compact with the others
he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed, he is unable to
surrender, being, in the language of our system, unalienable.
The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield
only against a petty provincial ruler, whilst the proud democrat
of Athens would console himself under a sentence of death for a
supposed violation of the national faith--which no one
understood and which at times was the subject of the mockery of
all--or the banishment from his home, his family, and his
country with or without an alleged cause, that it was the act
not of a single tyrant or hated aristocracy, but of his
assembled countrymen. Far different is the power of our
sovereignty. It can interfere with no one's faith, prescribe
forms of worship for no one's observance, inflict no punishment
but after well-ascertained guilt, the result of investigation
under rules prescribed by the Constitution itself. These
precious privileges, and those scarcely less important of giving
expression to his thoughts and opinions, either by writing or
speaking, unrestrained but by the liability for injury to
others, and that of a full participation in all the advantages
which flow from the Government, the acknowledged property of
all, the American citizen derives from no charter granted by his
fellow-man. He claims them because he is himself a man,
fashioned by the same Almighty hand as the rest of his species
and entitled to a full share of the blessings with which He has
endowed them. Notwithstanding the limited sovereignty possessed
by the people of the United Stages and the restricted grant of
power to the Government which they have adopted, enough has been
given to accomplish all the objects for which it was created. It
has been found powerful in war, and hitherto justice has been
administered, and intimate union effected, domestic tranquillity
preserved, and personal liberty secured to the citizen. As was
to be expected, however, from the defect of language and the
necessarily sententious manner in which the Constitution is
written, disputes have arisen as to the amount of power which it
has actually granted or was intended to grant.
This is more particularly the case in relation to that part of
the instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and not
only as regards the exercise of powers claimed under a general
clause giving that body the authority to pass all laws necessary
to carry into effect the specified powers, but in relation to
the latter also. It is, however, consolatory to reflect that
most of the instances of alleged departure from the letter or
spirit of the Constitution have ultimately received the sanction
of a majority of the people. And the fact that many of our
statesmen most distinguished for talent and patriotism have been
at one time or other of their political career on both sides of
each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us the
inference that the errors, if errors there were, are
attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances of
ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the Constitution
rather than the influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive.
But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me
to be in a usurpation by the Government of power not granted by
the people, but by the accumulation in one of the departments of
that which was assigned to others. Limited as are the powers
which have been granted, still enough have been granted to
constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the
departments. This danger is greatly heightened, as it has been
always observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of
one department upon another than upon their own reserved rights.
When the Constitution of the United States first came from the
hands of the Convention which formed it, many of the sternest
republicans of the day were alarmed at the extent of the power
which had been granted to the Federal Government, and more
particularly of that portion which had been assigned to the
executive branch. There were in it features which appeared not
to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative
democracy or republic, and knowing the tendency of power to
increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single
individual, predictions were made that at no very remote period
the Government would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not
become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been
already realized; but as I sincerely believe that the tendency
of measures and of men's opinions for some years past has been
in that direction, it is, I conceive, strictly proper that I
should take this occasion to repeat the assurances I have
heretofore given of my determination to arrest the progress of
that tendency if it really exists and restore the Government to
its pristine health and vigor, as far as this can be effected by
any legitimate exercise of the power placed in my hands.
I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of
the sources of the evils which have been so extensively
complained of and the correctives which may be applied. Some of
the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the
Constitution ; others, in my judgment, are attributable to a
misconstruction of some of its provisions. Of the former is the
eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the
Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and
lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto
without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States to
its correction. As, however, one mode of correction is in the
power of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be
useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which,
in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the
sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and
the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it
continues to disfigure our system. It may be observed, however,
as a general remark, that republics can commit no greater error
than to adopt or continue any feature in their systems of
government which may be calculated to create or increase the
lover of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges
them to commit the management of their affairs; and surely
nothing is more likely to produce such a state of mind than the
long continuance of an office of high trust. Nothing can be more
corrupting, nothing more destructive of all those noble feelings
which belong to the character of a devoted republican patriot.
When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human
mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the
never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and
strengthens with the declining years of its victim. If this is
true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the
service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the
management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws,
and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as
to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not
the principal; the servant, not the master. Until an amendment
of the Constitution can be effected public opinion may secure
the desired object. I give my aid to it by renewing the pledge
heretofore given that under no circumstances will I consent to
serve a second term.
But if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledged
defects of the Constitution in the want of limit to the
continuance of the Executive power in the same hands, there is,
I apprehend, not much less from a misconstruction of that
instrument as it regards the powers actually given. I can not
conceive that by a fair construction any or either of its
provisions would be found to constitute the President a part of
the legislative power. It can not be claimed from the power to
recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty upon him, it is a
privilege which he holds in common with every other citizen; and
although there may be something more of confidence in the
propriety of the measures recommended in the one case than in
the other, in the obligations of ultimate decision there can be
no difference. In the language of the Constitution , "all the
legislative powers" which it grants "are vested in the Congress
of the United States." It would be a solecism in language to say
that any portion of these is not included in the whole.
It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the
Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by
refusing to them his assent. So a similar power has necessarily
resulted from that instrument to the judiciary, and yet the
judiciary forms no part of the Legislature. There is, it is
true, this difference between these grants of power: The
Executive can put his negative upon the acts of the Legislature
for other cause than that of want of conformity to the
Constitution , whilst the judiciary can only declare void those
which violate that instrument. But the decision of the judiciary
is final in such a case, whereas in every instance where the
veto of the Executive is applied it may be overcome by a vote of
two-thirds of both Houses of Congress. The negative upon the
acts of the legislative by the executive authority, and that in
the hands of one individual, would seem to be an incongruity in
our system. Like some others of asimilar character, however, it
appears to be highly expedient, and if used only with the
forbearance and in the spirit which was intended by its authors
it may be productive of great good and be found one of the best
safeguards to the Union. At the period of the formation of the
Constitution the principle does not appear to have enjoyed much
favor in the State governments. It existed but in two, and in
one of these there was a plural executive. If we would search
for the motives which operated upon the purely patriotic and
enlightened assembly which framed the Constitution for the
adoption of a provision so apparently repugnant to the leading
democratic principle that the majority should govern, we must
reject the idea that they anticipated from it any benefit to the
ordinary course of legislation. They knew too well the high
degree of intelligence which existed among the people and the
enlightened character of the State legislatures not to have the
fullest confidence that the two bodies elected by them would be
worthy representatives of such constituents, and, of course,
that they would require no aid in conceiving and maturing the
measures which the circumstances of the country might require.
And it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could for a
moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the
capital, in the center of the country, could better understand
the wants and wishes of the people than their own immediate
representatives, who spend a part of every year among them,
living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by
the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection. To assist or
control Congress, then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I
conceive, have been the motive for conferring the veto power on
the President. This argument acquires additional force from the
fact of its never having been thus used by the first six
Presidents--and two of them were members of the Convention, one
presiding over its deliberations and the other bearing a larger
share in consummating the labors of that august body than any
other person. But if bills were never returned to Congress by
either of the Presidents above referred to upon the ground of
their being inexpedient or not as well adapted as they might be
to the wants of the people, the veto was applied upon that of
want of conformity to the Constitution or because errors had
been committed from a too hasty enactment.
There is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle,
which had probably more influence in recommending it to the
Convention than any other. I refer to the security which it
gives to the just and equitable action of the Legislature upon
all parts of the Union. It could not but have occurred to the
Convention that in a country so extensive, embracing so great a
variety of soil and climate, and consequently of products, and
which from the same causes must ever exhibit a great difference
in the amount of the population of its various sections, calling
for a great diversity in the employments of the people, that the
legislation of the majority might not always justly regard the
rights and interests of the minority, and that acts of this
character might be passed under an express grant by the words of
the Constitution , and therefore not within the competency of
the judiciary to declare void; that however enlightened and
patriotic they might suppose from past experience the members of
Congress might be, and however largely partaking, in the
general, of the liberal feelings of the people, it was
impossible to expect that bodies so constituted should not
sometimes be controlled by local interests and sectional
feelings. It was proper, therefore, to provide some umpire from
whose situation and mode of appointment more independence and
freedom from such influences might be expected. Such a one was
afforded by the executive department constituted by the
Constitution . A person elected to that high office, having his
constituents in every section, State, and subdivision of the
Union, must consider himself bound by the most solemn sanctions
to guard, protect, and defend the rights of all and of every
portion, great or small, from the injustice and oppression of
the rest. I consider the veto power, therefore given by the
Constitution to the Executive of the United States solely as a
conservative power, to be used only first, to protect the
Constitution from violation; secondly, the people from the
effects of hasty legislation where their will has been probably
disregarded or not well understood, and, thirdly, to prevent the
effects of combinations violative of the rights of minorities.
In reference to the second of these objects I may observe that I
consider it the right and privilege of the people to decide
disputed points of the Constitution arising from the general
grant of power to Congress to carry into effect the powers
expressly given; and I believe with Mr. Madison that "repeated
recognitions under varied circumstances in acts of the
legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Government,
accompanied by indications in different modes of the concurrence
of the general will of the nation," as affording to the
President sufficient authority for his considering such disputed
points as settled.
Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of the
present form of government. It would be an object more highly
desirable than the gratification of the curiosity of speculative
statesmen if its precise situation could be ascertained, a fair
exhibit made of the operations of each of its departments, of
the powers which they respectively claim and exercise, of the
collisions which have occurred between them or between the whole
Government and those of the States or either of them. We could
then compare our actual condition after fifty years' trial of
our system with what it was in the commencement of its
operations and ascertain whether the predictions of the patriots
who opposed its adoption or the confident hopes of its advocates
have been best realized. The great dread of the former seems to
have been that the reserved powers of the States would be
absorbed by those of the Federal Government and a consolidated
power established, leaving to the States the shadow only of that
independent action for which they had so zealously contended and
on the preservation of which they relied as the last hope of
liberty. Without denying that the result to which they looked
with so much apprehension is in the way of being realized, it is
obvious that they did not clearly see the mode of its
accomplishment The General Government has seized upon none of
the reserved rights of the States. AS far as any open warfare
may have gone, the State authorities have amply maintained their
rights. To a casual observer our system presents no appearance
of discord between the different members which compose it. Even
the addition of many new ones has produced no jarring. They move
in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central
head and with each other. But there is still an undercurrent at
work by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst
apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be realized, and
not only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great
increase of power in the executive department of the General
Government, but the character of that Government, if not its
designation, be essentially and radically changed. This state of
things has been in part effected by causes inherent in the
Constitution and in part by the never-failing tendency of
political power to increase itself. By making the President the
sole distributer of all the patronage of the Government the
framers of the Constitution do not appear to have anticipated at
how short a period it would become a formidable instrument to
control the free operations of the State governments. Of
trifling importance at first, it had early in Mr. Jefferson's
Administration become so powerful as to create great alarm in
the mind of that patriot from the potent influence it might
exert in controlling the freedom of the elective franchise. If
such could have then been the effects of its influence, how much
greater must be the danger at this time, quadrupled in amount as
it certainly is and more completely under the control of the
Executive will than their construction of their powers allowed
or the forbearing characters of all the early Presidents
permitted them to make. But it is not by the extent of its
patronage alone that the executive department has become
dangerous, but by the use which it appears may be made of the
appointing power to bring under its control the whole revenues
of the country. The Constitution has declared it to be the duty
of the President to see that the laws are executed, and it makes
him the Commander in Chief of the Armies and Navy of the United
States. If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that
species of mixed government which in modern Europe is termed
monarchy in contradistinction to despotism is correct, there was
wanting no other addition to the powers of our Chief Magistrate
to stamp a monarchical character on our Government but the
control of the public finances; and to me it appears strange
indeed that anyone should doubt that the entire control which
the President possesses over the officers who have the custody
of the public money, by the power of removal with or without
cause, does, for all mischievous purposes at least, virtually
subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman
Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced
the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been
committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection
of political instruments for the care of the public money a
reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as
effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight. I
am not insensible of the great difficulty that exists in drawing
a proper plan for the safe- keeping and disbursement of the
public revenues, and I know the importance which has been
attached by men of great abilities and patriotism to the
divorce, as it is called, of the Treasury from the banking
institutions It is not the divorce which is complained of, but
the unhallowed union of the Treasury with the executive
department, which has created such extensive alarm. To this
danger to our republican institutions and that created by the
influence given to the Executive through the instrumentality of
the Federal officers I propose to apply all the remedies which
may be at my command. It was certainly a great error in the
framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at the
head of the Treasury Department entirely independent of the
Executive. He should at least have been removable only upon the
demand of the popular branch of the Legislature. I have
determined never to remove a Secretary of the Treasury without
communicating all the circumstances attending such removal to
both Houses of Congress.
The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the
elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can
be effectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by
Mr. Jefferson forbidding their interference in elections further
than giving their own votes, and their own independence secured
by an assurance of perfect immunity in exercising this sacred
privilege of freemen under the dictates of their own unbiased
judgments. Never with my consent shall an officer of the people,
compensated for his services out of their pockets, become the
pliant instrument of Executive will.
There is no part of the means placed in the hands of the
Executive which might be used with greater effect for unhallowed
purposes than the control of the public press. The maxim which
our ancestors derived from the mother country that "the freedom
of the press is the great bulwark of civil and religious
liberty" is one of the most precious legacies which they have
left us. We have learned, too, from our own as well as the
experience of other countries, that golden shackles, by
whomsoever or by whatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it
as the iron bonds of despotism. The presses in the necessary
employment of the Government should never be used "to clear the
guilty or to varnish crime." A decent and manly examination of
the acts of the Government should be not only tolerated, but
encouraged.
Upon another occasion I have given my opinion at some length
upon the impropriety of Executive interference in the
legislation of Congress--that the article in the Constitution
making it the duty of the President to communicate information
and authorizing him to recommend measures was not intended to
make him the source in legislation, and, in particular, that he
should never be looked to for schemes of finance. It would be
very strange, indeed, that the Constitution should have strictly
forbidden one branch of the Legislature from interfering in the
origination of such bills and that it should be considered
proper that an altogether different department of the Government
should be permitted to do so. Some of our best political maxims
and opinions have been drawn from our parent isle. There are
others, however, which can not be introduced in our system
without singular incongruity and the production of much
mischief, and this I conceive to be one. No matter in which of
the houses of Parliament a bill may originate nor by whom
introduced--a minister or a member of the opposition-- by the
fiction of law, or rather of Constitutional principle, the
sovereign is supposed to have prepared it agreeably to his will
and then submitted it to Parliament for their advice and
consent. Now the very reverse is the case here, not only with
regard to the principle, but the forms prescribed by the
Constitution . The principle certainly assigns to the only body
constituted by the Constitution (the legislative body) the power
to make laws, and the forms even direct that the enactment
should be ascribed to them. The Senate, in relation to revenue
bills, have the right to propose amendments, and so has the
Executive by the power given him to return them to the House of
Representatives with his objections. It is in his power also to
propose amendments in the existing revenue laws, suggested by
his observations upon their defective or injurious operation.
But the delicate duty of devising schemes of revenue should be
left where the Constitution has placed it--with the immediate
representatives of the people. For similar reasons the mode of
keeping the public treasure should be prescribed by them, and
the further removed it may be from the control of the Executive
the more wholesome the arrangement and the more in accordance
with republican principle.
Connected with this subject is the character of the currency.
The idea of making it exclusively metallic, however well
intended, appears to me to be fraught with more fatal
consequences than any other scheme having no relation to the
personal rights of the citizens that has ever been devised. If
any single scheme could produce the effect of arresting at once
that mutation of condition by which thousands of our most
indigent fellow-citizens by their industry and enterprise are
raised to the possession of wealth, that is the one. If there is
one measure better calculated than another to produce that state
of things so much deprecated by all true republicans, by which
the rich are daily adding to their hoards and the poor sinking
deeper into penury, it is an exclusive metallic currency. Or if
there is a process by which the character of the country for
generosity and nobleness of feeling may be destroyed by the
great increase and neck toleration of usury, it is an exclusive
metallic currency.
Amongst the other duties of a delicate character which the
President is called upon to perform is the supervision of the
government of the Territories of the United States. Those of
them which are destined to become members of our great political
family are compensated by their rapid progress from infancy to
manhood for the partial and temporary deprivation of their
political rights. It is in this District only where American
citizens are to be found who under a settled policy are deprived
of many important political privileges without any inspiring
hope as to the future. Their only consolation under
circumstances of such deprivation is that of the devoted
exterior guards of a camp--that their sufferings secure
tranquillity and safety within. Are there any of their
countrymen, who would subject them to greater sacrifices, to any
other humiliations than those essentially necessary to the
security of the object for which they were thus separated from
their fellow-citizens? Are their rights alone not to be
guaranteed by the application of those great principles upon
which all our Constitutions are founded? We are told by the
greatest of British orators and statesmen that at the
commencement of the War of the Revolution the most stupid men in
England spoke of "their American subjects." Are there, indeed,
citizens of any of our States who have dreamed of their subjects
in the District of Columbia? Such dreams can never be realized
by any agency of mine. The people of the District of Columbia
are not the subjects of the people of the States, but free
American citizens. Being in the latter condition when the
Constitution was formed, no words used in that instrument could
have been intended to deprive them of that character. If there
is anything in the great principle of unalienable rights so
emphatically insisted upon in our Declaration of Independence,
they could neither make nor the United States accept a surrender
of their liberties and become the subjects--in other words, the
slaves--of their former fellow-citizens. If this be true--and it
will scarcely be denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his
own rights as an American citizen--the grant to Congress of
exclusive jurisdiction in the District of Columbia can be
interpreted, so far as respects the aggregate people of the
United States, as meaning nothing more than to allow to Congress
the controlling power necessary to afford a free and safe
exercise of the functions assigned to the General Government by
the Constitution . In all other respects the legislation of
Congress should be adapted to their peculiar position and wants
and be conformable with their deliberate opinions of their own
interests.
I have spoken of the necessity of keeping the respective
departments of the Government, as well as all the other
authorities of our country, within their appropriate orbits.
This is a matter of difficulty in some cases, as the powers
which they respectively claim are often not defined by any
distinct lines. Mischievous, however, in their tendencies as
collisions of this kind may be, those which arise between the
respective communities which for certain purposes compose one
nation are much more so, for no such nation can long exist
without the careful culture of those feelings of confidence and
affection which are the effective bonds to union between free
and confederated states. Strong as is the tie of interest, it
has been often found ineffectual. Men blinded by their passions
have been known to adopt measures for their country in direct
opposition to all the suggestions of policy. The alternative,
then, is to destroy or keep down a bad passion by creating and
fostering a good one, and this seems to be the corner stone upon
which our American political architects have reared the fabric
of our Government. The cement which was to bind it and
perpetuate its existence was the affectionate attachment between
all its members. To insure the continuance of this feeling,
produced at first by a community of dangers, of sufferings, and
of interests, the advantages of each were made accessible to
all. No participation in any good possessed by any member of our
extensive Confederacy, except in domestic government, was
withheld from the citizen of any other member. By aprocess
attended with no difficulty, no delay, no expense but that of
removal, the citizen of one might become the citizen of any
other, and successively of the whole. The lines, too, separating
powers to be exercised by the citizens of one State from those
of another seem to be so distinctly drawn as to leave no room
for misunderstanding. The citizens of each State unite in their
persons all the privileges which that character confers and all
that they may claim as citizens of the United States, but in no
case can the same persons at the same time act as the citizen of
two separate States, and he is therefore positively precluded
from any interference with the reserved powers of any State but
that of which he is for the time being a citizen. He may,
indeed, offer to the citizens of other States his advice as to
their management, and the form in which it is tendered is left
to his own discretion and sense of propriety. It may be
observed, however, that organized associations of citizens
requiring compliance with their wishes too much resemble the
recommendations of Athens to her allies, supported by an armed
and powerful fleet. It was, indeed, to the ambition of the
leading States of Greece to control the domestic concerns of the
others that the destruction of that celebrated Confederacy, and
subsequently of all its members, is mainly to be attributed, and
it is owing to the absence of that spirit that the Helvetic
Confederacy has for so many years been preserved. Never has
there been seen in the institutions of the separate members of
any confederacy more elements of discord. In the principles and
forms of government and religion, as well as in the
circumstances of the several Cantons, so marked a discrepancy
was observable as to promise anything but harmony in their
intercourse or permanency in their alliance, and yet for ages
neither has been interrupted. Content with the positive benefits
which their union produced, with the independence and safety
from foreign aggression which it secured, these sagacious people
respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant to
their own principles and prejudices.
Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the
same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise
of the powers with which the Constitution clothes them. The
attempt of those of one State to control the domestic
institutions of another can only result in feelings of distrust
and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion, violence, and
civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our free
institutions. Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the
terms and principles governing a common copartnership There is a
fund of power to be exercised under the direction of the joint
councils of the allied members, but that which has been reserved
by the individual members is intangible by the common Government
or the individual members composing it. To attempt it finds no
support in the principles of our Constitution .
It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to
cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the various
parts of our Confederacy. Experience has abundantly taught us
that the agitation by citizens of one part of the Union of a
subject not confided to the General Government, but exclusively
under the guardianship of the local authorities, is productive
of no other consequences than bitterness, alienation, discord,
and injury to the very cause which is intended to be advanced.
Of all the great interests which appertain to our country, that
of union--cordial, confiding, fraternal union--is by far the
most important, since it is the only true and sure guaranty of
all others.
In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the
currency, some of the States may meet with difficulty in their
financial concerns. However deeply we may regret anything
imprudent or excessive in the engagements into which States have
entered for purposes of their own, it does not become us to
disparage the States governments, nor to discourage them from
making proper efforts for their own relief. On the contrary, it
is our duty to encourage them to the extent of our
Constitutional authority to apply their best means and
cheerfully to make all necessary sacrifices and submit to all
necessary burdens to fulfill their engagements and maintain
their credit, for the character and credit of the several States
form a part of the character and credit of the whole country.
The resources of the country are abundant, the enterprise and
activity of our people proverbial, and we may well hope that
wise legislation and prudent administration by the respective
governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restore
former prosperity.
Unpleasant and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes be
between the constituted authorities of the citizens of our
country in relation to the lines which separate their respective
jurisdictions, the results can be of no vital injury to our
institutions if that ardent patriotism, that devoted attachment
to liberty, that spirit of moderation and forbearance for which
our countrymen were once distinguished, continue to be
cherished. If this continues to be the ruling passion of our
souls, the weaker feeling of the mistaken enthusiast will be
corrected, the Utopian dreams of the scheming politician
dissipated, and the complicated intrigues of the demagogue
rendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm
for every injury which our institutions may receive. On the
contrary, no care that can be used in the construction of our
Government, no division of powers, no distribution of checks in
its several departments, will prove effectual to keep us a free
people if this spirit is suffered to decay; and decay it will
without constant nurture. To the neglect of this duty the best
historians agree in attributing the ruin of all the republics
with whose existence and fall their writings have made us
acquainted. The same causes will ever produce the same effects,
and as long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the
human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men can be
warped and their affections changed by operations upon their
passions and prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people
depend on their own constant attention to its preservation. The
danger to all well-established free governments arises from the
unwillingness of the people to believe in its existence or from
the influence of designing men diverting their attention from
the quarter whence it approaches to a source from which it can
never come. This is the old trick of those who would usurp the
government of their country. In the name of democracy they
speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth and
the danger of aristocracy. History, ancient and modern, is full
of such examples. Caesar became the master of the Roman people
and the senate under the pretense of supporting the democratic
claims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter;
Cromwell, in the character of protector of the liberties of the
people, became the dictator of England, and Bolivar possessed
himself of unlimited power with the title of his country's
liberator. There is, on the contrary, no instance on record of
an extensive and well- established republic being changed into
an aristocracy. The tendencies of all such governments in their
decline is to monarchy, and the antagonist principle to liberty
there is the spirit of faction--a spirit which assumes the
character and in times of great excitement imposes itself upon
the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and, like the false
Christs whose coming was foretold by the Savior, seeks to, and
were it possible would, impose upon the true and most faithful
disciples of liberty. It is in periods like this that it
behooves the people to be most watchful of those to whom they
have intrusted power. And although there is at times much
difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit, a
calm and dispassionate investigation will detect the
counterfeit, as well by the character of its operations as the
results that are produced. The true spirit of liberty, although
devoted, persevering, bold, and uncompromising in principle,
that secured is mild and tolerant and scrupulous as to the means
it employs, whilst the spirit of party, assuming to be that of
liberty, is harsh, vindictive, and intolerant, and totally
reckless as to the character of the allies which it brings to
the aid of its cause. When the genuine spirit of liberty
animates the body of a people to a thorough examination of their
affairs, it leads to the excision of every excrescence which may
have fastened itself upon any of the departments of the
government, and restores the system to its pristine health and
beauty. But the reign of an intolerant spirit of party amongst a
free people seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to
the executive power introduced and established amidst unusual
professions of devotion to democracy.
The foregoing remarks relate almost exclusively to matters
connected with our domestic concerns. It may be proper, however,
that I should give some indications to my fellow-citizens of my
proposed course of conduct in the management of our foreign
relations. I assure them, therefore, that it is my intention to
use every means in my power to preserve the friendly intercourse
which now so happily subsists with every foreign nation, and
that although, of course, not well informed as to the state of
pending negotiations with any of them, I see in the personal
characters of the sovereigns, as well as in the mutual interests
of our own and of the governments with which our relations are
most intimate, a pleasing guaranty that the harmony so important
to the interests of their subjects as well as of our citizens
will not be interrupted by the advancement of any claim or
pretension upon their part to which our honor would not permit
us to yield. Long the defender of my country's rights in the
field, I trust that my fellow-citizens will not see in my
earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers any
indication that their rights will ever be sacrificed or the
honor of the nation tarnished by any admission on the part of
their Chief Magistrate unworthy of their former glory. In our
intercourse with our aboriginal neighbors the same liberality
and justice which marked the course prescribed to me by two of
my illustrious predecessors when acting under their direction in
the discharge of the duties of superintendent and commissioner
shall be strictly observed. I can conceive of no more sublime
spectacle, none more likely to propitiate an impartial and
common Creator, than a rigid adherence to the principles of
justice on the part of a powerful nation in its transactions
with aweaker and uncivilized people whom circumstances have
placed at its disposal.
Before concluding, fellow-citizens, I must say something to you
on the subject of the parties at this time existing in our
country. To me it appears perfectly clear that the interest of
that country requires that the violence of the spirit by which
those parties are at this time governed must be greatly
mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or consequences will
ensue which are appalling to be thought of.
If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of
vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the
bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends.
Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent
of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its
inevitable conqueror. We have examples of republics where the
love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant
passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the
continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a
vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of
its citizens. It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished
English writer that "in the Roman senate Octavius had a party
and Anthony a party, but the Commonwealth had none." Yet the
senate continued to meet in the temple of liberty to talk of the
sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and gaze at the
statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, and the
people assembled in the forum, not, as in the days of Camillus
and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates
or pass upon the acts of the senate, but to receive from the
hands of the leaders of the respective parties their share of
the spoils and to shout for one or the other, as those collected
in Gaul or Egypt and the lesser Asia would furnish the larger
dividend. The spirit of liberty had fled, and, avoiding the
abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the wilds of
Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same
causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our
forums. A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the
world, must be deprecated by every patriot and every tendency to
a state of things likely to produce it immediately checked. Such
a tendency has existed--does exist. Always the friend of my
countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to
them from this high place to which their partiality has exalted
me that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best
interests--hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted
in its views, selfish in its objects. It looks to the
aggrandizement of a few even to the destruction of the interests
of the whole. The entire remedy is with the people. Something,
however, may be effected by the means which they have placed in
my hands. It is union that we want, not of a party for the sake
of that party, but aunion of the whole country for the sake of
the whole country, for the defense of its interests and its
honor against foreign aggression, for the defense of those
principles for which our ancestors so gloriously contended As
far as it depends upon me it shall be accomplished. All the
influence that I possess shall be exerted to prevent the
formation at least of an Executive party in the halls of the
legislative body. I wish for the support of no member of that
body to any measure of mine that does not satisfy his judgment
and his sense of duty to those from whom he holds his
appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people but
that asked for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to
the legal administration of their affairs."
I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to
justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound
reverence for the Christian religion and a thorough conviction
that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of
religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true
and lasting happiness; and to that good Being who has blessed us
by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over
and prospered the labors of our fathers and has hitherto
preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those
of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every
interest of our beloved country in all future time.
Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to
which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take
an affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your
homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to
discharge all the high duties of my exalted station according to
the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon their performance
with entire confidence in the support of a just and generous
people.
William Harrison |
