Speech Transcript:

Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of
our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my
fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks
for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to
declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents,
and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments
which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so
justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful
land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their
industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget
right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal
eye--when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the
honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed
to the issue, and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the
contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence
of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities
provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of
virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you,
then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of
legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with
encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to
steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the
conflicting elements of a troubled world.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the
animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an
aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to
speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the
voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the
Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will
of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All,
too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of
the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must
be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which
equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us,
then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us
restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without
which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us
reflect that, having banished from our land that religious
intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have
yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as
despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody
persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world,
during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood
and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the
agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful
shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by
others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But
every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have
called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who
would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form,
let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which
error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat
it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican
government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong
enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful
experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and
firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the
world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself?
I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government
on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of
the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet
invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes
it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or
have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history
answer this question.

Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and
Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the
exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to
endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country,
with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth
generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of
our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor
and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth,
but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign
religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all
of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the
love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence,
which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the
happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter--with all
these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a
prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens--a wise and
frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one
another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the
mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good
government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our
felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which
comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you
should understand what I deem the essential principles of our
Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its
Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass
they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its
limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or
persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the
support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most
competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest
bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the
General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet
anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the
right of election by the people--a mild and safe corrective of abuses
which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies
are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the
majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal
but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the
first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy
of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public
expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of
our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement
of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of
information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public
reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of
person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries
impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation
which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of
revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our
heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the
creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the
touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should
we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to
retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace,
liberty, and safety.

I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me.
With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the
difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect
that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from
this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into
it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our
first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services
had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined
for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so
much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal
administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect
of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose
positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your
indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and
your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they
would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your
suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future
solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have
bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them
all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and
freedom of all.

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with
obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become
sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may
that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead
our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for
your peace and prosperity.