Speech Transcript:

Unwilling to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I
avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound
impression made on me by the call of my country to the station to the
duties of which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of
sanctions. So distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the
deliberate and tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would
under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as
well as filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be assumed.
Under the various circumstances which give peculiar solemnity to the
existing period, I feel that both the honor and the responsibility
allotted to me are inexpressibly enhanced.

The present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel, and
that of our own country full of difficulties. The pressure of these,
too, is the more severely felt because they have fallen upon us at a
moment when the national prosperity being at a height not before
attained, the contrast resulting from the change has been rendered
the more striking. Under the benign influence of our republican
institutions, and the maintenance of peace with all nations whilst so
many of them were engaged in bloody and wasteful wars, the fruits of a
just policy were enjoyed in an unrivaled growth of our faculties and
resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improvements of
agriculture, in the successful enterprises of commerce, in the
progress of manufacturers and useful arts, in the increase of the
public revenue and the use made of it in reducing the public debt,
and in the valuable works and establishments everywhere multiplying
over the face of our land.

It is a precious reflection that the transition from this prosperous
condition of our country to the scene which has for some time been
distressing us is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor, as
I trust, on any involuntary errors in the public councils. Indulging
no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose of other
nations, it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate
peace by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect
of the nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations with
the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor in the world,
the truth of these assertions will not be questioned; posterity at
least will do justice to them.

This unexceptionable course could not avail against the injustice and
violence of the belligerent powers. In their rage against each other,
or impelled by more direct motives, principles of retaliation have
been introduced equally contrary to universal reason and acknowledged
law. How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite of the
demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given by the
United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to induce a
revocation of them, can not be anticipated. Assuring myself that
under every vicissitude the determined spirit and united councils of
the nation will be safeguards to its honor and its essential
interests, I repair to the post assigned me with no other
discouragement than what springs from my own inadequacy to its high
duties. If I do not sink under the weight of this deep conviction it
is because I find some support in a consciousness of the purposes and
a confidence in the principles which I bring with me into this arduous
service.

To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having
correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward
belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and
reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an
appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign
partialities, so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free
ones; to foster a spirit of independence too just to invade the
rights of others, too proud to surrender our own, too liberal to
indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves and too elevated not to look
down upon them in others; to hold the union of the States as the
basis of their peace and happiness; to support the Constitution,
which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in
its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to
the States and to the people as equally incorporated with and
essential to the success of the general system; to avoid the
slightest interference with the right of conscience or the functions
of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to preserve
in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of
private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press; to
observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public
resources by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep
within the requisite limits a standing military force, always
remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark
of republics--that without standing armies their liberty can never be
in danger, nor with large ones safe; to promote by authorized means
improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to
external as well as internal commerce; to favor in like manner the
advancement of science and the diffusion of information as the best
aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which have
been so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal
neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of savage life to a
participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners
are susceptible in a civilized state--as far as sentiments and
intentions such as these can aid the fulfillment of my duty, they
will be a resource which can not fail me.

It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I am to
tread lighted by examples of illustrious services successfully
rendered in the most trying difficulties by those who have marched
before me. Of those of my immediate predecessor it might least become
me here to speak. I may, however, be pardoned for not suppressing the
sympathy with which my heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in
the benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully bestowed or exalted
talents zealously devoted through a long career to the advancement of
its highest interest and happiness.

But the source to which I look or the aids which alone can supply my
deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my
fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in
the other departments associated in the care of the national
interests. In these my confidence will under every difficulty be best
placed, next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the
guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power
regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so
conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are
bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our
fervent supplications and best hopes for the future.