Speech Transcript:

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
oaths 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 States 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 a similar 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 a process 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 a weaker 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 a union 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.