Speech Transcript:

Fellow-Citizens:

There is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President
shall take the oath of office in the presence of the people, but
there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to
office of the chief executive officer of the nation that from the
beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official
oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the solemn
ceremonial. The oath taken in the presence of the people becomes a
mutual covenant. The officer covenants to serve the whole body of the
people by a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the
unfailing defense and security of those who respect and observe them,
and that neither wealth, station, nor the power of combinations shall
be able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a
beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or
selfishness.

My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and
solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives.
Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume
that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other
to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the
States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every
other citizen his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus
solemnly into covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke and
confidently expect the favor and help of Almighty God--that He will
give to me wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit
of fraternity and a love of righteousness and peace.

This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the
Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under our
Constitution. The first inauguration of President Washington took
place in New York, where Congress was then sitting, on the 30th day
of April, 1789, having been deferred by reason of delays attending
the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral
vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of
the Declaration of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of
the adoption of the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New
York the institution of the second great department of our
constitutional scheme of government. When the centennial of the
institution of the judicial department, by the organization of the
Supreme Court, shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will
be, our nation will have fully entered its second century.

I will not attempt to note the marvelous and in great part happy
contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold into its
second century of organized existence under the Constitution and that
weak but wisely ordered young nation that looked undauntedly down the
first century, when all its years stretched out before it.

Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which
accompanied the institution of government under the Constitution, or
to find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of
Washington and his great associates, and hope and courage in the
contrast which thirty-eight populous and prosperous States offer to
the thirteen States, weak in everything except courage and the love
of liberty, that then fringed our Atlantic seaboard.

The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the
original States (except Virginia) and greater than the aggregate of
five of the smaller States in 1790. The center of population when our
national capital was located was east of Baltimore, and it was argued
by many well-informed persons that it would move eastward rather than
westward; yet in 1880 it was found to be near Cincinnati, and the new
census about to be taken will show another stride to the westward.
That which was the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the
nation's robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory,
population and aggregate wealth, marvelous as it has been in each of
those directions. The masses of our people are better fed, clothed,
and housed than their fathers were. The facilities for popular
education have been vastly enlarged and more generally diffused.

The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of
their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and over
the lives of our people. The influences of religion have been
multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity have
greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in higher
estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not all of our
people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and
law-abiding. But on the whole the opportunities offered to the
individual to secure the comforts of life are better than are found
elsewhere and largely better than they were here one hundred years
ago.

The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General
Government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not
accomplished until the suggestions of reason were strongly reenforced
by the more imperative voice of experience. The divergent interests of
peace speedily demanded a "more perfect union." The merchant, the
shipmaster, and the manufacturer discovered and disclosed to our
statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must be
added to the political freedom which had been so bravely won. The
commercial policy of the mother country had not relaxed any of its
hard and oppressive features. To hold in check the development of our
commercial marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth
of manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market
for their shops and the carrying trade for their ships, was the
policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with the most selfish
vigor.

Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of
discriminating duties that should encourage the production of needed
things at home. The patriotism of the people, which no longer found
afield of exercise in war, was energetically directed to the duty of
equipping the young Republic for the defense of its independence by
making its people self-dependent. Societies for the promotion of home
manufactures and for encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of
the people were organized in many of the States. The revival at the
end of the century of the same patriotic interest in the preservation
and development of domestic industries and the defense of our working
people against injurious foreign competition is an incident worthy of
attention. It is not a departure but a return that we have witnessed.
The protective policy had then its opponents. The argument was made,
as now, that its benefits inured to particular classes or sections.

If the question became in any sense or at any time sectional, it was
only because slavery existed in some of the States. But for this
there was no reason why the cotton-producing States should not have
led or walked abreast with the New England States in the production
of cotton fabrics. There was this reason only why the States that
divide with Pennsylvania the mineral treasures of the great
southeastern and central mountain ranges should have been so tardy in
bringing to the smelting furnace and to the mill the coal and iron
from their near opposing hillsides. Mill fires were lighted at the
funeral pile of slavery. The emancipation proclamation was heard in
the depths of the earth as well as in the sky; men were made free,
and material things became our better servants.

The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the tariff
discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily only
planting States. None are excluded from achieving that
diversification of pursuits among the people which brings wealth and
contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the
product is spun in the country town by operatives whose necessities
call for diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and
agricultural products. Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an
extension of the productive capacity of the State more real and
valuable than added territory.

Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon
the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery
no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon
their communities? I look hopefully to the continuance of our
protective system and to the consequent development of manufacturing
and mining enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to
agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our
people. The men who have invested their capital in these enterprises,
the farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the
men who work in shop or field will not fail to find and to defend a
community of interest.

Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the
great mining and manufacturing enterprises which have recently been
established in the South may yet find that the free ballot of the
workingman, without distinction of race, is needed for their defense
as well as for his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South
who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the constitutional
expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real
convictions they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction
and cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally,
not only in establishing correct principles in our national
administration, but in preserving for their local communities the
benefits of social order and economical and honest government. At
least until the good offices of kindness and education have been
fairly tried the contrary conclusion can not be plausibly urged.

I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive
policy for any section of our country. It is the duty of the
Executive to administer and enforce in the methods and by the
instrumentalities pointed out and provided by the Constitution all
the laws enacted by Congress. These laws are general and their
administration should be uniform and equal. As a citizen may not
elect what laws he will obey, neither may the Executive eject which
he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute embraces the
Constitution in its entirety and the whole code of laws enacted under
it. The evil example of permitting individuals, corporations, or
communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or
local interest or prejudices is full of danger, not only to the
nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious
expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust
advantage over others. They will presently themselves be compelled to
appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a
defense must not deny that use of it to others.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal
limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the
unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with
their operations. The community that by concert, open or secret,
among its citizens denies to a portion of its members their plain
rights under the law has severed the only safe bond of social order
and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It
demoralizes those who practice it and destroys the faith of those who
suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man
in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject
of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods,
if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them,
may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this.

An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of
government. If the educated and influential classes in a community
either practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that
seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they expect when
the lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a
sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the
ignorant classes? A community where law is the rule of conduct and
where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive
field for business investments and honest labor.

Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry
into the character and good disposition of persons applying for
citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been
in their administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible
form. We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his
fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship without any
knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship
are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a
good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship and a good
knowledge by him of our institutions. We should not cease to be
hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to
the character of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose
coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat to
social order. These should be identified and excluded.

We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with
European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their
contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly
offices to promote peace, but never obtruding our advice and never
attempting unfairly to coin the distresses of other powers into
commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect
that our European policy will be the American policy of European
courts.

It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace
and safety which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce
in matters affecting them that a shorter waterway between our eastern
and western seaboards should be dominated by any European Government
that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be
entertained by any friendly power.

We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to
maintain and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great
powers, but they will not expect us to look kindly upon any project
that would leave us subject to the dangers of a hostile observation
or environment. We have not sought to dominate or to absorb any of
our weaker neighbors, but rather to aid and encourage them to
establish free and stable governments resting upon the consent of
their own people. We have a clear right to expect, therefore, that no
European Government will seek to establish colonial dependencies upon
the territory of these independent American States. That which a
sense of justice restrains us from seeking they may be reasonably
expected willingly to forego.

It must not be assumed, however, that our interests are so
exclusively American that our entire inattention to any events that
may transpire elsewhere can be taken for granted. Our citizens
domiciled for purposes of trade in all countries and in many of the
islands of the sea demand and will have our adequate care in their
personal and commercial rights. The necessities of our Navy require
convenient coaling stations and dock and harbor privileges. These and
other trading privileges we will feel free to obtain only by means
that do not in any degree partake of coercion, however feeble the
government from which we ask such concessions. But having fairly
obtained them by methods and for purposes entirely consistent with
the most friendly disposition toward all other powers, our consent
will be necessary to any modification or impairment of the
concession.

We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any friendly nation or
the just rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like treatment for
our own. Calmness, justice, and consideration should characterize our
diplomacy. The offices of an intelligent diplomacy or of friendly
arbitration in proper cases should be adequate to the peaceful
adjustment of all international difficulties. By such methods we will
make our contribution to the world's peace, which no nation values
more highly, and avoid the opprobrium which must fall upon the nation
that ruthlessly breaks it.

The duty devolved by law upon the President to nominate and, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public
officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the
Constitution or by act of Congress has become very burdensome and its
wise and efficient discharge full of difficulty. The civil list is so
large that a personal knowledge of any large number of the applicants
is impossible. The President must rely upon the representations of
others, and these are often made inconsiderately and without any just
sense of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those
who volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments shall
exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty and an
ambition to improve the service should characterize all public
officers.

There are many ways in which the convenience and comfort of those who
have business with our public offices may be promoted by a thoughtful
and obliging officer, and I shall expect those whom I may appoint to
justify their selection by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge
of their duties. Honorable party service will certainly not be
esteemed by me a disqualification for public office, but it will in
no case be allowed to serve as a shield of official negligence,
incompetency, or delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek
public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all
applicants will be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and
the heads of Departments will need, time for inquiry and
deliberation. Persistent importunity will not, therefore, be the best
support of an application for office. Heads of Departments, bureaus,
and all other public officers having any duty connected therewith
will be expected to enforce the civil-service law fully and without
evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do something more to
advance the reform of the civil service. The ideal, or even my own
ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis
of judgment than promises. We shall not, however, I am sure, be able
to put our civil service upon a nonpartisan basis until we have
secured an incumbency that fair-minded men of the opposition will
approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in the
civil list is increased removals from office will diminish.

While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious
evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary annual demands
upon our Treasury, with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary
but scarcely less imperative demands which arise now and then.
Expenditure should always be made with economy and only upon public
necessity. Wastefulness, profligacy, or favoritism in public
expenditures is criminal. But there is nothing in the condition of
our country or of our people to suggest that anything presently
necessary to the public prosperity, security, or honor should be
unduly postponed.

It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate these
extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our ordinary
expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable
annual surplus will remain. We will fortunately be able to apply to
the redemption of the public debt any small and unforeseen excess of
revenue. This is better than to reduce our income below our necessary
expenditures, with the resulting choice between another change of our
revenue laws and an increase of the public debt. It is quite
possible, I am sure, to effect the necessary reduction in our
revenues without breaking down our protective tariff or seriously
injuring any domestic industry.

The construction of a sufficient number of modern war ships and of
their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent
with care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit,
courage, and skill of our naval officers and seamen have many times
in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating
greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so
upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or
neglect, to be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat.
We should encourage the establishment of American steamship lines.
The exchanges of commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of
communication, and until these are provided the development of our
trade with the States lying south of us is impossible.

Our pension laws should give more adequate and discriminating relief
to the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans.
Such occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to
their valor and sacrifice.

It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect of
the admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and
Washington Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably
delayed in the case of some of them. The people who have settled
these Territories are intelligent, enterprising, and patriotic, and
the accession these new States will add strength to the nation. It is
due to the settlers in the Territories who have availed themselves of
the invitations of our land laws to make homes upon the public domain
that their titles should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries
confirmed by patent.

It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being
manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have been
for years calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing
about the ballot box and about the elector further safeguards, in
order that our elections might not only be free and pure, but might
clearly appear to be so, will welcome the accession of any who did
not so soon discover the need of reform. The National Congress has
not as yet taken control of elections in that case over which the
Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the
election laws of the several States, provided penalties for their
violation and a method of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the
State laws or an unfair partisan administration of them could suggest
a departure from this policy.

It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the
Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was
wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our
national life, and no power vested in Congress or in the Executive to
secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion. The people
of all the Congressional districts have an equal interest that the
election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a
majority of the qualified electors residing within it. The results of
such elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing
in other districts that they shall be pure and free does not savor at
all of impertinence.

If in any of the States the public security is thought to be
threatened by ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy is
education. The sympathy and help of our people will not be withheld
from any community struggling with special embarrassments or
difficulties connected with the suffrage if the remedies proposed
proceed upon lawful lines and are promoted by just and honorable
methods. How shall those who practice election frauds recover that
respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition
and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard
the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party contentions. Let those
who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof
of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting
fraternity and justice. A party success that is achieved by unfair
methods or by practices that partake of revolution is hurtful and
evanescent even from a party standpoint. We should hold our differing
opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the
arbitrament of the ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the
same respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the
decision had been in our favor.

No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and
love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon,
and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has
placed upon our head a diadem and has laid at our feet power and
wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we must not forget that
we take these gifts upon the condition that justice and mercy shall
hold the reins of power and that the upward avenues of hope shall be
free to all the people.

I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent ambush
along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all.
Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new
demonstration that the great body of our people are stable,
patriotic, and law-abiding. No political party can long pursue
advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and indecent
methods without protest and fatal disaffection in its own body. The
peaceful agencies of commerce are more fully revealing the necessary
unity of all our communities, and the increasing intercourse of our
people is promoting mutual respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure
in the revelation which our next census will make of the swift
development of the great resources of some of the States. Each State
will bring its generous contribution to the great aggregate of the
nation's increase. And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle
from the hills, and the ores of the earth shall have been weighed,
counted, and valued, we will turn from them all to crown with the
highest honor the State that has most promoted education, virtue,
justice, and patriotism among its people.