Inaugural Address
William Henry Harrison
[4 March 1841]
President of the United States
President Harrison has the dual
distinction among all the Presidents of giving the longest
inaugural speech and of serving the shortest term of office.
Known to the public as "Old Tippecanoe," the former
general of the Indian campaigns delivered an
hour-and-forty-five-minute speech in a snowstorm. The oath of
office was administered on the East Portico of the Capitol by
Chief Justice Roger Taney. The 68-year-old President stood
outside for the entire proceeding, greeted crowds of
well-wishers at the White House later that day, and attended
several celebrations that evening. One month later he died of
pneumonia.
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CALLED from a retirement which I had supposed was to
continue for the residue of my life to fill the chief executive
office of this great and free nation, I appear before you,
fellow-citizens, to take the 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 peoplea breath of theirs having made, as a
breath can unmake, change, or modify itit 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
faithwhich no one understood and which at times was the
subject of the mockery of allor 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 Presidentsand
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 Congressthat 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 introduceda minister or a member of the
oppositionby 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 itwith
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 campthat 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 subjectsin
other words, the slavesof their former fellow-citizens. If
this be trueand it will scarcely be denied by anyone who has a
correct idea of his own rights as an American citizenthe 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 unioncordial,
confiding, fraternal unionis 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 factiona 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
existeddoes 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 interestshostile 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.