William Henry Harrison
Inaugural Address
Thursday, March 4, 1841
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.
