Source:
Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
FRIENDS
AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,
Called
upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I
avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is
here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have
been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the
task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful
presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers
so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land,
traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in
commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to
destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye -- when I contemplate these
transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this
beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink
from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many
whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our
Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which
to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with
the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I
look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to
steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the
conflicting elements of a troubled world.
During
the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of
discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on
strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but
this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the
rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the
will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too,
will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority
is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that
the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to
violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one
heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and
affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And
let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance
under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we
countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as
bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the
ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through
blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the
agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore;
that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should
divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is
not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the
same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any
among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican
form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of
opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know,
indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong
enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful
experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the
theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may
by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on
the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one
where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law,
and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.
Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with
the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of
others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let
history answer this question.
Let
us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican
principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly
separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one
quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others;
possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the
thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal
right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry,
to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but
from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion,
professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating
honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and
adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it
delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter --
with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a
prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal
Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave
them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,
and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the
sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our
felicities.
About
to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend
everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I
deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which
ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest
compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its
limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or
persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with
all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State
governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our
domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican
tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole
constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety
abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and
safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where
peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute
acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of
republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and
immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in
peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the
supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public
expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the
honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;
encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of
information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason;
freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the
protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and
guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of
our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They
should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone
by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them
in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to
regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
I
repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With
experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this
the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it
will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with
the reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to
that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary
character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his
country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful
history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the
legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of
judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those
whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your
indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support
against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in
all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation
to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion
of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing
them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and
freedom of all.
Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.