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Inaugural Address of President John Adams
Saturday, Philadelphia, March 4, 1797
WHEN it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course
for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature
and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less
apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they
must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which
would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted
over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying,
however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and
the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an overruling Providence
which had so signally protected this country from the first, the
representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its
present number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and
the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which
had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty.
The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war,
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at
least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was
early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and
Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and
precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large
had ever considered. But reflecting on the striking difference in so many
particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from the
seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly
foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that it
could not be durable.
Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations,
if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequencesuniversal languor,
jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce,
discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of
lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of
consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents,
animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection,
threatening some great national calamity.
In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned
by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity.
Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.
The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued in the
present happy Constitution of Government.
Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole
course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United
States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated
by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great
satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an
experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations
of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or
suggested. In its general principles and great outlines it was conformable
to such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed, and in some
States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish.
Claiming a right of suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the
adoption or rejection of a constitution which was to rule me and my
posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my
approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private. It was not
then, nor has been since, any objection to it in my mind that the Executive
and Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I ever entertained a thought of
promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the
course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or
expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State
legislatures, according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.
Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation
from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under
the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most
serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it has
equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an habitual
attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its
effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation I
have acquired an habitual attachment to it and veneration for it. What other
form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations
of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight
of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent
human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing,
more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so
often been seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government
in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the
Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their
neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything
essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this
by robes and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it
descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than
when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and
enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It is
their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every
legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of
such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a
general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of
the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing than this can be
presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or
excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or
glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and
benevolence.
In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to
ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if
anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair,
virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a
majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through
artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its
own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage
can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or
violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the
choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign
nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and
candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little
advantage to boast of over lot or chance.
Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such
are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of
America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and
virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a
citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with the
same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of
liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled
prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the
highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with
posterity.
In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live
to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily
increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of this
country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still a rampart,
and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open or secret
enemies of his country's peace. This example has been recommended to the
imitation of his successors by both Houses of Congress and by the voice of
the legislatures and the people throughout the nation.
On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak
with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope,
will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference,
upon principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and
serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if
an attachment to the Constitution of the United States, and a conscientious
determination to support it until it shall be altered by the judgments and
wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a
respectful attention to the constitutions of the individual States and a
constant caution and delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal and
impartial regard to the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of all the
States in the Union, without preference or regard to a northern or southern,
an eastern or western, position, their various political opinions on
unessential points or their personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men
of all parties and denominations; if a love of science and letters and a
wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges,
universities, academies, and every institution for propagating knowledge,
virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not only for their
benign influence on the happiness of life in all its stages and classes, and
of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our
Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit
of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the
pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to
elective governments; if a love of equal laws, of justice, and humanity in
the interior administration; if an inclination to improve agriculture,
commerce, and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and defense; if a
spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of America, and
a disposition to meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more
friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an
inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all
nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the
belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and
so solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the
legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall be
otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem for the French nation,
formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a sincere
desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for the honor and
interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor and integrity of the
people of America and the internal sentiment of their own power and energies
must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to investigate every just cause and
remove every colorable pretense of complaint; if an intention to pursue by
amicable negotiation a reparation for the injuries that have been committed
on the commerce of our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success
can not be obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may
consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government and
its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as may depend
upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain peace, friendship,
and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken confidence in the honor,
spirit, and resources of the American people, on which I have so often
hazarded my all and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of the high
destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a
knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the
people deeply engravened on my mind in early life, and not obscured but
exalted by experience and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be
my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and
call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent
respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public
service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be
my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall
not be without effect.
With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the
faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people
pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no
doubt of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without
hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to
the utmost of my power.
And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order,
the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of
virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government
and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of
His providence.
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