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Inagural Address of President William Henry Harrison |
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Inaugural Address of President William Henry Harrison
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
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 tranquility 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 entrusted 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 re commend,
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 th at 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 distributor 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 i nto 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
tranquility 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 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, to o,
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 sever al 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 f or 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 fee ling 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 t he 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 an d 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 hither to 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.
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The U. S. Constitution
