HCS Inc. - Information Databases - Freedom Documents

   THOMAS JEFFERSON'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS (1801)

  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 see here 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 associate 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 possesses 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 the 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 cannot 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
anti-republican 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.
 
    Thomas Jefferson

Return to HCS databases