Fellow-Citizens:
We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of national life—a
century crowded with perils, but crowned with the
triumphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the onward march
let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen
our faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along
which our people have traveled.
It is now three days more than a hundred years
since the adoption of the first written constitution of the United
States—the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new
Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had not
conquered a place in the family of nations. The decisive battle of the war for
independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated
at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only
against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of
mankind; for the world did not then believe that the
supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted to the
guardianship of the people themselves.
We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty,
the intelligent courage, and the sum of common
sense
with which our fathers made the great
experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short
trial, that the confederacy of States, was too weak to meet the necessities of
a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead
established a National Union, founded directly upon the will of the people,
endowed with full power of self-preservation and ample authority for the
accomplishment of its great object.
Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the
foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the growth of our
people in all the better elements of national life has indicated the wisdom of the founders and given new hope to
their descendants. Under this Constitution our people long ago
made themselves safe against danger from without and secured for their mariners
and flag equality of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution
twenty-five States have been added to the Union, with constitutions and laws,
framed and enforced by their own citizens, to secure the manifold blessings of
local self-government.
The jurisdiction of this Constitution now covers an area
fifty times greater than that of the original thirteen States and a
population twenty times greater than that of 1780.
The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of
civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the Union
emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified and made
stronger for all the beneficent purposes of good government.
And now, at the close of this first century of growth, with the inspirations of its
history in their hearts, our people have lately reviewed the condition of the
nation, passed judgment upon the conduct and opinions of political parties, and
have registered their will concerning the future administration of the
Government. To interpret and to execute that will in accordance with the
Constitution is the paramount duty of the Executive.
Even from this brief review it is manifest that the nation is resolutely facing to
the front, resolved to employ its best energies in developing the great
possibilities of the future. Sacredly preserving whatever has been gained to
liberty and good government during the century, our people
are determined to leave behind them all those bitter controversies
concerning things which have been irrevocably settled, and the further
discussion of which can only stir up strife and delay the onward
march.
The supremacy of the nation and its laws should be no longer a
subject of debate. That discussion, which for half a century
threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last in the high court of
war by a decree from which there is no appeal—that the Constitution and the
laws made in pursuance thereof are and shall continue to be the supreme law of
the land, binding alike upon the States and the people. This decree does not
disturb the autonomy of the States nor interfere with any of their necessary
rights of local self-government, but it does fix and establish the permanent
supremacy of the Union.
The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle and
through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of
1776 by proclaiming “liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants
thereof.”
The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the
full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we
have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. No
thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our
institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and
dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our
people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which
wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the
manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a
career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of
self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to the one and more
necessary to the other. The influence of this force will grow greater and bear
richer fruit with the coming years.
No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern
communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should
remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the
negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be
no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never
yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places
the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.
The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With unquestioning
devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they
have “followed the light as God gave them to see the light.”They are rapidly
laying the material foundations of self-support, widening their circle of
intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes
of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good
men. So far as my authority can lawfully
extend they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the
Constitution and the laws.
The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank statement of
the issue may aid its solution. It is alleged that in many communities negro
citizens are practically denied the freedom of the ballot. In so far as the
truth of this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest
local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to
vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only
palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad
local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to
violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is
a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is
not a remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of the
king, it shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power
and stifle its voice.
It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations.
It should be said with the utmost emphasis that this question of the suffrage
will never give repose or safety to the
States or to the nation until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes
and keeps the ballot free and pure by the strong sanctions of the
law.
But the danger which arises from ignorance in the voter can not be denied. It
covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and the present condition
of the race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the sources and fountains
of power in every state. We have no standard by which to measure the disaster
that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in the citizens when joined
to corruption and fraud in the suffrage.
The voters of the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose will
hang the destinies of our governments, can transmit their supreme authority to
no successors save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of
sovereign power. If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by
ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic will be certain and
remediless.
The census has already sounded the alarm in the
appalling figures which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy
has risen among our voters and their children.
To the South this question is of supreme importance. But the responsibility for the
existence of slavery did not rest upon the South alone. The nation itself is
responsible for the extension of the suffrage, and is under special obligations
to aid in removing the illiteracy which it has added to the voting population.
For the North and South alike there is but one remedy. All the constitutional
power of the nation and of the States and all the volunteer forces of the
people should be surrendered to meet this danger by the savory influence of
universal education.
It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their
successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which
awaits them.
In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten
and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in
the divine oracle which declares that “a little child shall lead them,”
for our own little children will soon control the destinies of the
Republic.
My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of
past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided in
their opinions concerning our controversies.They will surely bless their
fathers and their fathers’ God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was
overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law. We may hasten
or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not
possible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its
inevitable verdict?
Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being unite us
and offer ample employment of our best powers. Let all our people, leaving
behind them the battlefields of dead issues, move forward and in their strength
of liberty and the restored Union win the grander victories of peace.
The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful
seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all. The
preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so
successfully attained by the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled
our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.
By the experience of commercial nations in
all ages it has been found that gold and silver afford the only safe
foundation for a monetary system. Confusion has recently been
created by variations in the relative value of the two metals, but I
confidently believe that arrangements can be made between the leading
commercial nations which will secure the general use of both metals. Congress
should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver now required by law may
not disturb our monetary system by driving either metal out of circulation. If
possible, such an adjustment should be made that the purchasing power of every
coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets
of the world.
The chief duty of the National Government in connection
with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value.
Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the
Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. The present
issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of
war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its
convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the
holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not
money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promise
should be kept.
The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of
interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the
national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the
country.
I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on financial questions during a
long service in Congress, and to say that time and experience have strengthened
the opinions I have so often expressed on these subjects.
The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible
for my Administration to prevent.
The interests of agriculture deserve more attention
from the Government than they have yet received. The farms of the United
States afford homes and employment for more than one-half our people,
and furnish much the largest part of all our exports. As the Government
lights our coasts for the protection of mariners and the benefit of
commerce, so it should give to the tillers of the soil the best lights
of practical science and experience.
Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially
independent, and are opening to capital and labor new and profitable
fields of employment. Their steady and healthy growth should still be
matured. Our facilities for transportation should be promoted by the
continued improvement of our harbors and great interior waterways and by
the increase of our tonnage on the ocean.
The development of the world’s commerce has led to an
urgent demand for shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by
constructing ship canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the
continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and
will need consideration, but none of them has been sufficiently matured to
warrant the United States in extending pecuniary aid. The subject, however, is
one which will immediately engage the attention of the Government with a view
to a thorough protection to American interests. We will urge no narrow policy
nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges in any commercial route; but, in the
language of my predecessor, I believe it to be the right “and duty of the
United States to assert and maintain such supervision and authority over any
interoceanic canal across the isthmus that connects North and South America as
will protect our national interest.”
The Constitution guarantees absolute religious
freedom. Congress is prohibited from making any law respecting
an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The
Territories of the United States are subject to the direct legislative
authority of Congress, and hence the General Government is responsible for any
violation of the Constitution in any of them. It is therefore a reproach to the
Government that in the most populous of the Territories the constitutional
guaranty is not enjoyed by the people and the authority of Congress is set at
naught. The Mormon Church not only offends the moral sense of manhood by
sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through
ordinary instrumentalities of law.
In my judgment it is the duty of Congress, while respecting to the uttermost the
conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen, to prohibit
within its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially of that class which
destroy the family relations and endanger social order. Nor can any
ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree
the functions and powers of the National Government.
The civil service can never be placed on a
satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law. For the good of the
service itself, for the protection of those who are intrusted with the
appointing power against the waste of time and obstruction to the public
business caused by the inordinate pressure for place, and for the
protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall at the
proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor offices of the
several Executive Departments and prescribe the grounds upon which
removals shall be made during the terms for which incumbents have been
appointed.
Finally, acting always within the authority and limitations of the Constitution,
invading neither the rights of the States nor the reserved rights of the
people, it will be the purpose of my Administration to maintain the authority
of the nation in all places within its jurisdiction; to enforce obedience to
all the laws of the Union in the interests of the people;to demand rigid
economy in all the expenditures of the Government, and to require the honest
and faithful service of all executive officers, remembering that the offices
were created, not for the benefit of incumbents or their supporters, but for
the service of the Government.
And now, fellow-citizens, I am about to assume the great trust which you have
committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that earnest and thoughtful support
which makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, a government of the
people.
I shall greatly rely upon the wisdom and patriotism of Congress and of those who
may share with me the responsibilities and duties of administration, and, above
all, upon our efforts to promote the welfare of this great people and their
Government.I reverently invoke the support and blessings of Almighty God.