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 ofthat Almighty Powerwhich 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 people—a breath of
theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it—it 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 Creatorhas 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
faith—which no one understood and which at times was the subject of the mockery of
all—or 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 handas the rest of his species
and entitled to a full share of the blessings with which Hehas 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 tranquillity 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 intrusted 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
recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty upon him, it is a privilege which he
holds in common with every other citize 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 Presidents—and 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 that 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 distributer 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 Congress—that 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 introduced—a minister or a member of the opposition—by 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 it—with 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 into 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 camp—that their sufferings secure
tranquillity 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 slaves of their former fellow-citizens. If this be true—and it will
scarcely be denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his own rights as an
American citizen—the 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, too, 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
several 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
union—cordial, confiding, fraternal union—is 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 for 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 feeling 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 faction—a spirit which assumes the 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 and 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 existed—does 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 interests—hostile 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 hitherto 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.