Proceeding, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the Constitution requires
before
my entrance on the charge again conferred on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new proof of confidence from
my fellow-citizens at large, and the zeal with which it inspires me so to conduct
myself
as may best satisfy their just expectations.
On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the principles on which I believed
it my duty to administer the affairs of our Commonwealth. My
conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted up to that declaration according
to its obvious import and to the understanding of every candid mind.
In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of those with which we
have the most important relations. We have done them justice on all
occasions, favored where favor was lawful, and cherished mutual interests and
intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly convinced,
and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests
soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history
bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse
is
had to armaments and wars to bridle others.
At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless
establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes.
These, covering our land with officers and opening
our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary
vexation which once entered is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively
every article of property and produce. If among these taxes some minor ones
fell which had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount would not have paid
the officers who collected them, and because, if they had any merit, the State
authorities might adopt them instead of others less approved.
The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign
articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to
domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated
with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what
mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States? These
contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill
contracts with foreign nations,to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits,
to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a
short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected the revenue there by
liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a corresponding
amendment of the Constitution, be applied in time of peace torivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great
objects within each State. In time of war, if injustice by ourselves or
others must sometimes produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased
population and consumption, and aided by other resources reserved for that crisis,
it
may meet within the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights
of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War will then be
but a suspension of useful works, and are turn to a state of peace, a return to the
progress of improvement.
I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had
enabled us to extend our limits, but that extension may possibly pay for itself before
we are called on,and in the mean time may keep down the accruing interest; in all
events, it will replace the advances we shall have made. I know that the acquisition of
Louisiana had been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement
of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the
federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association the less
will
it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not better that the opposite bank
of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers
of another family? With which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly
intercourse?
In matters of religion I have considered that its
free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General
Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the
religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the Constitution found them,
under the direction and discipline of the church or state authorities acknowledged
by
the several religious societies.
The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration
their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing
an
ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying acountry which left them no
desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing population from other regions
directed itself on these shores; without power to divert or habits to contend against
it, they have been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now reduced within
limits too narrow for the hunter’s state, humanity
enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage them to
that industry which alone canenable them to maintain their place in existence and
to
prepare them in time for that state of society which to bodily comforts adds the
improvement of themind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished
them with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed among them
instructors in thearts of first necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of
the
law against aggressors from among ourselves.
But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course
of life,
to induce them to exercise their reason, follow its dictates, and change their pursuits
with the change of circumstances have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated
by the habits of their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the
influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel themselves something
in the present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons
inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever
they did must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance
under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is perilous
innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them,ignorance being
safety and knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends,among them also is seen
the
action and counteraction of good sense and of bigotry; they too have their
antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who
dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit
over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates.
In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to
arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place, to
the
reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of public opinion,
influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due to the sound discretion with
which they select from among themselves those to whom they confide the legislative
duties. It is due to the zeal and wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay
the
foundations of public happiness in wholesome laws, theexecution of which alone remains
for others, and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose patriotism has
associated them with me in the executive functions.
During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of
the
press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could
devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science
are
deeply to be regretted, in as much as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap
its
safety. They might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved
to
and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation, but
public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment
in the public indignation.
Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully
made,
whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation
and protection of truth—whether a government
conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and
doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written
down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried; you have witnessed
the
scene; our fellow-citizens looked on, cool and collected;
they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around
their public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the decision
by
suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had served them and
consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control
of
his own affairs.
No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States against false and
defamatory publications should not be enforced; he who has time renders a service
to
public morals and public tranquillity in reforming these abuses by the salutary
coercions of the law; but the experiment is noted to prove that,since truth and reason
have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the
press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the
public judgment will correct false reasoning and opinions on afull hearing of all
parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable
liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still
improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in
the
censorship of public opinion.
Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally as auguring harmony
and
happiness to our future course, I offer to our country sincere congratulations. With
those, too, not yet rallied to the same point the disposition to do so is gaining
strength; facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren
will at length see that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they can not yet
resolve to act as to principles and measures, think as they think and desire what
they
desire; that our wish as well as theirs is that the public efforts may be directed
honestly to the public good, that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty
unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state
of
property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that
of
his father’s. When satisfied of these views it is not inhuman nature that they should
not approve and support them. In the meantime let us cherish them with patient
affection, let us do them justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of
interest; and we need not doubt that truth,reason, and their own interests will at
length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, and will complete
that
entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of harmony and the benefit
of all its strength.
I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens
have again called me,and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they
have
approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible
of
no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice, but the weaknesses
of human nature and the limits of my own
understanding will produceerrors of judgment sometimes injurious to your
interests. I shall need,therefore, all the indulgence which I have heretofore
experienced from myconstituents; the want of it will certainly not lessen with
increasingyears. I shall need,too, the favor of that Being in whose hands weare, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from
their native land andplanted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and
comfortsof life; who has covered our infancy with His
providence and our riper years with His wisdom and
power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will soenlighten the minds of your servants, guide
their councils, and prospertheir measures that whatsoever they do shall result in
your
good, andshall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of allnations.
