Franklin Pierce
Inaugural Address
Friday, March 4, 1853

My Countrymen:

IT a relief to feel that no heart but my own can know the personal 
regret and bitter sorrow over which I have been borne to a position so 
suitable for others rather than desirable for myself.

The circumstances under which I have been called for a limited period 
to preside over the destinies of the Republic fill me with a profound 
sense of responsibility, but with nothing like shrinking apprehension. 
I repair to the post assigned me not as to one sought, but in obedience 
to the unsolicited expression of your will, answerable only for a 
fearless, faithful, and diligent exercise of my best powers. I ought to 
be, and am, truly grateful for the rare manifestation of the nation's 
confidence; but this, so far from lightening my obligations, only adds 
to their weight. You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain 
me by your strength. When looking for the fulfillment of reasonable 
requirements, you will not be unmindful of the great changes which have 
occurred, even within the last quarter of a century, and the consequent 
augmentation and complexity of duties imposed in the administration 
both of your home and foreign affairs.

Whether the elements of inherent force in the Republic have kept pace 
with its unparalleled progression in territory, population, and wealth 
has been the subject of earnest thought and discussion on both sides of 
the ocean. Less than sixty-four years ago the Father of his Country 
made "the" then "recent accession of the important State of North 
Carolina to the Constitution of the United States" one of the subjects 
of his special congratulation. At that moment, however, when the 
agitation consequent upon the Revolutionary struggle had hardly 
subsided, when we were just emerging from the weakness and 
embarrassments of the Confederation, there was an evident consciousness 
of vigor equal to the great mission so wisely and bravely fulfilled by 
our fathers. It was not a presumptuous assurance, but a calm faith, 
springing from a clear view of the sources of power in a government 
constituted like ours. It is no paradox to say that although 
comparatively weak the new-born nation was intrinsically strong. 
Inconsiderable in population and apparent resources, it was upheld by a 
broad and intelligent comprehension of rights and an all-pervading 
purpose to maintain them, stronger than armaments. It came from the 
furnace of the Revolution, tempered to the necessities of the times. 
The thoughts of the men of that day were as practical as their 
sentiments were patriotic. They wasted no portion of their energies 
upon idle and delusive speculations, but with a firm and fearless step 
advanced beyond the governmental landmarks which had hitherto 
circumscribed the limits of human freedom and planted their standard, 
where it has stood against dangers which have threatened from abroad, 
and internal agitation, which has at times fearfully menaced at home. 
They proved themselves equal to the solution of the great problem, to 
understand which their minds had been illuminated by the dawning lights 
of the Revolution. The object sought was not a thing dreamed of; it was 
a thing realized. They had exhibited only the power to achieve, but, 
what all history affirms to be so much more unusual, the capacity to 
maintain. The oppressed throughout the world from that day to the 
present have turned their eyes hitherward, not to find those lights 
extinguished or to fear lest they should wane, but to be constantly 
cheered by their steady and increasing radiance.

In this our country has, in my judgment, thus far fulfilled its highest 
duty to suffering humanity. It has spoken and will continue to speak, 
not only by its words, but by its acts, the language of sympathy, 
encouragement, and hope to those who earnestly listen to tones which 
pronounce for the largest rational liberty. But after all, the most 
animating encouragement and potent appeal for freedom will be its own 
history - its trials and its triumphs. Preeminently, the power of our 
advocacy reposes in our example; but no example, be it remembered, can 
be powerful for lasting good, whatever apparent advantages may be 
gained, which is not based upon eternal principles of right and 
justice. Our fathers decided for themselves, both upon the hour to 
declare and the hour to strike. They were their own judges of the 
circumstances under which it became them to pledge to each other "their 
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" for the acquisition of 
the priceless inheritance transmitted to us. The energy with which that 
great conflict was opened and, under the guidance of a manifest and 
beneficent Providence the uncomplaining endurance with which it was 
prosecuted to its consummation were only surpassed by the wisdom and 
patriotic spirit of concession which characterized all the counsels of 
the early fathers.

One of the most impressive evidences of that wisdom is to be found in 
the fact that the actual working of our system has dispelled a degree 
of solicitude which at the outset disturbed bold hearts and 
far-reaching intellects. The apprehension of dangers from extended 
territory, multiplied States, accumulated wealth, and augmented 
population has proved to be unfounded. The stars upon your banner have 
become nearly threefold their original number; your densely populated 
possessions skirt the shores of the two great oceans; and yet this vast 
increase of people and territory has not only shown itself compatible 
with the harmonious action of the States and Federal Government in 
their respective constitutional spheres, but has afforded an additional 
guaranty of the strength and integrity of both.

With an experience thus suggestive and cheering, the policy of my 
Administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil 
from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as 
a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of 
certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for 
our protection, if not in the future essential for the preservation of 
the rights of commerce and the peace of the world. Should they be 
obtained, it will be through no grasping spirit, but with a view to 
obvious national interest and security, and in a manner entirely 
consistent with the strictest observance of national faith. We have 
nothing in our history or position to invite aggression; we have 
everything to beckon us to the cultivation of relations of peace and 
amity with all nations. Purposes, therefore, at once just and pacific 
will be significantly marked in the conduct of our foreign affairs. I 
intend that my Administration shall leave no blot upon our fair record, 
and trust I may safely give the assurance that no act within the 
legitimate scope of my constitutional control will be tolerated on the 
part of any portion of our citizens which can not challenge a ready 
justification before the tribunal of the civilized world. An 
Administration would be unworthy of confidence at home or respect 
abroad should it cease to be influenced by the conviction that no 
apparent advantage can be purchased at a price so dear as that of 
national wrong or dishonor. It is not your privilege as a nation to 
speak of a distant past. The striking incidents of your history, 
replete with instruction and furnishing abundant grounds for hopeful 
confidence, are comprised in a period comparatively brief. But if your 
past is limited, your future is boundless. Its obligations throng the 
unexplored pathway of advancement, and will be limitless as duration. 
Hence a sound and comprehensive policy should embrace not less the 
distant future than the urgent present.

The great objects of our pursuit as a people are best to be attained by 
peace, and are entirely consistent with the tranquillity and interests 
of the rest of mankind. With the neighboring nations upon our continent 
we should cultivate kindly and fraternal relations. We can desire 
nothing in regard to them so much as to see them consolidate their 
strength and pursue the paths of prosperity and happiness. If in the 
course of their growth we should open new channels of trade and create 
additional facilities for friendly intercourse, the benefits realized 
will be equal and mutual. Of the complicated European systems of 
national polity we have heretofore been independent. From their wars, 
their tumults, and anxieties we have been, happily, almost entirely 
exempt. Whilst these are confined to the nations which gave them 
existence, and within their legitimate jurisdiction, they can not 
affect us except as they appeal to our sympathies in the cause of human 
freedom and universal advancement. But the vast interests of commerce 
are common to all mankind, and the advantages of trade and 
international intercourse must always present a noble field for the 
moral influence of a great people.

With these views firmly and honestly carried out, we have a right to 
expect, and shall under all circumstances require, prompt reciprocity. 
The rights which belong to us as a nation are not alone to be regarded, 
but those which pertain to every citizen in his individual capacity, at 
home and abroad, must be sacredly maintained. So long as he can discern 
every star in its place upon that ensign, without wealth to purchase 
for him preferment or title to secure for him place, it will be his 
privilege, and must be his acknowledged right, to stand unabashed even 
in the presence of princes, with a proud consciousness that he is 
himself one of a nation of sovereigns and that he can not in legitimate 
pursuit wander so far from home that the agent whom he shall leave 
behind in the place which I now occupy will not see that no rude hand 
of power or tyrannical passion is laid upon him with impunity. He must 
realize that upon every sea and on every soil where our enterprise may 
rightfully seek the protection of our flag American citizenship is an 
inviolable panoply for the security of American rights. And in this 
connection it can hardly be necessary to reaffirm a principle which 
should now be regarded as fundamental. The rights, security, and repose 
of this Confederacy reject the idea of interference or colonization on 
this side of the ocean by any foreign power beyond present jurisdiction 
as utterly inadmissible.

The opportunities of observation furnished by my brief experience as a 
soldier confirmed in my own mind the opinion, entertained and acted 
upon by others from the formation of the Government, that the 
maintenance of large standing armies in our country would be not only 
dangerous, but unnecessary. They also illustrated the importance - I 
might well say the absolute necessity - of the military science and 
practical skill furnished in such an eminent degree by the institution 
which has made your Army what it is, under the discipline and 
instruction of officers not more distinguished for their solid 
attainments, gallantry, and devotion to the public service than for 
unobtrusive bearing and high moral tone. The Army as organized must be 
the nucleus around which in every time of need the strength of your 
military power, the sure bulwark of your defense - a national militia - 
may be readily formed into a well-disciplined and efficient 
organization. And the skill and self-devotion of the Navy assure you 
that you may take the performance of the past as a pledge for the 
future, and may confidently expect that the flag which has waved its 
untarnished folds over every sea will still float in undiminished 
honor. But these, like many other subjects, will be appropriately 
brought at a future time to the attention of the coordinate branches of 
the Government, to which I shall always look with profound respect and 
with trustful confidence that they will accord to me the aid and 
support which I shall so much need and which their experience and 
wisdom will readily suggest.

In the administration of domestic affairs you expect a devoted 
integrity in the public service and an observance of rigid economy in 
all departments, so marked as never justly to be questioned. If this 
reasonable expectation be not realized, I frankly confess that one of 
your leading hopes is doomed to disappointment, and that my efforts in 
a very important particular must result in a humiliating failure. 
Offices can be properly regarded only in the light of aids for the 
accomplishment of these objects, and as occupancy can confer no 
prerogative nor importunate desire for preferment any claim, the public 
interest imperatively demands that they be considered with sole 
reference to the duties to be performed. Good citizens may well claim 
the protection of good laws and the benign influence of good 
government, but a claim for office is what the people of a republic 
should never recognize. No reasonable man of any party will expect the 
Administration to be so regardless of its responsibility and of the 
obvious elements of success as to retain persons known to be under the 
influence of political hostility and partisan prejudice in positions 
which will require not only severe labor, but cordial cooperation. 
Having no implied engagements to ratify, no rewards to bestow, no 
resentments to remember, and no personal wishes to consult in 
selections for official station, I shall fulfill this difficult and 
delicate trust, admitting no motive as worthy either of my character or 
position which does not contemplate an efficient discharge of duty and 
the best interests of my country. I acknowledge my obligations to the 
masses of my countrymen, and to them alone. Higher objects than 
personal aggrandizement gave direction and energy to their exertions in 
the late canvass, and they shall not be disappointed. They require at 
my hands diligence, integrity, and capacity wherever there are duties 
to be performed. Without these qualities in their public servants, more 
stringent laws for the prevention or punishment of fraud, negligence, 
and peculation will be vain. With them they will be unnecessary.

But these are not the only points to which you look for vigilant 
watchfulness. The dangers of a concentration of all power in the 
general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to 
be disregarded. You have a right, therefore, to expect your agents in 
every department to regard strictly the limits imposed upon them by the 
Constitution of the United States. The great scheme of our 
constitutional liberty rests upon a proper distribution of power 
between the State and Federal authorities, and experience has shown 
that the harmony and happiness of our people must depend upon a just 
discrimination between the separate rights and responsibilities of the 
States and your common rights and obligations under the General 
Government; and here, in my opinion, are the considerations which 
should form the true basis of future concord in regard to the questions 
which have most seriously disturbed public tranquillity. If the Federal 
Government will confine itself to the exercise of powers clearly 
granted by the Constitution, it can hardly happen that its action upon 
any question should endanger the institutions of the States or 
interfere with their right to manage matters strictly domestic 
according to the will of their own people.

In expressing briefly my views upon an important subject rich has 
recently agitated the nation to almost a fearful degree, I am moved by 
no other impulse than a most earnest desire for the perpetuation of 
that Union which has made us what we are, showering upon us blessings 
and conferring a power and influence which our fathers could hardly 
have anticipated, even with their most sanguine hopes directed to a 
far-off future. The sentiments I now announce were not unknown before 
the expression of the voice which called me here. My own position upon 
this subject was clear and unequivocal, upon the record of my words and 
my acts, and it is only recurred to at this time because silence might 
perhaps be misconstrued. With the Union my best and dearest earthly 
hopes are entwined. Without it what are we individually or 
collectively? What becomes of the noblest field ever opened for the 
advancement of our race in religion, in government, in the arts, and in 
all that dignifies and adorns mankind? From that radiant constellation 
which both illumines our own way and points out to struggling nations 
their course, let but a single star be lost, and, if these be not utter 
darkness, the luster of the whole is dimmed. Do my countrymen need any 
assurance that such a catastrophe is not to overtake them while I 
possess the power to stay it? It is with me an earnest and vital belief 
that as the Union has been the source, under Providence, of our 
prosperity to this time, so it is the surest pledge of a continuance of 
the blessings we have enjoyed, and which we are sacredly bound to 
transmit undiminished to our children. The field of calm and free 
discussion in our country is open, and will always be so, but never has 
been and never can be traversed for good in a spirit of sectionalism 
and uncharitableness. The founders of the Republic dealt with things as 
they were presented to them, in a spirit of self-sacrificing 
patriotism, and, as time has proved, with a comprehensive wisdom which 
it will always be safe for us to consult. Every measure tending to 
strengthen the fraternal feelings of all the members of our Union has 
had my heartfelt approbation. To every theory of society or government, 
whether the offspring of feverish ambition or of morbid enthusiasm, 
calculated to dissolve the bonds of law and affection which unite us, I 
shall interpose a ready and stern resistance. I believe that 
involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this 
Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it 
stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it 
exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional 
provisions. I hold that the laws of 1850, commonly called the 
"compromise measures," are strictly constitutional and to be 
unhesitatingly carried into effect. I believe that the constituted 
authorities of this Republic are bound to regard the rights of the 
South in this respect as they would view any other legal and 
constitutional right, and that the laws to enforce them should be 
respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract 
opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but 
cheerfully and according to the decisions of the tribunal to which 
their exposition belongs. Such have been, and are, my convictions, and 
upon them I shall act. I fervently hope that the question is at rest, 
and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again 
threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our 
prosperity.

But let not the foundation of our hope rest upon man's wisdom. It will 
not be sufficient that sectional prejudices find no place in the public 
deliberations. It will not be sufficient that the rash counsels of 
human passion are rejected. It must be felt that there is no national 
security but in the nation's humble, acknowledged dependence upon God 
and His overruling providence.

We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis. Wise 
counsels, like those which gave us the Constitution, prevailed to 
uphold it. Let the period be remembered as an admonition, and not as an 
encouragement, in any section of the Union, to make experiments where 
experiments are fraught with such fearful hazard. Let it be impressed 
upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric is, no earthly power or 
wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments. Standing, as I do, 
almost within view of the green slopes of Monticello, and, as it were, 
within reach of the tomb of Washington, with all the cherished memories 
of the past gathering around me like so many eloquent voices of 
exhortation from heaven, I can express no better hope for my country 
than that the kind Providence which smiled upon our fathers may enable 
their children to preserve the blessings they have inherited.

