George Washington
First Inaugural Address
Thursday, April 30, 1789

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me 
with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was 
transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present 
month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can 
never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had 
chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with 
an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years - a retreat 
which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me 
by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions 
in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other 
hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of 
my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most 
experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his 
qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who 
(inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the 
duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his 
own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that 
it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just 
appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I 
dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much 
swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an 
affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence 
of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my 
incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares 
before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, 
and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the 
partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the 
public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly 
improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to 
that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the 
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human 
defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and 
happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by 
themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every 
instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the 
functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great 
Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it 
expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my 
fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to 
acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of 
men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have 
advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been 
distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the 
important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united 
government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many 
distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be 
compared with the means by which most governments have been established 
without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble 
anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. 
These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced 
themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with 
me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of 
which the proceedings of a new and free government can more 
auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the 
duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures 
as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under 
which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject 
further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which 
you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the 
objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more 
consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the 
feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation 
of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the 
rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to 
devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the 
surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, 
no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the 
comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great 
assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the 
foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and 
immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free 
government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the 
affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I 
dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for 
my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly 
established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature 
an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and 
advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous 
policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since 
we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven 
can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of 
order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the 
preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the 
republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as 
deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of 
the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain 
with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional 
power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered 
expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which 
have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude 
which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular 
recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no 
lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to 
my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public 
good; for I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every 
alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective 
government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a 
reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the 
public harmony will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the 
question how far the former can be impregnably fortified or the latter 
be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will be most 
properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, 
and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored 
with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an 
arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated 
my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. 
From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still 
under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable 
to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be 
indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive 
department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for 
the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be 
limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought 
to require.

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by 
the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; 
but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human 
Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor 
the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect 
tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity 
on a form of government for the security of their union and the 
advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally 
conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the 
wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

George Washington
Second Inaugural Address
Monday, March 4, 1793

Fellow Citizens:

I AM again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the 
functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it 
shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of 
this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed 
in me by the people of united America.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the 
Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to 
take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my 
administration of the Government I have in any instance violated 
willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides 
incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of 
all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.

