John Adams
Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1797

WHEN it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for 
America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature 
and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less 
apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies 
they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions 
which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be 
instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. 
Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of 
their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an 
overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from 
the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of 
little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the 
chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but 
frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an 
ocean of uncertainty.

The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war, 
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order 
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The 
Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from 
the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only 
examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and 
certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. 
But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars 
between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat of 
government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly 
foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that 
it could not be durable.

Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if 
not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in 
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences - universal 
languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and 
commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in 
the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private 
faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at 
length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, 
and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.

In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by 
their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity. 
Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations 
issued in the present happy Constitution of Government.

Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of 
these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States 
in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by 
no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great 
satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as 
an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and 
relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been 
proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great outlines it 
was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most 
esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in particular, had 
contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage, in common with 
my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution 
which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I 
did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in 
public and in private. It was not then, nor has been since, any 
objection to it in my mind that the Executive and Senate were not more 
permanent. Nor have I ever entertained a thought of promoting any 
alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the course of 
their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and 
by their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures, 
according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.

Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation from it 
for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under the new 
order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most 
serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it 
has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an 
habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and 
delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness 
of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and 
veneration for it.

What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem 
and love?

There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of 
men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight 
of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a 
benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation 
more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like 
that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of 
Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as 
that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens 
selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws 
for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere 
ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can 
authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from 
accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it 
springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and 
enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It 
is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, 
in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The 
existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full 
proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the 
whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more 
pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national 
pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from 
power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national 
innocence, information, and benevolence.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to 
ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties 
if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, 
fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be 
determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by 
a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the 
choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national 
good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by 
flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or 
venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, 
but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and 
not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will 
acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to 
boast of over lot or chance.

Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such are 
some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of 
America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and 
virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a 
citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, 
justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with 
the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love 
of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and 
unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his 
fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and 
secured immortal glory with posterity.

In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live to 
enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of 
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are 
daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of 
this country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still 
a rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open 
or secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been 
recommended to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of 
Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people throughout 
the nation.

On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak with 
diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope, 
will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a 
preference, upon principle, of a free republican government, formed 
upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial 
inquiry after truth; if an attachment to the Constitution of the United 
States, and a conscientious determination to support it until it shall 
be altered by the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the 
mode prescribed in it; if a respectful attention to the constitutions 
of the individual States and a constant caution and delicacy toward the 
State governments; if an equal and impartial regard to the rights, 
interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union, without 
preference or regard to a northern or southern, an eastern or western, 
position, their various political opinions on unessential points or 
their personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men of all parties 
and denominations; if a love of science and letters and a wish to 
patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, 
universities, academies, and every institution for propagating 
knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not 
only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all its 
stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only 
means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the 
spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the 
profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, 
which is the angel of destruction to elective governments; if a love of 
equal laws, of justice, and humanity in the interior administration; if 
an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for 
necessity, convenience, and defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity 
toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition to 
meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, 
and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an inflexible 
determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, 
and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent 
powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so 
solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the 
legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall be 
otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem for the French 
nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a 
sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for 
the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor 
and integrity of the people of America and the internal sentiment of 
their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to 
investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of 
complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a 
reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of 
our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success can not be 
obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may 
consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government 
and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as 
may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain 
peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken 
confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, 
on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if 
elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own 
duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and 
intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in 
early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age; and, 
with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration 
for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves 
Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for 
Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can 
enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my 
strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses 
shall not be without effect.

With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the faith 
and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people pledged 
to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt 
of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without 
hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support 
it to the utmost of my power.

And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the 
Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of 
virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its 
Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent 
with the ends of His providence.

