John Quincy Adams
Inaugural Address
Friday, March 4, 1825

IN compliance with an usage coeval with the existence of our Federal 
Constitution, and sanctioned by the example of my predecessors in the 
career upon which I am about to enter, I appear, my fellow-citizens, in 
your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities 
of religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties 
allotted to me in the station to which I have been called.

In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which I shall be 
governed in the fulfillment of those duties my first resort will be to 
that Constitution which I shall swear to the best of my ability to 
preserve, protect, and defend. That revered instrument enumerates the 
powers and prescribes the duties of the Executive Magistrate, and in 
its first words declares the purposes to which these and the whole 
action of the Government instituted by it should be invariably and 
sacredly devoted - 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 to the people 
of this Union in their successive generations. Since the adoption of 
this social compact one of these generations has passed away. It is the 
work of our forefathers. Administered by some of the most eminent men 
who contributed to its formation, through a most eventful period in the 
annals of the world, and through all the vicissitudes of peace and war 
incidental to the condition of associated man, it has not disappointed 
the hopes and aspirations of those illustrious benefactors of their age 
and nation. It has promoted the lasting welfare of that country so dear 
to us all; it has to an extent far beyond the ordinary lot of humanity 
secured the freedom and happiness of this people. We now receive it as 
a precious inheritance from those to whom we are indebted for its 
establishment, doubly bound by the examples which they have left us and 
by the blessings which we have enjoyed as the fruits of their labors to 
transmit the same unimpaired to the succeeding generation.

In the compass of thirty-six years since this great national covenant 
was instituted a body of laws enacted under its authority and in 
conformity with its provisions has unfolded its powers and carried into 
practical operation its effective energies. Subordinate departments 
have distributed the executive functions in their various relations to 
foreign affairs, to the revenue and expenditures, and to the military 
force of the Union by land and sea. A coordinate department of the 
judiciary has expounded the Constitution and the laws, settling in 
harmonious coincidence with the legislative will numerous weighty 
questions of construction which the imperfection of human language had 
rendered unavoidable. The year of jubilee since the first formation of 
our Union has just elapsed; that of the declaration of our independence 
is at hand. The consummation of both was effected by this Constitution.

Since that period a population of four millions has multiplied to 
twelve. A territory bounded by the Mississippi has been extended from 
sea to sea. New States have been admitted to the Union in numbers 
nearly equal to those of the first Confederation. Treaties of peace, 
amity, and commerce have been concluded with the principal dominions of 
the earth. The people of other nations, inhabitants of regions acquired 
not by conquest, but by compact, have been united with us in the 
participation of our rights and duties, of our burdens and blessings. 
The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsmen; the soil has been made 
to teem by the tillage of our farmers; our commerce has whitened every 
ocean. The dominion of man over physical nature has been extended by 
the invention of our artists. Liberty and law have marched hand in 
hand. All the purposes of human association have been accomplished as 
effectively as under any other government on the globe, and at a cost 
little exceeding in a whole generation the expenditure of other nations 
in a single year.

Such is the unexaggerated picture of our condition under a Constitution 
founded upon the republican principle of equal rights. To admit that 
this picture has its shades is but to say that it is still the 
condition of men upon earth. From evil - physical, moral, and political 
- it is not our claim to be exempt. We have suffered sometimes by the 
visitation of Heaven through disease; often by the wrongs and injustice 
of other nations, even to the extremities of war; and, lastly, by 
dissensions among ourselves - dissensions perhaps inseparable from the 
enjoyment of freedom, but which have more than once appeared to 
threaten the dissolution of the Union, and with it the overthrow of all 
the enjoyments of our present lot and all our earthly hopes of the 
future. The causes of these dissensions have been various, founded upon 
differences of speculation in the theory of republican government; upon 
conflicting views of policy in our relations with foreign nations; upon 
jealousies of partial and sectional interests, aggravated by prejudices 
and prepossessions which strangers to each other are ever apt to 
entertain.

It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me to observe 
that the great result of this experiment upon the theory of human 
rights has at the close of that generation by which it was formed been 
crowned with success equal to the most sanguine expectations of its 
founders. Union, justice, tranquillity, the common defense, the general 
welfare, and the blessings of liberty - all have been promoted by the 
Government under which we have lived. Standing at this point of time, 
looking back to that generation which has gone by and forward to that 
which is advancing, we may at once indulge in grateful exultation and 
in cheering hope. From the experience of the past we derive instructive 
lessons for the future. Of the two great political parties which have 
divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the 
just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, 
spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to 
the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have 
required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and 
error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the 
moment when the Government of the United States first went into 
operation under this Constitution, excited a collision of sentiments 
and of sympathies which kindled all the passions and imbittered the 
conflict of parties till the nation was involved in war and the Union 
was shaken to its center. This time of trial embraced a period of five 
and twenty years, during which the policy of the Union in its relations 
with Europe constituted the principal basis of our political divisions 
and the most arduous part of the action of our Federal Government. With 
the catastrophe in which the wars of the French Revolution terminated, 
and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain, this baneful weed of 
party strife was uprooted. From that time no difference of principle, 
connected either with the theory of government or with our intercourse 
with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth in force 
sufficient to sustain a continued combination of parties or to give 
more than wholesome animation to public sentiment or legislative 
debate. Our political creed is, without a dissenting voice that can be 
heard, that the will of the people is the source and the happiness of 
the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth; that the 
best security for the beneficence and the best guaranty against the 
abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency 
of popular elections; that the General Government of the Union and the 
separate governments of the States are all sovereignties of limited 
powers, fellow-servants of the same masters, uncontrolled within their 
respective spheres, uncontrollable by encroachments upon each other; 
that the firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of 
the defenses of war; that a rigorous economy and accountability of 
public expenditures should guard against the aggravation and alleviate 
when possible the burden of taxation; that the military should be kept 
in strict subordination to the civil power; that the freedom of the 
press and of religious opinion should be inviolate; that the policy of 
our country is peace and the ark of our salvation union are articles of 
faith upon which we are all now agreed. If there have been those who 
doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a 
government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common 
concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled; if there 
have been projects of partial confederacies to be erected upon the 
ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds; if there 
have been dangerous attachments to one foreign nation and antipathies 
against another, they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace, at 
home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political contention 
and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of public 
opinion. There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice 
of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the 
nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. 
It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of 
embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and 
virtue alone that confidence which in times of contention for principle 
was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion.

The collisions of party spirit which originate in speculative opinions 
or in different views of administrative policy are in their nature 
transitory. Those which are founded on geographical divisions, adverse 
interests of soil, climate, and modes of domestic life are more 
permanent, and therefore, perhaps, more dangerous. It is this which 
gives inestimable value to the character of our Government, at once 
federal and national. It holds out to us a perpetual admonition to 
preserve alike and with equal anxiety the rights of each individual 
State in its own government and the rights of the whole nation in that 
of the Union. Whatsoever is of domestic concernment, unconnected with 
the other members of the Union or with foreign lands, belongs 
exclusively to the administration of the State governments. Whatsoever 
directly involves the rights and interests of the federative fraternity 
or of foreign powers is of the resort of this General Government. The 
duties of both are obvious in the general principle, though sometimes 
perplexed with difficulties in the detail. To respect the rights of the 
State governments is the inviolable duty of that of the Union; the 
government of every State will feel its own obligation to respect and 
preserve the rights of the whole. The prejudices everywhere too 
commonly entertained against distant strangers are worn away, and the 
jealousies of jarring interests are allayed by the composition and 
functions of the great national councils annually assembled from all 
quarters of the Union at this place. Here the distinguished men from 
every section of our country, while meeting to deliberate upon the 
great interests of those by whom they are deputed, learn to estimate 
the talents and do justice to the virtues of each other. The harmony of 
the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the 
sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the 
ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its 
several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

Passing from this general review of the purposes and injunctions of the 
Federal Constitution and their results as indicating the first traces 
of the path of duty in the discharge of my public trust, I turn to the 
Administration of my immediate predecessor as the second. It has passed 
away in a period of profound peace, how much to the satisfaction of our 
country and to the honor of our country's name is known to you all. The 
great features of its policy, in general concurrence with the will of 
the Legislature, have been to cherish peace while preparing for 
defensive war; to yield exact justice to other nations and maintain the 
rights of our own; to cherish the principles of freedom and of equal 
rights wherever they were proclaimed; to discharge with all possible 
promptitude the national debt; to reduce within the narrowest limits of 
efficiency the military force; to improve the organization and 
discipline of the Army; to provide and sustain a school of military 
science; to extend equal protection to all the great interests of the 
nation; to promote the civilization of the Indian tribes, and to 
proceed in the great system of internal improvements within the limits 
of the constitutional power of the Union. Under the pledge of these 
promises, made by that eminent citizen at the time of his first 
induction to this office, in his career of eight years the internal 
taxes have been repealed; sixty millions of the public debt have been 
discharged; provision has been made for the comfort and relief of the 
aged and indigent among the surviving warriors of the Revolution; the 
regular armed force has been reduced and its constitution revised and 
perfected; the accountability for the expenditure of public moneys has 
been made more effective; the Floridas have been peaceably acquired, 
and our boundary has been extended to the Pacific Ocean; the 
independence of the southern nations of this hemisphere has been 
recognized, and recommended by example and by counsel to the potentates 
of Europe; progress has been made in the defense of the country by 
fortifications and the increase of the Navy, toward the effectual 
suppression of the African traffic in slaves; in alluring the 
aboriginal hunters of our land to the cultivation of the soil and of 
the mind, in exploring the interior regions of the Union, and in 
preparing by scientific researches and surveys for the further 
application of our national resources to the internal improvement of 
our country.

In this brief outline of the promise and performance of my immediate 
predecessor the line of duty for his successor is clearly delineated. 
To pursue to their consummation those purposes of improvement in our 
common condition instituted or recommended by him will embrace the 
whole sphere of my obligations. To the topic of internal improvement, 
emphatically urged by him at his inauguration, I recur with peculiar 
satisfaction. It is that from which I am convinced that the unborn 
millions of our posterity who are in future ages to people this 
continent will derive their most fervent gratitude to the founders of 
the Union; that in which the beneficent action of its Government will 
be most deeply felt and acknowledged. The magnificence and splendor of 
their public works are among the imperishable glories of the ancient 
republics. The roads and aqueducts of Rome have been the admiration of 
all after ages, and have survived thousands of years after all her 
conquests have been swallowed up in despotism or become the spoil of 
barbarians. Some diversity of opinion has prevailed with regard to the 
powers of Congress for legislation upon objects of this nature. The 
most respectful deference is due to doubts originating in pure 
patriotism and sustained by venerated authority. But nearly twenty 
years have passed since the construction of the first national road was 
commenced. The authority for its construction was then unquestioned. To 
how many thousands of our countrymen has it proved a benefit? To what 
single individual has it ever proved an injury? Repeated, liberal, and 
candid discussions in the Legislature have conciliated the sentiments 
and approximated the opinions of enlightened minds upon the question of 
constitutional power. I can not but hope that by the same process of 
friendly, patient, and persevering deliberation all constitutional 
objections will ultimately be removed. The extent and limitation of the 
powers of the General Government in relation to this transcendently 
important interest will be settled and acknowledged to the common 
satisfaction of all, and every speculative scruple will be solved by a 
practical public blessing.

Fellow-citizens, you are acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of 
the recent election, which have resulted in affording me the 
opportunity of addressing you at this time. You have heard the 
exposition of the principles which will direct me in the fulfillment of 
the high and solemn trust imposed upon me in this station. Less 
possessed of your confidence in advance than any of my predecessors, I 
am deeply conscious of the prospect that I shall stand more and oftener 
in need of your indulgence. Intentions upright and pure, a heart 
devoted to the welfare of our country, and the unceasing application of 
all the faculties allotted to me to her service are all the pledges 
that I can give for the faithful performance of the arduous duties I am 
to undertake. To the guidance of the legislative councils, to the 
assistance of the executive and subordinate departments, to the 
friendly cooperation of the respective State governments, to the candid 
and liberal support of the people so far as it may be deserved by 
honest industry and zeal, I shall look for whatever success may attend 
my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord keep the city the 
watchman waketh but in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, 
to His overruling providence I commit with humble but fearless 
confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.

