Martin Van Buren
Inaugural Address
Monday, March 4, 1837

Fellow-Citizens: The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an 
obligation I cheerfully fulfill - to accompany the first and solemn act 
of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me 
in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge 
so responsible and vast. In imitating their example I tread in the 
footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our happiness to 
believe are not found on the executive calendar of any country. Among 
th em we recognize the earliest and firmest pillars of the Republic - 
those by whom our national independence was first declared, him who 
above all others contributed to establish it on the field of battle, 
and those whose expanded intellect and patriotis m constructed, 
improved, and perfected the inestimable institutions under which we 
live. If such men in the position I now occupy felt themselves 
overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for this the highest of all marks 
of their country's confidence, and by a consciousness of their 
inability adequately to discharge the duties of an office so difficult 
and exalted, how much more must these considerations affect one who can 
rely on no such claims for favor or forbearance! Unlike all who have 
preceded me, the Re volution that gave us existence as one people was 
achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with 
grateful reverence that memorable event, I feel that I belong to a 
later age and that I may not expect my countrymen to weigh my actions 
wi th the same kind and partial hand.

So sensibly, fellow-citizens, do these circumstances press themselves 
upon me that I should not dare to enter upon my path of duty did I not 
look for the generous aid of those who will be associated with me in 
the various and coordinat e branches of the Government; did I not 
repose with unwavering reliance on the patriotism, the intelligence, 
and the kindness of a people who never yet deserted a public servant 
honestly laboring their cause; and, above all, did I not permit myself 
humbly to hope for the sustaining support of an ever-watchful and 
beneficent Providence.

This provident forecast has been verified by time. Half a century, 
teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere producing astonishing 
results, has passed along, but on our institutions it has left no 
injurious mark. From a small co mmunity we have risen to a people 
powerful in numbers and in strength; but with our increase has gone 
hand in hand the progress of just principles. The privileges, civil and 
religious, of the humblest individual are still sacredly protected at 
home, and w hile the valor and fortitude of our people have removed far 
from us the slightest apprehension of foreign power, they have not yet 
induced us in a single instance to forget what is right. Our commerce 
has been extended to the remotest nations; the value a nd even nature 
of our productions have been greatly changed; a wide difference has 
arisen in the relative wealth and resources of every portion of our 
country; yet the spirit of mutual regard and of faithful adherence to 
existing compacts has continued to prevail in our councils and never 
long been absent from our conduct. We have learned by experience a 
fruitful lesson - that an implicit and undeviating adherence to the 
principles on which we set out can carry us prosperously onward through 
all the co nflicts of circumstances and vicissitudes inseparable from 
the lapse of years.

An imperfect experience during the struggles of the Revolution was 
supposed to warrant the belief that the people would not bear the 
taxation requisite to discharge an immense public debt already incurred 
and to pay the necessary expen ses of the Government. The cost of two 
wars has been paid, not only without a murmur, but with unequaled 
alacrity. No one is now left to doubt that every burden will be 
cheerfully borne that may be necessary to sustain our civil 
institutions or guard our honor or welfare. Indeed, all experience has 
shown that the willingness of the people to contribute to these ends in 
cases of emergency has uniformly outrun the confidence of their 
representatives.

The capacity of the people for self-government, and their willingness, 
from a high sense of duty and without those exhibitions of coercive 
power so generally employed in other countries, to submit to all 
needful restraints and exaction s of municipal law, have also been 
favorably exemplified in the history of the American States. 
Occasionally, it is true, the ardor of public sentiment, outrunning the 
regular progress of the judicial tribunals or seeking to reach cases 
not denounced as c riminal by the existing law, has displayed itself in 
a manner calculated to give pain to the friends of free government and 
to encourage the hopes of those who wish for its overthrow. These 
occurrences, however, have been far less frequent in our country than 
in any other of equal population on the globe, and with the diffusion 
of intelligence it may well be hoped that they will constantly diminish 
in frequency and violence. The generous patriotism and sound common 
sense of the great mass of our fellow-ci tizens will assuredly in time 
produce this result; for as every assumption of illegal power not only 
wounds the majesty of the law, but furnishes a pretext for abridging 
the liberties of the people, the latter have the most direct and 
permanent interest i n preserving the landmarks of social order and 
maintaining on all occasions the inviolability of those constitutional 
and legal provisions which they themselves have made.

In a supposed unfitness of our institutions for those hostile 
emergencies which no country can always avoid their friends found a 
fruitful source of apprehension, their enemies of hope. While they 
foresaw less promptness of action than in governments differently 
formed, they overlooked the far more important consideration that with 
us war could never be the result of individual or irresponsible will, 
but must be a measure of redress for injuries sustained, voluntarily 
resorted to by th ose who were to bear the necessary sacrifice, who 
would consequently feel an individual interest in the contest, and 
whose energy would be commensurate with the difficulties to be 
encountered. Actual events have proved their error; the last war, far 
from impairing, gave new confidence to our Government, and amid recent 
apprehensions of a similar conflict we saw that the energies of our 
country would not be wanting in ample season to vindicate its rights. 
We may not possess, as we should not desire to poss ess, the extended 
and ever-ready military organization of other nations; we may 
occasionally suffer in the outset for the want of it; but among 
ourselves all doubt upon this great point has ceased, while a salutary 
experience will prevent a contrary opini on from inviting aggression 
from abroad.

Certain danger was foretold from the extension of our territory, the 
multiplication of States, and the increase of population. Our system 
was supposed to be adapted only to boundaries comparatively narrow. 
These have been widened beyon d conjecture; the members of our 
Confederacy are already doubled, and the numbers of our people are 
incredibly augmented. The alleged causes of danger have long surpassed 
anticipation, but none of the consequences have followed. The power and 
influence of the Republic have arisen to a height obvious to all 
mankind; respect for its authority was not more apparent at its ancient 
than it is at its present limits; new and inexhaustible sources of 
general prosperity have been opened; the effects of distance ha ve been 
averted by the inventive genius of our people, developed and fostered 
by the spirit of our institutions; and the enlarged variety and amount 
of interests, productions, and pursuits have strengthened the chain of 
mutual dependence and formed a circ le of mutual benefits too apparent 
ever to be overlooked.

The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources of discord and 
disaster supposed to lurk in our political condition was the 
institution of domestic slavery. Our forefathers were deeply impressed 
with the delicacy of this subje ct, and they treated it with a 
forbearance so evidently wise that in spite of every sinister 
foreboding it never until the present period disturbed the tranquillity 
of our common country. Such a result is sufficient evidence of the 
justice and the patriot ism of their course; it is evidence not to be 
mistaken that an adherence to it can prevent all embarrassment from 
this as well as from every other anticipated cause of difficulty or 
danger. Have not recent events made it obvious to the slightest 
reflectio n that the least deviation from this spirit of forbearance is 
injurious to every interest, that of humanity included? Amidst the 
violence of excited passions this generous and fraternal feeling has 
been sometimes disregarded; and standing as I now do befo re my 
countrymen, in this high place of honor and of trust, I can not refrain 
from anxiously invoking my fellow-citizens never to be deaf to its 
dictates. Perceiving before my election the deep interest this subject 
was beginning to excite, I believed it a solemn duty fully to make 
known my sentiments in regard to it, and now, when every motive for 
misrepresentation has passed away, I trust that they will be candidly 
weighed and understood. At least they will be my standard of conduct in 
the path before m e. I then declared that if the desire of those of my 
countrymen who were favorable to my election was gratified "I must go 
into the Presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent 
of every attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery i n the 
District of Columbia against the wishes of the slaveholding States, and 
also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest 
interference with it in the States where it exists." I submitted also 
to my fellow-citizens, with fullness and frankness, the reasons which 
led me to this determination. The result authorizes me to believe that 
they have been approved and are confided in by a majority of the people 
of the United States, including those whom they most immediately 
affect. It now onl y remains to add that no bill conflicting with these 
views can ever receive my constitutional sanction. These opinions have 
been adopted in the firm belief that they are in accordance with the 
spirit that actuated the venerated fathers of the Republic, an d that 
succeeding experience has proved them to be humane, patriotic, 
expedient, honorable, and just. If the agitation of this subject was 
intended to reach the stability of our institutions, enough has 
occurred to show that it has signally failed, and th at in this as in 
every other instance the apprehensions of the timid and the hopes of 
the wicked for the destruction of our Government are again destined to 
be disappointed. Here and there, indeed, scenes of dangerous excitement 
have occurred, terrifying instances of local violence have been 
witnessed, and a reckless disregard of the consequences of their 
conduct has exposed individuals to popular indignation; but neither 
masses of the people nor sections of the country have been swerved from 
their devoti on to the bond of union and the principles it has made 
sacred. It will be ever thus. Such attempts at dangerous agitation may 
periodically return, but with each the object will be better 
understood. That predominating affection for our political system wh 
ich prevails throughout our territorial limits, that calm and 
enlightened judgment which ultimately governs our people as one vast 
body, will always be at hand to resist and control every effort, 
foreign or domestic, which aims or would lead to overthrow our 
institutions.

What can be more gratifying than such a retrospect as this? We look 
back on obstacles avoided and dangers overcome, on expectations more 
than realized and prosperity perfectly secured. To the hopes of the 
hostile, the fears of the timi d, and the doubts of the anxious actual 
experience has given the conclusive reply. We have seen time gradually 
dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every 
adverse circumstance dreaded at the outset as beyond control. Present 
ex citement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true 
philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can 
remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to 
entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our ins titutions 
and an entire conviction that if administered in the true form, 
character, and spirit in which they were established they are 
abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children the rich 
blessings already derived from them, to make our belove d land for a 
thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness springs from a 
perfect equality of political rights.

For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will 
govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict 
adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was 
designed by those who framed i t. Looking back to it as a sacred 
instrument carefully and not easily framed; remembering that it was 
throughout a work of concession and compromise; viewing it as limited 
to national objects; regarding it as leaving to the people and the 
States all power not explicitly parted with, I shall endeavor to 
preserve, protect, and defend it by anxiously referring to its 
provision for direction in every action. To matters of domestic 
concernment which it has intrusted to the Federal Government and to 
such as rel ate to our intercourse with foreign nations I shall 
zealously devote myself; beyond those limits I shall never pass.

To enter on this occasion into a further or more minute exposition of 
my views on the various questions of domestic policy would be as 
obtrusive as it is probably unexpected. Before the suffrages of my 
countrymen were conferred upon me I submitted to them, with great 
precision, my opinions on all the most prominent of these subjects. 
Those opinions I shall endeavor to carry out with my utmost ability.

Our course of foreign policy has been so uniform and intelligible as to 
constitute a rule of Executive conduct which leaves little to my 
discretion, unless, indeed, I were willing to run counter to the lights 
of experience and the know n opinions of my constituents. We sedulously 
cultivate the friendship of all nations as the conditions most 
compatible with our welfare and the principles of our Government. We 
decline alliances as adverse to our peace. We desire commercial 
relations on e qual terms, being ever willing to give a fair equivalent 
for advantages received. We endeavor to conduct our intercourse with 
openness and sincerity, promptly avowing our objects and seeking to 
establish that mutual frankness which is as beneficial in the dealings 
of nations as of men. We have no disposition and we disclaim all right 
to meddle in disputes, whether internal or foreign, that may molest 
other countries, regarding them in their actual state as social 
communities, and preserving a strict neutr ality in all their 
controversies. Well knowing the tried valor of our people and our 
exhaustless resources, we neither anticipate nor fear any designed 
aggression; and in the consciousness of our own just conduct we feel a 
security that we shall never be called upon to exert our determination 
never to permit an invasion of our rights without punishment or redress.

In approaching, then, in the presence of my assembled countrymen, to 
make the solemn promise that yet remains, and to pledge myself that I 
will faithfully execute the office I am about to fill, I bring with me 
a settled purpose to main tain the institutions of my country, which I 
trust will atone for the errors I commit.

In receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided to my 
illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and 
so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with 
equal ability and success. But united as I have been in his counsels, a 
daily witness of his exclusive and unsurpassed devotion to his 
country's welfare, agreeing with him in sentiments which his countrymen 
have warmly supported, and permitted to partake largely of his 
confidence, I may hope that somewhat of the same cheering approbation 
will be found to attend upon my path. For him I but express with my own 
the wishes of all, that he may yet long live to enjoy the brilliant 
evening of his well-spent life; and for myself, consciou s of but one 
desire, faithfully to serve my country, I throw myself without fear on 
its justice and its kindness. Beyond that I only look to the gracious 
protection of the Divine Being whose strengthening support I humbly 
solicit, and whom I fervently pra y to look down upon us all. May it be 
among the dispensations of His providence to bless our beloved country 
with honors and with length of days. May her ways be ways of 
pleasantness and all her paths be peace!

