Ulysses S. Grant
First Inaugural Address
Thursday, March 4, 1869

Citizens of the United States:

YOUR suffrages having elected me to the office of President of the 
United States, I have, in conformity to the Constitution of our 
country, taken the oath of office prescribed therein. I have taken this 
oath without mental reservation and with the determination to do to the 
best of my ability all that is required of me. The responsibilities of 
the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come 
to me unsought; I commence its duties untrammeled. I bring to it a 
conscious desire and determination to fill it to the best of my ability 
to the satisfaction of the people.

On all leading questions agitating the public mind I will always 
express my views to Congress and urge them according to my judgment, 
and when I think it advisable will exercise the constitutional 
privilege of interposing a veto to defeat measures which I oppose; but 
all laws will be faithfully executed, whether they meet my approval or 
not.

I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce 
against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike - those 
opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the 
repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent 
execution.

The country having just emerged from a great rebellion, many questions 
will come before it for settlement in the next four years which 
preceding Administrations have never had to deal with. In meeting these 
it is desirable that they should be approached calmly, without 
prejudice, hate, or sectional pride, remembering that the greatest good 
to the greatest number is the object to be attained.

This requires security of person, property, and free religious and 
political opinion in every part of our common country, without regard 
to local prejudice. All laws to secure these ends will receive my best 
efforts for their enforcement.

A great debt has been contracted in securing to us and our posterity 
the Union. The payment of this, principal and interest, as well as the 
return to a specie basis as soon as it can be accomplished without 
material detriment to the debtor class or to the country at large, must 
be provided for. To protect the national honor, every dollar of 
Government indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless otherwise 
expressly stipulated in the contract. Let it be understood that no 
repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public 
place, and it will go far toward strengthening a credit which ought to 
be the best in the world, and will ultimately enable us to replace the 
debt with bonds bearing less interest than we now pay. To this should 
be added a faithful collection of the revenue, a strict accountability 
to the Treasury for every dollar collected, and the greatest 
practicable retrenchment in expenditure in every department of 
Government.

When we compare the paying capacity of the country now, with the ten 
States in poverty from the effects of war, but soon to emerge, I trust, 
into greater prosperity than ever before, with its paying capacity 
twenty-five years ago, and calculate what it probably will be 
twenty-five years hence, who can doubt the feasibility of paying every 
dollar then with more ease than we now pay for useless luxuries? Why, 
it looks as though Providence had bestowed upon us a strong box in the 
precious metals locked up in the sterile mountains of the far West, and 
which we are now forging the key to unlock, to meet the very 
contingency that is now upon us.

Ultimately it may be necessary to insure the facilities to reach these 
riches and it may be necessary also that the General Government should 
give its aid to secure this access; but that should only be when a 
dollar of obligation to pay secures precisely the same sort of dollar 
to use now, and not before. Whilst the question of specie payments is 
in abeyance the prudent business man is careful about contracting debts 
payable in the distant future. The nation should follow the same rule. 
A prostrate commerce is to be rebuilt and all industries encouraged.

The young men of the country - those who from their age must be its 
rulers twenty-five years hence - have a peculiar interest in 
maintaining the national honor. A moment's reflection as to what will 
be our commanding influence among the nations of the earth in their 
day, if they are only true to themselves, should inspire them with 
national pride. All divisions - geographical, political, and religious 
- can join in this common sentiment. How the public debt is to be paid 
or specie payments resumed is not so important as that a plan should be 
adopted and acquiesced in. A united determination to do is worth more 
than divided counsels upon the method of doing. Legislation upon this 
subject may not be necessary now, or even advisable, but it will be 
when the civil law is more fully restored in all parts of the country 
and trade resumes its wonted channels.

It will be my endeavor to execute all laws in good faith, to collect 
all revenues assessed, and to have them properly accounted for and 
economically disbursed. I will to the best of my ability appoint to 
office those only who will carry out this design.

In regard to foreign policy, I would deal with nations as equitable law 
requires individuals to deal with each other, and I would protect the 
law-abiding citizen, whether of native or foreign birth, wherever his 
rights are jeopardized or the flag of our country floats. I would 
respect the rights of all nations, demanding equal respect for our own. 
If others depart from this rule in their dealings with us, we may be 
compelled to follow their precedent.

The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land - the 
Indians one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course toward 
them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.

The question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public 
so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are excluded from 
its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this 
question should be settled now, and I entertain the hope and express 
the desire that it may be by the ratification of the fifteenth article 
of amendment to the Constitution.

In conclusion I ask patient forbearance one toward another throughout 
the land, and a determined effort on the part of every citizen to do 
his share toward cementing a happy union; and I ask the prayers of the 
nation to Almighty God in behalf of this consummation.

Ulysses S. Grant
Second Inaugural Address
Tuesday, March 4, 1873

Fellow-Citizens:

UNDER Providence I have been called a second time to act as Executive 
over this great nation. It has been my endeavor in the past to maintain 
all the laws, and, so far as lay in my power, to act for the best 
interests of the whole people. My best efforts will be given in the 
same direction in the future, aided, I trust, by my four years' 
experience in the office.

When my first term of the office of Chief Executive began, the country 
had not recovered from the effects of a great internal revolution, and 
three of the former States of the Union had not been restored to their 
Federal relations.

It seemed to me wise that no new questions should be raised so long as 
that condition of affairs existed. Therefore the past four years, so 
far as I could control events, have been consumed in the effort to 
restore harmony, public credit, commerce, and all the arts of peace and 
progress. It is my firm conviction that the civilized world is tending 
toward republicanism, or government by the people through their chosen 
representatives, and that our own great Republic is destined to be the 
guiding star to all others.

Under our Republic we support an army less than that of any European 
power of any standing and a navy less than that of either of at least 
five of them. There could be no extension of territory on the continent 
which would call for an increase of this force, but rather might such 
extension enable us to diminish it.

The theory of government changes with general progress. Now that the 
telegraph is made available for communicating thought, together with 
rapid transit by steam, all parts of a continent are made contiguous 
for all purposes of government, and communication between the extreme 
limits of the country made easier than it was throughout the old 
thirteen States at the beginning of our national existence.

The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and 
make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which 
citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be 
corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive 
influence can avail.

Social equality is not a subject to be legislated upon, nor shall I ask 
that anything be done to advance the social status of the colored man, 
except to give him a fair chance to develop what there is good in him, 
give him access to the schools, and when he travels let him feel 
assured that his conduct will regulate the treatment and fare he will 
receive.

The States lately at war with the General Government are now happily 
rehabilitated, and no Executive control is exercised in any one of them 
that would not be exercised in any other State under like circumstances.

In the first year of the past Administration the proposition came up 
for the admission of Santo Domingo as a Territory of the Union. It was 
not a question of my seeking, but was a proposition from the people of 
Santo Domingo, and which I entertained. I believe now, as I did then, 
that it was for the best interest of this country, for the people of 
Santo Domingo, and all concerned that the proposition should be 
received favorably. It was, however, rejected constitutionally, and 
therefore the subject was never brought up again by me.

In future, while I hold my present office, the subject of acquisition 
of territory must have the support of the people before I will 
recommend any proposition looking to such acquisition. I say here, 
however, that I do not share in the apprehension held by many as to the 
danger of governments becoming weakened and destroyed by reason of 
their extension of territory. Commerce, education, and rapid transit of 
thought and matter by telegraph and steam have changed all this. Rather 
do I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own 
good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies 
and navies will be no longer required.

My efforts in the future will be directed to the restoration of good 
feeling between the different sections of our common country; to the 
restoration of our currency to a fixed value as compared with the 
world's standard of values - gold - and, if possible, to a par with it; 
to the construction of cheap routes of transit throughout the land, to 
the end that the products of all may find a market and leave a living 
remuneration to the producer; to the maintenance of friendly relations 
with all our neighbors and with distant nations; to the reestablishment 
of our commerce and share in the carrying trade upon the ocean; to the 
encouragement of such manufacturing industries as can be economically 
pursued in this country, to the end that the exports of home products 
and industries may pay for our imports - the only sure method of 
returning to and permanently maintaining a specie basis; to the 
elevation of labor; and, by a humane course, to bring the aborigines of 
the country under the benign influences of education and civilization. 
It is either this or war of extermination: Wars of extermination, 
engaged in by people pursuing commerce and all industrial pursuits, are 
expensive even against the weakest people, and are demoralizing and 
wicked. Our superiority of strength and advantages of civilization 
should make us lenient toward the Indian. The wrong inflicted upon him 
should be taken into account and the balance placed to his credit. The 
moral view of the question should be considered and the question asked, 
Can not the Indian be made a useful and productive member of society by 
proper teaching and treatment? If the effort is made in good faith, we 
will stand better before the civilized nations of the earth and in our 
own consciences for having made it.

All these things are not to be accomplished by one individual, but they 
will receive my support and such recommendations to Congress as will in 
my judgment best serve to carry them into effect. I beg your support 
and encouragement.

It has been, and is, my earnest desire to correct abuses that have 
grown up in the civil service of the country. To secure this 
reformation rules regulating methods of appointment and promotions were 
established and have been tried. My efforts for such reformation shall 
be continued to the best of my judgment. The spirit of the rules 
adopted will be maintained.

I acknowledge before this assemblage, representing, as it does, every 
section of our country, the obligation I am under to my countrymen for 
the great honor they have conferred on me by returning me to the 
highest office within their gift, and the further obligation resting on 
me to render to them the best services within my power. This I promise, 
looking forward with the greatest anxiety to the day when I shall be 
released from responsibilities that at times are almost overwhelming, 
and from which I have scarcely had a respite since the eventful firing 
upon Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, to the present day. My services were 
then tendered and accepted under the first call for troops growing out 
of that event.

I did not ask for place or position, and was entirely without influence 
or the acquaintance of persons of influence, but was resolved to 
perform my part in a struggle threatening the very existence of the 
nation. I performed a conscientious duty, without asking promotion or 
command, and without a revengeful feeling toward any section or 
individual.

Notwithstanding this, throughout the war, and from my candidacy for my 
present office in 1868 to the close of the last Presidential campaign, 
I have been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in 
political history, which to-day I feel that I can afford to disregard 
in view of your verdict, which I gratefully accept as my vindication.

