William Henry Harrison
Inaugural Address
Thursday, March 4, 1841

CALLED from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the 
residue of my life to fill the chief executive office of this great and 
free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the oaths 
which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary qualification for the 
performance of its duties; and in obedience to a custom coeval with our 
Government and what I believe to be your expectations I proceed to 
present to you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the 
discharge of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.

It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that 
celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the 
conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after 
obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges 
and promises made in the former. However much the world may have 
improved in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand years 
since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear 
that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective 
governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence.

Although the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming me the Chief 
Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remaining to 
be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the 
delusion under which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to 
my principles and opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this 
assembly who have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall 
now deliver, or, approving them, to doubt the sincerity with which they 
are now uttered. But the lapse of a few months will confirm or dispel 
their fears. The outline of principles to govern and measures to be 
adopted by an Administration not yet begun will soon be exchanged for 
immutable history, and I shall stand either exonerated by my countrymen 
or classed with the mass of those who promised that they might deceive 
and flattered with the intention to betray. However strong may be my 
present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and 
confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to 
which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has 
been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my 
chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto 
protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other 
important but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me 
by my country.

The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people 
- a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or 
modify it - it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of 
government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who 
are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading 
principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the 
greatest good to the greatest number. But with these broad admissions, 
if we would compare the sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass 
of our people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by 
those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find 
a most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited only 
by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, 
possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that 
which has been granted to them by the parties to the national compact, 
and nothing beyond. We admit of no government by divine right, 
believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has 
made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and 
that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power 
from the governed. The Constitution of the United States is the 
instrument containing this grant of power to the several departments 
composing the Government. On an examination of that instrument it will 
be found to contain declarations of power granted and of power 
withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into power which 
the majority had the right to grant, but which they do not think proper 
to intrust to their agents, and that which they could not have granted, 
not being possessed by themselves. In other words, there are certain 
rights possessed by each individual American citizen which in his 
compact with the others he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed, 
he is unable to surrender, being, in the language of our system, 
unalienable. The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a 
shield only against a petty provincial ruler, whilst the proud democrat 
of Athens would console himself under a sentence of death for a 
supposed violation of the national faith - which no one understood and 
which at times was the subject of the mockery of all - or the 
banishment from his home, his family, and his country with or without 
an alleged cause, that it was the act not of a single tyrant or hated 
aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen. Far different is the 
power of our sovereignty. It can interfere with no one's faith, 
prescribe forms of worship for no one's observance, inflict no 
punishment but after well-ascertained guilt, the result of 
investigation under rules prescribed by the Constitution itself. These 
precious privileges, and those scarcely less important of giving 
expression to his thoughts and opinions, either by writing or speaking, 
unrestrained but by the liability for injury to others, and that of a 
full participation in all the advantages which flow from the 
Government, the acknowledged property of all, the American citizen 
derives from no charter granted by his fellow-man. He claims them 
because he is himself a man, fashioned by the same Almighty hand as the 
rest of his species and entitled to a full share of the blessings with 
which He has endowed them. Notwithstanding the limited sovereignty 
possessed by the people of the United States and the restricted grant 
of power to the Government which they have adopted, enough has been 
given to accomplish all the objects for which it was created. It has 
been found powerful in war, and hitherto justice has been administered, 
and intimate union effected, domestic tranquillity preserved, and 
personal liberty secured to the citizen. As was to be expected, 
however, from the defect of language and the necessarily sententious 
manner in which the Constitution is written, disputes have arisen as to 
the amount of power which it has actually granted or was intended to 
grant.

This is more particularly the case in relation to that part of the 
instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and not only as 
regards the exercise of powers claimed under a general clause giving 
that body the authority to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect 
the specified powers, but in relation to the latter also. It is, 
however, consolatory to reflect that most of the instances of alleged 
departure from the letter or spirit of the Constitution have ultimately 
received the sanction of a majority of the people. And the fact that 
many of our statesmen most distinguished for talent and patriotism have 
been at one time or other of their political career on both sides of 
each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us the inference 
that the errors, if errors there were, are attributable to the 
intrinsic difficulty in many instances of ascertaining the intentions 
of the framers of the Constitution rather than the influence of any 
sinister or unpatriotic motive. But the great danger to our 
institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the 
Government of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation 
in one of the departments of that which was assigned to others. Limited 
as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been 
granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the 
departments. This danger is greatly heightened, as it has been always 
observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of one department 
upon another than upon their own reserved rights. When the Constitution 
of the United States first came from the hands of the Convention which 
formed it, many of the sternest republicans of the day were alarmed at 
the extent of the power which had been granted to the Federal 
Government, and more particularly of that portion which had been 
assigned to the executive branch. There were in it features which 
appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple 
representative democracy or republic, and knowing the tendency of power 
to increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single individual, 
predictions were made that at no very remote period the Government 
would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not become me to say that 
the fears of these patriots have been already realized; but as I 
sincerely believe that the tendency of measures and of men's opinions 
for some years past has been in that direction, it is, I conceive, 
strictly proper that I should take this occasion to repeat the 
assurances I have heretofore given of my determination to arrest the 
progress of that tendency if it really exists and restore the 
Government to its pristine health and vigor, as far as this can be 
effected by any legitimate exercise of the power placed in my hands.

I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of the 
sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of and 
the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are 
unquestionably to be found in the defects of the Constitution; others, 
in my judgment, are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its 
provisions. Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to 
a second term of the Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson 
early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, 
hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States 
to its correction. As, however, one mode of correction is in the power 
of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and 
perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of 
many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the 
Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we 
are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system. It 
may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can 
commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their 
systems of government which may be calculated to create or increase the 
lover of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to 
commit the management of their affairs; and surely nothing is more 
likely to produce such a state of mind than the long continuance of an 
office of high trust. Nothing can be more corrupting, nothing more 
destructive of all those noble feelings which belong to the character 
of a devoted republican patriot. When this corrupting passion once 
takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes 
insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his 
growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim. If this 
is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service 
of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the management of 
her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of 
her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting 
that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant, not 
the master. Until an amendment of the Constitution can be effected 
public opinion may secure the desired object. I give my aid to it by 
renewing the pledge heretofore given that under no circumstances will I 
consent to serve a second term.

But if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledged defects 
of the Constitution in the want of limit to the continuance of the 
Executive power in the same hands, there is, I apprehend, not much less 
from a misconstruction of that instrument as it regards the powers 
actually given. I can not conceive that by a fair construction any or 
either of its provisions would be found to constitute the President a 
part of the legislative power. It can not be claimed from the power to 
recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty upon him, it is a 
privilege which he holds in common with every other citizen; and 
although there may be something more of confidence in the propriety of 
the measures recommended in the one case than in the other, in the 
obligations of ultimate decision there can be no difference. In the 
language of the Constitution, "all the legislative powers" which it 
grants "are vested in the Congress of the United States." It would be a 
solecism in language to say that any portion of these is not included 
in the whole.

It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the 
Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by 
refusing to them his assent. So a similar power has necessarily 
resulted from that instrument to the judiciary, and yet the judiciary 
forms no part of the Legislature. There is, it is true, this difference 
between these grants of power: The Executive can put his negative upon 
the acts of the Legislature for other cause than that of want of 
conformity to the Constitution, whilst the judiciary can only declare 
void those which violate that instrument. But the decision of the 
judiciary is final in such a case, whereas in every instance where the 
veto of the Executive is applied it may be overcome by a vote of 
two-thirds of both Houses of Congress. The negative upon the acts of 
the legislative by the executive authority, and that in the hands of 
one individual, would seem to be an incongruity in our system. Like 
some others of a similar character, however, it appears to be highly 
expedient, and if used only with the forbearance and in the spirit 
which was intended by its authors it may be productive of great good 
and be found one of the best safeguards to the Union. At the period of 
the formation of the Constitution the principle does not appear to have 
enjoyed much favor in the State governments. It existed but in two, and 
in one of these there was a plural executive. If we would search for 
the motives which operated upon the purely patriotic and enlightened 
assembly which framed the Constitution for the adoption of a provision 
so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic principle that the 
majority should govern, we must reject the idea that they anticipated 
from it any benefit to the ordinary course of legislation. They knew 
too well the high degree of intelligence which existed among the people 
and the enlightened character of the State legislatures not to have the 
fullest confidence that the two bodies elected by them would be worthy 
representatives of such constituents, and, of course, that they would 
require no aid in conceiving and maturing the measures which the 
circumstances of the country might require. And it is preposterous to 
suppose that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that 
the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the country, 
could better understand the wants and wishes of the people than their 
own immediate representatives, who spend a part of every year among 
them, living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by 
the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection. To assist or control 
Congress, then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I conceive, have 
been the motive for conferring the veto power on the President. This 
argument acquires additional force from the fact of its never having 
been thus used by the first six Presidents - and two of them were 
members of the Convention, one presiding over its deliberations and the 
other bearing a larger share in consummating the labors of that august 
body than any other person. But if bills were never returned to 
Congress by either of the Presidents above referred to upon the ground 
of their being inexpedient or not as well adapted as they might be to 
the wants of the people, the veto was applied upon that of want of 
conformity to the Constitution or because errors had been committed 
from a too hasty enactment.

There is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle, which 
had probably more influence in recommending it to the Convention than 
any other. I refer to the security which it gives to the just and 
equitable action of the Legislature upon all parts of the Union. It 
could not but have occurred to the Convention that in a country so 
extensive, embracing so great a variety of soil and climate, and 
consequently of products, and which from the same causes must ever 
exhibit a great difference in the amount of the population of its 
various sections, calling for a great diversity in the employments of 
the people, that the legislation of the majority might not always 
justly regard the rights and interests of the minority, and that acts 
of this character might be passed under an express grant by the words 
of the Constitution, and therefore not within the competency of the 
judiciary to declare void; that however enlightened and patriotic they 
might suppose from past experience the members of Congress might be, 
and however largely partaking, in the general, of the liberal feelings 
of the people, it was impossible to expect that bodies so constituted 
should not sometimes be controlled by local interests and sectional 
feelings. It was proper, therefore, to provide some umpire from whose 
situation and mode of appointment more independence and freedom from 
such influences might be expected. Such a one was afforded by the 
executive department constituted by the Constitution. A person elected 
to that high office, having his constituents in every section, State, 
and subdivision of the Union, must consider himself bound by the most 
solemn sanctions to guard, protect, and defend the rights of all and of 
every portion, great or small, from the injustice and oppression of the 
rest. I consider the veto power, therefore, given by the Constitution 
to the Executive of the United States solely as a conservative power, 
to be used only first, to protect the Constitution from violation; 
secondly, the people from the effects of hasty legislation where their 
will has been probably disregarded or not well understood, and, 
thirdly, to prevent the effects of combinations violative of the rights 
of minorities. In reference to the second of these objects I may 
observe that I consider it the right and privilege of the people to 
decide disputed points of the Constitution arising from the general 
grant of power to Congress to carry into effect the powers expressly 
given; and I believe with Mr. Madison that "repeated recognitions under 
varied circumstances in acts of the legislative, executive, and 
judicial branches of the Government, accompanied by indications in 
different modes of the concurrence of the general will of the nation," 
as affording to the President sufficient authority for his considering 
such disputed points as settled.

Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of the present 
form of government. It would be an object more highly desirable than 
the gratification of the curiosity of speculative statesmen if its 
precise situation could be ascertained, a fair exhibit made of the 
operations of each of its departments, of the powers which they 
respectively claim and exercise, of the collisions which have occurred 
between them or between the whole Government and those of the States or 
either of them. We could then compare our actual condition after fifty 
years' trial of our system with what it was in the commencement of its 
operations and ascertain whether the predictions of the patriots who 
opposed its adoption or the confident hopes of its advocates have been 
best realized. The great dread of the former seems to have been that 
the reserved powers of the States would be absorbed by those of the 
Federal Government and a consolidated power established, leaving to the 
States the shadow only of that independent action for which they had so 
zealously contended and on the preservation of which they relied as the 
last hope of liberty. Without denying that the result to which they 
looked with so much apprehension is in the way of being realized, it is 
obvious that they did not clearly see the mode of its accomplishment. 
The General Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of 
the States. As far as any open warfare may have gone, the State 
authorities have amply maintained their rights. To a casual observer 
our system presents no appearance of discord between the different 
members which compose it. Even the addition of many new ones has 
produced no jarring. They move in their respective orbits in perfect 
harmony with the central head and with each other. But there is still 
an undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst 
apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be realized, and not 
only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great increase 
of power in the executive department of the General Government, but the 
character of that Government, if not its designation, be essentially 
and radically changed. This state of things has been in part effected 
by causes inherent in the Constitution and in part by the never-failing 
tendency of political power to increase itself. By making the President 
the sole distributer of all the patronage of the Government the framers 
of the Constitution do not appear to have anticipated at how short a 
period it would become a formidable instrument to control the free 
operations of the State governments. Of trifling importance at first, 
it had early in Mr. Jefferson's Administration become so powerful as to 
create great alarm in the mind of that patriot from the potent 
influence it might exert in controlling the freedom of the elective 
franchise. If such could have then been the effects of its influence, 
how much greater must be the danger at this time, quadrupled in amount 
as it certainly is and more completely under the control of the 
Executive will than their construction of their powers allowed or the 
forbearing characters of all the early Presidents permitted them to 
make. But it is not by the extent of its patronage alone that the 
executive department has become dangerous, but by the use which it 
appears may be made of the appointing power to bring under its control 
the whole revenues of the country. The Constitution has declared it to 
be the duty of the President to see that the laws are executed, and it 
makes him the Commander in Chief of the Armies and Navy of the United 
States. If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that species 
of mixed government which in modern Europe is termed monarchy in 
contradistinction to despotism is correct, there was wanting no other 
addition to the powers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical 
character on our Government but the control of the public finances; and 
to me it appears strange indeed that anyone should doubt that the 
entire control which the President possesses over the officers who have 
the custody of the public money, by the power of removal with or 
without cause, does, for all mischievous purposes at least, virtually 
subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman Emperor, in 
his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of 
the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant 
allusion to his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the 
care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a 
President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to 
the Roman knight. I am not insensible of the great difficulty that 
exists in drawing a proper plan for the safe-keeping and disbursement 
of the public revenues, and I know the importance which has been 
attached by men of great abilities and patriotism to the divorce, as it 
is called, of the Treasury from the banking institutions. It is not the 
divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union of the 
Treasury with the executive department, which has created such 
extensive alarm. To this danger to our republican institutions and that 
created by the influence given to the Executive through the 
instrumentality of the Federal officers I propose to apply all the 
remedies which may be at my command. It was certainly a great error in 
the framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at the 
head of the Treasury Department entirely independent of the Executive. 
He should at least have been removable only upon the demand of the 
popular branch of the Legislature. I have determined never to remove a 
Secretary of the Treasury without communicating all the circumstances 
attending such removal to both Houses of Congress.

The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the 
elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can be 
effectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by Mr. 
Jefferson forbidding their interference in elections further than 
giving their own votes, and their own independence secured by an 
assurance of perfect immunity in exercising this sacred privilege of 
freemen under the dictates of their own unbiased judgments. Never with 
my consent shall an officer of the people, compensated for his services 
out of their pockets, become the pliant instrument of Executive will.

There is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executive 
which might be used with greater effect for unhallowed purposes than 
the control of the public press. The maxim which our ancestors derived 
from the mother country that "the freedom of the press is the great 
bulwark of civil and religious liberty" is one of the most precious 
legacies which they have left us. We have learned, too, from our own as 
well as the experience of other countries, that golden shackles, by 
whomsoever or by whatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it as the 
iron bonds of despotism. The presses in the necessary employment of the 
Government should never be used "to clear the guilty or to varnish 
crime." A decent and manly examination of the acts of the Government 
should be not only tolerated, but encouraged.

Upon another occasion I have given my opinion at some length upon the 
impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation of Congress - 
that the article in the Constitution making it the duty of the 
President to communicate information and authorizing him to recommend 
measures was not intended to make him the source in legislation, and, 
in particular, that he should never be looked to for schemes of 
finance. It would be very strange, indeed, that the Constitution should 
have strictly forbidden one branch of the Legislature from interfering 
in the origination of such bills and that it should be considered 
proper that an altogether different department of the Government should 
be permitted to do so. Some of our best political maxims and opinions 
have been drawn from our parent isle. There are others, however, which 
can not be introduced in our system without singular incongruity and 
the production of much mischief, and this I conceive to be one. No 
matter in which of the houses of Parliament a bill may originate nor by 
whom introduced - a minister or a member of the opposition - by the 
fiction of law, or rather of constitutional principle, the sovereign is 
supposed to have prepared it agreeably to his will and then submitted 
it to Parliament for their advice and consent. Now the very reverse is 
the case here, not only with regard to the principle, but the forms 
prescribed by the Constitution. The principle certainly assigns to the 
only body constituted by the Constitution (the legislative body) the 
power to make laws, and the forms even direct that the enactment should 
be ascribed to them. The Senate, in relation to revenue bills, have the 
right to propose amendments, and so has the Executive by the power 
given him to return them to the House of Representatives with his 
objections. It is in his power also to propose amendments in the 
existing revenue laws, suggested by his observations upon their 
defective or injurious operation. But the delicate duty of devising 
schemes of revenue should be left where the Constitution has placed it 
- with the immediate representatives of the people. For similar reasons 
the mode of keeping the public treasure should be prescribed by them, 
and the further removed it may be from the control of the Executive the 
more wholesome the arrangement and the more in accordance with 
republican principle.

Connected with this subject is the character of the currency. The idea 
of making it exclusively metallic, however well intended, appears to me 
to be fraught with more fatal consequences than any other scheme having 
no relation to the personal rights of the citizens that has ever been 
devised. If any single scheme could produce the effect of arresting at 
once that mutation of condition by which thousands of our most indigent 
fellow-citizens by their industry and enterprise are raised to the 
possession of wealth, that is the one. If there is one measure better 
calculated than another to produce that state of things so much 
deprecated by all true republicans, by which the rich are daily adding 
to their hoards and the poor sinking deeper into penury, it is an 
exclusive metallic currency. Or if there is a process by which the 
character of the country for generosity and nobleness of feeling may be 
destroyed by the great increase and neck toleration of usury, it is an 
exclusive metallic currency.

Amongst the other duties of a delicate character which the President is 
called upon to perform is the supervision of the government of the 
Territories of the United States. Those of them which are destined to 
become members of our great political family are compensated by their 
rapid progress from infancy to manhood for the partial and temporary 
deprivation of their political rights. It is in this District only 
where American citizens are to be found who under a settled policy are 
deprived of many important political privileges without any inspiring 
hope as to the future. Their only consolation under circumstances of 
such deprivation is that of the devoted exterior guards of a camp - 
that their sufferings secure tranquillity and safety within. Are there 
any of their countrymen, who would subject them to greater sacrifices, 
to any other humiliations than those essentially necessary to the 
security of the object for which they were thus separated from their 
fellow-citizens? Are their rights alone not to be guaranteed by the 
application of those great principles upon which all our constitutions 
are founded? We are told by the greatest of British orators and 
statesmen that at the commencement of the War of the Revolution the 
most stupid men in England spoke of "their American subjects." Are 
there, indeed, citizens of any of our States who have dreamed of their 
subjects in the District of Columbia? Such dreams can never be realized 
by any agency of mine. The people of the District of Columbia are not 
the subjects of the people of the States, but free American citizens. 
Being in the latter condition when the Constitution was formed, no 
words used in that instrument could have been intended to deprive them 
of that character. If there is anything in the great principle of 
unalienable rights so emphatically insisted upon in our Declaration of 
Independence, they could neither make nor the United States accept a 
surrender of their liberties and become the subjects - in other words, 
the slaves - of their former fellow-citizens. If this be true - and it 
will scarcely be denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his own 
rights as an American citizen - the grant to Congress of exclusive 
jurisdiction in the District of Columbia can be interpreted, so far as 
respects the aggregate people of the United States, as meaning nothing 
more than to allow to Congress the controlling power necessary to 
afford a free and safe exercise of the functions assigned to the 
General Government by the Constitution. In all other respects the 
legislation of Congress should be adapted to their peculiar position 
and wants and be conformable with their deliberate opinions of their 
own interests.

I have spoken of the necessity of keeping the respective departments of 
the Government, as well as all the other authorities of our country, 
within their appropriate orbits. This is a matter of difficulty in some 
cases, as the powers which they respectively claim are often not 
defined by any distinct lines. Mischievous, however, in their 
tendencies as collisions of this kind may be, those which arise between 
the respective communities which for certain purposes compose one 
nation are much more so, for no such nation can long exist without the 
careful culture of those feelings of confidence and affection which are 
the effective bonds to union between free and confederated states. 
Strong as is the tie of interest, it has been often found ineffectual. 
Men blinded by their passions have been known to adopt measures for 
their country in direct opposition to all the suggestions of policy. 
The alternative, then, is to destroy or keep down a bad passion by 
creating and fostering a good one, and this seems to be the corner 
stone upon which our American political architects have reared the 
fabric of our Government. The cement which was to bind it and 
perpetuate its existence was the affectionate attachment between all 
its members. To insure the continuance of this feeling, produced at 
first by a community of dangers, of sufferings, and of interests, the 
advantages of each were made accessible to all. No participation in any 
good possessed by any member of our extensive Confederacy, except in 
domestic government, was withheld from the citizen of any other member. 
By a process attended with no difficulty, no delay, no expense but that 
of removal, the citizen of one might become the citizen of any other, 
and successively of the whole. The lines, too, separating powers to be 
exercised by the citizens of one State from those of another seem to be 
so distinctly drawn as to leave no room for misunderstanding. The 
citizens of each State unite in their persons all the privileges which 
that character confers and all that they may claim as citizens of the 
United States, but in no case can the same persons at the same time act 
as the citizen of two separate States, and he is therefore positively 
precluded from any interference with the reserved powers of any State 
but that of which he is for the time being a citizen. He may, indeed, 
offer to the citizens of other States his advice as to their 
management, and the form in which it is tendered is left to his own 
discretion and sense of propriety. It may be observed, however, that 
organized associations of citizens requiring compliance with their 
wishes too much resemble the recommendations of Athens to her allies, 
supported by an armed and powerful fleet. It was, indeed, to the 
ambition of the leading States of Greece to control the domestic 
concerns of the others that the destruction of that celebrated 
Confederacy, and subsequently of all its members, is mainly to be 
attributed, and it is owing to the absence of that spirit that the 
Helvetic Confederacy has for so many years been preserved. Never has 
there been seen in the institutions of the separate members of any 
confederacy more elements of discord. In the principles and forms of 
government and religion, as well as in the circumstances of the several 
Cantons, so marked a discrepancy was observable as to promise anything 
but harmony in their intercourse or permanency in their alliance, and 
yet for ages neither has been interrupted. Content with the positive 
benefits which their union produced, with the independence and safety 
from foreign aggression which it secured, these sagacious people 
respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant to their 
own principles and prejudices.

Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the same 
forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise of the 
powers with which the Constitution clothes them. The attempt of those 
of one State to control the domestic institutions of another can only 
result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of 
disunion, violence, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our 
free institutions. Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the 
terms and principles governing a common copartnership. There is a fund 
of power to be exercised under the direction of the joint councils of 
the allied members, but that which has been reserved by the individual 
members is intangible by the common Government or the individual 
members composing it. To attempt it finds no support in the principles 
of our Constitution.

It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to cultivate a 
spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our 
Confederacy. Experience has abundantly taught us that the agitation by 
citizens of one part of the Union of a subject not confided to the 
General Government, but exclusively under the guardianship of the local 
authorities, is productive of no other consequences than bitterness, 
alienation, discord, and injury to the very cause which is intended to 
be advanced. Of all the great interests which appertain to our country, 
that of union - cordial, confiding, fraternal union - is by far the 
most important, since it is the only true and sure guaranty of all 
others.

In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the currency, 
some of the States may meet with difficulty in their financial 
concerns. However deeply we may regret anything imprudent or excessive 
in the engagements into which States have entered for purposes of their 
own, it does not become us to disparage the States governments, nor to 
discourage them from making proper efforts for their own relief. On the 
contrary, it is our duty to encourage them to the extent of our 
constitutional authority to apply their best means and cheerfully to 
make all necessary sacrifices and submit to all necessary burdens to 
fulfill their engagements and maintain their credit, for the character 
and credit of the several States form a part of the character and 
credit of the whole country. The resources of the country are abundant, 
the enterprise and activity of our people proverbial, and we may well 
hope that wise legislation and prudent administration by the respective 
governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restore former 
prosperity.

Unpleasant and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes be between 
the constituted authorities of the citizens of our country in relation 
to the lines which separate their respective jurisdictions, the results 
can be of no vital injury to our institutions if that ardent 
patriotism, that devoted attachment to liberty, that spirit of 
moderation and forbearance for which our countrymen were once 
distinguished, continue to be cherished. If this continues to be the 
ruling passion of our souls, the weaker feeling of the mistaken 
enthusiast will be corrected, the Utopian dreams of the scheming 
politician dissipated, and the complicated intrigues of the demagogue 
rendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for 
every injury which our institutions may receive. On the contrary, no 
care that can be used in the construction of our Government, no 
division of powers, no distribution of checks in its several 
departments, will prove effectual to keep us a free people if this 
spirit is suffered to decay; and decay it will without constant 
nurture. To the neglect of this duty the best historians agree in 
attributing the ruin of all the republics with whose existence and fall 
their writings have made us acquainted. The same causes will ever 
produce the same effects, and as long as the love of power is a 
dominant passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings 
of men can be warped and their affections changed by operations upon 
their passions and prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people 
depend on their own constant attention to its preservation. The danger 
to all well-established free governments arises from the unwillingness 
of the people to believe in its existence or from the influence of 
designing men diverting their attention from the quarter whence it 
approaches to a source from which it can never come. This is the old 
trick of those who would usurp the government of their country. In the 
name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence 
of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History, ancient and modern, 
is full of such examples. Caesar became the master of the Roman people 
and the senate under the pretense of supporting the democratic claims 
of the former against the aristocracy of the latter; Cromwell, in the 
character of protector of the liberties of the people, became the 
dictator of England, and Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power 
with the title of his country's liberator. There is, on the contrary, 
no instance on record of an extensive and well-established republic 
being changed into an aristocracy. The tendencies of all such 
governments in their decline is to monarchy, and the antagonist 
principle to liberty there is the spirit of faction - a spirit which 
assumes the character and in times of great excitement imposes itself 
upon the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and, like the false 
Christs whose coming was foretold by the Savior, seeks to, and were it 
possible would, impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of 
liberty. It is in periods like this that it behooves the people to be 
most watchful of those to whom they have intrusted power. And although 
there is at times much difficulty in distinguishing the false from the 
true spirit, a calm and dispassionate investigation will detect the 
counterfeit, as well by the character of its operations as the results 
that are produced. The true spirit of liberty, although devoted, 
persevering, bold, and uncompromising in principle, that secured is 
mild and tolerant and scrupulous as to the means it employs, whilst the 
spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vindictive, 
and intolerant, and totally reckless as to the character of the allies 
which it brings to the aid of its cause. When the genuine spirit of 
liberty animates the body of a people to a thorough examination of 
their affairs, it leads to the excision of every excrescence which may 
have fastened itself upon any of the departments of the government, and 
restores the system to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign of 
an intolerant spirit of party amongst a free people seldom fails to 
result in a dangerous accession to the executive power introduced and 
established amidst unusual professions of devotion to democracy.

The foregoing remarks relate almost exclusively to matters connected 
with our domestic concerns. It may be proper, however, that I should 
give some indications to my fellow-citizens of my proposed course of 
conduct in the management of our foreign relations. I assure them, 
therefore, that it is my intention to use every means in my power to 
preserve the friendly intercourse which now so happily subsists with 
every foreign nation, and that although, of course, not well informed 
as to the state of pending negotiations with any of them, I see in the 
personal characters of the sovereigns, as well as in the mutual 
interests of our own and of the governments with which our relations 
are most intimate, a pleasing guaranty that the harmony so important to 
the interests of their subjects as well as of our citizens will not be 
interrupted by the advancement of any claim or pretension upon their 
part to which our honor would not permit us to yield. Long the defender 
of my country's rights in the field, I trust that my fellow-citizens 
will not see in my earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers 
any indication that their rights will ever be sacrificed or the honor 
of the nation tarnished by any admission on the part of their Chief 
Magistrate unworthy of their former glory. In our intercourse with our 
aboriginal neighbors the same liberality and justice which marked the 
course prescribed to me by two of my illustrious predecessors when 
acting under their direction in the discharge of the duties of 
superintendent and commissioner shall be strictly observed. I can 
conceive of no more sublime spectacle, none more likely to propitiate 
an impartial and common Creator, than a rigid adherence to the 
principles of justice on the part of a powerful nation in its 
transactions with a weaker and uncivilized people whom circumstances 
have placed at its disposal.

Before concluding, fellow-citizens, I must say something to you on the 
subject of the parties at this time existing in our country. To me it 
appears perfectly clear that the interest of that country requires that 
the violence of the spirit by which those parties are at this time 
governed must be greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or 
consequences will ensue which are appalling to be thought of.

If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance 
sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law 
and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become 
destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that 
of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples 
of republics where the love of country and of liberty at one time were 
the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the 
continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of 
these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens. It 
was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer that "in the 
Roman senate Octavius had a party and Anthony a party, but the 
Commonwealth had none." Yet the senate continued to meet in the temple 
of liberty to talk of the sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and 
gaze at the statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, 
and the people assembled in the forum, not, as in the days of Camillus 
and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates or 
pass upon the acts of the senate, but to receive from the hands of the 
leaders of the respective parties their share of the spoils and to 
shout for one or the other, as those collected in Gaul or Egypt and the 
lesser Asia would furnish the larger dividend. The spirit of liberty 
had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought 
protection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the 
operation of the same causes and influences it will fly from our 
Capitol and our forums. A calamity so awful, not only to our country, 
but to the world, must be deprecated by every patriot and every 
tendency to a state of things likely to produce it immediately checked. 
Such a tendency has existed - does exist. Always the friend of my 
countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them 
from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me that 
there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests - 
hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views, 
selfish in its objects. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few even to 
the destruction of the interests of the whole. The entire remedy is 
with the people. Something, however, may be effected by the means which 
they have placed in my hands. It is union that we want, not of a party 
for the sake of that party, but a union of the whole country for the 
sake of the whole country, for the defense of its interests and its 
honor against foreign aggression, for the defense of those principles 
for which our ancestors so gloriously contended. As far as it depends 
upon me it shall be accomplished. All the influence that I possess 
shall be exerted to prevent the formation at least of an Executive 
party in the halls of the legislative body. I wish for the support of 
no member of that body to any measure of mine that does not satisfy his 
judgment and his sense of duty to those from whom he holds his 
appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people but that 
asked for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to the legal 
administration of their affairs."

I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to 
justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for 
the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals, 
religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are 
essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that 
good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious 
freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and 
has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence 
those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every 
interest of our beloved country in all future time.

Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to which 
the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an 
affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the 
remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the 
high duties of my exalted station according to the best of my ability, 
and I shall enter upon their performance with entire confidence in the 
support of a just and generous people.

