Washington, D. C.,
March 4, 1809.
Unwilling to depart from examples of the most revered
authority, I avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound
impression made on me by the call of my country to the station to the duties of
which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So
distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate and tranquil
suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would under any circumstances have
commanded my gratitude and devotion, as well as filled me with an awful sense
of the trust to be assumed. Under the various circumstances which give peculiar
solemnity to the existing period, I feel that both the honor and the
responsibility allotted to me are inexpressibly enhanced.
The present situation of the world is indeed without a
parallel, and that of our own country full of difficulties. The pressure of
these, too, is the more severely felt because they have fallen upon us at a
moment when the national prosperity being at a height not before attained, the
contrast resulting from the change has been rendered the more striking. Under
the benign influence of our republican institutions, and the maintenance of
peace with all nations whilst so many of them were engaged in bloody and
wasteful wars, the fruits of a just policy were enjoyed in an unrivaled growth
of our faculties and resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improvements of
agriculture, in the successful enterprises of commerce, in the progress of
manufactures and useful arts, in the increase of the public revenue and the use
made of it in reducing the public debt, and in the valuable works and
establishments everywhere multiplying over the face of our land.
It is a precious reflection that the transition from this
prosperous condition of our country to the scene which has for some time been
distressing us is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor, as I trust,
on any involuntary errors in the public councils. Indulging no passions which
trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it has been the true
glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to
entitle themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their
neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor
in the world, the truth of these assertions will not be questioned; posterity
at least will do justice to them.
This unexceptionable course could not avail against the
injustice and violence of the belligerent powers. In their rage against each
other, or impelled by more direct motives, principles of retaliation have been
introduced equally contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law. How long
their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite of the demonstrations that
not even a pretext for them has been given by the United States, and of the
fair and liberal attempt to induce a revocation of them, can not be anticipated.
Assuring myself that under every vicissitude the determined spirit and united
councils of the nation will be safeguards to its honor and its essential
interests, I repair to the post assigned me with no other discouragement than
what springs from my own inadequacy to its high duties. If I do not sink under
the weight of this deep conviction it is because I find some support in a
consciousness of the purposes and a confidence in the principles which I bring
with me into this arduous service.
To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations
having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward
belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable
accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to
exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so degrading to all
countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of independence too
just to invade the rights of others, too proud to surrender our own, too
liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves and too elevated not to look
down upon them in others; to hold the union of the States as the basis of their
peace and happiness; to support the
Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations
as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the
States and to the people as equally incorporated with and essential to the
success of the general system; to avoid the slightest interference with the
rights of conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from
civil jurisdiction; to preserve in their full energy the other salutary
provisions in behalf of private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the
press; to observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public
resources by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the
requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed
and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics — that without standing
armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe; to
promote by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture, to
manufactures, and to external as well as internal commerce; to favor in like
manner the advancement of science and the diffusion of information as the best
aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which have been so
meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the
degradation and wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the
improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized
state; — as far as sentiments and intentions such as these can aid the
fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me.
It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I
am to tread lighted by examples of illustrious services successfully rendered
in the most trying difficulties by those who have marched before me. Of those
of my immediate predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I may, however,
be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with which my heart is full in the
rich reward he enjoys in the benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully
bestowed for exalted talents zealously devoted through a long career to the
advancement of its highest interest and happiness.
But the source to which I look for the aids which alone can
supply my deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my
fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the other
departments associated in the care of the national interests. In these my
confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we
have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that
Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings
have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we
are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent
supplications and best hopes for the future.
SOURCE: Gaillard Hunt, Editor, The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 8: 1808-1819, p. 47-50
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