Grover Cleveland’s First Inaugural Address

[Delivered At The East Front Of The Capitol, Washington, March 4, 1885.]

Fellow-citizens: In the presence of this vast assemblage of my countrymen I am about to supplement and seal by the oath which I shall take the manifestation of the will of a great and free people. In the exercise of their power and right of self-government they have committed to one of their fellow-citizens a supreme and sacred trust; and he here consecrates himself to their service.

This impressive ceremony adds little to the solemn sense of responsibility with which I contemplate the duty I owe to all the people of the land. Nothing can relieve me from anxiety lest by any act of mine their interests may suffer, and nothing is needed to strengthen my resolution to engage every faculty and effort in the promotion of their welfare.

Amid the din of party strife the people's choice was made; but its attendant circumstances have demonstrated anew the strength and safety of a government by the people. In each succeeding year it more clearly appears that our democratic principle needs no apology, and that in its fearless and faithful application is to be found the surest guaranty of good government.

But the best results in the operation of a government, wherein every citizen has a share, largely depend upon a proper limitation of purely partisan zeal and effort, and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen.

To-day the executive branch of the Government is transferred to new keeping. But this is still the Government of all the people, and it should be none the less an object of their affectionate solicitude. At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will, and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. Moreover, if, from this hour, we cheerfully and honestly abandon all sectional prejudice and distrust, and determine, with manly confidence in one another, to work out harmoniously the achievements of our national destiny, we shall deserve to realize all the benefits which our happy form of government can bestow.

On this auspicious occasion we may well renew the pledge of our devotion to the Constitution, which, launched by the founders of the Republic and consecrated by their prayers and patriotic devotion, has for almost a century borne the hopes and the aspirations of a great people through prosperity and peace, and through the shock of foreign conflicts and the perils of domestic strife and vicissitudes.

By the Father of his Country our Constitution was commended for adoption as “the result of a spirit of amity and mutual concession.” In that same spirit it should be administered, in order to promote the lasting welfare of the country, and to secure the full measure of its priceless benefits to us and to those who will succeed to the blessings of our .national life. The large variety of diverse and competing interests subject to Federal control, persistently seeking the recognition of their claims, need give us no fear that “the greatest good to the greatest number” will fail to be accomplished if, in the halls of national legislation, that spirit of amity and mutual concession shall prevail in which the Constitution had its birth. If this involves the surrender or postponement of private interests and the abandonment of local advantages, compensation will be found in the assurance that the common interest is subserved and the general welfare advanced.

In the discharge of my official duty I shall endeavor to be guided by a just and unrestrained construction of the Constitution, a careful observance of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the State or to the people, and by a cautious appreciation of those functions which, by the Constitution and laws, have been especially assigned to the executive branch of the Government.

But he who takes the oath to-day to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen, on the farm, in the workshop, in the busy marts of trade, and everywhere, should share with him. The Constitution which prescribes his oath, my countrymen, is yours; the Government you have chosen him to administer for a time is yours; the suffrage which executes the will of freemen is yours; the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants, and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity—municipal, State, and Federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic.

It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Government economically administered, because this bounds the right of the Government to exact tribute from the earnings of labor or the property of the citizen, and because public extravagance begets extravagance among the people. We should never be ashamed of the simplicity and prudential economies which are best suited to the operation of a republican form of government and most compatible with the mission of the American people. Those who are selected for a limited time to manage public affairs are still of the people, and may do much by their example to encourage, consistently with the dignity of their official functions, that plain way of life which among their fellow-citizens aids integrity and promotes thrift and prosperity.

The genius of our institutions, the needs of our people in their home life, and the attention which is demanded for the settlement and development of the resources of our vast territory, dictate the scrupulous avoidance of any departure from that foreign policy commended by the history, the traditions, and the prosperity of our Republic. It is the policy of independence, favored by our position and defended by our known love of justice and by our power. It is the policy of peace suitable to our interests. It is the policy of neutrality, rejecting any share in foreign broils and ambitions upon other continents, and repelling their intrusion here. It is the policy of Monroe and of Washington and Jefferson — “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliance with none.”

A due regard for the interests and prosperity of all the people demands that our finances shall be established upon such a sound and sensible basis as shall secure the safety and confidence of business interests and make the wage of labor sure and steady; and that our system of revenue shall be so adjusted as to relieve the people of unnecessary taxation, having a due regard to the interests of capital invested and workingmen employed in American industries, and preventing the accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury to tempt extravagance and waste.

Care for the property of the nation and for the needs of future settlers requires that the public domain should be protected from purloining schemes and unlawful occupation.

The conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries shall be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the Government, and their education and civilization promoted, with a view to their ultimate citizenship; and that polygamy in the Territories, destructive of the family relation and offensive to the moral sense of the civilized world, shall be repressed.

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.

The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the application of business principles to public affairs. As a means to this end civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.

In the administration of a government pledged to do equal and exact justice to all men there should be no pretext for anxiety touching the-protection of the freedmen in their rights, or their security in the enjoyment of their privileges under the Constitution and its amendments. All discussion as to their fitness for the place accorded to them as American citizens is idle and unprofitable, except as it suggests the necessity for their improvement. The fact that they are citizens entitles them to all the rights due to that relation and charges them with all its duties, obligations, and responsibilities.

These topics, and the constant and ever-varying wants of an active and enterprising population, may well receive the attention and the patriotic endeavor of all who make and execute the Federal law. Our duties are practical, and call for industrious application, an intelligent perception of the claims of public office, and, above all, a firm determination, by united action, to secure to all the people of the land the full benefits of the best form of government ever vouchsafed to man. And let us not trust to human effort alone; but humbly acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country's history, let us invoke His aid and His blessing upon our labors.

SOURCE: Government Printing Office, The Public Papers of Grover Cleveland: Twenty-second President of the United States: March 4, 1885 to March 4, 1889, p. 6-9

James A. Garfield’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1881

fellow-citizens — We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of national life, a century crowded with perils, but crowned with triumphs of liberty and love. Before continuing the onward march let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our people have traveled.

It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the first written Constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of Nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling, not only against the armies of Great Britain, but against the settled opinions of mankind, for the world did not believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves. We can not overestimate the fervent love, the intelligent courage, the saving common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government.

When they found, after a short time, that the Confederacy of States was too weak to meet the necessities of a glorious and expanding Republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a National Union, founded directly upon the will of the people, endowed with powers of self-preservation, and with ample authority for the accomplishment of its great objects.

Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom are enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the growth in all the better elements of National life have vindicated the wisdom of the founders and given new hope to their descendants.

Under this Constitution our people long ago made themselves safe against danger from without, and secured for their mariners and flag equality of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution twenty-five States have been added to the Union, with constitutions and laws framed and enforced by their own citizens to secure the manifold blessings of local and self-government.

The jurisdiction of this Constitution now covers an area fifty times greater than that of the original thirteen states, and a population twenty times greater than that of 1780. The trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war.

We ourselves are witnesses that the Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict, purified and made stronger for all the beneficent purposes of good government, and now at the close of this, the first century of growth, with the inspirations of its history in their hearts, our people have lately reviewed the condition of the Nation, passed judgment upon the conduct and opinions of the political parties, and have registered their will concerning the future administration of the Government. To interpret and to execute that will in accordance with the Constitution is the paramount duty of the Executive. Even from this brief review it is manifest that the Nation is resolutely facing to the front, a resolution to employ its best energies in developing the great possibilities of the future. Sacredly preserving whatever has been gained to liberty and good government during the century, our people are determined to leave behind them all those bitter controversies concerning things which have been irrevocably settled, further discussion of which can only stir up strife and delay the onward march. The supremacy of the Nation and its laws should be no longer the subject of debate. That discussion, which for half a century threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last in the high court of war by a decree from which there is no appeal: that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof shall continue to be the supreme law of the land, binding alike on the States and the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy of the States, nor interfere with any of their necessary rules of local self-government, but it does fix and establish the permanent supremacy of the Union.

The will of the Nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by proclaiming “Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof.”

The elevation of the negro race from slavery to full rights of citizenship, is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1776.

No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution; it has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people; it has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both.

It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than five millions of people, and has opened to each of them a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to one and more necessary to the other.

The influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with coming years. No doubt the great change has caused serious disturbance to the Southern community — this is to be deplored, though it was unavoidable; but those who resisted the change should remember that in our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessing as long as law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizenship.

The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With unquestionable devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have followed the light as God gave them to see the light.'

They are rapidly laying the material foundation for self-support, widening their circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men.

So far as my authority can lawfully extend, they shall enjoy full and equal protection of the Constitution and laws. The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank statement of the issue may aid its solution.

It is alleged that in many communities negro citizens are practically denied freedom of the ballot. In so far as the truth of this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations.

So far as the latter is true, it is no palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil which ought to be prevented, but to violate the freedom and sanctity of suffrage is more than an evil, it is a crime, which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy.

If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of a king, it should be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power and stifle its voice. It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said, with the utmost emphasis, that this question of suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States or to the Nation, until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes and keeps the ballot free and pure by strong sanctions of law.

But the danger which arises from ignorance in voters can not be denied. It covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and the present condition of that race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the sources and fountains of power in every State. We have no standard by which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in citizens when joined to corruption and fraud in suffrage. The voters of the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose will hangs the destiny of our government, can transmit their supreme authority to no successor save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic will be certain and remediless. The census has already sounded the alarm in appalling figures, which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy has arisen among our voters and their children. To the South the question is of supreme importance, but the responsibility for its existence and for slavery does not rest upon the South alone.

The Nation itself is responsible for the extension of suffrage, and is under special obligations to aid in removing the illiteracy which it has added to the voting population. For North and South alike there is but one remedy: All the Constitutional power of the Nation and of the States, and all the volunteer forces of the people, should be summoned to meet this danger by the saving influence of universal education. It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors, and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them. In this beneficent work section and race should be forgotten, and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in the divine oracle which declares that “a little child shall lend them,” for our little children will soon control the destinies of the Republic.

My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of the past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies; they will surely bless their fathers — and their fathers’ God — that the Union was preserved; that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law. We may hasten on, we may retard, but we can not prevent the final reconciliation.

Is it not possible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable verdict? Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being invite us, and offer ample scope for the enjoyment of our best powers.

Let all our people, leaving behind them the battle-fields of dead issues, move forward, and in the strength of liberty and restored union win the grandest victories of peace. The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all.

The preservation of public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully obtained by the administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.

By the experience of commercial relations in all ages it has been found that gold and silver afforded the only safe foundation for a monetary system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the relative value of the two metals; but I confidently believe that arrangements can be made between the leading commercial nations which will secure the general use of both metals. Congress should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver, now required by law, may not disturb our monetary system by driving either metal out of circulation.

If possible, such adjustment should be made that the purchasing power of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the world. The chief duty of a National Government, in connection with the currency of the country, is to coin and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal-tender.

The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promises should be kept. The refunding of the National' debt at a low rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of National bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.

I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on the financial question during a long service in Congress, and to say that time and experience have strengthened the opinions I have so often expressed on these subjects. The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible for my administration to prevent.

The interests of agriculture deserve more attention from the Government than they have yet received. The farms of the United States afford homes and employment for more than one-half of our people, and furnish much the largest part of all our exports. As the Government lights our coasts for the protection of the mariners and the benefit of our commerce, so it should give to the tillers of the soil the lights of practical science and experience.

Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially independent, and are opening to capital and labor new and profitable fields of employment. This steady and healthy growth should still be maintained. Our facilities for transportation should be promoted by the continued improvement of our harbors and the great interior water-ways and by the increase of our tonnage on the ocean.

The development of the world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for a shortening of the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing ship-canals or railways across the Isthmus which unites the two continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need consideration, but none of them have been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States in extending pecuniary aid.

The subject is one which will immediately engage the attention of the Government with a view to a thorough protection of American interests. We will argue no narrow policy, nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges in any commercial route; but, in the language of my predecessors, I believe it to be “the right and duty of the United States to assert and maintain such supervision and authority over any inter-oceanic canal across the Isthmus that connects North and South America as will protect our National interests.”

The Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Congress is prohibited from making any laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting free exercise thereof.

The Territories of the United States are subject to the direct legislative authority of Congress, and hence the General Government is responsible for any violation of the Constitution in any of them. It is, therefore, a reproach to the Government that in the most populous of the Territories this constitutional guarantee is not enjoyed by the people, and the authority of Congress is set at naught. The Mormon Church not only offends the moral sense of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through the ordinary instrumentalities of the law.

In my judgment it is the duty of Congress, while respecting to the utmost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen, to prohibit within its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially of that class which destroy family relations and endanger social order. Nor can any ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the National Government.

The Civil Service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law, for the good of the service itself. For the protection of those who are intrusted with the appointing power against a waste of time and obstruction of public business, caused by the inordinate pressure for place, and for the protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall, at the proper time, ask Congress to fix the tenure of minor offices of the several Executive Departments, and prescribe the grounds upon which removals shall be made during the terms for which the incumbents have been appointed.

Finally, acting always within the authority and limitations of the Constitution, invading neither the rights of States nor the reserved rights of the people, it will be the purpose of my administration to maintain the authority, and in all places within its jurisdiction, to enforce obedience to all laws of the Union; in the interests of the people, to demand rigid economy in all the expenditures of the Government, and to require honest and faithful service of all executive officers, remembering that offices were created not for the benefit of the incumbents or their supporters, but for the service of the Government.

And now, fellow-citizens, I am about to assume the great trust which you have committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that earnest and thoughtful support which makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, a government of the people. I shall greatly rely upon the wisdom and patriotism of Congress and of those who may share with me the responsibilities and duties of the administration, and upon our efforts to promote the welfare of this great people and their Government I reverently invoke the support and blessing of Almighty God.

SOURCE: Burke A. Hinsdale, Editor, The Works of James Abram Garfield, Volume 2, p. 788-95