Grover Cleveland’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1893

My Fellow Citizens, — In obedience to the mandate of my countrymen, I am about to dedicate myself to their service under the sanction of a solemn oath. Deeply moved by the expression of confidence and personal attachment which has called me to this service, I am sure my gratitude can make no better return than the pledge which I now give before God and these witnesses of my unreserved and complete devotion to the interests and welfare of those who have honoured me.

I deem it fitting on this occasion, while indicating the opinion I hold concerning public questions of present importance, to refer briefly also to the existence of certain conditions and tendencies among our people which seem to menace the integrity and usefulness of their Government. While every American citizen must contemplate with the utmost pride and enthusiasm the growth and expansion of our country, the sufficiency of our institutions to stand against the rudest shocks, the wonderful enterprise of our people, and the demonstrated superiority of our free government, it behoves us constantly to watch for every symptom of insidious infirmity that threatens our national vigour. It cannot be doubted that our stupendous achievements as a people and our country's robust strength have given rise to a heedlessness of those laws governing our national health which we can no more evade than human life can escape the laws of God and nature. Manifestly nothing is more vital to our supremacy as a nation and to the beneficent purposes of our government than a sound and stable currency. Its exposure to degradation should at once arouse to activity the most enlightened statesmanship, and the danger of depreciation in the purchasing power of the wages paid to toil should furnish the strongest incentive to prompt and conservative precaution. In dealing with our present embarrassing situation as related to this subject, we shall be wise if we temper our confidence and faith in our national strength and resources with the frank concession that even these will not permit us to defy with impunity the inexorable laws of finance and trade.

Closely related to the exaggerated confidence in our country's greatness which tends to the disregard of the rules of national safety another danger confronts us not less serious — I refer to the prevalence of a popular disposition to expect from the operation of our Government especial and direct individual advantages. The verdict of our voters which condemned the injustice of maintaining protection for protection's sake enjoins upon the people's servants the duty of exposing and destroying the brood of kindred evils which are the unwholesome progeny of paternalism. This is the bane of Republican institutions and a constant peril of our government by the people. It degrades to purposes of wily craft the plan of rule which our fathers established and bequeathed to us as an object of our love and veneration. It perverts the patriotic sentiment of our countrymen and tempts them to a pitiful calculation of the sordid gain to be derived from their Government's maintenance. It undermines the self-reliance of our people and substitutes in its place dependence upon governmental favouritism. While the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government, its functions do not include support of the people. The acceptance of this principle leads to a refusal of bounties and subsidies which burden the labour and thrift of a portion of our citizens to aid ill-advised or languishing enterprises in which they have no concern. It leads also to a challenge of wild and reckless pension expenditure which overleaps the bounds of grateful recognition of patriotic service and prostitutes to vicious uses the people's prompt and generous impulse to aid those disabled in their country's defence. Every thoughtful American must realise the importance of checking at its beginning any tendency, in public or private station, to regard frugality and economy as virtues which we may safely outgrow. The toleration of this idea results in the waste of the people's money by their chosen servants and encourages prodigality and extravagance in the home life of our countrymen. Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizens, and the contempt of our people for economy and frugality in their personal affairs deplorably saps the strength and sturdiness of our national character.

To secure the fitness and competency of appointees to office and to remove from political action the demoralising madness for spoils, civil service reform has found a place in our public policy and laws. The benefits already gained through this instrumentality and the further usefulness it promises entitle it to the hearty support and encouragement of all who desire to see our public service well performed. The existence of an immense aggregation of kindred enterprises and combinations of business interests, formed for the purpose of limiting production and fixing prices, is inconsistent with the fair field which ought to be open to every independent activity. Legitimate strife in business should not be superseded by an enforced concession to the demands of combinations that have the power to destroy, nor should the people to be served lose the benefit of the cheapness which usually results from wholesome competition. These aggregations and combinations frequently constitute conspiracies against the interest of the people, and in all their phases they are unnatural and opposed to our American sense of fairness. To the extent that they can be reached and restrained by the Federal power, the general Government should relieve our citizens from their interference and exactions. Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land. The enjoyment of this right follows the badge of citizenship wherever found; and, unimpaired by race or colour, it appeals for recognition to American manliness and fairness. Our relations with the Indians located within our borders impose upon us responsibilities we cannot escape. Humanity and consistency require us to treat them with forbearance, and in our dealings with them to honestly and considerately regard their rights and interests.

The people of the United States have decreed that on this day the control of their Government, in its legislative and executive branches, shall be given to the political party pledged in the most positive terms to the accomplishment of tariff reform. They have thus determined in favour of a more just and equitable system of Federal taxation. The agents they have chosen to carry out their purposes are bound by their promises, not less than by the command of their masters, to devote themselves unremittingly to this service. While there should be no surrender of principle, our task must be undertaken wisely, without vindictiveness. Our mission is not punishment, but the rectification of wrongs. If in lifting the burdens from the daily life of our people we reduce inordinate and unequal advantages too long enjoyed, this is but a necessary incident of our return to right and justice. When we tear aside the delusions and misconceptions which have blinded our countrymen to their condition under vicious tariff laws, we but show them how far they have been led away from the paths of contentment and prosperity. When we proclaim that necessity for revenue to support Government furnishes the only justification for taxing the people, we announce a truth so plain that its denial would seem to indicate the extent to which judgment may be influenced by familiarity with inversions of taxing power; and when we seek to reinstate the self-confidence and business enterprise of our citizens by discrediting abject dependence upon governmental favour, we strive to stimulate those elements of American character which support the hope of American achievement. I shall, to the best of my ability and within my sphere of duty, preserve the constitution by loyally protecting every grant of Federal power it contains, by defending all its restraints when attacked by impatience and restlessness, and by enforcing its limitations and reservations in favour of the States and the people. Fully impressed with the gravity of the duties that confront me, and mindful of my weakness, I should be appalled if it were my lot to bear unaided the responsibilities which await me. I am, however, saved from discouragement when I remember that I shall have the support, counsel, and co-operation of wise and patriotic men who will stand at my side in Cabinet places, or will represent the people in their legislative halls. I find, also, much comfort in remembering that my countrymen are just and generous, and in the assurance that they will not condemn those who by sincere devotion to their service deserve their forbearance and approval. Above all, I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid.

SOURCE: Aberdeen University Press, Publisher, The Annual Register: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1893, p. 455-8

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