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 oath
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 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
infirmities of human nature, and the dangerous temptations to which I shall be
exposed, from the magnitude of the power which it has been the will 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 recognise, 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 could compare the sovereignty acknowledged
to exist in the mass of the 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 among 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 the 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 did 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, inalienable.
The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield
only against a petty provincial ruler, while the proud democrat of Athens could
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 of 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 forms 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 from 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, an 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 pan 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 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 always been
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 executed 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 1
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 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 love 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 stale 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. 1 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, while 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 execute 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 centre 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 having 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 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 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, slate, 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, 1st. to protect the
constitution from violation; 2dly, the people from the effects of hasty
legislation, where their will has been probably disregarded or not well
understood; and, 3dly, to prevent the effects of combinations violative of the
rights of the 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, afford to the president sufficient authority for his
considering such disputed point as settled.”
Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of
our present form of government. It would be an object more highly desirable
than the gratification of the curiosity of speculaive 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 state would be absorbed by those of the federal
governments, 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 under current
at work, by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst apprehensions of our
anti-federal 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 distributor 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 Csesar to the
Roman knight. I am not insensible of the great difficulty that exists in
devising a proper plan for the safekeeping 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 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 pretence 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 crimes.” 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 of 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 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 citizen 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 necessary toleration of usury, it is an
exclusive metallic currency.
Among 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 system of 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 guarantied 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 principles of inalienable 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 any one 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 not defined by very
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 of union between free and confederate
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 an
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 might claim as citizens of the United States;
but in no case can the same person, 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. Ho may indeed offer to the citizens of other
stales 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, 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 have 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 — the 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, and are certain harbingers of disunion, violence, 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 a fund of power is to be exercised under the direction of
the joint counsels of the allied members, but that which has been reserved by
the individuals 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
guarantee 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 state 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 fulfil their engagements and maintain their credit ; for
the character and credit of the several states form 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 or the citizens of our country, in
relation to the lines which separate their respective jurisdictions, the result
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 feelings 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 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 duly, 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 liberty 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 modem, is full of such
examples. Cesar became the master of the Roman people and the senate, under the
pretence 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 single instance on record of an extensive and
well-established republic being changed into an aristocracy. The tendency 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;
while 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 among a free people
seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to the executive power
introduced and established amid 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 any pending
negotiations with any of them, I see in the personal characters of the
sovereigns, as well as in the mutual interest of our own and of the governments
with which our relations are most intimate, a pleasing guarantee that the
harmony so important to the interests of their subjects, as well as 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 dunes of superintendent and commissioner, shall be strictly observed. I can
conceive of no more sublime spectacle — none more likely to propitiate an
impartial 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 parents 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 form of free
government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosom 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 Antony 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 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 object. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few, even
to the destruction of the interest 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 defence of its interests and its honor against foreign aggression — for the
defence 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 he 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.
[Here the oath of
office was administered by Chief-Justice Taney.]
Fellow-citizens: Being fully invested with that high office
to which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, 1 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.
SOURCE: Edwin Williams, Editor, Statesman’s Manual: President’s Messages, Inaugural, Annual and Special
from 1749-1846, Volume 2, p. 1197-1210
