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George Washington's First Inaugural Address
| Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of
Representatives: AMONG
the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties
than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the
14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice
I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the
fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the
asylum of my declining years—a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as
well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent
interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other
hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called
me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a
distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one
who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil
administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict
of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from
a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope
is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance
of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the
confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as
well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be
palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country
with some share of the partiality in which they originated. |
| Such being the impressions under which I have, in
obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly
improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty
Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose
providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to
the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by
themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its
administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering
this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it
expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large
less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which
conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they
have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished
by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in
the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of
so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with
the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious
gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem
to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves
too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that
there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government
can more auspiciously commence. |
| By the article establishing the executive department
it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such
measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I
now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the
great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your
powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more
consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which
actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the
tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the
characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold
the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate
views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to
watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the
foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of
private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the
attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the
world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my
country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there
exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and
happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and
magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought
to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a
nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has
ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the
republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally,
staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. |
| Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care,
it will remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power
delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present
juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the system, or by the
degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular
recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from
official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment
and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every
alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or
which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic
rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will sufficiently influence your
deliberations on the question how far the former can be impregnably fortified or the
latter be safely and advantageously promoted. |
| To the foregoing observations I have one to add,
which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself,
and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call into the
service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light
in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary
compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under
the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in
the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for
the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the
station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual
expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. |
| Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they
have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present
leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in
humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with
opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with
unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the
advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous
in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the
success of this Government must depend. |
Back
to George Washington
Executive Oath of Office
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States."
United States Constitution, Article II,
Section 1, Clause 8
U.S.
Presidents:
1George Washington, 2John
Adamsl, 3Thomas Jefferson, 4James Madison, 5James
Monroe, 6John Quincy Adams, 7Andrew Jackson, 8Martin
Van Buren,9William H Harrison,10John Tyler,11James K
Polk, 12Zachary Taylor, 13Millard Fillmore,14Franklin
Pierce,15James Buchanan,16Abraham Lincoln, 17Andrew
Johnson, 18Ulysses S Grant,19Rutherford B Hayes, 20James A Garfield, 21Chester
A. Arthur, 22Grover
Cleveland,23Benjamin Harrison, 24Grover Cleveland, 25William
McKinley,26Theodore Roosevelt, 27William H. Taft,28Woodrow Wilson, 29Warren
G. Harding,30Calvin Coolidge,31Herbert Hoover,32Franklin
D Roosevelt,33Harry S.
Truman, 34Dwight D Eisenhower,35John F Kennedy, 36Lyndon
B Johnson, 37RichardN. Nixon, 38Gerald R Ford, 39James E
Carter,40Ronald
W. Reagan, 41George
HerbertW. Bush, 42Bill Clinton,
43George Walker Bush 44
Barack H. Obama
last updated
07/14/09
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