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Welcome to U.S. history!
John Adams' Inaugural Address
| WHEN it was first
perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited
submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of
reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies
they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would
certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and
over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on the purity of their
intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people,
under an overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from the
first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its
present number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the rod of iron
that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched
into an ocean of uncertainty. |
| The zeal and ardor of the people during the
Revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was
early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic
confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and precision in history,
and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. But reflecting
on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country and those where a
courier may go from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then
certainly foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that it could
not be durable. |
| Negligence of its regulations, inattention to
its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences—universal languor,
jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of
necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt
of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at
length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection,
threatening some great national calamity. |
| In this dangerous crisis the people of America
were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity.
Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and
deliberations issued in the present happy Constitution of Government. |
| Employed in the service of my country abroad
during the whole course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United
States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public
debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of
good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius,
character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever
been proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great outlines it was
conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed, and in some
States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right
of suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a
constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did not
hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private. It
was not then, nor has been since, any objection to it in my mind that the Executive and
Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I ever entertained a thought of promoting any
alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience,
should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress
and the State legislatures, according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain. |
| Returning to the bosom of my country after a
painful separation from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under
the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most serious
obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it has equaled the most sanguine
expectations of its friends, and from an habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its
administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and
happiness of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and veneration for
it. |
| What other form of government, indeed, can so
well deserve our esteem and love? |
| There may be little solidity in an ancient idea
that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the
sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind
there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or
august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other
Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of
all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods
by their neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential,
anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds?
Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or
institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts
and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are
represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in
every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of such a
government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of
knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or
consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national
pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches,
grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and
benevolence. |
| In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should
be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if
anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and
independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote,
and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be
the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that
solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or
violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the
American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not
we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases
choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance. |
| Such is the amiable and interesting system of
government (and such are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people
of America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and virtuous of all
nations for eight years under the administration of a citizen who, by a long course of
great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a
people inspired with the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and
love of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity,
has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign
nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity. |
| In that retirement which is his voluntary choice
may he long live to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily increasing,
and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of this country which is opening from
year to year. His name may be still a rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark,
against all open or secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been
recommended to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of Congress and by the voice
of the legislatures and the people throughout the nation. |
| On this subject it might become me better to be
silent or to speak with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I
hope, will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference, upon
principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and serious reflection, after
a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if an attachment to the Constitution of the
United States, and a conscientious determination to support it until it shall be altered
by the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a
respectful attention to the constitutions of the individual States and a constant caution
and delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal and impartial regard to the rights,
interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union, without preference or
regard to a northern or southern, an eastern or western, position, their various political
opinions on unessential points or their personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men of
all parties and denominations; if a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize
every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every
institution for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the
people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all its stages and
classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our
Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the
spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence,
which is the angel of destruction to elective governments; if a love of equal laws, of
justice, and humanity in the interior administration; if an inclination to improve
agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and defense; if a
spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition
to meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens
to be more friendly to them; if an inflexible determination to maintain peace and
inviolable faith with all nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality among
the belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so solemnly
sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the legislatures of the States and
the public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem
for the French nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a
sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for the honor and
interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor and integrity of the people of
America and the internal sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved, an
earnest endeavor to investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of
complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a reparation for the injuries
that have been committed on the commerce of our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if
success can not be obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may
consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government and its
constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as may depend upon me, at all
times and to all nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the
world; if an unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American
people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if elevated
ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a
knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply
engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age;
and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the
religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to
consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public
service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous
endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect. |
| With this great example before me, with the
sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people
pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt of its
continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without hesitation to lay myself
under the most solemn obligations to support it to the utmost of my power. |
| And may that Being who is supreme over all, the
Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of
virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it
all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence. |
Back
to John Adams
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
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back in Time
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
last updated
02/19/07
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