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Benjamin Harrison's Inaugural Address:
| Fellow-Citizens: THERE is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall
take the oath of office in the presence of the people, but there is so manifest an
appropriateness in the public induction to office of the chief executive officer of the
nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official
oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The oath
taken in the presence of the people becomes a mutual covenant. The officer covenants to
serve the whole body of the people by a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may
be the unfailing defense and security of those who respect and observe them, and that
neither wealth, station, nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just
penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty
or selfishness. |
| My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the
less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I
do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the
people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution
and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every
other citizen his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus solemnly into covenant
with each other, we may reverently invoke and confidently expect the favor and help of
Almighty God—that He will give to me wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our
people a spirit of fraternity and a love of righteousness and peace. |
| This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact
that the Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under our
Constitution. The first inauguration of President Washington took place in New York, where
Congress was then sitting, on the 30th day of April, 1789, having been deferred by reason
of delays attending the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral
vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration of
Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the Constitution, and will
shortly celebrate in New York the institution of the second great department of our
constitutional scheme of government. When the centennial of the institution of the
judicial department, by the organization of the Supreme Court, shall have been suitably
observed, as I trust it will be, our nation will have fully entered its second century. |
| I will not attempt to note the marvelous and in great
part happy contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold into its second
century of organized existence under the Constitution and that weak but wisely ordered
young nation that looked undauntedly down the first century, when all its years stretched
out before it. |
| Our people will not fail at this time to recall the
incidents which accompanied the institution of government under the Constitution, or to
find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of Washington and his great
associates, and hope and courage in the contrast which thirty-eight populous and
prosperous States offer to the thirteen States, weak in everything except courage and the
love of liberty, that then fringed our Atlantic seaboard. |
| The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater
than any of the original States (except Virginia) and greater than the aggregate of five
of the smaller States in 1790. The center of population when our national capital was
located was east of Baltimore, and it was argued by many well-informed persons that it
would move eastward rather than westward; yet in 1880 it was found to be near Cincinnati,
and the new census about to be taken will show another stride to the westward. That which
was the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the nation's robe. But our growth has
not been limited to territory, population and aggregate wealth, marvelous as it has been
in each of those directions. The masses of our people are better fed, clothed, and housed
than their fathers were. The facilities for popular education have been vastly enlarged
and more generally diffused. |
| The virtues of courage and patriotism have given
recent proof of their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and over the
lives of our people. The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The
sweet offices of charity have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in
higher estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not all of our people are
happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding. But on the whole the
opportunities offered to the individual to secure the comforts of life are better than are
found elsewhere and largely better than they were here one hundred years ago. |
| The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to
the General Government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not accomplished
until the suggestions of reason were strongly reenforced by the more imperative voice of
experience. The divergent interests of peace speedily demanded a "more perfect
union." The merchant, the shipmaster, and the manufacturer discovered and disclosed
to our statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must be added to the
political freedom which had been so bravely won. The commercial policy of the mother
country had not relaxed any of its hard and oppressive features. To hold in check the
development of our commercial marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth of
manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market for their shops and the
carrying trade for their ships, was the policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with
the most selfish vigor. |
| Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the
imposition of discriminating duties that should encourage the production of needed things
at home. The patriotism of the people, which no longer found afield of exercise in war,
was energetically directed to the duty of equipping the young Republic for the defense of
its independence by making its people self-dependent. Societies for the promotion of home
manufactures and for encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of the people were
organized in many of the States. The revival at the end of the century of the same
patriotic interest in the preservation and development of domestic industries and the
defense of our working people against injurious foreign competition is an incident worthy
of attention. It is not a departure but a return that we have witnessed. The protective
policy had then its opponents. The argument was made, as now, that its benefits inured to
particular classes or sections. |
| If the question became in any sense or at any time
sectional, it was only because slavery existed in some of the States. But for this there
was no reason why the cotton-producing States should not have led or walked abreast with
the New England States in the production of cotton fabrics. There was this reason only why
the States that divide with Pennsylvania the mineral treasures of the great southeastern
and central mountain ranges should have been so tardy in bringing to the smelting furnace
and to the mill the coal and iron from their near opposing hillsides. Mill fires were
lighted at the funeral pile of slavery. The emancipation proclamation was heard in the
depths of the earth as well as in the sky; men were made free, and material things became
our better servants. |
| The sectional element has happily been eliminated
from the tariff discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily only planting
States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among the people
which brings wealth and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when
the product is spun in the country town by operatives whose necessities call for
diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural products. Every new
mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the State more
real and valuable than added territory. |
| Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery
continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery
no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I
look hopefully to the continuance of our protective system and to the consequent
development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to
agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who
have invested their capital in these enterprises, the farmers who have felt the benefit of
their neighborhood, and the men who work in shop or field will not fail to find and to
defend a community of interest. |
| Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the
promoters of the great mining and manufacturing enterprises which have recently been
established in the South may yet find that the free ballot of the workingman, without
distinction of race, is needed for their defense as well as for his own? I do not doubt
that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the
constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real
convictions they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and cooperation, to
make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in establishing correct
principles in our national administration, but in preserving for their local communities
the benefits of social order and economical and honest government. At least until the good
offices of kindness and education have been fairly tried the contrary conclusion can not
be plausibly urged. |
| I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a
special Executive policy for any section of our country. It is the duty of the Executive
to administer and enforce in the methods and by the instrumentalities pointed out and
provided by the Constitution all the laws enacted by Congress. These laws are general and
their administration should be uniform and equal. As a citizen may not elect what laws he
will obey, neither may the Executive eject which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to
execute embraces the Constitution in its entirety and the whole code of laws enacted under
it. The evil example of permitting individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify
the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of
danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious
expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others.
They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those
who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others. |
| If our great corporations would more scrupulously
observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the
unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations. The
community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a portion of its
members their plain rights under the law has severed the only safe bond of social order
and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who
practice it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law
as a safe protector. The man in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the
subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by
no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well stop and inquire what
is to be the end of this. |
| An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent
condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community either
practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their
convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class
interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the ignorant
classes? A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute
its penalties is the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor. |
| Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to
make the inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons applying for
citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in their
administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a
citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship
without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so
great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every
person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him of our institutions. We should
not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the
character of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a
burden upon our public revenues or a threat to social order. These should be identified
and excluded. |
| We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all
interference with European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their
contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote peace,
but never obtruding our advice and never attempting unfairly to coin the distresses of
other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect that
our European policy will be the American policy of European courts. |
| It is so manifestly incompatible with those
precautions for our peace and safety which all the great powers habitually observe and
enforce in matters affecting them that a shorter waterway between our eastern and western
seaboards should be dominated by any European Government that we may confidently expect
that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power. |
| We shall in the future, as in the past, use every
endeavor to maintain and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great powers, but
they will not expect us to look kindly upon any project that would leave us subject to the
dangers of a hostile observation or environment. We have not sought to dominate or to
absorb any of our weaker neighbors, but rather to aid and encourage them to establish free
and stable governments resting upon the consent of their own people. We have a clear right
to expect, therefore, that no European Government will seek to establish colonial
dependencies upon the territory of these independent American States. That which a sense
of justice restrains us from seeking they may be reasonably expected willingly to forego. |
| It must not be assumed, however, that our interests
are so exclusively American that our entire inattention to any events that may transpire
elsewhere can be taken for granted. Our citizens domiciled for purposes of trade in all
countries and in many of the islands of the sea demand and will have our adequate care in
their personal and commercial rights. The necessities of our Navy require convenient
coaling stations and dock and harbor privileges. These and other trading privileges we
will feel free to obtain only by means that do not in any degree partake of coercion,
however feeble the government from which we ask such concessions. But having fairly
obtained them by methods and for purposes entirely consistent with the most friendly
disposition toward all other powers, our consent will be necessary to any modification or
impairment of the concession. |
| We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any
friendly nation or the just rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like treatment for
our own. Calmness, justice, and consideration should characterize our diplomacy. The
offices of an intelligent diplomacy or of friendly arbitration in proper cases should be
adequate to the peaceful adjustment of all international difficulties. By such methods we
will make our contribution to the world's peace, which no nation values more highly, and
avoid the opprobrium which must fall upon the nation that ruthlessly breaks it. |
| The duty devolved by law upon the President to
nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public
officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or by act of
Congress has become very burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of
difficulty. The civil list is so large that a personal knowledge of any large number of
the applicants is impossible. The President must rely upon the representations of others,
and these are often made inconsiderately and without any just sense of responsibility. I
have a right, I think, to insist that those who volunteer or are invited to give advice as
to appointments shall exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty and an
ambition to improve the service should characterize all public officers. |
| There are many ways in which the convenience and
comfort of those who have business with our public offices may be promoted by a thoughtful
and obliging officer, and I shall expect those whom I may appoint to justify their
selection by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party
service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification for public office, but it
will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield of official negligence, incompetency, or
delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper methods and with
proper motives, and all applicants will be treated with consideration; but I shall need,
and the heads of Departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent
importunity will not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads
of Departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty connected therewith
will be expected to enforce the civil-service law fully and without evasion. Beyond this
obvious duty I hope to do something more to advance the reform of the civil service. The
ideal, or even my own ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis
of judgment than promises. We shall not, however, I am sure, be able to put our civil
service upon a nonpartisan basis until we have secured an incumbency that fair-minded men
of the opposition will approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in
the civil list is increased removals from office will diminish. |
| While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it
is a serious evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary annual demands upon
our Treasury, with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary but scarcely less
imperative demands which arise now and then. Expenditure should always be made with
economy and only upon public necessity. Wastefulness, profligacy, or favoritism in public
expenditures is criminal. But there is nothing in the condition of our country or of our
people to suggest that anything presently necessary to the public prosperity, security, or
honor should be unduly postponed. |
| It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast
and estimate these extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our ordinary
expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable annual surplus will
remain. We will fortunately be able to apply to the redemption of the public debt any
small and unforeseen excess of revenue. This is better than to reduce our income below our
necessary expenditures, with the resulting choice between another change of our revenue
laws and an increase of the public debt. It is quite possible, I am sure, to effect the
necessary reduction in our revenues without breaking down our protective tariff or
seriously injuring any domestic industry. |
| The construction of a sufficient number of modern war
ships and of their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent with
care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval
officers and seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient
guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon
occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to
the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should encourage the establishment of
American steamship lines. The exchanges of commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid
means of communication, and until these are provided the development of our trade with the
States lying south of us is impossible. |
| Our pension laws should give more adequate and
discriminating relief to the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans.
Such occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to their valor and
sacrifice. |
| It is a subject of congratulation that there is a
near prospect of the admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and Washington
Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably delayed in the case of some of
them. The people who have settled these Territories are intelligent, enterprising, and
patriotic, and the accession these new States will add strength to the nation. It is due
to the settlers in the Territories who have availed themselves of the invitations of our
land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their titles should be speedily
adjusted and their honest entries confirmed by patent. |
| It is very gratifying to observe the general interest
now being manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have been for years
calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing about the ballot box and about the
elector further safeguards, in order that our elections might not only be free and pure,
but might clearly appear to be so, will welcome the accession of any who did not so soon
discover the need of reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken control of
elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but has accepted
and adopted the election laws of the several States, provided penalties for their
violation and a method of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the State laws or an
unfair partisan administration of them could suggest a departure from this policy. |
| It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the
framers of the Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was wisely
made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our national life, and no power
vested in Congress or in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain unused
upon occasion. The people of all the Congressional districts have an equal interest that
the election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority of the
qualified electors residing within it. The results of such elections are not local, and
the insistence of electors residing in other districts that they shall be pure and free
does not savor at all of impertinence. |
| If in any of the States the public security is
thought to be threatened by ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy is education.
The sympathy and help of our people will not be withheld from any community struggling
with special embarrassments or difficulties connected with the suffrage if the remedies
proposed proceed upon lawful lines and are promoted by just and honorable methods. How
shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the
ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has
come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance. |
| Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party
contentions. Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better
proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and
justice. A party success that is achieved by unfair methods or by practices that partake
of revolution is hurtful and evanescent even from a party standpoint. We should hold our
differing opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the
ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the same respect that we would have
demanded of our opponents if the decision had been in our favor. |
| No other people have a government more worthy of
their respect and love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and
so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed upon our head a
diadem and has laid at our feet power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we
must not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition that justice and mercy shall
hold the reins of power and that the upward avenues of hope shall be free to all the
people. |
| I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in
frequent ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all. Passion has
swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new demonstration that the great body
of our people are stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. No political party can long pursue
advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and indecent methods without protest
and fatal disaffection in its own body. The peaceful agencies of commerce are more fully
revealing the necessary unity of all our communities, and the increasing intercourse of
our people is promoting mutual respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation
which our next census will make of the swift development of the great resources of some of
the States. Each State will bring its generous contribution to the great aggregate of the
nation's increase. And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle from the hills, and
the ores of the earth shall have been weighed, counted, and valued, we will turn from them
all to crown with the highest honor the State that has most promoted education, virtue,
justice, and patriotism among its people. |
Back
to Benjamin Harrison
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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