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Welcome to U.S. history!
Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address
| Friends and Fellow-Citizens: CALLED upon to undertake
the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of
that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks
for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere
consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious
and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so
justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the
seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who
feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal
eye—when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness,
and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue, and the auspices of this
day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here
see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find
resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To
you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to
those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which
may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the
conflicting elements of a troubled world. |
| During the contest of opinion through which we
have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect
which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they
think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the
rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the
law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this
sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that
will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights,
which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then,
fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse
that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary
things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance
under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance
a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody
persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing
spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it
was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and
peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and
should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a
difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle.
We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to
dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left
free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government
can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest
patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far
kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the
world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I
believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only
one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and
would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said
that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with
the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let
history answer this question. |
| Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue
our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of
one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others;
possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and
thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own
faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our
fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them;
enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet
all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;
acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves
that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness
hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a
prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal
Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise
free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from
the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this
is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. |
| About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise
of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should
understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those
which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass
they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and
exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace,
commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the
support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent
administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican
tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor,
as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of
election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the
sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the
decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but
to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined
militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may
relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the
public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and
sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as
its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the
public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the
protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These
principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps
through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our
heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political
faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those
we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to
retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety. |
| I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you
have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the
difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall
to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor
which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our
first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to
the first place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume
of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the
legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment.
When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a
view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be
intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they
would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great
consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good
opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing
them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all. |
| Relying, then, on the patronage of your good
will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become
sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power
which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them
a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. |
Back
to Thomas Jefferson
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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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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