textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/JEFFERSON/tj_inaug.txt

                    Jefferson's First Inaugural Address
                                March 4, 1801

 

        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 burdened; 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 learned 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.