University of Virginia Library

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Unwilling to depart from examples of the most revered
authority, I avail myself of the occasion now presented to
express the profound impression made on me by the call of
my country to the station to the duties of which I am about
to pledge myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So distinguished
a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate
and tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation,
would under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude
and devotion, as well as filled me with an awful sense
of the trust to be assumed. Under the various circumstances
which give peculiar solemnity to the existing period,
I feel that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to
me are inexpressibly enhanced.

The present situation of the world is indeed without a
parallel, and that of our own country full of difficulties. The
pressure of these, too, is the more severely felt because they
have fallen upon us at a moment when the national prosperity
being at a height not before attained, the contrast
resulting from the change has been rendered the more striking.
Under the benign influence of our republican institutions,
and the maintenance of peace with all nations whilst so many
of them were engaged in bloody and wasteful wars, the fruits
of a just policy were enjoyed in an unrivaled growth of our
faculties and resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improvements
of agriculture, in the successful enterprises of
commerce, in the progress of manufactures and useful arts,
in the increase of the public revenue and the use made of it
in reducing the public debt, and in the valuable works and
establishments everywhere multiplying over the face of our
land.

It is a precious reflection that the transition from this
prosperous condition of our country to the scene which has
for some time been distressing us is not chargeable on any
unwarrantable views, nor, as I trust, on any involuntary
errors in the public councils. Indulging no passions which
trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it has
been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace
by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect
of the nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations
with the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor
in the world, the truth of these assertions will not be questioned;
posterity at least will do justice to them.

This unexceptionable course could not avail against the
injustice and violence of the belligerent powers. In their
rage against each other, or impelled by more direct motives,
principles of retaliation have been introduced equally contrary
to universal reason and acknowledged law. How long
their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite of the demonstrations
that not even a pretext for them has been given by
the United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to induce
a revocation of them, can not be anticipated. Assuring
myself that under every vicissitude the determined spirit and
united councils of the nation will be safeguards to its honor
and its essential interests, I repair to the post assigned me
with no other discouragement than what springs from my
own inadequacy to its high duties. If I do not sink under
the weight of this deep conviction it is because I find some
support in a consciousness of the purposes and a confidence in
the principles which I bring with me into this arduous service.

To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations
having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality
toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases
amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of differences
to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to exclude
foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so degrading to all
countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of

independence too just to invade the rights of others, too
proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy
prejudices ourselves and too elevated not to look down upon
them in others; to hold the union of the States as the basis
of their peace and happiness; to support the Constitution,
which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations
as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities
reserved to the States and to the people as equally incorporated
with and essential to the success of the general system; to
avoid the slightest interference with the rights of conscience
or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil
jurisdiction; to preserve in their full energy the other salutary
provisions in behalf of private and personal rights, and of
the freedom of the press; to observe economy in public expenditures;
to liberate the public resources by an honorable
discharge of the public debts; to keep within the requisite
limits a standing military force, always remembering that
an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics
—that without standing armies their liberty can
never be in danger, nor with large ones safe; to promote by
authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture,
to manufactures, and to external as well as internal commerce;
to favor in like manner the advancement of science
and the diffusion of information as the best aliment to true
liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which have been
so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal
neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of savage
life to a participation of the improvements of which the human
mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state;—
as far as sentiments and intentions such as these can aid the
fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which can not
fail me.

It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which
I am to tread lighted by examples of illustrious services
successfully rendered in the most trying difficulties by those
who have marched before me. Of those of my immediate

predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I may,
however, be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy
with which my heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the
benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully bestowed for
exalted talents zealously devoted through a long career to
the advancement of its highest interest and happiness.

But the source to which I look for the aids which alone can
supply my deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and
virtue of my fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those
representing them in the other departments associated in the
care of the national interests. In these my confidence will
under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we
have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and
guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the
destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously
dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we
are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as
well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for the future.

March 4, 1809.