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William Henry Harrison

Inaugural Address

Thursday, March 4, 1841

  President Harrison has the dual distinction among all thePresidents of giving the longest inaugural speech and of serving the shortestterm of office. Known to the public as "Old Tippecanoe," the formergeneral of the Indian campaigns delivered an hour-and-forty-five-minutespeech in a snowstorm. The oath of office was administered on the East Porticoof the Capitol by Chief Justice Roger Taney. The 68-year-old President stoodoutside for the entire proceeding, greeted crowds of well-wishers at theWhite House later that day, and attended several celebrations that evening.One month later he died of pneumonia.

CALLED from a retirement which I had supposedwas to continue for the residue of my life to fill the chief executive officeof this great and free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, totake the oaths which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary qualificationfor the performance of its duties; and in obedience to a custom coeval withour Government and what I believe to be your expectations I proceed to presentto you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the dischargeof the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.	1
It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of thatcelebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in theconduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtainingthem, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promisesmade in the former. However much the world may have improved in many respectsin the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made bythe virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of theannals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similarinstances of violated confidence.	2
Although the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming methe Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remainingto be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the delusionunder which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to my principlesand opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have comehere either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or, approvingthem, to doubt the sincerity with which they are now uttered. But the lapseof a few months will confirm or dispel their fears. The outline of principlesto govern and measures to be adopted by an Administration not yet begunwill soon be exchanged for immutable history, and I shall stand either exoneratedby my countrymen or classed with the mass of those who promised that theymight deceive and flattered with the intention to betray. However strongmay be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous andconfiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to whichI shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been thepleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidenceupon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me andenabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatlyinferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country.	3
The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests beingthe people—a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake,change, or modify it—it can be assigned to none of the great divisionsof government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those whoare called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principlethe duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good tothe greatest number. But with these broad admissions, if we would comparethe sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with thepower claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been consideredmost purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference. All otherslay claim to power limited only by their own will. The majority of our citizens,on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power preciselyequal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the nationalcompact, and nothing beyond. We admit of no government by divine right,believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has madeno distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that theonly legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.The Constitution of the United States is the instrument containing thisgrant of power to the several departments composing the Government. On anexamination of that instrument it will be found to contain declarationsof power granted and of power withheld. The latter is also susceptible ofdivision into power which the majority had the right to grant, but whichthey do not think proper to intrust to their agents, and that which theycould not have granted, not being possessed by themselves. In other words,there are certain rights possessed by each individual American citizen whichin his compact with the others he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed,he is unable to surrender, being, in the language of our system, unalienable.The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield only againsta petty provincial ruler, whilst the proud democrat of Athens would consolehimself under a sentence of death for a supposed violation of the nationalfaith—which no one understood and which at times was the subject ofthe mockery of all—or the banishment from his home, his family, andhis country with or without an alleged cause, that it was the act not ofa single tyrant or hated aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen. Fardifferent is the power of our sovereignty. It can interfere with no one'sfaith, prescribe forms of worship for no one's observance, inflict no punishmentbut after well-ascertained guilt, the result of investigation under rulesprescribed by the Constitution itself. These precious privileges, and thosescarcely less important of giving expression to his thoughts and opinions,either by writing or speaking, unrestrained but by the liability for injuryto others, and that of a full participation in all the advantages whichflow from the Government, the acknowledged property of all, the Americancitizen derives from no charter granted by his fellow-man. He claims thembecause he is himself a man, fashioned by the same Almighty hand as therest of his species and entitled to a full share of the blessings with whichHe has endowed them. Notwithstanding the limited sovereignty possessed bythe people of the United States and the restricted grant of power to theGovernment which they have adopted, enough has been given to accomplishall the objects for which it was created. It has been found powerful inwar, and hitherto justice has been administered, and intimate union effected,domestic tranquillity preserved, and personal liberty secured to the citizen.As was to be expected, however, from the defect of language and the necessarilysententious manner in which the Constitution is written, disputes have arisenas to the amount of power which it has actually granted or was intendedto grant.	4
This is more particularly the case in relation to that partof the instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and not only asregards the exercise of powers claimed under a general clause giving thatbody the authority to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the specifiedpowers, but in relation to the latter also. It is, however, consolatoryto reflect that most of the instances of alleged departure from theletter or spirit of the Constitution have ultimately received the sanctionof a majority of the people. And the fact that many of our statesmen mostdistinguished for talent and patriotism have been at one time or other oftheir political career on both sides of each of the most warmly disputedquestions forces upon us the inference that the errors, if errors therewere, are attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances ofascertaining the intentions of the framers of the Constitution rather thanthe influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive. But the great dangerto our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the Governmentof power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation in one of thedepartments of that which was assigned to others. Limited as are the powerswhich have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute adespotism if concentrated in one of the departments. This danger is greatlyheightened, as it has been always observable that men are less jealous ofencroachments of one department upon another than upon their own reservedrights. When the Constitution of the United States first came from the handsof the Convention which formed it, many of the sternest republicans of theday were alarmed at the extent of the power which had been granted to theFederal Government, and more particularly of that portion which had beenassigned to the executive branch. There were in it features which appearednot to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative democracyor republic, and knowing the tendency of power to increase itself, particularlywhen exercised by a single individual, predictions were made that at novery remote period the Government would terminate in virtual monarchy. Itwould not become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been alreadyrealized; but as I sincerely believe that the tendency of measures and ofmen's opinions for some years past has been in that direction, it is, Iconceive, strictly proper that I should take this occasion to repeat theassurances I have heretofore given of my determination to arrest the progressof that tendency if it really exists and restore the Government to its pristinehealth and vigor, as far as this can be effected by any legitimate exerciseof the power placed in my hands.	5
I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinionof the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained ofand the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are unquestionablyto be found in the defects of the Constitution; others, in my judgment,are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions. Of theformer is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of thePresidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and lamented thiserror, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply theamendatory power of the States to its correction. As, however, one modeof correction is in the power of every President, and consequently in mine,it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which,in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages whoframed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits whichwe are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system.It may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can commitno greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their systemsof government which may be calculated to create or increase the lover ofpower in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit themanagement of their affairs; and surely nothing is more likely to producesuch a state of mind than the long continuance of an office of high trust.Nothing can be more corrupting, nothing more destructive of all those noblefeelings which belong to the character of a devoted republican patriot.When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, likethe love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in hisbosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years ofits victim. If this is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic tolimit the service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted themanagement of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and thecommand of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent hisforgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant,not the master. Until an amendment of the Constitution can be effected publicopinion may secure the desired object. I give my aid to it by renewing thepledge heretofore given that under no circumstances will I consent to servea second term.	6
But if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledgeddefects of the Constitution in the want of limit to the continuance of theExecutive power in the same hands, there is, I apprehend, not much lessfrom a misconstruction of that instrument as it regards the powers actuallygiven. I can not conceive that by a fair construction any or either of itsprovisions would be found to constitute the President a part of the legislativepower. It can not be claimed from the power to recommend, since, althoughenjoined as a duty upon him, it is a privilege which he holds in commonwith every other citizen; and although there may be something more of confidencein the propriety of the measures recommended in the one case than in theother, in the obligations of ultimate decision there can be no difference.In the language of the Constitution, "all the legislative powers"which it grants "are vested in the Congress of the United States."It would be a solecism in language to say that any portion of these is notincluded in the whole.	7
It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to theExecutive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by refusingto them his assent. So a similar power has necessarily resulted from thatinstrument to the judiciary, and yet the judiciary forms no part of theLegislature. There is, it is true, this difference between these grantsof power: The Executive can put his negative upon the acts of the Legislaturefor other cause than that of want of conformity to the Constitution, whilstthe judiciary can only declare void those which violate that instrument.But the decision of the judiciary is final in such a case, whereas in everyinstance where the veto of the Executive is applied it may be overcome bya vote of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress. The negative upon the actsof the legislative by the executive authority, and that in the hands ofone individual, would seem to be an incongruity in our system. Like someothers of a similar character, however, it appears to be highly expedient,and if used only with the forbearance and in the spirit which was intendedby its authors it may be productive of great good and be found one of thebest safeguards to the Union. At the period of the formation of the Constitutionthe principle does not appear to have enjoyed much favor in the State governments.It existed but in two, and in one of these there was a plural executive.If we would search for the motives which operated upon the purely patrioticand enlightened assembly which framed the Constitution for the adoptionof a provision so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic principlethat the majority should govern, we must reject the idea that they anticipatedfrom it any benefit to the ordinary course of legislation. They knew toowell the high degree of intelligence which existed among the people andthe enlightened character of the State legislatures not to have the fullestconfidence that the two bodies elected by them would be worthy representativesof such constituents, and, of course, that they would require no aid inconceiving and maturing the measures which the circumstances of the countrymight require. And it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could fora moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the capital,in the center of the country, could better understand the wants and wishesof the people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a partof every year among them, living with them, often laboring with them, andbound to them by the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection. To assistor control Congress, then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I conceive,have been the motive for conferring the veto power on the President. Thisargument acquires additional force from the fact of its never having beenthus used by the first six Presidents—and two of them were membersof the Convention, one presiding over its deliberations and the other bearinga larger share in consummating the labors of that august body than any otherperson. But if bills were never returned to Congress by either of the Presidentsabove referred to upon the ground of their being inexpedient or not as welladapted as they might be to the wants of the people, the veto was appliedupon that of want of conformity to the Constitution or because errors hadbeen committed from a too hasty enactment.	8
There is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle,which had probably more influence in recommending it to the Convention thanany other. I refer to the security which it gives to the just and equitableaction of the Legislature upon all parts of the Union. It could not buthave occurred to the Convention that in a country so extensive, embracingso great a variety of soil and climate, and consequently of products, andwhich from the same causes must ever exhibit a great difference in the amountof the population of its various sections, calling for a great diversityin the employments of the people, that the legislation of the majority mightnot always justly regard the rights and interests of the minority, and thatacts of this character might be passed under an express grant by the wordsof the Constitution, and therefore not within the competency of the judiciaryto declare void; that however enlightened and patriotic they might supposefrom past experience the members of Congress might be, and however largelypartaking, in the general, of the liberal feelings of the people, it wasimpossible to expect that bodies so constituted should not sometimes becontrolled by local interests and sectional feelings. It was proper, therefore,to provide some umpire from whose situation and mode of appointment moreindependence and freedom from such influences might be expected. Such aone was afforded by the executive department constituted by the Constitution.A person elected to that high office, having his constituents in every section,State, and subdivision of the Union, must consider himself bound by themost solemn sanctions to guard, protect, and defend the rights of all andof every portion, great or small, from the injustice and oppression of therest. I consider the veto power, therefore, given by the Constitution tothe Executive of the United States solely as a conservative power, to beused only first, to protect the Constitution from violation; secondly, thepeople from the effects of hasty legislation where their will has been probablydisregarded or not well understood, and, thirdly, to prevent the effectsof combinations violative of the rights of minorities. In reference to thesecond of these objects I may observe that I consider it the right and privilegeof the people to decide disputed points of the Constitution arising fromthe general grant of power to Congress to carry into effect the powers expresslygiven; and I believe with Mr. Madison that "repeated recognitions undervaried circumstances in acts of the legislative, executive, and judicialbranches of the Government, accompanied by indications in different modesof the concurrence of the general will of the nation," as affordingto the President sufficient authority for his considering such disputedpoints as settled.	9
Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of thepresent form of government. It would be an object more highly desirablethan the gratification of the curiosity of speculative statesmen if itsprecise situation could be ascertained, a fair exhibit made of the operationsof each of its departments, of the powers which they respectively claimand exercise, of the collisions which have occurred between them or betweenthe whole Government and those of the States or either of them. We couldthen compare our actual condition after fifty years' trial of our systemwith what it was in the commencement of its operations and ascertain whetherthe predictions of the patriots who opposed its adoption or the confidenthopes of its advocates have been best realized. The great dread of the formerseems to have been that the reserved powers of the States would be absorbedby those of the Federal Government and a consolidated power established,leaving to the States the shadow only of that independent action for whichthey had so zealously contended and on the preservation of which they reliedas the last hope of liberty. Without denying that the result to which theylooked with so much apprehension is in the way of being realized, it isobvious that they did not clearly see the mode of its accomplishment. TheGeneral Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of the States.As far as any open warfare may have gone, the State authorities have amplymaintained their rights. To a casual observer our system presents no appearanceof discord between the different members which compose it. Even the additionof many new ones has produced no jarring. They move in their respectiveorbits in perfect harmony with the central head and with each other. Butthere is still an undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked,the worst apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be realized, andnot only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great increaseof power in the executive department of the General Government, but thecharacter of that Government, if not its designation, be essentially andradically changed. This state of things has been in part effected by causesinherent in the Constitution and in part by the never-failing tendency ofpolitical power to increase itself. By making the President the sole distributerof all the patronage of the Government the framers of the Constitution donot appear to have anticipated at how short a period it would become a formidableinstrument to control the free operations of the State governments. Of triflingimportance at first, it had early in Mr. Jefferson's Administration becomeso powerful as to create great alarm in the mind of that patriot from thepotent influence it might exert in controlling the freedom of the electivefranchise. If such could have then been the effects of its influence, howmuch greater must be the danger at this time, quadrupled in amount as itcertainly is and more completely under the control of the Executive willthan their construction of their powers allowed or the forbearing charactersof all the early Presidents permitted them to make. But it is not by theextent of its patronage alone that the executive department has become dangerous,but by the use which it appears may be made of the appointing power to bringunder its control the whole revenues of the country. The Constitution hasdeclared it to be the duty of the President to see that the laws are executed,and it makes him the Commander in Chief of the Armies and Navy of the UnitedStates. If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that species ofmixed government which in modern Europe is termed monarchy in contradistinctionto despotism is correct, there was wanting no other addition to thepowers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical character on our Governmentbut the control of the public finances; and to me it appears strange indeedthat anyone should doubt that the entire control which the President possessesover the officers who have the custody of the public money, by the powerof removal with or without cause, does, for all mischievous purposes atleast, virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first RomanEmperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the oppositionof the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusionto his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the care of thepublic money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quiteas effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight. I am notinsensible of the great difficulty that exists in drawing a proper planfor the safe-keeping and disbursement of the public revenues, and I knowthe importance which has been attached by men of great abilities and patriotismto the divorce, as it is called, of the Treasury from the banking institutions.It is not the divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union ofthe Treasury with the executive department, which has created such extensivealarm. To this danger to our republican institutions and that created bythe influence given to the Executive through the instrumentality of theFederal officers I propose to apply all the remedies which may be at mycommand. It was certainly a great error in the framers of the Constitutionnot to have made the officer at the head of the Treasury Department entirelyindependent of the Executive. He should at least have been removable onlyupon the demand of the popular branch of the Legislature. I have determinednever to remove a Secretary of the Treasury without communicating all thecircumstances attending such removal to both Houses of Congress.	10
The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom ofthe elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can beeffectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by Mr. Jeffersonforbidding their interference in elections further than giving their ownvotes, and their own independence secured by an assurance of perfect immunityin exercising this sacred privilege of freemen under the dictates of theirown unbiased judgments. Never with my consent shall an officer of the people,compensated for his services out of their pockets, become the pliant instrumentof Executive will.	11
There is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executivewhich might be used with greater effect for unhallowed purposes than thecontrol of the public press. The maxim which our ancestors derived fromthe mother country that "the freedom of the press is the great bulwarkof civil and religious liberty" is one of the most precious legacieswhich they have left us. We have learned, too, from our own as well as theexperience of other countries, that golden shackles, by whomsoever or bywhatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it as the iron bonds of despotism.The presses in the necessary employment of the Government should never beused "to clear the guilty or to varnish crime." A decent and manlyexamination of the acts of the Government should be not only tolerated,but encouraged.	12
Upon another occasion I have given my opinion at some lengthupon the impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation of Congress—thatthe article in the Constitution making it the duty of the President to communicateinformation and authorizing him to recommend measures was not intended tomake him the source in legislation, and, in particular, that he should neverbe looked to for schemes of finance. It would be very strange, indeed, thatthe Constitution should have strictly forbidden one branch of the Legislaturefrom interfering in the origination of such bills and that it should beconsidered proper that an altogether different department of the Governmentshould be permitted to do so. Some of our best political maxims and opinionshave been drawn from our parent isle. There are others, however, which cannot be introduced in our system without singular incongruity and the productionof much mischief, and this I conceive to be one. No matter in which of thehouses of Parliament a bill may originate nor by whom introduced—aminister or a member of the opposition—by the fiction of law, or ratherof constitutional principle, the sovereign is supposed to have preparedit agreeably to his will and then submitted it to Parliament for their adviceand consent. Now the very reverse is the case here, not only with regardto the principle, but the forms prescribed by the Constitution. The principlecertainly assigns to the only body constituted by the Constitution (thelegislative body) the power to make laws, and the forms even direct thatthe enactment should be ascribed to them. The Senate, in relation to revenuebills, have the right to propose amendments, and so has the Executive bythe power given him to return them to the House of Representatives withhis objections. It is in his power also to propose amendments in the existingrevenue laws, suggested by his observations upon their defective or injuriousoperation. But the delicate duty of devising schemes of revenue should beleft where the Constitution has placed it—with the immediate representativesof the people. For similar reasons the mode of keeping the public treasureshould be prescribed by them, and the further removed it may be from thecontrol of the Executive the more wholesome the arrangement and the morein accordance with republican principle.	13
Connected with this subject is the character of the currency.The idea of making it exclusively metallic, however well intended, appearsto me to be fraught with more fatal consequences than any other scheme havingno relation to the personal rights of the citizens that has ever been devised.If any single scheme could produce the effect of arresting at once thatmutation of condition by which thousands of our most indigent fellow-citizensby their industry and enterprise are raised to the possession of wealth,that is the one. If there is one measure better calculated than anotherto produce that state of things so much deprecated by all true republicans,by which the rich are daily adding to their hoards and the poor sinkingdeeper into penury, it is an exclusive metallic currency. Or if there isa process by which the character of the country for generosity and noblenessof feeling may be destroyed by the great increase and neck toleration ofusury, it is an exclusive metallic currency.	14
Amongst the other duties of a delicate character which the Presidentis called upon to perform is the supervision of the government of the Territoriesof the United States. Those of them which are destined to become membersof our great political family are compensated by their rapid progress frominfancy to manhood for the partial and temporary deprivation of their politicalrights. It is in this District only where American citizens are to be foundwho under a settled policy are deprived of many important political privilegeswithout any inspiring hope as to the future. Their only consolation undercircumstances of such deprivation is that of the devoted exterior guardsof a camp—that their sufferings secure tranquillity and safety within.Are there any of their countrymen, who would subject them to greater sacrifices,to any other humiliations than those essentially necessary to the securityof the object for which they were thus separated from their fellow-citizens?Are their rights alone not to be guaranteed by the application of thosegreat principles upon which all our constitutions are founded? We are toldby the greatest of British orators and statesmen that at the commencementof the War of the Revolution the most stupid men in England spoke of "theirAmerican subjects." Are there, indeed, citizens of any of our Stateswho have dreamed of their subjects in the District of Columbia? Suchdreams can never be realized by any agency of mine. The people of the Districtof Columbia are not the subjects of the people of the States, but free Americancitizens. Being in the latter condition when the Constitution was formed,no words used in that instrument could have been intended to deprive themof that character. If there is anything in the great principle of unalienablerights so emphatically insisted upon in our Declaration of Independence,they could neither make nor the United States accept a surrender of theirliberties and become the subjects—in other words, the slaves—oftheir former fellow-citizens. If this be true—and it will scarcelybe denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his own rights as an Americancitizen—the grant to Congress of exclusive jurisdiction in the Districtof Columbia can be interpreted, so far as respects the aggregate peopleof the United States, as meaning nothing more than to allow to Congressthe controlling power necessary to afford a free and safe exercise of thefunctions assigned to the General Government by the Constitution. In allother respects the legislation of Congress should be adapted to their peculiarposition and wants and be conformable with their deliberate opinions oftheir own interests.	15
I have spoken of the necessity of keeping the respective departmentsof the Government, as well as all the other authorities of our country,within their appropriate orbits. This is a matter of difficulty in somecases, as the powers which they respectively claim are often not definedby any distinct lines. Mischievous, however, in their tendencies as collisionsof this kind may be, those which arise between the respective communitieswhich for certain purposes compose one nation are much more so, for no suchnation can long exist without the careful culture of those feelings of confidenceand affection which are the effective bonds to union between free and confederatedstates. Strong as is the tie of interest, it has been often found ineffectual.Men blinded by their passions have been known to adopt measures for theircountry in direct opposition to all the suggestions of policy. The alternative,then, is to destroy or keep down a bad passion by creating and fosteringa good one, and this seems to be the corner stone upon which our Americanpolitical architects have reared the fabric of our Government. The cementwhich was to bind it and perpetuate its existence was the affectionate attachmentbetween all its members. To insure the continuance of this feeling, producedat first by a community of dangers, of sufferings, and of interests, theadvantages of each were made accessible to all. No participation in anygood possessed by any member of our extensive Confederacy, except in domesticgovernment, was withheld from the citizen of any other member. By a processattended with no difficulty, no delay, no expense but that of removal, thecitizen of one might become the citizen of any other, and successively ofthe whole. The lines, too, separating powers to be exercised by the citizensof one State from those of another seem to be so distinctly drawn as toleave no room for misunderstanding. The citizens of each State unite intheir persons all the privileges which that character confers and all thatthey may claim as citizens of the United States, but in no case can thesame persons at the same time act as the citizen of two separate States,and he is therefore positively precluded from any interference with thereserved powers of any State but that of which he is for the time beinga citizen. He may, indeed, offer to the citizens of other States hisadvice as to their management, and the form in which it is tendered is leftto his own discretion and sense of propriety. It may be observed, however,that organized associations of citizens requiring compliance with theirwishes too much resemble the recommendations of Athens to her allies,supported by an armed and powerful fleet. It was, indeed, to the ambitionof the leading States of Greece to control the domestic concerns of theothers that the destruction of that celebrated Confederacy, and subsequentlyof all its members, is mainly to be attributed, and it is owing to the absenceof that spirit that the Helvetic Confederacy has for so many years beenpreserved. Never has there been seen in the institutions of the separatemembers of any confederacy more elements of discord. In the principles andforms of government and religion, as well as in the circumstances of theseveral Cantons, so marked a discrepancy was observable as to promise anythingbut harmony in their intercourse or permanency in their alliance, and yetfor ages neither has been interrupted. Content with the positive benefitswhich their union produced, with the independence and safety from foreignaggression which it secured, these sagacious people respected the institutionsof each other, however repugnant to their own principles and prejudices.	16
Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by thesame forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise of thepowers with which the Constitution clothes them. The attempt of those ofone State to control the domestic institutions of another can only resultin feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion,violence, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our free institutions.Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the terms and principles governinga common copartnership. There is a fund of power to be exercised under thedirection of the joint councils of the allied members, but that which hasbeen reserved by the individual members is intangible by the common Governmentor the individual members composing it. To attempt it finds no support inthe principles of our Constitution.	17
It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to cultivatea spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our Confederacy.Experience has abundantly taught us that the agitation by citizens of onepart of the Union of a subject not confided to the General Government, butexclusively under the guardianship of the local authorities, is productiveof no other consequences than bitterness, alienation, discord, and injuryto the very cause which is intended to be advanced. Of all the great interestswhich appertain to our country, that of union—cordial, confiding, fraternalunion—is by far the most important, since it is the only true and sureguaranty of all others.	18
In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and thecurrency, some of the States may meet with difficulty in their financialconcerns. However deeply we may regret anything imprudent or excessive inthe engagements into which States have entered for purposes of their own,it does not become us to disparage the States governments, nor to discouragethem from making proper efforts for their own relief. On the contrary, itis our duty to encourage them to the extent of our constitutional authorityto apply their best means and cheerfully to make all necessary sacrificesand submit to all necessary burdens to fulfill their engagements and maintaintheir credit, for the character and credit of the several States form apart of the character and credit of the whole country. The resources ofthe country are abundant, the enterprise and activity of our people proverbial,and we may well hope that wise legislation and prudent administration bythe respective governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restoreformer prosperity.	19
Unpleasant and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes bebetween the constituted authorities of the citizens of our country in relationto the lines which separate their respective jurisdictions, the resultscan be of no vital injury to our institutions if that ardent patriotism,that devoted attachment to liberty, that spirit of moderation and forbearancefor which our countrymen were once distinguished, continue to be cherished.If this continues to be the ruling passion of our souls, the weaker feelingof the mistaken enthusiast will be corrected, the Utopian dreams of thescheming politician dissipated, and the complicated intrigues of the demagoguerendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for everyinjury which our institutions may receive. On the contrary, no care thatcan be used in the construction of our Government, no division of powers,no distribution of checks in its several departments, will prove effectualto keep us a free people if this spirit is suffered to decay; and decayit will without constant nurture. To the neglect of this duty the best historiansagree in attributing the ruin of all the republics with whose existenceand fall their writings have made us acquainted. The same causes will everproduce the same effects, and as long as the love of power is a dominantpassion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men canbe warped and their affections changed by operations upon their passionsand prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people depend on their ownconstant attention to its preservation. The danger to all well-establishedfree governments arises from the unwillingness of the people to believein its existence or from the influence of designing men diverting theirattention from the quarter whence it approaches to a source from which itcan never come. This is the old trick of those who would usurp the governmentof their country. In the name of democracy they speak, warning the peopleagainst the influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History,ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Caesar became the master ofthe Roman people and the senate under the pretense of supporting the democraticclaims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter; Cromwell, inthe character of protector of the liberties of the people, became the dictatorof England, and Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power with the titleof his country's liberator. There is, on the contrary, no instance on recordof an extensive and well-established republic being changed into an aristocracy.The tendencies of all such governments in their decline is to monarchy,and the antagonist principle to liberty there is the spirit of faction—aspirit which assumes the character and in times of great excitement imposesitself upon the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and, like the falseChrists whose coming was foretold by the Savior, seeks to, and were it possiblewould, impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of liberty. It isin periods like this that it behooves the people to be most watchful ofthose to whom they have intrusted power. And although there is at timesmuch difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit, a calmand dispassionate investigation will detect the counterfeit, as well bythe character of its operations as the results that are produced. The truespirit of liberty, although devoted, persevering, bold, and uncompromisingin principle, that secured is mild and tolerant and scrupulous as to themeans it employs, whilst the spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty,is harsh, vindictive, and intolerant, and totally reckless as to the characterof the allies which it brings to the aid of its cause. When the genuinespirit of liberty animates the body of a people to a thorough examinationof their affairs, it leads to the excision of every excrescence which mayhave fastened itself upon any of the departments of the government, andrestores the system to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign ofan intolerant spirit of party amongst a free people seldom fails to resultin a dangerous accession to the executive power introduced and establishedamidst unusual professions of devotion to democracy.	20
The foregoing remarks relate almost exclusively to matters connectedwith our domestic concerns. It may be proper, however, that I should givesome indications to my fellow-citizens of my proposed course of conductin the management of our foreign relations. I assure them, therefore, thatit is my intention to use every means in my power to preserve the friendlyintercourse which now so happily subsists with every foreign nation, andthat although, of course, not well informed as to the state of pending negotiationswith any of them, I see in the personal characters of the sovereigns, aswell as in the mutual interests of our own and of the governments with whichour relations are most intimate, a pleasing guaranty that the harmony soimportant to the interests of their subjects as well as of our citizenswill not be interrupted by the advancement of any claim or pretension upontheir part to which our honor would not permit us to yield. Long the defenderof my country's rights in the field, I trust that my fellow-citizens willnot see in my earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers any indicationthat their rights will ever be sacrificed or the honor of the nation tarnishedby any admission on the part of their Chief Magistrate unworthy of theirformer glory. In our intercourse with our aboriginal neighbors the sameliberality and justice which marked the course prescribed to me by two ofmy illustrious predecessors when acting under their direction in the dischargeof the duties of superintendent and commissioner shall be strictly observed.I can conceive of no more sublime spectacle, none more likely to propitiatean impartial and common Creator, than a rigid adherence to the principlesof justice on the part of a powerful nation in its transactions with a weakerand uncivilized people whom circumstances have placed at its disposal.	21
Before concluding, fellow-citizens, I must say something toyou on the subject of the parties at this time existing in our country.To me it appears perfectly clear that the interest of that country requiresthat the violence of the spirit by which those parties are at this timegoverned must be greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or consequenceswill ensue which are appalling to be thought of.	22
If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree ofvigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the boundsof law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they becomedestructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to thatof liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples ofrepublics where the love of country and of liberty at one time were thedominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuanceof the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualitiesremaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens. It was the beautifulremark of a distinguished English writer that "in the Roman senateOctavius had a party and Anthony a party, but the Commonwealth had none."Yet the senate continued to meet in the temple of liberty to talk of thesacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and gaze at the statues of theelder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, and the people assembled in theforum, not, as in the days of Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their freevotes for annual magistrates or pass upon the acts of the senate, but toreceive from the hands of the leaders of the respective parties their shareof the spoils and to shout for one or the other, as those collected in Gaulor Egypt and the lesser Asia would furnish the larger dividend. The spiritof liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had soughtprotection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operationof the same causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums.A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the world, must bedeprecated by every patriot and every tendency to a state of things likelyto produce it immediately checked. Such a tendency has existed—doesexist. Always the friend of my countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomesmy duty to say to them from this high place to which their partiality hasexalted me that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their bestinterests—hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in itsviews, selfish in its objects. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few evento the destruction of the interests of the whole. The entire remedy is withthe people. Something, however, may be effected by the means which theyhave placed in my hands. It is union that we want, not of a party for thesake of that party, but a union of the whole country for the sake of thewhole country, for the defense of its interests and its honor against foreignaggression, for the defense of those principles for which our ancestorsso gloriously contended. As far as it depends upon me it shall be accomplished.All the influence that I possess shall be exerted to prevent the formationat least of an Executive party in the halls of the legislative body. I wishfor the support of no member of that body to any measure of mine that doesnot satisfy his judgment and his sense of duty to those from whom he holdshis appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people but thatasked for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to the legaladministration of their affairs."	23
I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemnto justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence forthe Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religiousliberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connectedwith all true and lasting happiness; and to that good Being who has blessedus by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prosperedthe labors of our fathers and has hitherto preserved to us institutionsfar exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us unite in ferventlycommending every interest of our beloved country in all future time.	24
Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high officeto which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionateleave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of thepledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my exaltedstation according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon theirperformance with entire confidence in the support of a just and generouspeople.	25

Inaugural Addressesof the Presidents of the United States. 1989.