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Presidents 3,831 words
The ailing President Jackson and his Vice President
Van Buren rode together to the Capitol from the White House in a
carriage made of timbers from the U.S.S. Constitution. Chief
Justice Roger Taney administered the oath of office on the East
Portico of the Capitol. For the first and only time, the election for
Vice President had been decided by the Senate, as provided by the
Constitution, when the electoral college could not select a winner.
The new Vice President, Richard M. Johnson, took his oath in the
Senate Chamber.
Fellow-Citizens: The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an
obligation I cheerfully fulfill--to accompany the first and
solemn act of my public trust with an avowal of the
principles that will guide me in performing it and an
expression of my feelings on assuming a charge so
responsible and vast. In imitating their example I tread in
the footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our
happiness to believe are not found on the executive calendar
of any country. Among them we recognize the earliest and
firmest pillars of the Republic--those by whom our national
independence was first declared, him who above all others
contributed to establish it on the field of battle, and
those whose expanded intellect and patriotism constructed,
improved, and perfected the inestimable institutions under
which we live. If such men in the position I now occupy felt
themselves overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for this the
highest of all marks of their country's confidence, and by a
consciousness of their inability adequately to discharge the
duties of an office so difficult and exalted, how much more
must these considerations affect one who can rely on no such
claims for favor or forbearance! Unlike all who have
preceded me, the Revolution that gave us existence as one
people was achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I
contemplate with grateful reverence that memorable event, I
feel that I belong to a later age and that I may not expect
my countrymen to weigh my actions with the same kind and
partial hand. So sensibly, fellow-citizens, do these circumstances
press themselves upon me that I should not dare to enter
upon my path of duty did I not look for the generous aid of
those who will be associated with me in the various and
coordinate branches of the Government; did I not repose with
unwavering reliance on the patriotism, the intelligence, and
the kindness of a people who never yet deserted a public
servant honestly laboring their cause; and, above all, did I
not permit myself humbly to hope for the sustaining support
of an ever-watchful and beneficent Providence. To the confidence and consolation derived from these
sources it would be ungrateful not to add those which spring
from our present fortunate condition. Though not altogether
exempt from embarrassments that disturb our tranquillity at
home and threaten it abroad, yet in all the attributes of a
great, happy, and flourishing people we stand without a
parallel in the world. Abroad we enjoy the respect and, with
scarcely an exception, the friendship of every nation; at
home, while our Government quietly but efficiently performs
the sole legitimate end of political institutions--in doing
the greatest good to the greatest number--we present an
aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere to be
found. How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every
citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or
extended, to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of
things so singularly happy! All the lessons of history and
experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust
alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.
Position and climate and the bounteous resources that nature
has scattered with so liberal a hand--even the diffused
intelligence and elevated character of our people--will
avail us nothing if we fail sacredly to uphold those
political institutions that were wisely and deliberately
formed with reference to every circumstance that could
preserve or might endanger the blessings we enjoy. The
thoughtful framers of our Constitution legislated for our
country as they found it. Looking upon it with the eyes of
statesmen and patriots, they saw all the sources of rapid
and wonderful prosperity; but they saw also that various
habits, opinions, and institutions peculiar to the various
portions of so vast a region were deeply fixed. Distinct
sovereignties were in actual existence, whose cordial union
was essential to the welfare and happiness of all. Between
many of them there was, at least to some extent, a real
diversity of interests, liable to be exaggerated through
sinister designs; they differed in size, in population, in
wealth, and in actual and prospective resources and power;
they varied in the character of their industry and staple
productions, and [in some] existed domestic
institutions which, unwisely disturbed, might endanger the
harmony of the whole. Most carefully were all these
circumstances weighed, and the foundations of the new
Government laid upon principles of reciprocal concession and
equitable compromise. The jealousies which the smaller
States might entertain of the power of the rest were allayed
by a rule of representation confessedly unequal at the time,
and designed forever to remain so. A natural fear that the
broad scope of general legislation might bear upon and
unwisely control particular interests was counteracted by
limits strictly drawn around the action of the Federal
authority, and to the people and the States was left
unimpaired their sovereign power over the innumerable
subjects embraced in the internal government of a just
republic, excepting such only as necessarily appertain to
the concerns of the whole confederacy or its intercourse as
a united community with the other nations of the world. This provident forecast has been verified by time. Half a
century, teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere
producing astonishing results, has passed along, but on our
institutions it has left no injurious mark. From a small
community we have risen to a people powerful in numbers and
in strength; but with our increase has gone hand in hand the
progress of just principles. The privileges, civil and
religious, of the humblest individual are still sacredly
protected at home, and while the valor and fortitude of our
people have removed far from us the slightest apprehension
of foreign power, they have not yet induced us in a single
instance to forget what is right. Our commerce has been
extended to the remotest nations; the value and even nature
of our productions have been greatly changed; a wide
difference has arisen in the relative wealth and resources
of every portion of our country; yet the spirit of mutual
regard and of faithful adherence to existing compacts has
continued to prevail in our councils and never long been
absent from our conduct. We have learned by experience a
fruitful lesson--that an implicit and undeviating adherence
to the principles on which we set out can carry us
prosperously onward through all the conflicts of
circumstances and vicissitudes inseparable from the lapse of
years. The success that has thus attended our great experiment
is in itself a sufficient cause for gratitude, on account of
the happiness it has actually conferred and the example it
has unanswerably given. But to me, my fellow-citizens,
looking forward to the far-distant future with ardent
prayers and confiding hopes, this retrospect presents a
ground for still deeper delight. It impresses on my mind a
firm belief that the perpetuity of our institutions depends
upon ourselves; that if we maintain the principles on which
they were established they are destined to confer their
benefits on countless generations yet to come, and that
America will present to every friend of mankind the cheering
proof that a popular government, wisely formed, is wanting
in no element of endurance or strength. Fifty years ago its
rapid failure was boldly predicted. Latent and
uncontrollable causes of dissolution were supposed to exist
even by the wise and good, and not only did unfriendly or
speculative theorists anticipate for us the fate of past
republics, but the fears of many an honest patriot
overbalanced his sanguine hopes. Look back on these
forebodings, not hastily but reluctantly made, and see how
in every instance they have completely failed. An imperfect experience during the struggles of the
Revolution was supposed to warrant the belief that the
people would not bear the taxation requisite to discharge an
immense public debt already incurred and to pay the
necessary expenses of the Government. The cost of two wars
has been paid, not only without a murmur, but with unequaled
alacrity. No one is now left to doubt that every burden will
be cheerfully borne that may be necessary to sustain our
civil institutions or guard our honor or welfare. Indeed,
all experience has shown that the willingness of the people
to contribute to these ends in cases of emergency has
uniformly outrun the confidence of their
representatives. In the early stages of the new Government, when all felt
the imposing influence as they recognized the unequaled
services of the first President, it was a common sentiment
that the great weight of his character could alone bind the
discordant materials of our Government together and save us
from the violence of contending factions. Since his death
nearly forty years are gone. Party exasperation has been
often carried to its highest point; the virtue and fortitude
of the people have sometimes been greatly tried; yet our
system, purified and enhanced in value by all it has
encountered, still preserves its spirit of free and fearless
discussion, blended with unimpaired fraternal feeling. The capacity of the people for self-government, and their
willingness, from a high sense of duty and without those
exhibitions of coercive power so generally employed in other
countries, to submit to all needful restraints and exactions
of municipal law, have also been favorably exemplified in
the history of the American States. Occasionally, it is
true, the ardor of public sentiment, outrunning the regular
progress of the judicial tribunals or seeking to reach cases
not denounced as criminal by the existing law, has displayed
itself in a manner calculated to give pain to the friends of
free government and to encourage the hopes of those who wish
for its overthrow. These occurrences, however, have been far
less frequent in our country than in any other of equal
population on the globe, and with the diffusion of
intelligence it may well be hoped that they will constantly
diminish in frequency and violence. The generous patriotism
and sound common sense of the great mass of our
fellow-citizens will assuredly in time produce this result;
for as every assumption of illegal power not only wounds the
majesty of the law, but furnishes a pretext for abridging
the liberties of the people, the latter have the most direct
and permanent interest in preserving the landmarks of social
order and maintaining on all occasions the inviolability of
those constitutional and legal provisions which they
themselves have made. In a supposed unfitness of our institutions for those
hostile emergencies which no country can always avoid their
friends found a fruitful source of apprehension, their
enemies of hope. While they foresaw less promptness of
action than in governments differently formed, they
overlooked the far more important consideration that with us
war could never be the result of individual or irresponsible
will, but must be a measure of redress for injuries
sustained, voluntarily resorted to by those who were to bear
the necessary sacrifice, who would consequently feel an
individual interest in the contest, and whose energy would
be commensurate with the difficulties to be encountered.
Actual events have proved their error; the last war, far
from impairing, gave new confidence to our Government, and
amid recent apprehensions of a similar conflict we saw that
the energies of our country would not be wanting in ample
season to vindicate its rights. We may not possess, as we
should not desire to possess, the extended and ever-ready
military organization of other nations; we may occasionally
suffer in the outset for the want of it; but among ourselves
all doubt upon this great point has ceased, while a salutary
experience will prevent a contrary opinion from inviting
aggression from abroad. Certain danger was foretold from the extension of our
territory, the multiplication of States, and the increase of
population. Our system was supposed to be adapted only to
boundaries comparatively narrow. These have been widened
beyond conjecture; the members of our Confederacy are
already doubled, and the numbers of our people are
incredibly augmented. The alleged causes of danger have long
surpassed anticipation, but none of the consequences have
followed. The power and influence of the Republic have
arisen to a height obvious to all mankind; respect for its
authority was not more apparent at its ancient than it is at
its present limits; new and inexhaustible sources of general
prosperity have been opened; the effects of distance have
been averted by the inventive genius of our people,
developed and fostered by the spirit of our institutions;
and the enlarged variety and amount of interests,
productions, and pursuits have strengthened the chain of
mutual dependence and formed a circle of mutual benefits too
apparent ever to be overlooked. In justly balancing the powers of the Federal and State
authorities difficulties nearly insurmountable arose at the
outset and subsequent collisions were deemed inevitable.
Amid these it was scarcely believed possible that a scheme
of government so complex in construction could remain
uninjured. From time to time embarrassments have certainly
occurred; but how just is the confidence of future safety
imparted by the knowledge that each in succession has been
happily removed! Overlooking partial and temporary evils as
inseparable from the practical operation of all human
institutions, and looking only to the general result, every
patriot has reason to be satisfied. While the Federal
Government has successfully performed its appropriate
functions in relation to foreign affairs and concerns
evidently national, that of every State has remarkably
improved in protecting and developing local interests and
individual welfare; and if the vibrations of authority have
occasionally tended too much toward one or the other, it is
unquestionably certain that the ultimate operation of the
entire system has been to strengthen all the existing
institutions and to elevate our whole country in prosperity
and renown. The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources
of discord and disaster supposed to lurk in our political
condition was the institution of domestic slavery. Our
forefathers were deeply impressed with the delicacy of this
subject, and they treated it with a forbearance so evidently
wise that in spite of every sinister foreboding it never
until the present period disturbed the tranquillity of our
common country. Such a result is sufficient evidence of the
justice and the patriotism of their course; it is evidence
not to be mistaken that an adherence to it can prevent all
embarrassment from this as well as from every other
anticipated cause of difficulty or danger. Have not recent
events made it obvious to the slightest reflection that the
least deviation from this spirit of forbearance is injurious
to every interest, that of humanity included? Amidst the
violence of excited passions this generous and fraternal
feeling has been sometimes disregarded; and standing as I
now do before my countrymen, in this high place of honor and
of trust, I can not refrain from anxiously invoking my
fellow-citizens never to be deaf to its dictates. Perceiving
before my election the deep interest this subject was
beginning to excite, I believed it a solemn duty fully to
make known my sentiments in regard to it, and now, when
every motive for misrepresentation has passed away, I trust
that they will be candidly weighed and understood. At least
they will be my standard of conduct in the path before me. I
then declared that if the desire of those of my countrymen
who were favorable to my election was gratified "I must go
into the Presidential chair the inflexible and
uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the part of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia
against the wishes of the slaveholding States, and also with
a determination equally decided to resist the slightest
interference with it in the States where it exists." I
submitted also to my fellow-citizens, with fullness and
frankness, the reasons which led me to this determination.
The result authorizes me to believe that they have been
approved and are confided in by a majority of the people of
the United States, including those whom they most
immediately affect. It now only remains to add that no bill
conflicting with these views can ever receive my
constitutional sanction. These opinions have been adopted in
the firm belief that they are in accordance with the spirit
that actuated the venerated fathers of the Republic, and
that succeeding experience has proved them to be humane,
patriotic, expedient, honorable, and just. If the agitation
of this subject was intended to reach the stability of our
institutions, enough has occurred to show that it has
signally failed, and that in this as in every other instance
the apprehensions of the timid and the hopes of the wicked
for the destruction of our Government are again destined to
be disappointed. Here and there, indeed, scenes of dangerous
excitement have occurred, terrifying instances of local
violence have been witnessed, and a reckless disregard of
the consequences of their conduct has exposed individuals to
popular indignation; but neither masses of the people nor
sections of the country have been swerved from their
devotion to the bond of union and the principles it has made
sacred. It will be ever thus. Such attempts at dangerous
agitation may periodically return, but with each the object
will be better understood. That predominating affection for
our political system which prevails throughout our
territorial limits, that calm and enlightened judgment which
ultimately governs our people as one vast body, will always
be at hand to resist and control every effort, foreign or
domestic, which aims or would lead to overthrow our
institutions. What can be more gratifying than such a retrospect as
this? We look back on obstacles avoided and dangers
overcome, on expectations more than realized and prosperity
perfectly secured. To the hopes of the hostile, the fears of
the timid, and the doubts of the anxious actual experience
has given the conclusive reply. We have seen time gradually
dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution
surmount every adverse circumstance dreaded at the outset as
beyond control. Present excitement will at all times magnify
present dangers, but true philosophy must teach us that none
more tireatening than the past can remain to be overcome;
and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an
abiding confidence in the stability of our institutions and
an entire conviction that if administered in the true form,
character, and spirit in which they were established they
are abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children
the rich blessings already derived from them, to make our
beloved land for a thousand generations that chosen spot
where happiness springs from a perfect equality of political
rights. For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the
principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my
country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and
spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who
framed it. Looking back to it as a sacred instrument
carefully and not easily framed; remembering that it was
throughout a work of concession and compromise; viewing it
as limited to national objects; regarding it as leaving to
the people and the States all power not explicitly parted
with, I shall endeavor to preserve, protect, and defend it
by anxiously referring to its provision for direction in
every action. To matters of domestic concernment which it
has intrusted to the Federal Government and to such as
relate to our intercourse with foreign nations I shall
zealously devote myself; beyond those limits I shall never
pass. To enter on this occasion into a further or more minute
exposition of my views on the various questions of domestic
policy would be as obtrusive as it is probably unexpected.
Before the suffrages of my countrymen were conferred upon me
I submitted to them, with great precision, my opinions on
all the most prominent of these subjects. Those opinions I
shall endeavor to carry out with my utmost ability. Our course of foreign policy has been so uniform and
intelligible as to constitute a rule of Executive conduct
which leaves little to my discretion, unless, indeed, I were
willing to run counter to the lights of experience and the
known opinions of my constituents. We sedulously cultivate
the friendship of all nations as the conditions most
compatible with our welfare and the principles of our
Government. We decline alliances as adverse to our peace. We
desire commercial relations on equal terms, being ever
willing to give a fair equivalent for advantages received.
We endeavor to conduct our intercourse with openness and
sincerity, promptly avowing our objects and seeking to
establish that mutual frankness which is as beneficial in
the dealings of nations as of men. We have no disposition
and we disclaim all right to meddle in disputes, whether
internal or foreign, that may molest other countries,
regarding them in their actual state as social communities,
and preserving a strict neutrality in all their
controversies. Well knowing the tried valor of our people
and our exhaustless resources, we neither anticipate nor
fear any designed aggression; and in the consciousness of
our own just conduct we feel a security that we shall never
be called upon to exert our determination never to permit an
invasion of our rights without punishment or redress. In approaching, then, in the presence of my assembled
countrymen, to make the solemn promise that yet remains, and
to pledge myself that I will faithfully execute the office I
am about to fill, I bring with me a settled purpose to
maintain the institutions of my country, which I trust will
atone for the errors I commit. In receiving from the people the sacred trust twice
confided to my illustrious predecessor, and which he has
discharged so faithfully and so well, I know that I can not
expect to perform the arduous task with equal ability and
success. But united as I have been in his counsels, a daily
witness of his exclusive and unsurpassed devotion to his
country's welfare, agreeing with him in sentiments which his
countrymen have warmly supported, and permitted to partake
largely of his confidence, I may hope that somewhat of the
same cheering approbation will be found to attend upon my
path. For him I but express with my own the wishes of all,
that he may yet long live to enjoy the brilliant evening of
his well-spent life; and for myself, conscious of but one
desire, faithfully to serve my country, I throw myself
without fear on its justice and its kindness. Beyond that I
only look to the gracious protection of the Divine Being
whose strengthening support I humbly solicit, and whom I
fervently pray to look down upon us all. May it be among the
dispensations of His providence to bless our beloved country
with honors and with length of days. May her ways be ways of
pleasantness and all her paths be peace!
March 4, 1837