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Presidents 1,428 Words
The Nation's first chief executive took his oath of
office in April in New York City on the balcony of the Senate Chamber
at Federal Hall on Wall Street. General Washington had been
unanimously elected President by the first electoral college, and
John Adams was elected Vice President because he received the second
greatest number of votes. Under the rules, each elector cast two
votes. The Chancellor of New York and fellow Freemason, Robert R.
Livingston administered the oath of office. The Bible on which the
oath was sworn belonged to New York's St. John's Masonic Lodge. The
new President gave his inaugural address before a joint session of
the two Houses of Congress assembled inside the Senate Chamber.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of
Representatives: Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could
have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the
notification was transmitted by your order, and received on
the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was
summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but
with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen
with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes,
with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining
years&emdash;a retreat which was rendered every day more
necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of
habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my
health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the
other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to
which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to
awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a
distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but
overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior
endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of
civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of
his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I
dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect
my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by
which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in
executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a
grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an
affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the
confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little
consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the
weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be
palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its
consequences be judged by my country with some share of the
partiality in which they originated. Such being the impressions under which I have, in
obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present
station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this
first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty
Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply
every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to
the liberties and happiness of the people of the United
States a Government instituted by themselves for these
essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed
in its administration to execute with success the functions
allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the
Great Author of every public and private good, I assure
myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my
own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than
either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the
Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than
those of the United States. Every step by which they have
advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to
have been distinguished by some token of providential
agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in
the system of their united government the tranquil
deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct
communities from which the event has resulted can not be
compared with the means by which most governments have been
established without some return of pious gratitude, along
with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which
the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of
the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on
my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in
thinking that there are none under the influence of which
the proceedings of a new and free government can more
auspiciously commence. By the article establishing the executive department it
is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you
will acquit me from entering into that subject further than
to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you
are assembled, and which, in defining your powers,
designates the objects to which your attention is to be
given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances,
and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me,
to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular
measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the
rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters
selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable
qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one
side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views
nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and
equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of
communities and interests, so, on another, that the
foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure
and immutable principles of private morality, and the
preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the
attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and
command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect
with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country
can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly
established than that there exists in the economy and course
of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and
happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine
maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid
rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to
be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven
can never be expected on a nation that disregards the
eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has
ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of
liberty and the destiny of the republican model of
government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as
finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of
the American people. Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it
will remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise
of the occasional power delegated by the fifth article of
the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present
juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged
against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has
given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular
recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided
by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall
again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment
and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that
whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might
endanger the benefits of an united and effective government,
or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a
reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a
regard for the public harmony will sufficiently influence
your deliberations on the question how far the former can be
impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and
advantageously promoted. To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which
will be most properly addressed to the House of
Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be
as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call
into the service of my country, then on the eve of an
arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I
contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every
pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no
instance departed; and being still under the impressions
which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself
any share in the personal emoluments which may be
indispensably included in a permanent provision for the
executive department, and must accordingly pray that the
pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may
during my continuance in it be limited to such actual
expenditures as the public good may be thought to
require. Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have
been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I
shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once
more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble
supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the
American people with opportunities for deliberating in
perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with
unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the
security of their union and the advancement of their
happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous
in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the
wise measures on which the success of this Government must
depend.
April 30, 1789