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THOMAS JEFFERSON'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS:

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 see here 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 associate 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 possesses 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 the 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 cannot 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 anti-republican 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 burthened; 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 learnt 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.

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