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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