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 fourth 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; 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 misled me, and its
consequences be judged by my country, with some share of the partiality
in which they originated.
Such being the impression 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 the
people 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, cannot be compared with
the means by which most governments have been established, without some
return of pious gratitude, along with a humble anticipation of the
future blessings, which the past seems 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 you to the great constitutional charter
under which we 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
foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and
immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a 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 as deeply, perhaps
as finally staked, on the experiment intrusted 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 a 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 more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely
and more advantageously promoted.
To the preceding 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
continuation 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.
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