When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for
America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature
and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less
apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies
they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions
which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be
instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country.
Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of
their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an
overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from
the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little
more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the chains
which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly
cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of
uncertainty.
The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war,
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The
Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the
models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples
which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the
only ones which the people at large had ever considered. But reflecting
on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country
and those where a courier may go from the seat of government to the
frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by some who
assisted in Congress at the formation of it that it could not be
durable.
Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations,
if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences - universal
languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and
commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in
the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private
faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at
length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions,
and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.
In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned
by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity.
Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued
in the present happy Constitution of Government.
Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole
course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United
States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation,
animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it
with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good
hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character,
situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had
ever been proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great
outlines it was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever
most esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in particular,
had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage, in common
with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution
which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did
not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public
and in private. It was not then, nor has been since, any objection to it
in my mind that the Executive and Senate were not more permanent. Nor
have I ever entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in it but
such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience, should
see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives
in Congress and the State legislatures, according to the Constitution
itself, adopt and ordain.
Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation
from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under
the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the
most serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of
it has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from
an habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and
delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness
of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and
veneration for it.
What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our
esteem and love?
There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations
of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the
sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a
benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation
more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like
that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of
Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as
that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens
selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws
for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere
ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can
authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from
accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it
springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened
people? For it is the people only that are represented. It is their
power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every
legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence
of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a
general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body
of the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing than this
can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever
justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or
riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence,
information, and benevolence.
In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to
ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if
anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free,
fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be
determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a
party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice
of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If
that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or
menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the
Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign
nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the
people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in
such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or
chance.
Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such
are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of
America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and
virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a
citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with
the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love
of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and
unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens,
commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal
glory with posterity.
In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live
to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are
daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of
this country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still a
rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open or
secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been recommended
to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of Congress and by the
voice of the legislatures and the people throughout the nation.
On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak
with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope,
will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference,
upon principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and
serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth;
if an attachment to the Constitution of the United States, and a
conscientious determination to support it until it shall be altered by
the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed
in it; if a respectful attention to the constitutions of the individual
States and a constant caution and delicacy toward the State governments;
if an equal and impartial regard to the rights, interest, honor, and
happiness of all the States in the Union, without preference or regard
to a northern or southern, an eastern or western, position, their
various political opinions on unessential points or their personal
attachments; if a love of virtuous men of all parties and denominations;
if a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize every rational
effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and
every institution for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among
all classes of the people, not only for their benign influence on the
happiness of life in all its stages and classes, and of society in all
its forms, but as the only means of preserving our Constitution from its
natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the
spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of
foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective
governments; if a love of equal laws, of justice, and humanity in the
interior administration; if an inclination to improve agriculture,
commerce, and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and defense; if
a spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of
America, and a disposition to meliorate their condition by inclining
them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to
them; if an inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable
faith with all nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality
among the belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this
Government and so solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and
applauded by the legislatures of the States and the public opinion,
until it shall be otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem
for the French nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly
among them, and a sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has
been so much for the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the
conscious honor and integrity of the people of America and the internal
sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest
endeavor to investigate every just cause and remove every colorable
pretense of complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation
a reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce
of our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success can not be
obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may
consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government
and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as may
depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain peace,
friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken
confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people,
on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if
elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own
duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and
intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in
early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age; and,
with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration
for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians,
and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity
among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable me in
any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor
that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without
effect.
With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the
faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people
pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no
doubt of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared
without hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to
support it to the utmost of my power.
And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order,
the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of
virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its
Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with
the ends of His providence.
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