Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

                      Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

                      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 here see
                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 associated 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 possess 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 this 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 can not 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 antirepublican 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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