HISTORIC SPEECHES
THOMAS JEFFERSON
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 to 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 amid the conflicting elements of a
troubled world.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed,
the animation of discussion 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 laws must protect,
and to violate which 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; that this 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 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 cannot 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 is the only one where every man,
at the call of the laws, 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 our
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 hundredth and
thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our
equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions
of our 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 including 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 prosperous people?
Still one thing more, fellow citizens- a wise and frugal
government, which shall restrain men from injuring one
another, which 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 that you should understand what I deem the essential
principles of our government, and consequently those which
ought to shape its administration. I will compass 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 there 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
burdened; 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 the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public
reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; 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 the blood of our heroes have
been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed
of our political faith- the text of civil instruction-the
touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust;
and should we wander from them in moments of error or 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 learned 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 reposed
in our first and great 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 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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