|
|
Thomas Jefferson
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1805
The second inauguration of Mr. Jefferson followed an election under which the offices of President and Vice President were to be separately sought, pursuant to the newly adopted 12th Amendment to the Constitution. George Clinton of New York was elected Vice President. Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office in the Senate Chamber at the Capitol.
***
Proceeding, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again conferred on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new proof of confidence from my fellow-citizens at large, and the zeal with which it inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just expectations.
On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the principles on which I believed it my duty to administer the affairs of our Commonwealth. MY conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted up to that declaration according to its obvious import and to the understanding of every candid mind.
In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of those with which we have the most important relations. We have done them justice on all occasions, favored where favor was lawful, and cherished mutual interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.
At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our land with officers and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which once entered is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of property and produce. If among these taxes some minor ones fell which had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount would not have paid the officers who collected them, and because, if they had any merit, the State authorities might adopt them instead of others less approved.
The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied in time of peace to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each State. In time of war, if injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased population and consumption, and aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War will then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state of peace, a return to the progress of improvement.
I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had enabled us to extend our limits, but that extension may possibly pay for itself before we are called on, and in the meantime may keep down the accruing interest; in all events, it will replace the advances we shall have made. I know that the acquisition of Louisiana had been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? With which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly intercourse?
In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the church or state authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.
The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with
the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the
faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of
liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left them
no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing
population from other regions directed itself on these shores;
without power to divert or habits to contend against it, they have
been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now reduced
within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins
us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage
them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain
their place in existence and to prepare them in time for that
state of society which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of
the mind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished them
with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed
among them instructors in the arts of first necessity, and they
are covered with the aegis of the law against aggressors from
among ourselves.
But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their
present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason,
follow its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of
circumstances have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are
combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudices of their minds,
ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested and crafty
individuals among them who feel themselves something in the
present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other.
These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs
of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be done through
all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its
counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is
perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator
made them, ignorance being safety and knowledge full of danger; in
short, my friends, among them also is seen the action and
counteraction of good sense and of bigotry; they too have their
antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their
present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their
faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of
improving our reason and obeying its mandates.
In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to
arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the
first place, to the reflecting character of our citizens at large,
who, by the weight of public opinion, influence and strengthen the
public measures. It is due to the sound discretion with which they
select from among themselves those to whom they confide the
legislative duties. It is due to the zeal and wisdom of the
characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of public
happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains
for others, and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries,
whose patriotism has associated them with me in the executive
functions.
During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it,
the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged
with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These
abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are
deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its
usefulness and to sap its safety. They might, indeed, have been
corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved to and provided by
the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation,
but public duties more urgent press on the time of public
servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their
punishment in the public indignation.
Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be
fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by
power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of
truth--whether a government conducting itself in the true spirit
of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which
it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be
written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been
tried; you have witnessed the scene; our fellow-citizens looked
on, cool and collected; they saw the latent source from which
these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their public
functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the
decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to
those who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who
believes that he may be trusted with the control of his own
affairs.
No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States
against false and defamatory publications should not be enforced;
he who has time renders a service to public morals and public
tranquillity in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions
of the law; but the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth
and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in
league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no
other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false
reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no
other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty
of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be
still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its
supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion.
Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally
as auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to
our country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet
rallied to the same point the disposition to do so is gaining
strength; facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them, and
our doubting brethren will at length see that the mass of their
fellow-citizens with whom they can not yet resolve to act as to
principles and measures, think as they think and desire what they
desire; that our wish as well as theirs is that the public efforts
may be directed honestly to the public good, that peace be
cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law and order
preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state of
property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his
own industry or that of his father's. When satisfied of these
views it is not in human nature that they should not approve and
support them. In the meantime let us cherish them with patient
affection, let us do them justice, and more than justice, in all
competitions of interest; and we need not doubt that truth,
reason, and their own interests will at length prevail, will
gather them into the fold of their country, and will complete that
entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of
harmony and the benefit of all its strength.
I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have
again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those
principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives
of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which
could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice, but the
weaknesses of human nature and the limits of my own understanding
will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your
interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I
have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of it
will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need,
too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our
fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them
in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of
life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our
riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask
you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the
minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their
measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and
shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all
nations.