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George Washington's
Inaugural Address of April 30, 1789
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and 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
fourteenth 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 dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior
endowments from nature and unpractised 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 impressions 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 an humble
anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem 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, farther than to refer to the Great
Constitutional Charter under which you 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 seperate 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 entrusted 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
an 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 advantageously
promoted.
To the preceeding 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 honoured 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
continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the
public good may be thought to require.
Having thus imported 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 favour the American people, with opportunities
for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding
with unparellelled 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.
Text from the National Archives and Records Administration.
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