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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 tranquility 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.
-T. Jefferson
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