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When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course
for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign
legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection
were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets
and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and
dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of
government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this
extensive country. Relying, however, on the purity of their
intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and
intelligence of the people, under an overruling Providence which had
so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives
of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present
number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the
rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which
had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty.
The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war,
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The
Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from
the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only
examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and
certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered.
But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars
between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat of
government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly
foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that
it could not be durable.
Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations,
if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences—universal
languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and
commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in
the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private
faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at
length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions,
and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.
In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by
their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity.
Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations
issued in the present happy Constitution of Government.
Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course
of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United
States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation,
animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it
with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good
hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character,
situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had
ever been proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great
outlines it was conformable to such a system of government as I had
ever most esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in
particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of
suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or
rejection of a constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as
well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my approbation
of it on all occasions, in public and in private. It was not then, nor
has been since, any objection to it in my mind that the Executive and
Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I ever entertained a thought
of promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves,
in the course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary
or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State
legislatures, according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.
Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation from
it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under the
new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most
serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it
has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an
habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and
delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and
happiness of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it
and veneration for it. What other form of government, indeed, can
so well deserve our esteem and love?
There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations
of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the
sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a
benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any
nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an
assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other
Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority,
as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised
by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and
execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything
more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and
diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it
descends from accidents or institutions established in remote
antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of
an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are
represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only
for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it
may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length
of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and
virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or
consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human
mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it
springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from
conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.
In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to
ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties
if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our
free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to
be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured
by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the
choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national
good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by
flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or
venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people,
but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and
not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will
acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to
boast of over lot or chance.
Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such
are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of
America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and
virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a
citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with
the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love
of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and
unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his
fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and
secured immortal glory with posterity.
In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live to
enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are
daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of
this country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still
a rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open
or secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been
recommended to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of
Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people
throughout the nation.
On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak
with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I
hope, will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a
preference, upon principle, of a free republican government, formed
upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial
inquiry after truth; if an attachment to the Constitution of the
United States, and a conscientious determination to support it until
it shall be altered by the judgments and wishes of the people,
expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a respectful attention to
the constitutions of the individual States and a constant caution and
delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal and impartial
regard to the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of all the States
in the Union, without preference or regard to a northern or southern,
an eastern or western, position, their various political opinions on
unessential points or their personal attachments; if a love of
virtuous men of all parties and denominations; if a love of science
and letters and a wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage
schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution for
propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the
people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life
in all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as
the only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural
enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of
intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign
influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments;
if a love of equal laws, of justice, and humanity in the interior
administration; if an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce,
and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and defense; if a spirit
of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a
disposition to meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more
friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an
inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with
all nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the
belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government
and so solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by
the legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall
be otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem for the French
nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a
sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for
the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor
and integrity of the people of America and the internal sentiment of
their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to
investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of
complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a
reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce
of our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success can not be
obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may
consider what further measures the honor and interest of the
Government and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice
as far as may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and
maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an
unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the
American people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never
been deceived; if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country
and of my own duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral
principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven
on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience
and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add,
if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call
themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent
respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public
service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it
shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the
two Houses shall not be without effect.
With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the
faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people
pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain
no doubt of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared
without hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to
support it to the utmost of my power.
And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the
Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of
virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its
Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent
with the ends of His providence.
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