HISTORIC SPEECHES
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1805
Proceeding, fellow citizens,
to that qualification which the constitution requires,
before my entrance on the charge again conferred upon 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
that 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 taken 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 produce and property. 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 cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign
luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboards
and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions
of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and
pride of an American to ask, what farmer, what mechanic,
what laborer, ever sees a tax-gatherer of the United States?
These contributions enable us to support the current expenses
of the government, to fulfil 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 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 increased by 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 burdening 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 repay the advances we have made. I
know that the acquisition of Louisiana has 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 shall 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 state or church 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, 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, prejudice 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 is seen the action and counteraction
of good sense and bigotry; they, too, have their anti-philosophers,
who find an interest in keeping things in their present
state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties
to maintain the ascendency 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 with me in the executive
functions.
During this course of administration, and in order to
disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled
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 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 have
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 he may be intrusted
with his own affairs.
No inference is here intended, that the laws, provided
by the State 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 reasonings 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 cannot 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 fathers.
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
their 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 weakness 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 I have heretofore experienced
-- 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 forefathers, 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 with me in supplications, 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.
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