Text 19641, 140 rader
Skriven 2006-05-07 08:07:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Who said this ?
=======================
Note the numerous references to God, heaven and divine guidance.

===================================


Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of 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 14th 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 despondence one who 
(inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed 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 mislead 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 those 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 can not 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 
further 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 separate 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 
foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable 
principles of private morality, and the preeminence of 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, perhaps, as deeply, 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 
impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously 
promoted. 
 
  To the foregoing 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 honored 
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. 5 
  Having thus imparted 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 favor the 
American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect 
tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled 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.


--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10
 * Origin:  (1:226/600)