Text 19644, 148 rader
Skriven 2006-05-07 09:40:13 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
Kommentar till text 19641 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Who said this ?
=======================
George Washington.
Jeff Binkley -> All wrote:
JB> Note the numerous references to God, heaven and divine guidance.
JB> ===================================
JB> Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
JB> AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me
JB> with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was
JB> transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present
JB> month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can
JB> never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had
JB> chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with
JB> an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years—a retreat
JB> which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me
JB> by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions
JB> in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other
JB> hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my
JB> country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most
JB> experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his
JB> qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who
JB> (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the
JB> duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his
JB> own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that
JB> it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just
JB> appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I
JB> dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much
JB> swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an
JB> affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of
JB> my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity
JB> as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me,
JB> my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its
JB> consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality
JB> in which they originated.
JB> Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the
JB> public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly
JB> improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to
JB> that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the
JB> councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human
JB> defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and
JB> happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by
JB> themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument
JB> employed in its administration to execute with success the functions
JB> allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of
JB> every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your
JB> sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at
JB> large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore
JB> the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of
JB> the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the
JB> character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by
JB> some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just
JB> accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil
JB> deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from
JB> which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which
JB> most governments have been established without some return of pious
JB> gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings
JB> which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the
JB> present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be
JB> suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are
JB> none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free
JB> government can more auspiciously commence.
JB> By the article establishing the executive department it is made the
JB> duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures
JB> as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under
JB> which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject
JB> further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which
JB> you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the
JB> objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more
JB> consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the
JB> feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation
JB> of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the
JB> rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to
JB> devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the
JB> surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments,
JB> no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the
JB> comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great
JB> assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the
JB> foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable
JB> principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government
JB> be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its
JB> citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect
JB> with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire,
JB> since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there
JB> exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between
JB> virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine
JB> maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of
JB> public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded
JB> that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation
JB> that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself
JB> has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty
JB> and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly
JB> considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment
JB> entrusted to the hands of the American people.
JB> Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain
JB> with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power
JB> delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient
JB> at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been
JB> urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given
JB> birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this
JB> subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official
JB> opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your
JB> discernment and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that
JB> whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the
JB> benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await
JB> the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic
JB> rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will sufficiently
JB> influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be
JB> impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously
JB> promoted.
JB> To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will be most
JB> properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself,
JB> and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored
JB> with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an
JB> arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my
JB> duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From
JB> this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under
JB> the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to
JB> myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably
JB> included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must
JB> accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I
JB> am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual
JB> expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. 5
JB> Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened
JB> by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave;
JB> but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human
JB> Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the
JB> American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect
JB> tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity
JB> on a form of government for the security of their union and the
JB> advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally
JB> conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the
JB> wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.
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