Fellow-Citizens:
WE stand
to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred
years of national lifea century crowded
with perils, but crowned with the triumphs of
liberty and law. Before continuing the onward
march let us pause on this height for a moment
to strengthen our faith and renew our hope by
a glance at the pathway along which our people
have traveled.
It is now three days more than
a hundred years since the adoption of the first
written constitution of the United Statesthe
Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.
The new Republic was then beset with danger
on every hand. It had not conquered a place
in the family of nations. The decisive battle
of the war for independence, whose centennial
anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated
at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists
were struggling not only against the armies
of a great nation, but against the settled opinions
of mankind; for the world did not then believe
that the supreme authority of government could
be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the
people themselves.
We can not overestimate the fervent
love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and
the sum of common sense with which our fathers
made the great experiment of self-government.
When they found, after a short trial, that the
confederacy of States, was too weak to meet
the necessities of a vigorous and expanding
republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its
stead established a National Union, founded
directly upon the will of the people, endowed
with full power of self-preservation and ample
authority for the accomplishment of its great
object.
Under this Constitution the boundaries
of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations
of order and peace have been strengthened, and
the growth of our people in all the better elements
of national life has indicated the wisdom of
the founders and given new hope to their descendants.
Under this Constitution our people long ago
made themselves safe against danger from without
and secured for their mariners and flag equality
of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution
twenty-five States have been added to the Union,
with constitutions and laws, framed and enforced
by their own citizens, to secure the manifold
blessings of local self-government.
The jurisdiction of this Constitution
now covers an area fifty times greater than
that of the original thirteen States and a population
twenty times greater than that of 1780.
The supreme trial of the Constitution
came at last under the tremendous pressure of
civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the
Union emerged from the blood and fire of that
conflict purified and made stronger for all
the beneficent purposes of good government.
And now, at the close of this
first century of growth, with the inspirations
of its history in their hearts, our people have
lately reviewed the condition of the nation,
passed judgment upon the conduct and opinions
of political parties, and have registered their
will concerning the future administration of
the Government. To interpret and to execute
that will in accordance with the Constitution
is the paramount duty of the Executive.
Even from this brief review it
is manifest that the nation is resolutely facing
to the front, resolved to employ its best energies
in developing the great possibilities of the
future. Sacredly preserving whatever has been
gained to liberty and good government during
the century, our people are determined to leave
behind them all those bitter controversies concerning
things which have been irrevocably settled,
and the further discussion of which can only
stir up strife and delay the onward march.
The supremacy of the nation and
its laws should be no longer a subject of debate.
That discussion, which for half a century threatened
the existence of the Union, was closed at last
in the high court of war by a decree from which
there is no appealthat the Constitution
and the laws made in pursuance thereof are and
shall continue to be the supreme law of the
land, binding alike upon the States and the
people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy
of the States nor interfere with any of their
necessary rights of local self-government, but
it does fix and establish the permanent supremacy
of the Union.
The will of the nation, speaking
with the voice of battle and through the amended
Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise
of 1776 by proclaiming "liberty throughout
the land to all the inhabitants thereof."
The elevation of the negro race
from slavery to the full rights of citizenship
is the most important political change we have
known since the adoption of the Constitution
of 1787. NO thoughtful man can fail to appreciate
its beneficent effect upon our institutions
and people. It has freed us from the perpetual
danger of war and dissolution. It has added
immensely to the moral and industrial forces
of our people. It has liberated the master as
well as the slave from a relation which wronged
and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their
own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000
people, and has opened to each one of them a
career of freedom and usefulness. It has given
new inspiration to the power of self-help in
both races by making labor more honorable to
the one and more necessary to the other. The
influence of this force will grow greater and
bear richer fruit with the coming years.
No doubt this great change has
caused serious disturbance to our Southern communities.
This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps
unavoidable. But those who resisted the change
should remember that under our institutions
there was no middle ground for the negro race
between slavery and equal citizenship. There
can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry
in the United States. Freedom can never yield
its fullness of blessings so long as the law
or its administration places the smallest obstacle
in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.
The emancipated race has already
made remarkable progress. With unquestioning
devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness
not born of fear, they have "followed the
light as God gave them to see the light."
They are rapidly laying the material foundations
of self-support, widening their circle of intelligence,
and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather
around the homes of the industrious poor. They
deserve the generous encouragement of all good
men. So far as my authority can lawfully extend
they shall enjoy the full and equal protection
of the Constitution and the laws.
The free enjoyment of equal suffrage
is still in question, and a frank statement
of the issue may aid its solution. It is alleged
that in many communities negro citizens are
practically denied the freedom of the ballot.
In so far as the truth of this allegation is
admitted, it is answered that in many places
honest local government is impossible if the
mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote.
These are grave allegations. So far as the latter
is true, it is the only palliation that can
be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot.
Bad local government is certainly a great evil,
which ought to be prevented; but to violate
the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is
more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted
in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide
is not a remedy. If in other lands it be high
treason to compass the death of the king, it
shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle
our sovereign power and stifle its voice.
It has been said that unsettled
questions have no pity for the repose of nations.
It should be said with the utmost emphasis that
this question of the suffrage will never give
repose or safety to the States or to the nation
until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes
and keeps the ballot free and pure by the strong
sanctions of the law.
But the danger which arises from
ignorance in the voter can not be denied. It
covers a field far wider than that of negro
suffrage and the present condition of the race.
It is a danger that lurks and hides in the sources
and fountains of power in every state. We have
no standard by which to measure the disaster
that may be brought upon us by ignorance and
vice in the citizens when joined to corruption
and fraud in the suffrage.
The voters of the Union, who
make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose
will hang the destinies of our governments,
can transmit their supreme authority to no successors
save the coming generation of voters, who are
the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that generation
comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance
and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic
will be certain and remediless.
The census has already sounded
the alarm in the appalling figures which mark
how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy
has risen among our voters and their children.
To the South this question is
of supreme importance. But the responsibility
for the existence of slavery did not rest upon
the South alone. The nation itself is responsible
for the extension of the suffrage, and is under
special obligations to aid in removing the illiteracy
which it has added to the voting population.
For the North and South alike there is but one
remedy. All the constitutional power of the
nation and of the States and all the volunteer
forces of the people should be surrendered to
meet this danger by the savory influence of
universal education.
It is the high privilege and
sacred duty of those now living to educate their
successors and fit them, by intelligence and
virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.
In this beneficent work sections
and races should be forgotten and partisanship
should be unknown. Let our people find a new
meaning in the divine oracle which declares
that "a little child shall lead them,"
for our own little children will soon control
the destinies of the Republic.
My countrymen, we do not now
differ in our judgment concerning the controversies
of past generations, and fifty years hence our
children will not be divided in their opinions
concerning our controversies. They will surely
bless their fathers and their fathers' God that
the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown,
and that both races were made equal before the
law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we
can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is
it not possible for us now to make a truce with
time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable
verdict?
Enterprises of the highest importance
to our moral and material well-being unite us
and offer ample employment of our best powers.
Let all our people, leaving behind them the
battlefields of dead issues, move forward and
in their strength of liberty and the restored
Union win the grander victories of peace.
The prosperity which now prevails
is without parallel in our history. Fruitful
seasons have done much to secure it, but they
have not done all. The preservation of the public
credit and the resumption of specie payments,
so successfully attained by the Administration
of my predecessors, have enabled our people
to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.
By the experience of commercial
nations in all ages it has been found that gold
and silver afford the only safe foundation for
a monetary system. Confusion has recently been
created by variations in the relative value
of the two metals, but I confidently believe
that arrangements can be made between the leading
commercial nations which will secure the general
use of both metals. Congress should provide
that the compulsory coinage of silver now required
by law may not disturb our monetary system by
driving either metal out of circulation. If
possible, such an adjustment should be made
that the purchasing power of every coined dollar
will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power
in all the markets of the world.
The chief duty of the National
Government in connection with the currency of
the country is to coin money and declare its
value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether
Congress is authorized by the Constitution to
make any form of paper money legal tender. The
present issue of United States notes has been
sustained by the necessities of war; but such
paper should depend for its value and currency
upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption
in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon
its compulsory circulation. These notes are
not money, but promises to pay money. If the
holders demand it, the promise should be kept.
The refunding of the national
debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished
without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank
notes, and thus disturbing the business of the
country.
I venture to refer to the position
I have occupied on financial questions during
a long service in Congress, and to say that
time and experience have strengthened the opinions
I have so often expressed on these subjects.
The finances of the Government
shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible
for my Administration to prevent.
The interests of agriculture
deserve more attention from the Government than
they have yet received. The farms of the United
States afford homes and employment for more
than one-half our people, and furnish much the
largest part of all our exports. As the Government
lights our coasts for the protection of mariners
and the benefit of commerce, so it should give
to the tillers of the soil the best lights of
practical science and experience.
Our manufacturers are rapidly
making us industrially independent, and are
opening to capital and labor new and profitable
fields of employment. Their steady and healthy
growth should still be matured. Our facilities
for transportation should be promoted by the
continued improvement of our harbors and great
interior waterways and by the increase of our
tonnage on the ocean.
The development of the world's
commerce has led to an urgent demand for shortening
the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing
ship canals or railways across the isthmus which
unites the continents. Various plans to this
end have been suggested and will need consideration,
but none of them has been sufficiently matured
to warrant the United States in extending pecuniary
aid. The subject, however, is one which will
immediately engage the attention of the Government
with a view to a thorough protection to American
interests. We will urge no narrow policy nor
seek peculiar or exclusive privileges in any
commercial route; but, in the language of my
predecessor, I believe it to be the right "and
duty of the United States to assert and maintain
such supervision and authority over any interoceanic
canal across the isthmus that connects North
and South America as will protect our national
interest."
The Constitution guarantees absolute
religious freedom. Congress is prohibited from
making any law respecting an establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The Territories of the United States are subject
to the direct legislative authority of Congress,
and hence the General Government is responsible
for any violation of the Constitution in any
of them. It is therefore a reproach to the Government
that in the most populous of the Territories
the constitutional guaranty is not enjoyed by
the people and the authority of Congress is
set at naught. The Mormon Church not only offends
the moral sense of manhood by sanctioning polygamy,
but prevents the administration of justice through
ordinary instrumentalities of law.
In my judgment it is the duty
of Congress, while respecting to the uttermost
the conscientious convictions and religious
scruples of every citizen, to prohibit within
its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially
of that class which destroy the family relations
and endanger social order. Nor can any ecclesiastical
organization be safely permitted to usurp in
the smallest degree the functions and powers
of the National Government.
The civil service can never be
placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated
by law. For the good of the service itself,
for the protection of those who are intrusted
with the appointing power against the waste
of time and obstruction to the public business
caused by the inordinate pressure for place,
and for the protection of incumbents against
intrigue and wrong, I shall at the proper time
ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor
offices of the several Executive Departments
and prescribe the grounds upon which removals
shall be made during the terms for which incumbents
have been appointed.
Finally, acting always within
the authority and limitations of the Constitution,
invading neither the rights of the States nor
the reserved rights of the people, it will be
the purpose of my Administration to maintain
the authority of the nation in all places within
its jurisdiction; to enforce obedience to all
the laws of the Union in the interests of the
people; to demand rigid economy in all the expenditures
of the Government, and to require the honest
and faithful service of all executive officers,
remembering that the offices were created, not
for the benefit of incumbents or their supporters,
but for the service of the Government.
And now, fellow-citizens, I am
about to assume the great trust which you have
committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that
earnest and thoughtful support which makes this
Government in fact, as it is in law, a government
of the people.
I shall greatly rely upon the
wisdom and patriotism of Congress and of those
who may share with me the responsibilities and
duties of administration, and, above all, upon
our efforts to promote the welfare of this great
people and their Government I reverently invoke
the support and blessings of Almighty God. |