them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness. My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws, and each to every other citizen his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus solemnly into covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke and confidingly expect the favor and help of Almighty God that He will give to me wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity and a love of righteousness and peace. This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under our Constitution. The first inauguration of President Washington took place in New York, where Congress was then sitting, on the 30th day of April, 1789, having been deferred by reason of delays attending the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution of the second great department of our constitutional scheme of government. When the centennial of the institution of the judicial department, by the organization of the Supreme Court, shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will be, our nation will have fully entered its second century. I will not attempt to note the marvellous and in great part happy contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold into its second century of organized existence under the Constitution, and that weak but wisely ordered young nation that looked undauntedly down the first century, when all its years stretched out before it. Constitution, or to find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of Washington and his great associates, and hope and courage in the contrast which thirty-eight populous and prosperous States offer to the thirteen States, weak in everything except courage and the love of liberty, that then fringed our Atlantic seaboard. The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the original States (except Virginia), and greater than the aggregate of five of the smaller States in 1790. The centre of population when our national capital was located was east of Baltimore, and it was argued by many well-informed persons that it would move eastward rather than westward; yet in 1880 it was found to be near Cincinnati, and the new census about to be taken will show another stride to the westward. That which was the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the nation's robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory, population, and aggregate wealth, marvellous as it has been in each of those directions. The masses of our people are better fed, clothed, and housed than their fathers were. The facilities for popular education have been vastly enlarged and more generally diffused. The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and over the lives of our people. The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in higher estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not all of our people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding. But on the whole the opportunities offered to the individual to secure the comforts of life are better than are found elsewhere, and largely better than they were here 100 years ago. The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the general government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not accomplished until the suggestions of reason were strongly reinforced by the more imperative voice of experience. The divergent interests of peace speedily demanded a more perfect Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which accompanied the institution of government under the union." The merchant, the ship - master, and the manufacturer discovered and disclosed to our statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must be added to the political freedom which had been so bravely won. The commercial policy of the mother-country had not relaxed any of its hard and oppressive features. To hold in check the development of our commercial marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth of manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market for their shops and the carrying trade for their ships, was the policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with the most selfish vigor. the depths of the earth as well as in the sky; men were made free, and material things became our better servants. The sectional element has happily been eliminated from tariff discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily only planting States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among the people which brings wealth and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the product is spun in the country town by operatives whose necessities call for diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural products. Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the State more real and valuable than added territory. Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of discriminating duties that should encourage the production of needed things at home. The patriotism of the people, which no longer found a Shall the prejudices and paralysis of field of exercise in war, was energetically slavery continue to hang upon the skirts directed to the duty of equipping the of progress? How long will those who young republic for the defence of its in- rejoice that slavery no longer exists dependence by making its people self- cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put dependent. Societies for the promotion upon their communities? I look hopefully of home manufactures and for encour- to the continuance of our protective sysaging the use of domestics in the dress tem and to the consequent development of of the people were organized in many of manufacturing and mining enterprises the States. The revival at the end of in the States hitherto wholly given to the century of the same patriotic interest agriculture as a potent influence in the in the preservation and development of perfect unification of our people. The men domestic industries and the defence of who have invested their capital in these our working people against injurious for- enterprises, the farmers who have felt the eign competition is an incident worthy of benefit of their neighborhood, and the men attention. It is not a departure but a who work in shop or field will not fail to return that we have witnessed. The protec- find and to defend a community of interest. tive policy had then its opponents. The Is it not quite possible that the farmers argument was made, as now, that its bene- and promoters of the great mining and fits inured to particular classes or sections. manufacturing enterprises which have reIf the question became in any sense cently been established in the South may or at any time sectional, it was only be- yet find that the free ballot of the workcause slavery existed in some of the ingman, without distinction of race, is States. But for this there was no reason needed for their defence as well as for his why the cotton-producing States should own? I do not doubt that if those men in not have led or walked abreast with the the South who now accept the tariff views New England States in the production of of Clay and the constitutional expositions cotton fabrics. There was this reason only of Webster would courageously avow and why the States that divide with Penn- defend their real convictions they would sylvania the mineral treasures of the not find it difficult, by friendly instruction great southeastern and central mountain and co-operation, to make the black man ranges should have been so tardy in bring their efficient and safe ally, not only in ing to the smelting furnace and to the establishing correct principles in our namill the coal and iron from their near tional administration, but in preserving opposing hill-sides. Mill-fires were light- for their local communities the benefits of ed at the funeral pile of slavery. The social order and economical and honest emancipation proclamation was heard in government. At least until the good ices of kindness and education have been irly tried the contrary conclusion cant be plausibly urged. I have altogether rejected the suggestion a special executive policy for any secon of our country. It is the duty of the 【ecutive to administer and enforce in he methods and by the instrumentalities ɔinted out and provided by the Constiition all the laws enacted by Congress. hese laws are general and their adminisration should be uniform and equal. s a citizen may not elect what laws he ill obey, neither may the executive elect hich he will enforce. The duty to obey nd to execute embraces the Constitution 1 its entirety and the whole code of laws nacted under it. The evil example of ermitting individuals, corporations, or ommunities to nullify the laws because hey cross some selfish or local interest or ›rejudices is full of danger, not only to he nation at large, but much more to hose who use this pernicious expedient to scape their just obligations or to obtain in unjust advantage over others. They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defence must not deny that use of it to others. If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations. The community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a portion of its members their plain rights under the law has severed the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works from a bad centre both ways. It demoralizes those who practise it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this. community either practise or connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the ignorant classes? A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor. Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons applying for citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in their administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat to social order. These should be identified and excluded. We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote peace, but never obtruding our advice and never attempting unfairly to coin the distresses of other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect that our European policy will be the American policy of European courts. It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in matters affecting them that a shorter water-way between our Eastern and Western seaboards should be dominated by any European government that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any An unlawful expedient cannot become a permanent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a friendly power. |