Thomas Jefferson
2nd Inaugural
Washington, DC, 1805-03-04

Proceeding, fellow citizens, to that qualification which the 
Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again 
conferred on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain 
of this new proof of confidence from my fellow citizens at large, & 
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 I have on every occasion acted 
up to that declaration according to its obvious import & to the 
understanding of every candid mind.

In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to 
cultivate the friendship of all nations, & especially of those with 
which we have the most important relations.  We have done them 
justice on all occasions, favored where favor was lawful, & cherished 
mutual interests & intercourse on fair & equal terms.  We are firmly 
convinced, & we act on that conviction, that with nations as with 
individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found 
inseparable from our moral duties, & history bears witness to the 
fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had 
to armaments & 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 & expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal 
taxes.  These, covering our land with officers & 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 property & produce.  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, & 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 
chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic 
comforts, being collected on our sea-board & frontiers only, &, 
incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may 
be the pleasure & the pride of an Amiercan to ask, ÒWhat farmer, what 
mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax-gatherer of the Untied 
States?Ó.

These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the 
government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish 
the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, & 
to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day 
their final redemption, & that redemption once effected the revenue 
thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the states & 
a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied in time of 
peace to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, & 
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 by increased 
population & consumption, & 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 burthening 
them with the debts of the past.  War will then be but a suspension 
of useful works, & 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, & in the mean time may keep down the 
accruing interest; in all events, it will replace the advances we 
shall 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; & in any 
view is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi 
should be settled by our own brethren & children than by strangers of 
another family?  With which should we be most likely to live in 
harmony & 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 & discipline of the 
church or state 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 
& the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty & 
independence, & occupying a country which left them no desire but to 
be undisturbed, the stream of over-flowing population from other 
regions directed itself on these shores; without power to divert or 
habits to contend against it, they have been overwhelmed by the 
current or driven before it; now reduced within limits too narrow for 
the hunterÕs state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture & 
the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can 
enable them to maintain their place in existence & to prepare them in 
time for that state of society which to bodily comforts adds the 
improvement of mind & morals.  We have therefore liberally furnished 
them with the implements of husbandry & household use; we have placed 
among them instructors in the arts of 1st necessity, & 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, & change their pursuits with the change of 
circumstances have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are 
combatted by the habits of their bodies, prejudice of their minds, 
ignorance, pride, & the influence of interested & crafty individuals 
among them who feel themselves something in the present order of 
things & 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, & 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 & knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends, among them 
also is seen the action & counteraction of good sense & of bigotry; 
they too have their anti-philosophists who find an interest in 
keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, & exert 
all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty 
of improving our reason & 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 1st place, 
to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the 
weight of public opinion, influence & 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 & wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the 
foundations of public happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of 
which alone remains for others, & it is due to the able & faithful 
auxiliaries, whose patriotism has associated them with me in the 
executive functions.

During this course of administration, & in order to disturb it, the 
artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with 
whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare.  These abuses of 
an institution so important to freedom & science are deeply to be 
regretted, in as much as they tend to lessen its usefulness & to sap 
its safety.  They might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome 
punishments reserved to & provided by the laws of the several states 
against falsehood & defamation, but public duties more urgent press 
on the time of public servants, & 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 & fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, 
is not sufficient for the propagation & protection of truth - whether 
a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its 
constitution, with zeal & purity, & doing no act which it would be 
unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by 
falsehood & defamation.  The experiment has been tried; you have 
witnessed the scene; our fellow citizens looked on, cool & collected; 
they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they 
gathered around their public functionaries, & when the Constitution 
called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their 
verdict, honorable to those who had served them & consolatory to the 
friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control of 
his own affairs.

No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the states 
against false & defamatory publications should not be enforced; he 
who has time renders a service to public morals & public tranquillity 
in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but 
the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth & 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 & opinions on a 
full hearing of all parties; & no other definite line can be drawn 
between the inestimable liberty of the press & 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 & 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, & our doubting 
brethren will at length see that the mass of their fellow citizens 
with whom they can not yet resolve to act as to principles & 
measures, think as they think & 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 & 
religious liberty unassailed, law & order preserved equality of 
rights maintained, & that state of property, equal or unequal, which 
results to every man from his own industry or that of his fatherÕs.

When satisfied of these views it is not in human nature that they 
should not approve & support them.  In the mean time let us cherish 
them with patient affection, let us do them justice, & more than 
justice, in all competitions of interest, & we need not doubt that 
truth, reason, & their own interests will at length prevail, will 
gather them into the fold of their country, & will complete that 
entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of 
harmony & the benefit of all its strength.

I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow citizens have 
again called me, & 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 weaknesses of human 
nature & the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of 
judgment sometimes injurious to your interests.  

I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I have heretofore 
experienced from my constituents; 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 fathers, as Israel of old, 
from their native land & planted them in a country flowing with all 
the necessaries & comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with 
His providence & our riper years with His wisdom & power, & to whose 
goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so 
enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, & prosper 
their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, & 
shall secure to you the peace, friendship, & approbation of all 
nations.                  - 30 -