1789 Inaugural Address of President George Washington
April 30, 1789
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 my self 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
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
a cquit 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.
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 tranquility, 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.