Address Of The House Of Representatives To John Adams

George Washington's Inaugural Address- 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 myself 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 United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an
independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency;
and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government
the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from
which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most
governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an
humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These
reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my
mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under
the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more
auspiciously commence.
  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 acquit 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
tranquillity, 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.