Court of the United States; before the Senate of Mr. EMMET'S Speech in the trial of William S. Smith, for Misdemeanors; in the Circuit Court of the United States, for the New York District, 1806, Mr. DEXTER's Speech in the trial of Thomas O. Sel- fridge, for killing Charles Austin; before the Su- preme Court of the Commonwealth of Massachu- Mr. WICKHAM's Speech in the trial of Aaron Burr, for Treason; in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Virginia, 1807, Mr. WIRT's Speech in the same trial, Mr. RANDOLPH's Speech in the same trial, Mr. PINKNEY'S Speech in the case of the Nereide; be- fore the Supreme Court of the United States, 1815, Mr. WEBSTER'S Speech in the impeachment of James Prescott, Judge of the Probate of Wills, &c. for the ་ INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DELIVERED MARCH 4, 1825. In compliance with an usage, coeval with the existence of our federal constitution, and sanctioned by the example of my predecessors, in the career upon which I am about to enter, I appear, my fellow-citizens, in your presence, and in that of heaven, to bind myself by the solemnity of religious obligation, to the faithful performance of the duties allotted to me in the station to which I have been called. In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which I shall be governed, in the fulfilment of those duties, my first resort will be to that constitution, which I shall swear, to the best of my ability, to preserve, protect and defend. That revered instrument enumerates the powers and prescribes the duties of the executive magistrate; and, in its first words, declares the purposes to which these, and the whole action of the government, instituted by it, should be invariably and sacredly devoted to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to the people of this union, in their successive generations. Since the adoption of this social compact, one of these gencrations has passed away. It is the work of our forefathers. Administered by some of its most eminent men, who contributed to its formation, through a most eventful period in the annals of the world, and through all the vicissitudes of peace and war, incidental to the condition of associated man, it has not disappointed the hopes and aspirations of those illustrious benefactors of their age and nation. It has promoted the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all; it has, to an extent far beyond the ordinary lot of humanity, secured the freedom and happiness of this people. We now receive it as a precious inheritance from those to whom we are indebted for its establishment, doubly bound by the examples which they have left us, and by the blessings which we have enjoyed, as the fruits of their labors, to transmit the same, unimpaired, to the succeeding generation. In the compass of thirty-six years since this great national covenant was instituted, a body of laws, enacted under its authority, and in conformity with its provisions, has unfolded its powers, and carried into practical operation its effective energies. Subordinate departments have distributed the executive functions in their various relations to foreign affairs, to the revenue and expenditures, and to the military force of the union, by land and sea. A co-ordinate department of the judiciary has expounded the constitution and the laws; settling, in harmonious coincidence with the legislative will, numerous weighty questions of construction, which the imperfection of human language had rendered unavoidable. The year of jubilee, since the first formation of our union, has just elapsed; that of the declaration of our independence, is at hand. The consummation of both was effected by this constitution. Since that period, a population of four millions has multiplied to twelve; a territory bounded by the Mississippi, has been extended from sea to sea; new states have been admitted to the union, in numbers equal to those of the first confederation; treaties of peace, amity and commerce, have been concluded with the principal dominions of the earth; the people of other nations, inhabitants of regions acquired, not by conquest, but by compact, have been united with us in the participation of our rights and duties, of our burdens and blessings; the forest has fallen by the axe of our woodsmen; the soil has been made to teem by the tillage of our farmers; our commerce has whitened every ocean; the dominion of every man over physical nature has been extended by the invention of our artists; liberty and law have marched hand in hand; all the purposes of human association have been accomplished as effectively as under any other government on the globe; and at a cost little exceeding, in a whole generation, the expenditure of other nations in a single year. Such is the unexaggerated picture of our condition, under a constitution founded upon the republican principle of equal rights. To admit that this picture has its shades, is but to say, that it is still the condition of men upon earth. From evil, physical, moral and political, it is not our claim to be exempt. We have suffered, sometimes by the visitation of heaven, through disease; often, by the wrongs and injustice of other nations, even to the extremities of war; and lastly, by dissensions among ourselves-dissensions, perhaps, inseparable from the enjoyment of freedom, but which have, more than once, appeared to threaten the dissolution of the union, and, with it, the overthrow of all the enjoyments of our present lot, and all our earthly hopes of the future. The causes of these dissensions have been various: founded upon differences of speculation in the theory of republican government; upon conflicting views of policy, in our relations with foreign nations; upon jealousies of partial and sectional interests, aggravated by prejudices and prepossessions which strangers to each other are ever apt to entertain. It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me, to observe that the great result of this experiment, upon the theory of human rights, has, at the close of that generation by which is was formed, been crowned with success, equal to the most sanguine expectations of its founders. Union, justice, tranquilli ty, the common defence, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty, all have been promoted by the government under which we have lived. Standing at this point of time; looking back to that generation which has gone by, and forward to that which is advancing, we may, at once, indulge in grateful exultation, and in cheering hope. From the experience of the past, we derive instructive lessons for the future. Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit, that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices, to the formation and administration of this government; and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the moment when the government of the United States first went into operation under this constitution, excited a collision of sentiments and of sympathies which kindled all the passions, and embittered the conflict of parties, till the nation was involved in war, and the union was shaken to its centre. This time of trial embraced a period of five and twenty years, during which, the policy of the union in its relations with Europe, constituted the principal basis of our political divisions, and the most arduous part of the action of our federal government. With the catastrophe in which the wars of the French revolution terminated, and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain, this baneful weed of party strife was uprooted. From that time, no difference of principle, connected either with the theory of government, or with our intercourse with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth, in force sufficient to sustain a continued combination of parties, or to give more than wholesome animation to the public sentiment or legislative debate. Our political creed is without a dissenting voice that can be heard. That the will of the people is the source, and the happiness of the peo |