| UNWILLING to depart from examples of the most revered
authority, I avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the
profound impression made on me by the call of my country to the station
to the duties of which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of
sanctions. So distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the
deliberate and tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would
under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as
well as filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be assumed. Under
the various circumstances which give peculiar solemnity to the existing
period, I feel that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to me
are inexpressibly enhanced. |
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| The present situation of the world is indeed without a
parallel, and that of our own country full of difficulties. The pressure
of these, too, is the more severely felt because they have fallen upon
us at a moment when the national prosperity being at a height not before
attained, the contrast resulting from the change has been rendered the
more striking. Under the benign influence of our republican
institutions, and the maintenance of peace with all nations whilst so
many of them were engaged in bloody and wasteful wars, the fruits of a
just policy were enjoyed in an unrivaled growth of our faculties and
resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improvements of agriculture,
in the successful enterprises of commerce, in the progress of
manufacturers and useful arts, in the increase of the public revenue and
the use made of it in reducing the public debt, and in the valuable
works and establishments everywhere multiplying over the face of our
land. |
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| It is a precious reflection that the transition from this
prosperous condition of our country to the scene which has for some time
been distressing us is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor,
as I trust, on any involuntary errors in the public councils. Indulging
no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations,
it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by
observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect of the
nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations with the most
scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor in the world, the truth of
these assertions will not be questioned; posterity at least will do
justice to them. |
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| This unexceptionable course could not avail against the
injustice and violence of the belligerent powers. In their rage against
each other, or impelled by more direct motives, principles of
retaliation have been introduced equally contrary to universal reason
and acknowledged law. How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued
in spite of the demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been
given by the United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to
induce a revocation of them, can not be anticipated. Assuring myself
that under every vicissitude the determined spirit and united councils
of the nation will be safeguards to its honor and its essential
interests, I repair to the post assigned me with no other discouragement
than what springs from my own inadequacy to its high duties. If I do
not sink under the weight of this deep conviction it is because I find
some support in a consciousness of the purposes and a confidence in the
principles which I bring with me into this arduous service. |
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| To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations
having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward
belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and
reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an
appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities,
so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a
spirit of independence too just to invade the rights of others, too
proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices
ourselves and too elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold
the union of the States as the basis of their peace and happiness; to
support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in
its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and
authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally
incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system; to
avoid the slightest interference with the right of conscience or the
functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to
preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of
private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press; to
observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public resources
by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the
requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an
armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics—that
without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with
large ones safe; to promote by authorized means improvements friendly to
agriculture, to manufactures, and to external as well as internal
commerce; to favor in like manner the advancement of science and the
diffusion of information as the best aliment to true liberty; to carry
on the benevolent plans which have been so meritoriously applied to the
conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and
wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the improvements of
which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state—as
far as sentiments and intentions such as these can aid the fulfillment
of my duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me. |
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| It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I
am to tread lighted by examples of illustrious services successfully
rendered in the most trying difficulties by those who have marched
before me. Of those of my immediate predecessor it might least become me
here to speak. I may, however, be pardoned for not suppressing the
sympathy with which my heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the
benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully bestowed or exalted
talents zealously devoted through a long career to the advancement of
its highest interest and happiness. |
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But the source to which I look or the aids which alone can
supply my deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of
my fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in
the other departments associated in the care of the national interests.
In these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next
to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship
and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of
nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this
rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout
gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best
hopes for the future.
James Madison Speech - War Message (1812)
Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which
Great
Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior
magnitude,
the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts hostile to the
United States as an independent and neutral nation.
British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the
American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and
carrying
off persons sailing under it, not in the exercise of a belligerent right
founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal
prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended
to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law
of
nations and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong, and a
self-redress is assumed which, if British subjects were wrongfully
detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force for a resort
to the responsible sovereign which falls within the definition of war...
The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone
that,
under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American
citizens,
under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag, have been
torn from their country and from everything dear to them; have been
dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation and exposed, under the
severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and
deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors,
and
to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own
brethren.
Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt to
avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain
exhausted remonstrances and expostulations, and that no proof might be
wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for a
continuance of the practice, the British Government was formally assured
of the readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements such as
could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects were the real
and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.
British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights
and the pace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and
departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added
the
most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly spilt
American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction...
Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force and
sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has
been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been
cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed at
our
agricultural and maritime interests....
Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our
neutral
trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to the sweeping system
of
blockades, under the name of orders in council, which has been molded
and
managed as might best suit its political views, its commercial
jealousies,
or the avidity of British cruisers...
It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of the
United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the
belligerent
rights of Great Britain; not as supplying the wants of her enemies,
which
she herself supplies; but as interfering with the monopoly which she
covets for her own commerce and navigation. She carries on a war against
the lawful commerce of a friend that she may the better carry on a
commerce with an enemy—a commerce polluted by the forgeries and
perjuries
which are for the most part the only passports by which it can
succeed...
In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United States our
attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the
savages
on one of our extensive frontiers a warfare which is known to spare
neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly
shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and
combinations which have for some time been developing themselves among
tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons
without
connecting their hostility with that influence and without recollecting
the authenticated examples of such interpositions heretofore furnished
by
the officers and agents of that Government.
Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped
on our country, and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and
conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert...
Our moderation and conciliation have had no other effect than to
encourage
perseverance and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our seafaring
citizens
still the daily victims of lawless violence, committed on the great
common
and highway of nations, even within sight of the country which owes them
protection. We behold our vessels, freighted with the products of our
soil
and industry, or returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested
from
their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the
organs of public law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their
unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British
ports into British fleets...
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against
the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace
toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive
usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force
in
defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into the
hands
of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections which might
entangle it in the contest or views of other powers, and preserving a
constant readiness to concur in an honorable reestablishment of peace
and
friendship, is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides
to
the legislative department of the Government. In recommending it to
their
early deliberations I am happy in the assurance that the decision will
be
worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and
a
powerful nation.
June 17, the Senate voted nineteen to thirteen in favour of war and
President Madison signed the Declaration of War on June 18. 1812
2nd Inaugural Address
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