First Inaugural Address (Jefferson)

Summary

Thomas Jefferson delivered his First Inaugural Address on 4 March 1801 in the Senate chamber of the unfinished Capitol, the first presidential inauguration held in the new federal city of Washington. Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath. The election of 1800 had been fought bitterly between the Federalists of President John Adams and the Republicans led by Jefferson, in the shadow of the French Revolution, the Quasi-War with France and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Because Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr received equal numbers of electoral votes, the House of Representatives had to decide the election, choosing Jefferson on the thirty-sixth ballot in February 1801. Adams left Washington early on the morning of the inauguration. For the first time, power passed from one party to its opponents under the Constitution. The address is short, about 1,700 words in five paragraphs. Jefferson opens by thanking his fellow citizens and confessing that the task is above his talents; he describes a rising nation spread over a wide land and says he relies on the wisdom of the other branches of government. In the second paragraph he turns to the recent contest. Now that the voice of the nation has decided it under the rules of the Constitution, all should unite for the common good, remembering that the majority must rule but its will must be reasonable and the minority's equal rights protected. Having banished religious intolerance, Americans should not countenance political intolerance. Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle, he says, and he declares that all are Republicans and all are Federalists. Those who would dissolve the Union may be left undisturbed, since error can be tolerated where reason is free to combat it. Against those who fear a republic cannot be strong, he calls this government the strongest on earth and asks whether, if man cannot govern himself, he can be trusted to govern others. The third paragraph lists the blessings of the country, its separation from Europe's wars, room for a thousand generations, equal rights, and a benign religion acknowledging an overruling Providence, and adds one thing more: a wise and frugal government that restrains men from injuring one another and leaves them otherwise free. The fourth paragraph states what he calls the essential principles of the government, among them equal and exact justice, peace and commerce with all nations and entangling alliances with none, support of the state governments, preservation of the general government, majority rule, a militia, civilian supremacy, economy, payment of debts, freedom of religion, of the press and of person under habeas corpus, and trial by jury. He calls them the creed of our political faith. In closing he honours Washington, asks indulgence for his own errors, and prays that the Infinite Power which rules the universe will guide the nation's councils. The library text is the Avalon Project transcription.

Top Lessons

• A peaceful transfer of power

  In 1801 the Federalists handed the executive to their opponents after a bitter campaign and a deadlocked electoral count. Jefferson's address treats the result as decided by the voice of the nation under the rules of the Constitution, and asks everyone to arrange themselves under the will of the law.

• Majority rule and minority rights

  Jefferson holds both that the will of the majority must prevail and that it must be reasonable, leaving the minority its equal rights. He later calls absolute acquiescence in majority decisions the vital principle of republics, so the two ideas are meant to stand together.

• Difference of opinion and difference of principle

  Jefferson argues that Americans have called by different names brethren of the same principle. He compares political intolerance to the religious intolerance the country had banished and trusts reason, left free, to answer error.

• A creed of political faith

  The list of essential principles gathers in one sentence ideas from the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, from justice for all persuasions to trial by jury. Jefferson wants citizens to learn them as a civic creed and use them as a touchstone to judge their leaders.

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Medical Lens

The address concerns party conflict, constitutional principle and foreign policy and has no medical content.