第一篇：美国总统布什就职演讲稿(中英文对照)
美国总统布什就职演讲稿（中英文对照）
布什：保护与捍卫《美国宪法》。芮恩奎斯特：上帝保佑我。布什：上帝保佑我。芮恩奎斯特：恭喜！
谢谢大家！
尊敬的芮恩奎斯特大法官，卡特总统，布什总统，克林顿总统，尊敬的来宾们，我的同胞们，这次权利的和平过渡在历史上是罕见的，但在美国是平常的。我们以朴素的宣誓庄严地维护了古老的传统，同时开始了新的历程。首先，我要感谢克林顿总统为这个国家作出的贡献，也感谢副总统戈尔在竞选过程中的热情与风度。
站在这里，我很荣幸，也有点受宠若惊。在我之前，许多美国领导人从这里起步；在我之后，也会有许多领导人从这里继续前进。
在美国悠久的历史中，我们每个人都有自己的位置；我们还在继续推动着历史前进，但是我们不可能看到它的尽头。这是一部新世界的发展史，是一部后浪推前浪的历史。这是一部美国由奴隶制社会发展成为崇尚自由的社会的历史。这是一个强国保护而不是占有世界的历史，是捍卫而不是征服世界的历史。这就是美国史。它不是一部十全十美的民族发展史，但它是一部在伟大和永恒理想指导下几代人团结奋斗的历史。
这些理想中最伟大的是正在慢慢实现的美国的承诺，这就是：每个人都有自身的价值，每个人都有成功的机会，每个人天生都会有所作为的。美国人民肩负着一种使命，那就是要竭力将这个诺言变成生活中和法律上的现实。虽然我们的国家过去在追求实现这个承诺的途中停滞不前甚至倒退，但我们仍将坚定不移地完成这一使命。
在上个世纪的大部分时间里，美国自由民主的信念犹如汹涌大海中的岩石。现在它更像风中的种子，把自由带给每个民族。在我们的国家，民主不仅仅是一种信念，而是全人类的希望。民主，我们不会独占，而会竭力让大家分享。民主，我们将铭记于心并且不断传播。225年过去了，我们仍有很长的路要走。
有很多公民取得了成功，但也有人开始怀疑，怀疑我们自己的国家所许下的诺言，甚至怀疑它的公正。失败的教育，潜在的偏见和出身的环境限制了一些美国人的雄心。有时，我们的分歧是如此之深，似乎我们虽身处同一个大陆，但不属于同一个国家。我们不能接受这种分歧，也无法容许它的存在。我们的团结和统一，是每一代领导人和每一个公民的严肃使命。在此，我郑重宣誓：我将竭力建设一个公正、充满机会的统一国家。我知道这是我们的目标，因为上帝按自己的身形创造了我们，上帝高于一切的力量将引导我们前进。
对这些将我们团结起来并指引我们向前的原则，我们充满信心。血缘、出身或地域从未将美国联合起来。只有理想，才能使我们心系一处，超越自己，放弃个人利益，并逐步领会何谓公民。每个孩子都必须学习这些原则。每个公民都必须坚持这些原则。每个移民，只有接受这些原则，才能使我们的国家不丧失而更具美国特色。
今天，我们在这里重申一个新的信念，即通过发扬谦恭、勇气、同情心和个性的
独立的个性；依赖于我们的公民义务，家庭纽带和基本的公正；依赖于我们无数的、默默无闻的体面行动，正是它们指引我们走向自由。
在生活中，有时我们被召唤着去做一些惊天动地的事情。但是，正如我们时代的一位圣人所言，每一天我们都被召唤带着挚爱去做一些小事情。一个民主制度最重要的任务是由大家每一个人来完成的。
我为人处事的原则包括：坚信自己而不强加于人，为公众的利益勇往直前，追求正义而不乏同情心，勇担责任而决不推卸。我要通过这一切，用我们历史上传统价值观来哺育我们的时代。
(同胞们)，你们所做的一切和政府的工作同样重要。我希望你们不要仅仅追求个人享受而忽略公众的利益；要捍卫既定的改革措施，使其不会轻易被攻击；要从身边小事做起，为我们的国家效力。我希望你们成为真正的公民，而不是旁观者，更不是臣民。你们应成为有责任心的公民，共同来建设一个互帮互助的社会和有特色的国家。
美国人民慷慨、强大、体面，这并非因为我们信任我们自己，而是因为我们拥有超越我们自己的信念。一旦这种公民精神丧失了，无论何种政府计划都无法弥补它。一旦这种精神出
现了，无论任何错误都无法抗衡它。
在《独立宣言》签署之后，弗吉尼亚州的政治家约翰·佩齐曾给托马斯·杰弗逊写信说：“我们知道，身手敏捷不一定就能赢得比赛，力量强大不一定就能赢得战争。难道这一切不都是上帝安排的吗？” 杰斐逊就任总统的那个年代离我们已经很远了。时光飞逝，美国发生了翻天覆地的变化。但是有一点他肯定能够预知，即我们这个时代的主题仍然是：我们国家无畏向前的恢宏故事和它追求尊严的纯朴梦想。
我们不是这个故事的作者，是杰斐逊作者本人的伟大理想穿越时空，并通过我们每天的努力在变为现实。我们正在通过大家的努力在履行着各自的职责。
带着永不疲惫、永不气馁、永不完竭的信念，今天我们重树这样的目标：使我们的国家变得更加公正、更加慷慨，去验证我们每个人和所有人生命的尊严。
这项工作必须继续下去。这个故事必须延续下去。上帝会驾驭我们航行的。
愿上帝保佑大家！愿上帝保佑美国！
Renquist: Governor, are you ready to take the oath? Bush: I am.Renquist: Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear.Bush: I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear.Renquist: That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.Bush: That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.Renquist: And will to the best of my ability...Bush: And will to the best of my ability...Renquist:...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.Bush:...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.Renquist: So help me, God.Bush: So help me, God.Renquist: Congratulations!I thank you all.Chief Justice Renquist, President Carter, President Bush, President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens.The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country.With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.I am honored and humbled to stand here where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.We have a place, all of us, in a long story.A story we continued, but whose end we will not see.It is a story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old.A story of a slave holding society that became a servant of freedom.It is the American story.A story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and 1)enduring ideals.The grandest of these ideals is an 2)unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born.Americans are called to 3)enact this promise in our lives and in our laws.And although our nation has sometimes halted and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course.Sometimes in life we're called to do great things.But as a saint of our times has said, “Everyday we're called to do small things with great love.” The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.I will live and lead by these principles, to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greaterjustice and compassion, to call for responsibility, and try to live it as well.In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.What you do is an important as anything government does.I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort, to defend needed reforms against easy attacks, to serve your nation beginning with your neighbor.I ask you to be citizens;citizens, not spectators;citizens, not subjects;responsible citizens building communities of service and a nation of character.Americans are generous and strong and decent not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves.When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it.When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginian statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson.“We know the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.Do you not think an angel rides in the 5)whirlwind and directs this storm?” Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration.The yearsand changes accumulate.But the things of this day, he would know;our nation's grand story of courage, and its simple dream of dignity.We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose.Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing.We renew that purpose today, to make our country more just and generous, to affirm the dignity of our lives, and every life.This work continues.The story goes on.And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.God bless you all and God bless America!
第二篇：美国总统布什就职演讲稿
美国总统布什就职演讲稿
Thank you!
Chief Justice Rehnquist, President Carter, President Bush，President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country.With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.We have a place, all of us, in a long story--a story we continue, but whose end we will not see.It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.It is the American story--a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born.Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws.And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course.Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea.Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations.Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along.And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel.While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country.The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of their birth.And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country.We do not accept this, and we will not allow it.Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation.And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than our selves who creates us equal in His image.And we are confident in principles that unite and lead us onward.America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.Every child must be taught these principles.Every citizen must uphold them.And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility.A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness.Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear small.But the stakes for America are never small.If our country does not lead the cause of freedom, it will not be led.If we do not turn the hearts of children
toward knowledge and character, we will lose their gifts and undermine their idealism.If we permit our economy to drift and decline, the vulnerable will suffer most.We must live up to the calling we share.Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment.It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.America, at its best, is also courageous.Our national courage has been clear in times of depression and war, when defending common dangers defined our common good.Now we must choose if the example of our fathers and mothers will inspire us or condemn us.We must show courage in a time of blessing by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations.Together, we will reclaim America's schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more young lives.We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent.And we will reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans.We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge.We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power thatf avors freedom.We will defend our allies and our interests.We will show purpose without arrogance.We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength.And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.America, at its best, is compassionate.In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise.And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault.Abandonment and abuse are not acts of God, they are failures of love.And the proliferation of prisons, however necessary, is no substitute for hope and order in our souls.Where there is suffering, there is duty.Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities.And all of us are diminished when any are hopeless.Government has great responsibilities for public safety and public health, for civil rights and common schools.Yet compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government.And some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer.Church and charity, synagogue and mosque lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and in our laws.Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do.And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on
the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience.And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment.We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments.And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.Our public interest depends on private character, on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness, on uncounted, unhonored acts of decency which give direction to our freedom.Sometimes in life we are called to do great things.But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love.The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.What you do is as important as anything government does.I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort;to defend needed reforms against easy attacks;to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor.I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators;citizens, not subjects;responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.Americans are generous and strong and decent, not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves.When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it.When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?”
Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration.The yearsand changes accumulate.But the themes of this day he would know: our nation's grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose.Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today, to make our country more just and generous, to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life.This work continues.This story goes on.And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.God bless you all, and God bless America.
第三篇：历届美国总统就职演讲--中英文对照
历届美国总统就职演讲译文 乔治·华盛顿
第一次就职演讲 纽约
星期四,1789年4月30日
美国人民的实验
参议院和众议院的同胞们：
在人生沉浮中，没有一件事能比本月14日收到根据你们的命令送达的通知更使我焦虑不安，一方面，国家召唤我出任此职，对于她的召唤，我永远只能肃然敬从；而隐退是我以挚爱心憎、满腔希望和坚定的决心选择的暮年归宿，由于爱好和习惯，且时光流逝，健康渐衰，时感体力不济，愈觉隐退之必要和可贵。另一方面，国家召唤我担负的责任如此重大和艰巨，足以使国内最有才智和经验的人度德量力，而我天资愚饨，又无民政管理的实践，理应倍觉自己能力之不足，因而必然感到难以肩此重任。怀着这种矛盾心情，我唯一敢断言的是，通过正确估计可能产生影响的各种情况来克尽厥职，乃是我忠贞不渝的努力目标。我唯一敢祈望的是，如果我在执行这项任务时因陶醉于往事，或因由衷感激公民们对我的高度信赖，因而受到过多影响，以致在处理从未经历过的大事时，忽视了自己的无能和消极，我的错误将会由于使我误人歧途的各种动机而减轻，而大家在评判错误的后果时；也会适当包涵产生这些动机的偏见。
既然这就是我在遵奉公众召唤就任现职时的感想，那么，在此宣誓就职之际，如不热忱地祈求全能的上帝就极其失当，因为上帝统治着宇宙，主宰着各国政府，它的神助能弥补人类的任何不足，愿上帝赐福，侃佑一个为美国人民的自由和幸福而组成的政府，保佑它为这些基本目的而作出奉献，保佑政府的各项行政措施在我负责之下都能成功地发挥作用。我相信，在向公众利益和私人利益的伟大缔造者献上这份崇敬时，这些活也同样表达了各位和广大公民的心意。没有人能比美国人更坚定不移地承认和崇拜掌管人间事务的上帝。他们在迈向独立国家的进程中，似乎每走一步都有某种天佑的迹象；他们在刚刚完成的联邦政府体制的重大改革中，如果不是因虔诚的感恩而得到某种回报，如果不是谦卑地期待着过去有所预示的赐福的到来，那么，通过众多截然不同的集团的平静思考和自愿赞同来完成改革，这种方式是不能与大多数政府的组建方式同日而语的。在目前转折关头，我产生这些想法确实是深有所感而不能自已，我相信大家会和我怀有同感，即除了仰仗上帝的力量，一个新生的自由政府别无他法能一开始就事事顺利。根据设立行政部门的条款，总统有责任“将他认为必要而妥善的措施提请国会审议”。但在目前与各位见面的这个场合，恕我不进一步讨论这个问题，而只提一下伟大的宪法，它使各位今天聚集一堂，它规定了各位的权限，指出了各位应该注意的目标。在这样的场合，更恰当、也更能反映我内心激情的做法是不提出具体措施，而是称颂将要规划和采纳这些措施的当选者的才能、正直和爱国心。我从这些高贵品格中看到了最可靠的保证：其一，任何地方偏见或地方感情，任何意见分歧或党派敌视，都不能使我们偏离全局观点和公平观点，即必须维护这个由不同地区和利益所组成的大联合；因此，其二，我国的政策将会以纯洁而坚定的个人道德原则为基础，而自由政府将会以那赢得民心和全世界尊敬的一切特点而显示其优越性。我对国家的一片热爱之心激励着我满怀喜悦地展望这幅远景，因为根据自然界的构成和发展趋势，在美德与幸福之间，责任与利益之间，恪守诚实宽厚的政策与获得社会繁荣幸福的硕果之间，有着密不可分的统一；因为我们应该同样相信，上帝亲自规定了水恒的秩序和权利法则，它决不可能对无视这些法则的国家慈祥地加以赞许；因为人们理所当然地、满怀深情地、也许是最后一次把维护神圣的自由之火和共和制政府的命运，系于美国人所遵命进行的实验上。
我已将有感于这一聚会场合的想法奉告各位，现在我就要向大家告辞；但在此以前，我要再一次以谦卑的心情祈求仁慈的上帝给予帮助。因为承蒙上帝的恩赐，美国人有了深思熟虑的机会，以及为确保联邦的安全和促进幸福，用前所未有的一致意见来决定政府体制的意向；因而，同样明显的是，上帝将保佑我们扩大眼界，心平气和地进行协商，并采取明智的措施，而这些都是本届政府取得成功所必不可少的依靠。
George Washington First Inaugural Address In the City of New York Thursday, 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 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.约翰·亚当斯
就职演讲 费城
星期六,1797年3月4日
美国的政体与乔治·华盛顿
确实，还有其他什么形式的政体，值得我们如此尊敬和热爱呢？
古代有一种很不严密的观念认为，人类聚集而形成城市和国家，是最令具有卓越见识的人感到愉悦的目标，但无可置疑的是，在善良的人们看来，任何国家所显示的情景，都比不上这里和另一议院所经常见到的集会更令人喜悦，更高尚庄严，或者说更令人敬畏；政府的行政权和国会各个机构的立法权，是由同胞们定期选出的公民来行使的，其目的是为公众利益而制定和执行法律。难道官袍和钻石能为此增添实质性的东西吗？难道它们不就是一些装饰品吗？难道因运而生或通过远古制反而继承的权力，会比诚实而卓识的人民按自己的意愿和判断而产生的权力更可亲可敬吗？因为这样的政府唯一代表的是人民。它的各个合法机构，无论表现为何种形式，反映的都是人民的权利和尊严，并且只为人民谋利益。像我们这样的政府，不论其将存在多久，都是对知识和美德在全人类传播的充分证明。难道还有比这更令人喜悦的目标或构想能奉献给人类观念吗？如果说民族自豪感历来无可非议和情有可原，那么，这种自豪感必定不是来自权势和财富，不是来自豪华和荣耀，而是来自坚信民族的纯真、识见和仁爱。
当我们沉浸在这些愉快的想法时，如果任何片面或无关紧要的因素影响到自由、公平、高尚和独立的选举，使选举失去了纯洁性，使我们忽视自由所面临的危险，我们就会自欺欺人。如果选举需由一人一票的多数票来决定胜负，而一个政党可以通过欺骗和腐蚀来达到目的，那么这个政府就有可能是政党为自身目的而作出的选择，而下是国家为全国利益而作出的选择；如果其他国家有可能通过奉承或胁迫，欺诈或暴力，通过恐怖、阴谋或收买等伎俩控制了这次选举，那么这个政府就可能不是美国人民作出的选择，而是其他国家作出的选择。那样，就可能是外国统治我们，而不是我们——人民——来管理自已，那样，公正的人士就会认识到，选择较之命运或机遇就未必更有优越性而下值得夸耀了。
这就是使人感到亲切和兴趣的政治体制（及其可能暴露的某些弊端）。8年来，美国人民在一位公民的领导下展现了这种政治体制，引起了各国贤达的赞赏或挂虑。这位公民为人谨慎、公正、节制、坚韧，长期以来，他以一系列伟大的行动，领导着一个为共同的美德所鼓舞、强烈的爱国心所激励的和热爱自由的民族，走向独立、和平、富强和空前鳖荣。他值得同胞们感恩戴德，他博得了世界各国的最高赞扬，他必将名垂千古。他自愿选择了隐退，愿他在隐退后长寿，愉快地回忆他供职时的情景，并享受人类对他的感激，享受他所作出的奉献给他本人和全世界带来的与日俱增的幸福果实，享受这个国家的未来命运决定的、正在逐年展开的光明前景。他的名字仍将是一道防线，他的长寿仍将是一座堡垒，抵御着一切危害国家安定的、公开的或暗藏的敌人。他的这一举动已得到国会两院、各州立法机构和全国人民的一致赞扬，并将成为继任者效法的榜样。
John Adams Inaugural Address In the City of Philadelphia Saturday, March 4, 1797
When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country.Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty.The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society.The Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered.But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that it could not be durable.Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequencesuniversal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity.Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued in the present happy Constitution of Government.Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States in a foreign country.Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested.In its general principles and great outlines it was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish.Claiming a right of suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private.It was not then, nor has been since, any objection to it in my mind that the Executive and Senate were not more permanent.Nor have I ever entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures, according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most serious obligations to support the Constitution.The operation of it has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and veneration for it.What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good.Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented.It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear.The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people.And what object or consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good.If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations.It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves;and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance.Such is the amiable and interesting system of government(and such are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed)which the people of America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity.In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of this country which is opening from year to year.His name may be still a rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open or secret enemies of his country's peace.This example has been recommended to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people throughout the nation.On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak with diffidence;but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope, will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference, upon principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth;if an attachment to the Constitution of the United States, and a conscientious determination to support it until it shall be altered by the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it;if a respectful attention to the constitutions of the individual States and a constant caution and delicacy toward the State governments;if an equal and impartial regard to the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union, without preference or regard to a northern or southern, an eastern or western, position, their various political opinions on unessential points or their personal attachments;if a love of virtuous men of all parties and denominations;if a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments;if a love of equal laws, of justice, and humanity in the interior administration;if an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and defense;if a spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition to meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them;if an inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained by Congress;if a personal esteem for the French nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for the honor and interest of both nations;if, while the conscious honor and integrity of the people of America and the internal sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of complaint;if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success can not be obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government and its constituents demand;if a resolution to do justice as far as may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world;if an unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived;if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age;and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to the utmost of my power.And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence.托马斯·杰斐逊
第一次就职演讲 华盛顿
星期三,1801年3月4日
同心同德地团结起来
朋友们、同胞们：
我应召担任国家的最高行政长官，值此诸位同胞集会之时，我衷心感谢大家寄予我的厚爱，诚挚地说，我意识到这项任务非我能力所及，其责任之重大，本人能力之浅簿，自然使我就任时忧惧交加。一个沃野千里的新兴国家，带着丰富的工业产品跨海渡洋，同那些自恃强权、不顾公理的国家进行贸易，向着世人无法预见的天命疾奔——当我思考这些重大的目标，当我想到这个可爱的国家，其荣誉、幸福和希望都系于这个问题和今天的盛典，我就不敢再想下去，并面对这宏图大业自惭德薄能鲜。确实，若不是在这里见到许多先生们在场，使我想起无论遇到什么困难，都可以向宪法规定的另一高级机构寻找智慧、美德和热忱的源泉，我一定会完全心灰意懒。因此，负有神圣的立法职责的先生们和各位有关人士，我鼓起勇气期望你们给予指引和支持，使我们能够在乱世纷争中同舟共济，安然航行。
在我们过去的意见交锋中，大家热烈讨论，各展所长，这种紧张气氛，有时会使不习惯于自由思想、不习惯于说出或写下自己想法的人感到不安；但如今，这场争论既已由全国的民意作出决定，而且根据宪法的规定予以公布，大家当然会服从法律的意志，妥为安排，为共同的利益齐心协力，大家也会铭记这条神圣的原则；尽管在任何情况下，多数人的意志是起决定作用的，但这种意志必须合理才瞩公正；少数人享有同等权利，这种权利必须同样受到法律保护，如果侵犯，便是压迫。因此，公民们，让我们同心同德地团结起来。让我们在社会交往中和睦如初、恢复友爱，如果没有这些，自由，甚至生活本身都会索然寡味，让我们再想一想，我们已经将长期以来造成人类流血、受苦的宗教信仰上的不宽容现象逐出国上，如果我们鼓励某种政治上的不宽容，其专演、邪恶和可能造成的残酷、血腥迫害均与此相仿，那么我们必将无所收获。当旧世界经历阵痛和骚动，当愤怒的人挣扎着想通过流血、杀戮来寻求失去已人的自由，那波涛般的激情甚至也会冲击这片遥远而宁静的海岸；对此，人们的感触和忧患不会一样，因而对安全措施的意见就出现了分歧，这些都不足为奇。但是，各种意见分歧并不都是原则分歧。我们以不同的名字呼唤同一原则的兄弟。我们都是共和党人，我们都是联邦党人，如果我们当中有人想解散这个联邦，或者想改变它的共和体制，那就让他们不受干扰而作为对平安的纪念碑吧，因为有了平安，错误的意见就可得到宽容，理性就得以自由地与之抗争。诚然，我知道，有些正直人士担心共和制政府无法成为强有力的政府，担心我们这个政府不够坚强；但是，在实验取得成功的高潮中，一个诚实的爱国者，难道会因为一种假设的和幻想的疑惧，就以为这个被世界寄予最大希望的政府可能需要力量才得以自存，因而就放弃这个迄今带给我们自由和坚定的政府吗？我相信下会。相反，我相信这是世界上最坚强的政府。我相信唯有在这种政府的治理下，每个人才会响应法律的号召，奔向法律的旗帜下，像对待切身利益那样，迎击侵犯公共秩序的举动：有时我们听到一种说法：不能让人们自己管理自己。那么，能让他去管理别人吗？或者·我们在统治人民的君王名单中发现了无使吗？这个问题让历史来回答吧。
因此，让我们以勇气和信心，迫求我们自己的联邦与共和原则，拥戴联邦与代议制政府。我们受惠于大自然和大洋的阻隔，幸免于地球上四分之一地区发生的那场毁灭性浩动；
我们品格高尚，不能容忍他人的堕落； 们天赐良邦，其幅员足以容纳子孙万代；我们充分认识到在发挥个人才干、以勤劳换取收入、受到同胞的尊敬与信赖上，大家享有平等的权利，但这种尊敬和信赖不是出于门第，而是出于我们的行为和同胞的评判；我们受到仁慈的宗教的启迪，尽管教派不同，形式各异，但它们都教人以正直、忠诚、节制、恩义和仁爱；我们承认和崇拜全能的上帝，而天意表明，他乐于使这里的人们得到幸福，今后还将得到更多的幸福——我们有了这些福祉，还需要什么才能够使我们成为快乐而兴旺的民族呢？公民们，我们还需要一件，那就是贤明而节俭的政府，它会制止人们相互伤害，使他们自由地管理自己的实业和进步活动，它不会侵夺人们的劳动果实。这就是良好政府的集粹，这也是我们达到幸福圆满之必需。
公民们，我即将履行职责，这些职责包括你们所珍爱的一切，因此，你们应当了解我所认为的政府基本原则是什么，确定其行政依据的原则又是什么。我将尽量扼要地加以叙述，只讲一般原则，不讲其种种限制。实行人人平等和真正的公平，而不论其宗教或政治上的地位或派别；同所有国家和平相处、商务往来、真诚友好，而下与任何国家结盟，维护备州政府的一切权利，将它们作为我国最有权能的内政机构，和抵御反共和趋势的最可靠屏障；维持全国政府在宪制上的全部活力，将其作为国内安定和国际安全的最后依靠；忠实地维护人民的选举仅——将它作为一种温和而稳妥的矫正手段，对革命留下的、尚无和平补救办法的种种弊端予以矫正；绝对同意多数人的决定，因为这是共和制的主要原则，反之，不诉诸舆论而诉诸武力乃是专制的主要原则和直接根源；建立一支训练有来的民兵，作为平时和战争初期的最好依靠，直到正规军来接替；实行文职权高于军职权；节约政府开支，减轻劳工负担；诚实地偿还债务，庄严地维护政府信誉；鼓励农业，辅之以商业；传播信息，以公众理智力准绳补偏救弊；实行宗教自由；实行出版自由和人身自由，根据人身保护法和公正选出陪审团进行审判来保证人身自由。这些原则构成了明亮的星座，它在我们的前方照闸，指引我们经历了革命和改革时朗，先皙的智慧和英雄的鲜血都曾为实现这些原则作出过奉献，这些原则应当是我们的政治信条，公民教育的课本，检验我们所信曹的人的工作的试金石，如果我们因一时错误或惊恐而背日这些原则，那就让我们赶紧回头，重返这唯一通向和平、自由和安全的大道。
各位公民，我即将担当起你们委派给我的职务。根据我担任许多较低职务的经验，我已经意识到这是最艰巨的职务，囵此，我能够预期，当一个并非尽善尽奏的人从这个职位卸任时，很少能像就任时那样深手众望。我不敢奢皇大家如同信任我们第一位最伟大的革命元勋那样对我高度信任，因为他的卓著勋劳使他最有资格受到全国的爱戳，使他在忠实的史书中占有汲辉煌的一页，我只要求大家给我相当的信任，使人足以坚定地、有效地依法管理大家的事务。由于判断有误，我会常常犯错误。即使我是正确的，那些不是站在统筹全局的立场上看问题的人，也会常常认为我是错误的，我请求你们宽容我自己犯的锗误，而这些错误决不是故意犯的，我请求你们支持我反对别人的错误，而这些人如果通盘考虑，也是决不会犯的。从投票结果来看，大家对我的过去甚为嘉许，这是我莫大的安慰；今后我所渴望的是，力求赐予我好评的各位能保持这种好评，在我职权范围内为其他各位效劳以博得他们的好评，并为所有同胞们的幸福和自由而尽力。
现在，我仰承各位的好意，恭顺地就任此职，一旦你们觉得需要作出你们有权作出的更好的选择，我便准备辞去此职。愿主宰夭地万物命运的上帝引导我们的机构臻于完善，并为大家的和平与昌盛，赐给它一个值得赞许的结果。
Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address In the Washington, D.C.Wednesday, March 4, 1801 Friends and Fellow-Citizens:
Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire.A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eyewhen I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue, and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking.Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties.To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think;but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good.All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable;that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind.Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore;that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.We have called by different names brethren of the same principle.We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough;but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth.I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself.Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government.Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe;too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others;possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them;enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafterwith all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizensa wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration.I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies;the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;a jealous care of the right of election by the peoplea mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened;the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason;freedom of religion;freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment.They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust;and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me.With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs.I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment.When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts.The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make.And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.詹姆斯·麦迪逊 第二次就职演讲
星期四,1813年3月4日
关于一八一二年战争
美国一直没有宣战，直到出现了以下情况——直到这场加于美国的战争在实际上，尽管不是在名义上已进行了根久；直到再也没有争辩和规劝的余地；直到美国被明确地告知，无理挑衅不会中止；直到这最后的呼吁不可再拖延，不然国家的精神就要崩溃，国家和政府机构的信心就要丧失，那样，就得永远忍受屈辱，否则就得付出更高昂的代价和经过更严酷的斗争，才能恢复我国作为独立国家的地位和尊严。
战争问题关系到我国在公海上的主权，关系到一个重要的公民阶层的安全，而这个阶层所从事的职业，对于其他公民阶层具有重要的价值。如果不为此而斗争，就是放弃我国在公海上与其他国家的同等地位，就是侵犯每一个社会成风所拥有的、保护自己的神圣权利。我不必强调指出，巡航官对我国水手为所欲为，迫使他们离开自己的船只而登上异国船只的不法行径，也不必渲染其中免不了的暴行。我国历届政府的记录中都留有证据，凡是同情心尚未泯灭的人们，都会在心中记住这部分美国人所蒙受的苦难。由于这场战争从根本上说是正义的，从目标上说是必要的和高尚的，所以，我们可以自豪而满意地表明，把这场战争继续下去，并没有侵犯公正或道义原则，并没有违背文明国家的惯例，也没有触犯礼仪或人道法则。我们是以严格尊重所有上述义务的态度，和空间高昂的自由精神来进行这场战争的。
James Madison Second Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1813
About to add the solemnity of an oath to the obligations imposed by a second call to the station in which my country heretofore placed me, I find in the presence of this respectable assembly an opportunity of publicly repeating my profound sense of so distinguished a confidence and of the responsibility united with it.The impressions on me are strengthened by such an evidence that my faithful endeavors to discharge my arduous duties have been favorably estimated, and by a consideration of the momentous period at which the trust has been renewed.From the weight and magnitude now belonging to it I should be compelled to shrink if I had less reliance on the support of an enlightened and generous people, and felt less deeply a conviction that the war with a powerful nation, which forms so prominent a feature in our situation, is stamped with that justice which invites the smiles of Heaven on the means of conducting it to a successful termination.May we not cherish this sentiment without presumption when we reflect on the characters by which this war is distinguished?
It was not declared on the part of the United States until it had been long made on them, in reality though not in name;until arguments and postulations had been exhausted;until a positive declaration had been received that the wrongs provoking it would not be discontinued;nor until this last appeal could no longer be delayed without breaking down the spirit of the nation, destroying all confidence in itself and in its political institutions, and either perpetuating a state of disgraceful suffering or regaining by more costly sacrifices and more severe struggles our lost rank and respect among independent powers.On the issue of the war are staked our national sovereignty on the high seas and the security of an important class of citizens, whose occupations give the proper value to those of every other class.Not to contend for such a stake is to surrender our equality with other powers on the element common to all and to violate the sacred title which every member of the society has to its protection.I need not call into view the unlawfulness of the practice by which our mariners are forced at the will of every cruising officer from their own vessels into foreign ones, nor paint the outrages inseparable from it.The proofs are in the records of each successive Administration of our Government, and the cruel sufferings of that portion of the American people have found their way to every bosom not dead to the sympathies of human nature.As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed.The war has been waged on our part with scrupulous regard to all these obligations, and in a spirit of liberality which was never surpassed.How little has been the effect of this example on the conduct of the enemy!
They have retained as prisoners of war citizens of the United States not liable to be so considered under the usages of war.They have refused to consider as prisoners of war, and threatened to punish as traitors and deserters, persons emigrating without restraint to the United States, incorporated by naturalization into our political family, and fighting under the authority of their adopted country in open and honorable war for the maintenance of its rights and safety.Such is the avowed purpose of a Government which is in the practice of naturalizing by thousands citizens of other countries, and not only of permitting but compelling them to fight its battles against their native country.They have not, it is true, taken into their own hands the hatchet and the knife, devoted to indiscriminate massacre, but they have let loose the savages armed with these cruel instruments;have allured them into their service, and carried them to battle by their sides, eager to glut their savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished and to finish the work of torture and death on maimed and defenseless captives.And, what was never before seen, British commanders have extorted victory over the unconquerable valor of our troops by presenting to the sympathy of their chief captives awaiting massacre from their savage associates.And now we find them, in further contempt of the modes of honorable warfare, supplying the place of a conquering force by attempts to disorganize our political society, to dismember our confederated Republic.Happily, like others, these will recoil on the authors;but they mark the degenerate counsels from which they emanate, and if they did not belong to a sense of unexampled inconsistencies might excite the greater wonder as proceeding from a Government which founded the very war in which it has been so long engaged on a charge against the disorganizing and insurrectional policy of its adversary.To render the justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress.The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed.Still more precise advances were repeated, and have been received in a spirit forbidding every reliance not placed on the military resources of the nation.These resources are amply sufficient to bring the war to an honorable issue.Our nation is in number more than half that of the British Isles.It is composed of a brave, a free, a virtuous, and an intelligent people.Our country abounds in the necessaries, the arts, and the comforts of life.A general prosperity is visible in the public countenance.The means employed by the British cabinet to undermine it have recoiled on themselves;have given to our national faculties a more rapid development, and, draining or diverting the precious metals from British circulation and British vaults, have poured them into those of the United States.It is a propitious consideration that an unavoidable war should have found this seasonable facility for the contributions required to support it.When the public voice called for war, all knew, and still know, that without them it could not be carried on through the period which it might last, and the patriotism, the good sense, and the manly spirit of our fellow-citizens are pledges for the cheerfulness with which they will bear each his share of the common burden.To render the war short and its success sure, animated and systematic exertions alone are necessary, and the success of our arms now may long preserve our country from the necessity of another resort to them.Already have the gallant exploits of our naval heroes proved to the world our inherent capacity to maintain our rights on one element.If the reputation of our arms has been thrown under clouds on the other, presaging flashes of heroic enterprise assure us that nothing is wanting to correspondent triumphs there also but the discipline and habits which are in daily progress.詹姆斯·门罗
第一次就职演讲
星期二,1817年3月4日
冲突不和不属于我们的制度
同胞们满怀信心地召唤我出任这一重要职务，令我十分感动，不然我就是一个缺乏感情的人。这表明同胞们甚为矗许我的公职行为，我对此感到心满意足，而唯有竭尽全力做了值得夸奖的工作的人，才能有这种威受。我能正确估计到这一职务的重要性以及承担这一义务的性质和范围，所以我对于正确地履行同我们这一伟大同由民族的崇高利益密切相连的义务的感受也随之而增加。由于意识到自己的不足，所以在开始履行这些义务时，我无法不对将来的结累裴示极大的忧虑。对应尽的责任我决不会裹足不前，我颇有信心地认为。只要我尽力促进公共福利，入门就始终会恰当地评价我的动机，而且会以公正和爱护的眼光来看待我的行为，就像我在其他职位上已经经历过的那样。
历任杰出总统在开始履行职责前有一个惯例，即明确阐述各自执政的指导原则。在仿效这些令人尊敬的榜样时,我自然把注意力集中于目前给合众国带来高度幸褔的那些主要原因。这些原因将能充分说明我们职责的性质，并且阐明我们将来必须推行的政策。
从独立革命至今几乎已过去40个春秋，而宪法的制定也已有鹏载。在此时期，我们的政府一直被强调为自治政府。其结果如何呢？无论我们将目光转向何处，不论是涉及到国外问题还是国内问题，我们都有足够的理由庆幸我们拥有优越的制度。在充满艰辛和非凡事件的岁月里，我们的合众国还是取得了空前的繁荣，公民们个个幸福欢乐，国家昌盛发达。
……
使我特别感到满意的是，我是在合众国探受和平之惠时开始履行这些职责的。合众国的繁荣和幸福最需要和平。我衷心希望维持和平，依靠政府的努力、以公正的原则与各国交往，不提任何不合理的要求，并对各国履行应尽的义务。
我同样感到满意的是，我看到我们合众国越来越和谐一致。冲突不和不同于我们的制度，联邦之所以受到拥护，是因为我们的政府制定了自由和仁慈的原则，从而使每个人都受到了恩惠，同时还因为它有其他突出的优点。美国人民已共同克服了巨大的危险，成功地经受了严重的考验。他们组成了具有共同利益的大家庭。经验已经在一些对同家至关重即明确阐述各自执政的指导原则。在仿效这些令人尊敬的榜样时,我自然把注意力集中于目前给合众国带来高度幸褔的那些主要原因。这些原因将能充分说明我们职责的性质，并且阐明我们将来必须推行的政策。
从独立革命至今几乎已过去40个春秋，而宪法的制定也已有鹏载。在此时期，我们的政府一直被强调为自治政府。其结果如何呢？无论我们将目光转向何处，不论是涉及到国外问题还是国内问题，我们都有足够的理由庆幸我们拥有优越的制度。在充满艰辛和非凡事件的岁月里，我们的合众国还是取得了空前的繁荣，公民们个个幸福欢乐，国家昌盛发达。
……
使我特别感到满意的是，我是在合众国探受和平之惠时开始履行这些职责的。合众国的繁荣和幸福最需要和平。我衷心希望维持和平，依靠政府的努力、以公正的原则与各国交往，不提任何不合理的要求，并对各国履行应尽的义务。
我同样感到满意的是，我看到我们合众国越来越和谐一致。冲突不和不同于我们的制度，联邦之所以受到拥护，是因为我们的政府制定了自由和仁慈的原则，从而使每个人都受到了恩惠，同时还因为它有其他突出的优点。美国人民已共同克服了巨大的危险，成功地经受了严重的考验。他们组成了具有共同利益的大家庭。经验已经在一些对同家至关重要的问题上使我们获得教益，由于对国家的各种利益须作正确的考虑和忠诚的关切，所以进展是很缓慢的。我将持之以恒并努力追求的目标是：按照我们的共和政府的原则，以充分发挥其作用的方式来促进和谐，并在所有其他方面促进我们联邦的最大利益。
从来没有一个政府能像我国政府那样从一开始就诸事如意，并获得如此彻底的成功。翻阅一下其他国家的历史，无论是古代的国家还是现代的国家，都无法找到一个发展如此迅速，规模如此巨大，而人民又是如此富裕和幸福的实例。当我们思考还有哪些尚待完成的任务时，每个公民必然由衷地感到喜悦，因为他会想到：我们的政府已经如此接近于完善：我们在这方回已无需作出重大改善，伟大的目标在于维护我们政府拥有的基本原则和特征，这将通过保持人民的美德和启发人民的心灵来实现；伟大的目标还在于采取不可缺少的措施，来维护我们的独立、权利和自由，并确保我国不受外来的威胁。如果我们能保持目前我们已经获得进展的事业，并坚持不懈地走我们已经走过的路，那么在仁慈上帝的保佑下，我们便能达到似乎正在等待着我们的崇高目标。
在我之前，已有几位杰出人物担任过这一崇高的职务，而且我与其中一些人很早就结成了最紧密的联系。他们所提供的执政典范，将永远使后继者获得高度的教益。从这些典范中，我将尽力获取所有的长处，至于我的前任总统，由于他所进行的工作已经成为我们巨大而成功的实验的极为重要的一部分，大家必然会体谅我要向他表示热烈的祝愿：原它在退休后能永享国家对他的感激之情，这种感情是对他的杰出才能和最为忠诚而卓越的服务的最好报答。依靠政府其他各部门的帮助，我开始担任同胞们通过选举而交给我的职务。我虔诚地向全能的上帝祈祷，他已经如此明显地展示了对我们的护佑，愿他继续仁慈的护佑我们。
James Monroe First Inaugural Address Tuesday, March 4, 1817
I should be destitute of feeling if I was not deeply affected by the strong proof which my fellow-citizens have given me of their confidence in calling me to the high office whose functions I am about to assume.As the expression of their good opinion of my conduct in the public service, I derive from it a gratification which those who are conscious of having done all that they could to merit it can alone feel.My sensibility is increased by a just estimate of the importance of the trust and of the nature and extent of its duties, with the proper discharge of which the highest interests of a great and free people are intimately connected.Conscious of my own deficiency, I cannot enter on these duties without great anxiety for the result.From a just responsibility I will never shrink, calculating with confidence that in my best efforts to promote the public welfare my motives will always be duly appreciated and my conduct be viewed with that candor and indulgence which I have experienced in other stations.In commencing the duties of the chief executive office it has been the practice of the distinguished men who have gone before me to explain the principles which would govern them in their respective Administrations.In following their venerated example my attention is naturally drawn to the great causes which have contributed in a principal degree to produce the present happy condition of the United States.They will best explain the nature of our duties and shed much light on the policy which ought to be pursued in future.From the commencement of our Revolution to the present day almost forty years have elapsed, and from the establishment of this Constitution twenty-eight.Through this whole term the Government has been what may emphatically be called self-government.And what has been the effect? To whatever object we turn our attention, whether it relates to our foreign or domestic concerns, we find abundant cause to felicitate ourselves in the excellence of our institutions.During a period fraught with difficulties and marked by very extraordinary events the United States have flourished beyond example.Their citizens individually have been happy and the nation prosperous.Under this Constitution our commerce has been wisely regulated with foreign nations and between the States;new States have been admitted into our Union;our territory has been enlarged by fair and honorable treaty, and with great advantage to the original States;the States, respectively protected by the National Government under a mild, parental system against foreign dangers, and enjoying within their separate spheres, by a wise partition of power, a just proportion of the sovereignty, have improved their police, extended their settlements, and attained a strength and maturity which are the best proofs of wholesome laws well administered.And if we look to the condition of individuals what a proud spectacle does it exhibit!On whom has oppression fallen in any quarter of our Union? Who has been deprived of any right of person or property? Who restrained from offering his vows in the mode which he prefers to the Divine Author of his being? It is well known that all these blessings have been enjoyed in their fullest extent;and I add with peculiar satisfaction that there has been no example of a capital punishment being inflicted on anyone for the crime of high treason.Some who might admit the competency of our Government to these beneficent duties might doubt it in trials which put to the test its strength and efficiency as a member of the great community of nations.Here too experience has afforded us the most satisfactory proof in its favor.Just as this Constitution was put into action several of the principal States of Europe had become much agitated and some of them seriously convulsed.Destructive wars ensued, which have of late only been terminated.In the course of these conflicts the United States received great injury from several of the parties.It was their interest to stand aloof from the contest, to demand justice from the party committing the injury, and to cultivate by a fair and honorable conduct the friendship of all.War became at length inevitable, and the result has shown that our Government is equal to that, the greatest of trials, under the most unfavorable circumstances.Of the virtue of the people and of the heroic exploits of the Army, the Navy, and the militia I need not speak.Such, then, is the happy Government under which we livea Government adequate to every purpose for which the social compact is formed;a Government elective in all its branches, under which every citizen may by his merit obtain the highest trust recognized by the Constitution;which contains within it no cause of discord, none to put at variance one portion of the community with another;a Government which protects every citizen in the full enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the nation against injustice from foreign powers.Other considerations of the highest importance admonish us to cherish our Union and to cling to the Government which supports it.Fortunate as we are in our political institutions, we have not been less so in other circumstances on which our prosperity and happiness essentially depend.Situated within the temperate zone, and extending through many degrees of latitude along the Atlantic, the United States enjoy all the varieties of climate, and every production incident to that portion of the globe.Penetrating internally to the Great Lakes and beyond the sources of the great rivers which communicate through our whole interior, no country was ever happier with respect to its domain.Blessed, too, with a fertile soil, our produce has always been very abundant, leaving, even in years the least favorable, a surplus for the wants of our fellow-men in other countries.Such is our peculiar felicity that there is not a part of our Union that is not particularly interested in preserving it.The great agricultural interest of the nation prospers under its protection.Local interests are not less fostered by it.Our fellow-citizens of the North engaged in navigation find great encouragement in being made the favored carriers of the vast productions of the other portions of the United States, while the inhabitants of these are amply recompensed, in their turn, by the nursery for seamen and naval force thus formed and reared up for the support of our common rights.Our manufactures find a generous encouragement by the policy which patronizes domestic industry, and the surplus of our produce a steady and profitable market by local wants in less-favored parts at home.Such, then, being the highly favored condition of our country, it is the interest of every citizen to maintain it.What are the dangers which menace us? If any exist they ought to be ascertained and guarded against.In explaining my sentiments on this subject it may be asked, What raised us to the present happy state? How did we accomplish the Revolution? How remedy the defects of the first instrument of our Union, by infusing into the National Government sufficient power for national purposes, without impairing the just rights of the States or affecting those of individuals? How sustain and pass with glory through the late war? The Government has been in the hands of the people.To the people, therefore, and to the faithful and able depositaries of their trust is the credit due.Had the people of the United States been educated in different principles, had they been less intelligent, less independent, or less virtuous, can it be believed that we should have maintained the same steady and consistent career or been blessed with the same success? While, then, the constituent body retains its present sound and healthful state everything will be safe.They will choose competent and faithful representatives for every department.It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found.The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force.Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.Dangers from abroad are not less deserving of attention.Experiencing the fortune of other nations, the United States may be again involved in war, and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to overset our Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation.Our distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of our Government may form some security against these dangers, but they ought to be anticipated and guarded against.Many of our citizens are engaged in commerce and navigation, and all of them are in a certain degree dependent on their prosperous state.Many are engaged in the fisheries.These interests are exposed to invasion in the wars between other powers, and we should disregard the faithful admonition of experience if we did not expect it.We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.A people who fail to do it can scarcely be said to hold a place among independent nations.National honor is national property of the highest value.The sentiment in the mind of every citizen is national strength.It ought therefore to be cherished.To secure us against these dangers our coast and inland frontiers should be fortified, our Army and Navy, regulated upon just principles as to the force of each, be kept in perfect order, and our militia be placed on the best practicable footing.To put our extensive coast in such a state of defense as to secure our cities and interior from invasion will be attended with expense, but the work when finished will be permanent, and it is fair to presume that a single campaign of invasion by a naval force superior to our own, aided by a few thousand land troops, would expose us to greater expense, without taking into the estimate the loss of property and distress of our citizens, than would be sufficient for this great work.Our land and naval forces should be moderate, but adequate to the necessary purposesthe former to garrison and preserve our fortifications and to meet the first invasions of a foreign foe, and, while constituting the elements of a greater force, to preserve the science as well as all the necessary implements of war in a state to be brought into activity in the event of war;the latter, retained within the limits proper in a state of peace, might aid in maintaining the neutrality of the United States with dignity in the wars of other powers and in saving the property of their citizens from spoliation.In time of war, with the enlargement of which the great naval resources of the country render it susceptible, and which should be duly fostered in time of peace, it would contribute essentially, both as an auxiliary of defense and as a powerful engine of annoyance, to diminish the calamities of war and to bring the war to a speedy and honorable termination.But it ought always to be held prominently in view that the safety of these States and of everything dear to a free people must depend in an eminent degree on the militia.Invasions may be made too formidable to be resisted by any land and naval force which it would comport either with the principles of our Government or the circumstances of the United States to maintain.In such cases recourse must be had to the great body of the people, and in a manner to produce the best effect.It is of the highest importance, therefore, that they be so organized and trained as to be prepared for any emergency.The arrangement should be such as to put at the command of the Government the ardent patriotism and youthful vigor of the country.If formed on equal and just principles, it can not be oppressive.It is the crisis which makes the pressure, and not the laws which provide a remedy for it.This arrangement should be formed, too, in time of peace, to be the better prepared for war.With such an organization of such a people the United States have nothing to dread from foreign invasion.At its approach an overwhelming force of gallant men might always be put in motion.Other interests of high importance will claim attention, among which the improvement of our country by roads and canals, proceeding always with a constitutional sanction, holds a distinguished place.By thus facilitating the intercourse between the States we shall add much to the convenience and comfort of our fellow-citizens, much to the ornament of the country, and, what is of greater importance, we shall shorten distances, and, by making each part more accessible to and dependent on the other, we shall bind the Union more closely together.Nature has done so much for us by intersecting the country with so many great rivers, bays, and lakes, approaching from distant points so near to each other, that the inducement to complete the work seems to be peculiarly strong.A more interesting spectacle was perhaps never seen than is exhibited within the limits of the United Statesa territory so vast and advantageously situated, containing objects so grand, so useful, so happily connected in all their parts!
Our manufacturers will likewise require the systematic and fostering care of the Government.Possessing as we do all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend in the degree we have done on supplies from other countries.While we are thus dependent the sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us into the most serious difficulties.It is important, too, that the capital which nourishes our manufacturers should be domestic, as its influence in that case instead of exhausting, as it may do in foreign hands, would be felt advantageously on agriculture and every other branch of industry.Equally important is it to provide at home a market for our raw materials, as by extending the competition it will enhance the price and protect the cultivator against the casualties incident to foreign markets.With the Indian tribes it is our duty to cultivate friendly relations and to act with kindness and liberality in all our transactions.Equally proper is it to persevere in our efforts to extend to them the advantages of civilization.The great amount of our revenue and the flourishing state of the Treasury are a full proof of the competency of the national resources for any emergency, as they are of the willingness of our fellow-citizens to bear the burdens which the public necessities require.The vast amount of vacant lands, the value of which daily augments, forms an additional resource of great extent and duration.These resources, besides accomplishing every other necessary purpose, put it completely in the power of the United States to discharge the national debt at an early period.Peace is the best time for improvement and preparation of every kind;it is in peace that our commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most easily paid, and that the revenue is most productive.The Executive is charged officially in the Departments under it with the disbursement of the public money, and is responsible for the faithful application of it to the purposes for which it is raised.The Legislature is the watchful guardian over the public purse.It is its duty to see that the disbursement has been honestly made.To meet the requisite responsibility every facility should be afforded to the Executive to enable it to bring the public agents intrusted with the public money strictly and promptly to account.Nothing should be presumed against them;but if, with the requisite facilities, the public money is suffered to lie long and uselessly in their hands, they will not be the only defaulters, nor will the demoralizing effect be confined to them.It will evince a relaxation and want of tone in the Administration which will be felt by the whole community.I shall do all I can to secure economy and fidelity in this important branch of the Administration, and I doubt not that the Legislature will perform its duty with equal zeal.A thorough examination should be regularly made, and I will promote it.It is particularly gratifying to me to enter on the discharge of these duties at a time when the United States are blessed with peace.It is a state most consistent with their prosperity and happiness.It will be my sincere desire to preserve it, so far as depends on the Executive, on just principles with all nations, claiming nothing unreasonable of any and rendering to each what is its due.Equally gratifying is it to witness the increased harmony of opinion which pervades our Union.Discord does not belong to our system.Union is recommended as well by the free and benign principles of our Government, extending its blessings to every individual, as by the other eminent advantages attending it.The American people have encountered together great dangers and sustained severe trials with success.They constitute one great family with a common interest.Experience has enlightened us on some questions of essential importance to the country.The progress has been slow, dictated by a just reflection and a faithful regard to every interest connected with it.To promote this harmony in accord with the principles of our republican Government and in a manner to give them the most complete effect, and to advance in all other respects the best interests of our Union, will be the object of my constant and zealous exertions.Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete.If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy.In contemplating what we have still to perform, the heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he reflects how near our Government has approached to perfection;that in respect to it we have no essential improvement to make;that the great object is to preserve it in the essential principles and features which characterize it, and that is to be done by preserving the virtue and enlightening the minds of the people;and as a security against foreign dangers to adopt such arrangements as are indispensable to the support of our independence, our rights and liberties.If we persevere in the career in which we have advanced so far and in the path already traced, we can not fail, under the favor of a gracious Providence, to attain the high destiny which seems to await us.In the Administrations of the illustrious men who have preceded me in this high station, with some of whom I have been connected by the closest ties from early life, examples are presented which will always be found highly instructive and useful to their successors.From these I shall endeavor to derive all the advantages which they may afford.Of my immediate predecessor, under whom so important a portion of this great and successful experiment has been made, I shall be pardoned for expressing my earnest wishes that he may long enjoy in his retirement the affections of a grateful country, the best reward of exalted talents and the most faithful and meritorious service.Relying on the aid to be derived from the other departments of the Government, I enter on the trust to which I have been called by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens with my fervent prayers to the Almighty that He will be graciously pleased to continue to us that protection which He has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor.安德鲁·杰克逊
第二次就职演讲
星期一,1833年3月4日 论国内外政策
公民们：
美国人民通过自愿选举所表达的意志，要求我站在你们面前通过这一庄重的仪式，作为我连任合众国总统职务的准备。你们对我在一个不无困难的时期执政的情况表示认可，对我良好的愿望再次表示信赖，对此我实在我不出适当的言词来表达我的感激。我将继续尽我微薄之力管理政府，维护你们的自由，促进你们的幸福，以此来表达我的感激之憎。
在过会4年里发生了这么多事件，这必然引起——有时是在最微妙和最痛苦的情况下——我对许多必须由中央政府执行的原则和政策的看法，因此，我必须在此列提到与某些原则和政策有关的一些主要问题。
在目前的这部宪法制定后不久，我国政府所采取的、并为历届政府普遍奉行的外交政策，获得了几乎全面成功的荣誉，并提高了我们在世界各国中的声望。对所有的人一视同仁，不向任何人的邪恶屈服，乃是我当政期间的指导方针。其结果非常成功，我们不仅和世界各国和睦相处，也很少有引起争端的缘由，至于尚未调整的也只是一些元足轻重的问题。
在这届政府执行的国内政策上有两个目标特别值得人民及其代表的注意，这两个目标一直是，并仍将继续是我日益关注的问题。这就是维护几个州的权利和维护联邦的完整。
这两大目标必然是相关的，只有在这些州的适当范围内开明地行使各自的权力并符合宪法所表达的公众的意志，才能达到这些目标。要达到这个目伪，所有的人都有责任乐意地和富有爱国心地服从宪法所规定的法律，从而提高并增强人民亲自为他们的政府所规定的几个州和合众国的那些法律的信心。
我任公职的经验和对生活的略微高超的观察证实了我长久以来所形成的观点：废除我们的州政府或者取消它们对地方事务的控制，必然会直接导致单命或无政府状态，最终则导致专制和军事控制。因此，如果中央政府侵害了各州的部分权利，也就损害了自身的部分权力，并减损了部分的创造能力。如果向胞们切实铭记这些考虑，便会发现我准备行使我的宪法权力，以阻止那些直接或间接侵犯州权、或企图加强中央政府政治权力的各种措施。但是，具有同等而且确实是无可估量重要性的是这些州的联合，以及所有各州都大力支持中央政府行使其公正的权为，以此来维护其联合的神圣职责。你们曾被理智地告诫过：“你们要习惯于像对待护佑你们政治上的安全与繁荣的守护神那样想到它或谈论它，要小心翼翼、无微不至地保护它；要驳斥一切抛弃它的想法，即使对它抱有丝毫怀疑亦不允许；要义正词严地反对刚回头的、一切可能使我国的任何部分与其他部分疏远并削弱连接全国各地的神圣纽带的种种企图”。没有联合，我们的独立和自由就永远不会取得，没有联合，独立和自由也决得不到维护，如果我国分裂为24个独立的地区，或者即使数量上少一些，我们的国内贸易将为无数的限制和苛税所累；遥远的市镇与地区之间的通讯联系将受阻或被切断；我们的孩子将被迫当兵，使他们现在还在和平耕种地失去自由，失去这绝好的政体，失去和平、富裕和幸福。因此，支持联邦，我们就支持了自由人和博爱主义者所珍视的一切。
我站在你们面前的这一时刻充分地引起了人们的注意。世界各国的目光都在注视着我们的共和政体。目前这个危机的结果将决定全人类对我们联邦制政府的可行性的看法。置于我们手中的赌注是巨大的，置于美国人民肩上的责任是重大的。让我们意识到我们对全世界表明的这种态度的重要性。让我们运用我们的克制态度和坚定信念，让我们将我们的国家从所处的危险中解脱出来，从这些危险所反复说明的教训中汲取智念。
这些观察所得出的道理给我留下深刻的印象，既然我必须对我即将作的庄严誓词负责，我将继续竭尽全力维护宪法所规定的正当权力，将我们合众国的福祉无损地传至后代，同时，我的目标是，以我的官方行动，反复灌输中央政府只行使明确地授予它的权力的必要性；鼓励政府节俭开支；不向人民征收超过达到这些目标所需要的款项，最大限度地提高社会各阶级和联邦各州的利益。我们要时刻牢记，在进入社会时·个人必须放弃一份自由以维护其他人的自由“，我的愿望将是履行我的职责，并和全国各地的同胞们一起，培养一种宽容谦让的精神，使我们的公民安心于为维护更大的利益而必须做出部分的牺牲，从而是我们宝贵的政府和联邦能博得美国人民的信任和爱戴。最后，我站在全能的上帝面前作最热忱的祈祷，我们的共和国在他的怀抱里已经从婴儿成长到今日，愿他主宰我得一切愿望和行动，并激发公民们的信念，使我们能免遭一切危险，永远成为一个团结和幸福的民族。
Andrew Jackson Second Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1833 Fellow-Citizens:
THE will of the American people, expressed through their unsolicited suffrages, calls me before you to pass through the solemnities preparatory to taking upon myself the duties of President of the United States for another term.For their approbation of my public conduct through a period which has not been without its difficulties, and for this renewed expression of their confidence in my good intentions, I am at a loss for terms adequate to the expression of my gratitude.It shall be displayed to the extent of my humble abilities in continued efforts so to administer the Government as to preserve their liberty and promote their happiness.So many events have occurred within the last four years which have necessarily called forthsometimes under circumstances the most delicate and painfulmy views of the principles and policy which ought to be pursued by the General Government that I need on this occasion but allude to a few leading considerations connected with some of them.The foreign policy adopted by our Government soon after the formation of our present Constitution, and very generally pursued by successive Administrations, has been crowned with almost complete success, and has elevated our character among the nations of the earth.To do justice to all and to submit to wrong from none has been during my Administration its governing maxim, and so happy have been its results that we are not only at peace with all the world, but have few causes of controversy, and those of minor importance, remaining unadjusted.In the domestic policy of this Government there are two objects which especially deserve the attention of the people and their representatives, and which have been and will continue to be the subjects of my increasing solicitude.They are the preservation of the rights of the several States and the integrity of the Union.These great objects are necessarily connected, and can only be attained by an enlightened exercise of the powers of each within its appropriate sphere in conformity with the public will constitutionally expressed.To this end it becomes the duty of all to yield a ready and patriotic submission to the laws constitutionally enacted, and thereby promote and strengthen a proper confidence in those institutions of the several States and of the United States which the people themselves have ordained for their own government.My experience in public concerns and the observation of a life somewhat advanced confirm the opinions long since imbibed by me, that the destruction of our State governments or the annihilation of their control over the local concerns of the people would lead directly to revolution and anarchy, and finally to despotism and military domination.In proportion, therefore, as the General Government encroaches upon the rights of the States, in the same proportion does it impair its own power and detract from its ability to fulfill the purposes of its creation.Solemnly impressed with these considerations, my countrymen will ever find me ready to exercise my constitutional powers in arresting measures which may directly or indirectly encroach upon the rights of the States or tend to consolidate all political power in the General Government.But of equal, and, indeed, of incalculable, importance is the union of these States, and the sacred duty of all to contribute to its preservation by a liberal support of the General Government in the exercise of its just powers.You have been wisely admonished to “accustom yourselves to think and speak of the Union as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of any attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.” Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved;without union they never can be maintained.Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number, of separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened with numberless restraints and exactions;communication between distant points and sections obstructed or cut off;our sons made soldiers to deluge with blood the fields they now till in peace;the mass of our people borne down and impoverished by taxes to support armies and navies, and military leaders at the head of their victorious legions becoming our lawgivers and judges.The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union.In supporting it, therefore, we support all that is dear to the freeman and the philanthropist.The time at which I stand before you is full of interest.The eyes of all nations are fixed on our Republic.The event of the existing crisis will be decisive in the opinion of mankind of the practicability of our federal system of government.Great is the stake placed in our hands;great is the responsibility which must rest upon the people of the United States.Let us realize the importance of the attitude in which we stand before the world.Let us exercise forbearance and firmness.Let us extricate our country from the dangers which surround it and learn wisdom from the lessons they inculcate.Deeply impressed with the truth of these observations, and under the obligation of that solemn oath which I am about to take, I shall continue to exert all my faculties to maintain the just powers of the Constitution and to transmit unimpaired to posterity the blessings of our Federal Union.At the same time, it will be my aim to inculcate by my official acts the necessity of exercising by the General Government those powers only that are clearly delegated;to encourage simplicity and economy in the expenditures of the Government;to raise no more money from the people than may be requisite for these objects, and in a manner that will best promote the interests of all classes of the community and of all portions of the Union.Constantly bearing in mind that in entering into society “individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,” it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our brethren in all parts of the country a spirit of liberal concession and compromise, and, by reconciling our fellow-citizens to those partial sacrifices which they must unavoidably make for the preservation of a greater good, to recommend our invaluable Government and Union to the confidence and affections of the American people.Finally, it is my most fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that He will so overrule all my intentions and actions and inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from dangers of all kinds and continue forever a united and happy people.威廉·亨利·哈里森
就职演讲
星期四,1841年3月4日
我国的政党
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同胞们，在结束演讲之前，我必须谈谈我国目前存在的政党问题，我认为有一点是显而易见的；目前支配各个政党的强烈的党派情绪，如果不能完全消除，也应该极大地削弱，否则后果不堪设想。
在一个共和国里，如果说政党的存在是必要的，以便确保某种程度的警觉，使公共职能机构不越出法律和职责的范围，那么，政党的作用应该到此为止。超过这一限度，政党就会成为公共美德的破坏力量，就会培育与自由精神相抵触的情绪，就会最终不可避免地毁掉自由。以往的某些共和国不乏这样的例子。在那里，热爱祖国和热爱自由一度是全体公民的主导情感，但是，尽管自由政府的名义和形式还继续存在，而在公民的心中，上述情感已荡然无存，一位英国著名作家说得很精彩：“在罗马元老院，屋大维有自己的党，安东尼也有自己的党，共和国却一无所有。”然而，元老院照旧在自由的神殿里开会，高谈共和国的神圣、美丽，凝望老布鲁图、柯蒂和德西等人的雕像，人民照旧在广场集会，但不像在卡米卢和大小西庇阿时代，为选举执政官而自由投票，或对元老院的议案作出裁决，而是从各自的党派头目那里领取一份赃物，还吵吵嚷嚷地要这要那，因为从高卢、埃及和小亚细亚收缴的赃物，将能提供更多的份额。自由精神无影无踪。为避开文明人的住地，自由精神已到锡西厄或斯堪的纳维亚的荒野中录求庇护。因此，由于同样的原因和影响，自由精神也会从我们的国会和议事堂销声匿迹。这不仅对我国，而且对世界来说都是可怕的灾难。每一个爱国者，都应力求避免这一灾难，面任何可能导致这种灾难的事态发展，何必须立即制止。现在，这种趋势已经存在——确实已经存在。我一直是同胞们的朋友，我从不对你们阿谀奉迎，你门对我的偏爱使我荣登高位，因此，我有责任告诉你们：我国存在着一种与你们的最大利益相抵触的情绪——一种与自由本身相抵触的情绪。这是一种狭隘的、自私的情绪。为了扩大少数人的权势，它甚至不惜毁掉全体人民的利益。彻底的纠正要靠人民，然而，人民赋予我的手段可能会起一些作用。我们需要团结起来，但不是为党派的缘故而团结起来。而是为了国家、为了捍卫她的利益和荣誉并抵御外国入侵、为了捍卫先辈们如此光荣斗争过的原则而团结起来。在我看来，这个目标一定能实现。我将竭尽所能，至少要防止在立法机构内形成一个执政党。我提出的任何措施，如果不符合国会议员的判断，如果有悖于他们对选民的责任感，我不指望他们任何人给予任何支持；我也不指望事先就得到人民的信任，而只求得到杰斐逊先生所要求的那种信任，以便“坚定地、有效地依法管理大家的事务”。
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William Henry Harrison Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1841
Called from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the residue of my life to fill the chief executive office of this great and free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the oaths which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary qualification for the performance of its duties;and in obedience to a custom coeval with our Government and what I believe to be your expectations I proceed to present to you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the discharge of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former.However much the world may have improved in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence.Although the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming me the Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to my principles and opinions;and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or, approving them, to doubt the sincerity with which they are now uttered.But the lapse of a few months will confirm or dispel their fears.The outline of principles to govern and measures to be adopted by an Administration not yet begun will soon be exchanged for immutable history, and I shall stand either exonerated by my countrymen or classed with the mass of those who promised that they might deceive and flattered with the intention to betray.However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country.The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the peoplea breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify itit can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy.If such is its theory, those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number.But with these broad admissions, if we would compare the sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference.All others lay claim to power limited only by their own will.The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond.We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men;that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.The Constitution of the United States is the instrument containing this grant of power to the several departments composing the Government.On an examination of that instrument it will be found to contain declarations of power granted and of power withheld.The latter is also susceptible of division into power which the majority had the right to grant, but which they do not think proper to intrust to their agents, and that which they could not have granted, not being possessed by themselves.In other words, there are certain rights possessed by each individual American citizen which in his compact with the others he has never surrendered.Some of them, indeed, he is unable to surrender, being, in the language of our system, unalienable.The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield only against a petty provincial ruler, whilst the proud democrat of Athens would console himself under a sentence of death for a supposed violation of the national faithwhich no one understood and which at times was the subject of the mockery of allor the banishment from his home, his family, and his country with or without an alleged cause, that it was the act not of a single tyrant or hated aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen.Far different is the power of our sovereignty.It can interfere with no one's faith, prescribe forms of worship for no one's observance, inflict no punishment but after well-ascertained guilt, the result of investigation under rules prescribed by the Constitution itself.These precious privileges, and those scarcely less important of giving expression to his thoughts and opinions, either by writing or speaking, unrestrained but by the liability for injury to others, and that of a full participation in all the advantages which flow from the Government, the acknowledged property of all, the American citizen derives from no charter granted by his fellow-man.He claims them because he is himself a man, fashioned by the same Almighty hand as the rest of his species and entitled to a full share of the blessings with which He has endowed them.Notwithstanding the limited sovereignty possessed by the people of the United States and the restricted grant of power to the Government which they have adopted, enough has been given to accomplish all the objects for which it was created.It has been found powerful in war, and hitherto justice has been administered, and intimate union effected, domestic tranquillity preserved, and personal liberty secured to the citizen.As was to be expected, however, from the defect of language and the necessarily sententious manner in which the Constitution is written, disputes have arisen as to the amount of power which it has actually granted or was intended to grant.This is more particularly the case in relation to that part of the instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and not only as regards the exercise of powers claimed under a general clause giving that body the authority to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the specified powers, but in relation to the latter also.It is, however, consolatory to reflect that most of the instances of alleged departure from the letter or spirit of the Constitution have ultimately received the sanction of a majority of the people.And the fact that many of our statesmen most distinguished for talent and patriotism have been at one time or other of their political career on both sides of each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us the inference that the errors, if errors there were, are attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances of ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the Constitution rather than the influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive.But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the Government of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation in one of the departments of that which was assigned to others.Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.This danger is greatly heightened, as it has been always observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of one department upon another than upon their own reserved rights.When the Constitution of the United States first came from the hands of the Convention which formed it, many of the sternest republicans of the day were alarmed at the extent of the power which had been granted to the Federal Government, and more particularly of that portion which had been assigned to the executive branch.There were in it features which appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative democracy or republic, and knowing the tendency of power to increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single individual, predictions were made that at no very remote period the Government would terminate in virtual monarchy.It would not become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been already realized;but as I sincerely believe that the tendency of measures and of men's opinions for some years past has been in that direction, it is, I conceive, strictly proper that I should take this occasion to repeat the assurances I have heretofore given of my determination to arrest the progress of that tendency if it really exists and restore the Government to its pristine health and vigor, as far as this can be effected by any legitimate exercise of the power placed in my hands.I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of and the correctives which may be applied.Some of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the Constitution;others, in my judgment, are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions.Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the Presidency.The sagacious mind of Mr.Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States to its correction.As, however, one mode of correction is in the power of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system.It may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their systems of government which may be calculated to create or increase the lover of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit the management of their affairs;and surely nothing is more likely to produce such a state of mind than the long continuance of an office of high trust.Nothing can be more corrupting, nothing more destructive of all those noble feelings which belong to the character of a devoted republican patriot.When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable.It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim.If this is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal;the servant, not the master.Until an amendment of the Constitution can be effected public opinion may secure the desired object.I give my aid to it by renewing the pledge heretofore given that under no circumstances will I consent to serve a second term.But if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledged defects of the Constitution in the want of limit to the continuance of the Executive power in the same hands, there is, I apprehend, not much less from a misconstruction of that instrument as it regards the powers actually given.I can not conceive that by a fair construction any or either of its provisions would be found to constitute the President a part of the legislative power.It can not be claimed from the power to recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty upon him, it is a privilege which he holds in common with every other citizen;and although there may be something more of confidence in the propriety of the measures recommended in the one case than in the other, in the obligations of ultimate decision there can be no difference.In the language of the Constitution, “all the legislative powers” which it grants “are vested in the Congress of the United States.” It would be a solecism in language to say that any portion of these is not included in the whole.It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by refusing to them his assent.So a similar power has necessarily resulted from that instrument to the judiciary, and yet the judiciary forms no part of the Legislature.There is, it is true, this difference between these grants of power: The Executive can put his negative upon the acts of the Legislature for other cause than that of want of conformity to the Constitution, whilst the judiciary can only declare void those which violate that instrument.But the decision of the judiciary is final in such a case, whereas in every instance where the veto of the Executive is applied it may be overcome by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress.The negative upon the acts of the legislative by the executive authority, and that in the hands of one individual, would seem to be an incongruity in our system.Like some others of a similar character, however, it appears to be highly expedient, and if used only with the forbearance and in the spirit which was intended by its authors it may be productive of great good and be found one of the best safeguards to the Union.At the period of the formation of the Constitution the principle does not appear to have enjoyed much favor in the State governments.It existed but in two, and in one of these there was a plural executive.If we would search for the motives which operated upon the purely patriotic and enlightened assembly which framed the Constitution for the adoption of a provision so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic principle that the majority should govern, we must reject the idea that they anticipated from it any benefit to the ordinary course of legislation.They knew too well the high degree of intelligence which existed among the people and the enlightened character of the State legislatures not to have the fullest confidence that the two bodies elected by them would be worthy representatives of such constituents, and, of course, that they would require no aid in conceiving and maturing the measures which the circumstances of the country might require.And it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the country, could better understand the wants and wishes of the people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a part of every year among them, living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection.To assist or control Congress, then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I conceive, have been the motive for conferring the veto power on the President.This argument acquires additional force from the fact of its never having been thus used by the first six Presidentsand two of them were members of the Convention, one presiding over its deliberations and the other bearing a larger share in consummating the labors of that august body than any other person.But if bills were never returned to Congress by either of the Presidents above referred to upon the ground of their being inexpedient or not as well adapted as they might be to the wants of the people, the veto was applied upon that of want of conformity to the Constitution or because errors had been committed from a too hasty enactment.There is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle, which had probably more influence in recommending it to the Convention than any other.I refer to the security which it gives to the just and equitable action of the Legislature upon all parts of the Union.It could not but have occurred to the Convention that in a country so extensive, embracing so great a variety of soil and climate, and consequently of products, and which from the same causes must ever exhibit a great difference in the amount of the population of its various sections, calling for a great diversity in the employments of the people, that the legislation of the majority might not always justly regard the rights and interests of the minority, and that acts of this character might be passed under an express grant by the words of the Constitution, and therefore not within the competency of the judiciary to declare void;that however enlightened and patriotic they might suppose from past experience the members of Congress might be, and however largely partaking, in the general, of the liberal feelings of the people, it was impossible to expect that bodies so constituted should not sometimes be controlled by local interests and sectional feelings.It was proper, therefore, to provide some umpire from whose situation and mode of appointment more independence and freedom from such influences might be expected.Such a one was afforded by the executive department constituted by the Constitution.A person elected to that high office, having his constituents in every section, State, and subdivision of the Union, must consider himself bound by the most solemn sanctions to guard, protect, and defend the rights of all and of every portion, great or small, from the injustice and oppression of the rest.I consider the veto power, therefore, given by the Constitution to the Executive of the United States solely as a conservative power, to be used only first, to protect the Constitution from violation;secondly, the people from the effects of hasty legislation where their will has been probably disregarded or not well understood, and, thirdly, to prevent the effects of combinations violative of the rights of minorities.In reference to the second of these objects I may observe that I consider it the right and privilege of the people to decide disputed points of the Constitution arising from the general grant of power to Congress to carry into effect the powers expressly given;and I believe with Mr.Madison that “repeated recognitions under varied circumstances in acts of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Government, accompanied by indications in different modes of the concurrence of the general will of the nation,” as affording to the President sufficient authority for his considering such disputed points as settled.Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of the present form of government.It would be an object more highly desirable than the gratification of the curiosity of speculative statesmen if its precise situation could be ascertained, a fair exhibit made of the operations of each of its departments, of the powers which they respectively claim and exercise, of the collisions which have occurred between them or between the whole Government and those of the States or either of them.We could then compare our actual condition after fifty years' trial of our system with what it was in the commencement of its operations and ascertain whether the predictions of the patriots who opposed its adoption or the confident hopes of its advocates have been best realized.The great dread of the former seems to have been that the reserved powers of the States would be absorbed by those of the Federal Government and a consolidated power established, leaving to the States the shadow only of that independent action for which they had so zealously contended and on the preservation of which they relied as the last hope of liberty.Without denying that the result to which they looked with so much apprehension is in the way of being realized, it is obvious that they did not clearly see the mode of its accomplishment.The General Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of the States.As far as any open warfare may have gone, the State authorities have amply maintained their rights.To a casual observer our system presents no appearance of discord between the different members which compose it.Even the addition of many new ones has produced no jarring.They move in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central head and with each other.But there is still an undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be realized, and not only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great increase of power in the executive department of the General Government, but the character of that Government, if not its designation, be essentially and radically changed.This state of things has been in part effected by causes inherent in the Constitution and in part by the never-failing tendency of political power to increase itself.By making the President the sole distributer of all the patronage of the Government the framers of the Constitution do not appear to have anticipated at how short a period it would become a formidable instrument to control the free operations of the State governments.Of trifling importance at first, it had early in Mr.Jefferson's Administration become so powerful as to create great alarm in the mind of that patriot from the potent influence it might exert in controlling the freedom of the elective franchise.If such could have then been the effects of its influence, how much greater must be the danger at this time, quadrupled in amount as it certainly is and more completely under the control of the Executive will than their construction of their powers allowed or the forbearing characters of all the early Presidents permitted them to make.But it is not by the extent of its patronage alone that the executive department has become dangerous, but by the use which it appears may be made of the appointing power to bring under its control the whole revenues of the country.The Constitution has declared it to be the duty of the President to see that the laws are executed, and it makes him the Commander in Chief of the Armies and Navy of the United States.If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that species of mixed government which in modern Europe is termed monarchy in contradistinction to despotism is correct, there was wanting no other addition to the powers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical character on our Government but the control of the public finances;and to me it appears strange indeed that anyone should doubt that the entire control which the President possesses over the officers who have the custody of the public money, by the power of removal with or without cause, does, for all mischievous purposes at least, virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal.The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword.By a selection of political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight.I am not insensible of the great difficulty that exists in drawing a proper plan for the safe-keeping and disbursement of the public revenues, and I know the importance which has been attached by men of great abilities and patriotism to the divorce, as it is called, of the Treasury from the banking institutions.It is not the divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union of the Treasury with the executive department, which has created such extensive alarm.To this danger to our republican institutions and that created by the influence given to the Executive through the instrumentality of the Federal officers I propose to apply all the remedies which may be at my command.It was certainly a great error in the framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at the head of the Treasury Department entirely independent of the Executive.He should at least have been removable only upon the demand of the popular branch of the Legislature.I have determined never to remove a Secretary of the Treasury without communicating all the circumstances attending such removal to both Houses of Congress.The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can be effectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by Mr.Jefferson forbidding their interference in elections further than giving their own votes, and their own independence secured by an assurance of perfect immunity in exercising this sacred privilege of freemen under the dictates of their own unbiased judgments.Never with my consent shall an officer of the people, compensated for his services out of their pockets, become the pliant instrument of Executive will.There is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executive which might be used with greater effect for unhallowed purposes than the control of the public press.The maxim which our ancestors derived from the mother country that “the freedom of the press is the great bulwark of civil and religious liberty” is one of the most precious legacies which they have left us.We have learned, too, from our own as well as the experience of other countries, that golden shackles, by whomsoever or by whatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it as the iron bonds of despotism.The presses in the necessary employment of the Government should never be used “to clear the guilty or to varnish crime.” A decent and manly examination of the acts of the Government should be not only tolerated, but encouraged.Upon another occasion I have given my opinion at some length upon the impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation of Congressthat the article in the Constitution making it the duty of the President to communicate information and authorizing him to recommend measures was not intended to make him the source in legislation, and, in particular, that he should never be looked to for schemes of finance.It would be very strange, indeed, that the Constitution should have strictly forbidden one branch of the Legislature from interfering in the origination of such bills and that it should be considered proper that an altogether different department of the Government should be permitted to do so.Some of our best political maxims and opinions have been drawn from our parent isle.There are others, however, which can not be introduced in our system without singular incongruity and the production of much mischief, and this I conceive to be one.No matter in which of the houses of Parliament a bill may originate nor by whom introduceda minister or a member of the oppositionby the fiction of law, or rather of constitutional principle, the sovereign is supposed to have prepared it agreeably to his will and then submitted it to Parliament for their advice and consent.Now the very reverse is the case here, not only with regard to the principle, but the forms prescribed by the Constitution.The principle certainly assigns to the only body constituted by the Constitution(the legislative body)the power to make laws, and the forms even direct that the enactment should be ascribed to them.The Senate, in relation to revenue bills, have the right to propose amendments, and so has the Executive by the power given him to return them to the House of Representatives with his objections.It is in his power also to propose amendments in the existing revenue laws, suggested by his observations upon their defective or injurious operation.But the delicate duty of devising schemes of revenue should be left where the Constitution has placed itwith the immediate representatives of the people.For similar reasons the mode of keeping the public treasure should be prescribed by them, and the further removed it may be from the control of the Executive the more wholesome the arrangement and the more in accordance with republican principle.Connected with this subject is the character of the currency.The idea of making it exclusively metallic, however well intended, appears to me to be fraught with more fatal consequences than any other scheme having no relation to the personal rights of the citizens that has ever been devised.If any single scheme could produce the effect of arresting at once that mutation of condition by which thousands of our most indigent fellow-citizens by their industry and enterprise are raised to the possession of wealth, that is the one.If there is one measure better calculated than another to produce that state of things so much deprecated by all true republicans, by which the rich are daily adding to their hoards and the poor sinking deeper into penury, it is an exclusive metallic currency.Or if there is a process by which the character of the country for generosity and nobleness of feeling may be destroyed by the great increase and neck toleration of usury, it is an exclusive metallic currency.14
Amongst the other duties of a delicate character which the President is called upon to perform is the supervision of the government of the Territories of the United States.Those of them which are destined to become members of our great political family are compensated by their rapid progress from infancy to manhood for the partial and temporary deprivation of their political rights.It is in this District only where American citizens are to be found who under a settled policy are deprived of many important political privileges without any inspiring hope as to the future.Their only consolation under circumstances of such deprivation is that of the devoted exterior guards of a campthat their sufferings secure tranquillity and safety within.Are there any of their countrymen, who would subject them to greater sacrifices, to any other humiliations than those essentially necessary to the security of the object for which they were thus separated from their fellow-citizens? Are their rights alone not to be guaranteed by the application of those great principles upon which all our constitutions are founded? We are told by the greatest of British orators and statesmen that at the commencement of the War of the Revolution the most stupid men in England spoke of “their American subjects.” Are there, indeed, citizens of any of our States who have dreamed of their subjects in the District of Columbia? Such dreams can never be realized by any agency of mine.The people of the District of Columbia are not the subjects of the people of the States, but free American citizens.Being in the latter condition when the Constitution was formed, no words used in that instrument could have been intended to deprive them of that character.If there is anything in the great principle of unalienable rights so emphatically insisted upon in our Declaration of Independence, they could neither make nor the United States accept a surrender of their liberties and become the subjectsin other words, the slavesof their former fellow-citizens.If this be trueand it will scarcely be denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his own rights as an American citizenthe grant to Congress of exclusive jurisdiction in the District of Columbia can be interpreted, so far as respects the aggregate people of the United States, as meaning nothing more than to allow to Congress the controlling power necessary to afford a free and safe exercise of the functions assigned to the General Government by the Constitution.In all other respects the legislation of Congress should be adapted to their peculiar position and wants and be conformable with their deliberate opinions of their own interests.I have spoken of the necessity of keeping the respective departments of the Government, as well as all the other authorities of our country, within their appropriate orbits.This is a matter of difficulty in some cases, as the powers which they respectively claim are often not defined by any distinct lines.Mischievous, however, in their tendencies as collisions of this kind may be, those which arise between the respective communities which for certain purposes compose one nation are much more so, for no such nation can long exist without the careful culture of those feelings of confidence and affection which are the effective bonds to union between free and confederated states.Strong as is the tie of interest, it has been often found ineffectual.Men blinded by their passions have been known to adopt measures for their country in direct opposition to all the suggestions of policy.The alternative, then, is to destroy or keep down a bad passion by creating and fostering a good one, and this seems to be the corner stone upon which our American political architects have reared the fabric of our Government.The cement which was to bind it and perpetuate its existence was the affectionate attachment between all its members.To insure the continuance of this feeling, produced at first by a community of dangers, of sufferings, and of interests, the advantages of each were made accessible to all.No participation in any good possessed by any member of our extensive Confederacy, except in domestic government, was withheld from the citizen of any other member.By a process attended with no difficulty, no delay, no expense but that of removal, the citizen of one might become the citizen of any other, and successively of the whole.The lines, too, separating powers to be exercised by the citizens of one State from those of another seem to be so distinctly drawn as to leave no room for misunderstanding.The citizens of each State unite in their persons all the privileges which that character confers and all that they may claim as citizens of the United States, but in no case can the same persons at the same time act as the citizen of two separate States, and he is therefore positively precluded from any interference with the reserved powers of any State but that of which he is for the time being a citizen.He may, indeed, offer to the citizens of other States his advice as to their management, and the form in which it is tendered is left to his own discretion and sense of propriety.It may be observed, however, that organized associations of citizens requiring compliance with their wishes too much resemble the recommendations of Athens to her allies, supported by an armed and powerful fleet.It was, indeed, to the ambition of the leading States of Greece to control the domestic concerns of the others that the destruction of that celebrated Confederacy, and subsequently of all its members, is mainly to be attributed, and it is owing to the absence of that spirit that the Helvetic Confederacy has for so many years been preserved.Never has there been seen in the institutions of the separate members of any confederacy more elements of discord.In the principles and forms of government and religion, as well as in the circumstances of the several Cantons, so marked a discrepancy was observable as to promise anything but harmony in their intercourse or permanency in their alliance, and yet for ages neither has been interrupted.Content with the positive benefits which their union produced, with the independence and safety from foreign aggression which it secured, these sagacious people respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant to their own principles and prejudices.Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the same forbearance.Our citizens must be content with the exercise of the powers with which the Constitution clothes them.The attempt of those of one State to control the domestic institutions of another can only result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion, violence, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our free institutions.Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the terms and principles governing a common copartnership.There is a fund of power to be exercised under the direction of the joint councils of the allied members, but that which has been reserved by the individual members is intangible by the common Government or the individual members composing it.To attempt it finds no support in the principles of our Constitution.It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our Confederacy.Experience has abundantly taught us that the agitation by citizens of one part of the Union of a subject not confided to the General Government, but exclusively under the guardianship of the local authorities, is productive of no other consequences than bitterness, alienation, discord, and injury to the very cause which is intended to be advanced.Of all the great interests which appertain to our country, that of unioncordial, confiding, fraternal unionis by far the most important, since it is the only true and sure guaranty of all others.In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the currency, some of the States may meet with difficulty in their financial concerns.However deeply we may regret anything imprudent or excessive in the engagements into which States have entered for purposes of their own, it does not become us to disparage the States governments, nor to discourage them from making proper efforts for their own relief.On the contrary, it is our duty to encourage them to the extent of our constitutional authority to apply their best means and cheerfully to make all necessary sacrifices and submit to all necessary burdens to fulfill their engagements and maintain their credit, for the character and credit of the several States form a part of the character and credit of the whole country.The resources of the country are abundant, the enterprise and activity of our people proverbial, and we may well hope that wise legislation and prudent administration by the respective governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restore former prosperity.
第四篇：布什告别演讲稿全文(中英文对照版)
布什告别演讲稿全文（中英文对照版）
【世贸人才网：国际贸易人才门户 更新时间： 2009-01-19 】【来源:星岛环球网】 布什告别演讲稿全文（中英文对照版）Presidential Farewell Speech
美国总统布什美国当地时间15日晚8时(北京 时间16日上午9时)在白宫发表最后告别演说。据白宫官员透露，演说总长13分钟，共5页，布什称自己的总统任期为“在危机中取得重大成就”的时期。以下是布什告别演讲稿全文，分为布什告别演全文英文版和中文版。布什告别演讲稿全文（英文版）
THE PRESIDENT: Fellow citizens: For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your President.The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence — a time set apart.Tonight, with a thankful heart, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some thoughts on the journey that we have traveled together, and the future of our nation.Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of American democracy.In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by you, the American people.Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose history reflects the enduring promise of our land.This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole nation.And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-Elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls.Tonight I am filled with gratitude — to Vice President Cheney and members of my administration;to Laura, who brought joy to this house and love to my life;to our wonderful daughters, Barbara and Jenna;to my parents, whose examples have provided strength for a lifetime.And above all, I thank the American people for the trust you have given me.I thank you for the prayers that have lifted my spirits.And I thank you for the countless acts of courage, generosity, and grace that I have witnessed these past eight years.This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house — September the 11th, 2001.That morning, terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor.I remember standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center three days later, surrounded by rescuers who had been working around the clock.I remember talking to brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors at the Pentagon, and to husbands and wives whose loved ones became heroes aboard Flight 93.I remember Arlene Howard, who gave me her fallen son’s police shield as a reminder of all that was lost.And I still carry his badge.As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11.But I never did.Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation.I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.Over the past seven years, a new Department of Homeland Security has been created.The military, the intelligence community, and the FBI have been transformed.Our nation is equipped with new tools to monitor the terrorists’ movements, freeze their finances, and break up their plots.And with strong allies at our side, we have taken the fight to the terrorists and those who support them.Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored al Qaeda and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school.Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States.There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions.But there can be little debate about the results.America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil.This is a tribute to those who toil night and day to keep us safe — law enforcement officers,intelligence analysts, homeland security and diplomatic personnel, and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.Our nation is blessed to have citizens who volunteer to defend us in this time of danger.I have cherished meeting these selfless patriots and their families.And America owes you a debt of gratitude.And to all our men and women in uniform listening tonight: There has been no higher honor than serving as your Commander-in-Chief.The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems.Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder.The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God, and that liberty and justice light the path to peace.This is the belief that gave birth to our nation.And in the long run, advancing this belief is the only practical way to protect our citizens.When people live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror.When people have hope in the future, they will not cede their lives to violence and extremism.So around the world, America is promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity.We’re standing with dissidents and young democracies, providing AIDS medicine to dying patients — to bring dying patients back to life, and sparing mothers and babies from malaria.And this great republic born alone in liberty is leading the world toward a new age when freedom belongs to all nations.For eight years, we’ve also strived to expand opportunity and hope here at home.Across our country, students are rising to meet higher standards in public schools.A new Medicare prescription drug benefit is bringing peace of mind to seniors and the disabled.Every taxpayer pays lower income taxes.The addicted and suffering are finding new hope through faith-based programs.Vulnerable human life is better protected.Funding for our veterans has nearly doubled.America’s air and water and lands are measurably cleaner.And the federal bench includes wise new members like Justice Sam Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.When challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to meet them.Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy.These are very tough times for hardworking families, but the toll would be far worse if we had not acted.All Americans are in this together.And together, with determination and hard work, we will restore our economy to the path of growth.We will show the world once again the resilience of America’s free enterprise system.Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks.There are things I would do differently if given the chance.Yet I’ve always acted with the best interests of our country in mind.I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right.You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made.But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course.While our nation is safer than it was seven years ago, the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack.Our enemies are patient, and determined to strike again.America did nothing to seek or deserve this conflict.But we have been given solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them.We must resist complacency.We must keep our resolve.And we must never let down our guard.At the same time, we must continue to engage the world with confidence and clear purpose.In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward.But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism.Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger.In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad.If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.As we address these challenges — and others we cannot foresee tonight — America must maintain our moral clarity.I’ve often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable.But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise.Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere.Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right.This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth.We must always be willing to act in their defense — and to advance the cause of peace.President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism.America is a young country, full of vitality, constantly growing and renewing itself.And even in the toughest times, we lift our eyes to the broad horizon ahead.I have confidence in the promise of America because I know the character of our people.This is a nation that inspires immigrants to risk everything for the dream of freedom.This is a nation where citizens show calm in times of danger, and compassion in the face of suffering.We see examples of America’s character all around us.And Laura and I have invited some of them to join us in the White House this evening.We see America’s character in Dr.Tony Recasner, a principal who opened a new charter school from the ruins of Hurricane Katrina.We see it in Julio Medina, a former inmate who leads a faith-based program to help prisoners returning to society.We’ve seen it in Staff Sergeant Aubrey McDade, who charged into an ambush in Iraq and rescued three of his fellow Marines.We see America’s character in Bill Krissoff — a surgeon from California.His son, Nathan — a Marine — gave his life in Iraq.When I met Dr.Krissoff and his family, he delivered some surprising news: He told me he wanted to join the Navy Medical Corps in honor of his son.This good man was 60 years old — 18 years above the age limit.But his petition for a waiver was granted, and for the past year he has trained in battlefield medicine.Lieutenant Commander Krissoff could not be here tonight, because he will soon deploy to Iraq, where he will help save America’s wounded warriors — and uphold the legacy of his fallen son.In citizens like these, we see the best of our countrycitizen of the United States of America.And so, my fellow Americans, for the final time: Good night.May God bless this house and our next President.And may God bless you and our wonderful country.Thank you.(Applause.)布什告别演讲稿全文(译文，中文版）
各位公民：八年来，我有幸担任你们的总统。新世纪的第一个十年是一段意义重大的时期——一个时间分界点。今晚，我怀着一颗感谢的心，请求一个最后的机会，就我们一起走过的旅程以及国家的未来，与诸位分享一些想法。
五天后，世界将目睹美国民主的活力。按照我们立国时的传统，总统之位将传给你们——美国人民所选择的继任者。站在国会山的台阶上的，将是一个其故事可以说明我们国家持久承诺的人。这是我们全国的希望与骄傲的深刻。我和所有美国人一起，向总统当选人奥巴马、他的妻子米歇儿以及他们两个美丽的女儿致以最美好的祝愿。
今晚，我满怀感激——感激副总统切尼以及行政成员们;感谢劳拉，她给这个家带来欢乐，给我的生活带来爱;感谢我们了不起的女儿芭芭拉和詹娜;感谢我的父母亲，他们的榜样为我提供了毕生的力量。最重要的是，我感谢美国人民给我的信任。我感谢你们的祈祷鼓舞了我的灵魂。我感谢你们在过去八年让我目睹了无数体现勇气、慷慨与仁慈的行动。
今晚，我的思绪回到我站在这个地方向你们致辞的第一个晚上——2001年9月11日。那天早上，恐怖分子夺走了近3000性命，这是自珍珠港事件以来，美国遭遇的最严重的袭击。我记得于三天后站在世贸中心的废墟中的情形，周围是全天候工作的救援人员。
我记得我跟那些在五角大楼烟雾弥漫的走廊里工作的勇敢灵魂谈话，跟那些登上93号航班最终成为英雄的人们的妻子们谈话。我记得阿琳·霍华德(Arlene Howard)，她把已经陨落的儿子的警察勋章给了我，提醒我我们失去了什么。我仍然戴着他的徽章。
随着时间的流逝，大多数美国人可以回归911之前的生活，但我就不能。每天早上，我都收到一份关于我国面临威胁的简报。我发誓要尽我所能保证我们的安全。
在过去七年，一个新的国土安全部成立了。军队、情报界以及FBI已经警告改造。我们的国家装备了新的工具去监控恐怖分子的活动，冻结他们的 金融，打破他们的阴谋。而且在强大盟友的支持下，我们向恐怖分子以及那些支持他们的人们发起了战斗。
阿富汗已经从塔利班窝藏基地组织、在大街上对妇女行石刑的国家变成一个年轻的民主体，与恐怖主义斗争，鼓励女孩子去上学。伊拉克已经从一个残暴的独裁国家和美国的死敌变成一个位于中东之心的阿拉伯民主体，变成美国的朋友。
很多这些 决定 引起合法性的争论，但其结果却是无须争论的。七年多里，美国领土没有再遭遇又一次恐怖袭击。这要归功于那些日夜辛勤工作保卫我们的安全的人们——执法人员，情报分析家，国土安全和外交人员，以及美国武装部队的男女成员。
在危险时刻，公民自愿捍卫国家，这是我们国家之福。我珍惜与这些无私的爱国者以及他们的家人的会晤。美国欠你们一份感激。致今晚所有在聆听的全体男女军人：作为你们的三军总司令是至高无上的荣耀。
我们的部队发起的战斗属于更为广泛的、两种根本不同的 制度 之间的斗争的一部分。在其中一种 制度 下，一小撮狂热分子要求全体服从一种压制性的意识形态，迫使妇女卑屈，杀害不信仰者。而另一种 制度 则是基于这样的信念：自由是万能的上帝赋予所有人的礼物，自由与正义照亮和平之路。
这是我们的立国信仰。从长期来看，推广这种信仰是保护我们公民的唯一可行 办法。当人们生活在自由之中，他们就不会愿意选择追求恐怖主义运动的领袖。当人们对未来充满希望，他们就不会愿意把生命交给暴力与极端主义。
因此，美国在全世界推广人的自由、人的权利以及人的尊严。我们支持异见人士及年轻的民主体，提供爱滋病药物让濒临死亡的病人恢复生机，不让疟疾伤害母亲与婴儿。这个仅为自由而生的伟大共和国带领世界走向自由属于所有国家的新时期。
八年来，我们还努力扩大国内的机会与希望。在全国，学生们正起来满足公立学校提高了的标准。一种新的医疗处方药福利正为长者及残疾人带来内心的平静。每一个纳税人要支付的收入税减少了。
透过以信仰为基础的项目，上瘾者与受苦者找到了新希望。脆弱的生命得到更好的保护。用于退伍军人的资金几乎翻了一番。美国的空气、水和陆地更加清洁。而且联邦法官席上有了像法官阿利托(Sam Alito)和首席法官罗伯茨(John Roberts)这样睿智的新成员。
当我们的繁荣面临挑战，我们起来面对。面对 金融 崩溃的前景，我们采取了果断措施保护我们的经济。努力工作的家庭面临非常困难的时刻，但如果我们不采取行动，损失会严重得多。所有美国人团结在一起，凭着决心以及努力的工作，我们将让经济重上增长之路。我们将再一次向世界展示美国自由企业体系的弹性。
和此前负责这个办公室所有人一样，我曾经历挫折。如果还有机会，在一些事情上我会改变做法。然而，我在做事的时候总是心怀我们国家的最佳利益。我按照我的良心，并做了我认为正确的事情。你可能不会同意我所作出的一些艰难 决定。但我希望你们明白我愿意作出这些艰难的 决定。
未来十年，我们的国家将面临更多艰难的选择，一些指引性的原则可以指明我们的方向。尽管我们的国家比七年前安全，我们的民众所面临的最严重威胁仍然是再度发生的恐怖袭击。我们的敌人很有耐心，决心再次袭击。美国没有寻求挑起冲突，也不应该遭受这些冲突。但我们已经肩负庄严的责任，我们必须面对。我们必须抵制自满。我们必须保持决心。我们绝不能放松警惕。
与此同时，我们必须继续怀着信心与明确的目标与世界接触。面对海外的威胁，转向内部寻求安慰是很有诱惑力的。但是我们必须拒绝孤立主义及作为其同伴的保护主义。在21世纪，国内的安全与繁荣有赖于自由在海外的扩大。如果美国不带领自由事业，这项事业就得不到指引。
在我们解决这些挑战——以及其他一些我们无法在今晚预测的挑战时，美国必须维持我们的道德明确性。我经常跟你们说善与恶。这令一些人感到不舒服。但善恶存在于世上，两者之间不会有任何妥协。无论在何时何地，把杀害无辜者作为推广意识形态的手段都是错误的做法。
让人们摆脱压迫和绝望是永远正确的。国家必须继续为正义和真理发言。我们必须始终愿意行动起来捍卫它们，推进和平的事业。
杰斐逊总统曾写道，“我喜欢未来的梦想更甚于过去的历史。”在我离开这个他于两个世纪前所在的地方时，我赞成他的这种乐观精神。美国是一个年轻的国家，充满活力、不断成长和自我更新。甚至在最艰难的时刻，我们都会放眼前面广阔的地平线。
我对美国的诺言有信心，因为我知道我们人民的特质。这是一个鼓励移民为自由的梦想而冒险的国家。这是一个公民可以在危险的时刻表现平静，在苦难面前展示怜悯的国家。我们看到，我们周围就有美国特质的榜样。劳拉和我已经邀请当中一些人今晚到白宫。
我们看到里卡斯钠博士(Dr.Tony Recasner)的美国特质，这位校长在卡特里娜飓风的废墟中开办一所新的特许学校。我们看到麦地那(Julio Medina)身上的美国特质，这位前囚犯带领一个以信仰为基础的项目，帮助囚犯重回社会。我们在上士麦达德(Staff Sergeant Aubrey McDade)身上的美国特质，他负责伊拉克的一次埋伏并拯救了三名同伴的海军陆战队队员。我们在克里斯托夫(Bill Krissoff)这位来自加州的外科医生身上看到美国特质。他的儿子内森(Nathan)是一位海军陆战队队员，在伊拉克献出了生命。当我和克里斯托夫及其家人会面时，他带来了一些令人吃惊的新闻：他告诉我，他像加入海军医疗队以纪念他的儿子。这位好人60岁了——比年龄上限大了18岁。
但他的豁免申请得到了批准，而且在过去的一年里，他已经接受战地医学训练。克里斯夫少校今晚不能出席，因为他很快就要部署到伊拉克，在那里，他将帮忙拯救美国受伤的勇士，维护他已逝儿子的遗产。
从这些公民身上，我们看到了我们国家最美好的一面——弹性与希望，关怀与强大。这
些优点让我对美国怀着不可动摇的信念。我们曾面临危险与考验，前面还会有更多危险与考验。但凭着人民的勇气，以及我们对理想的信心，这个伟大的国家永不疲惫……永不动摇……永不失败。
担任你们的总统是我一生的荣幸。我们有过好日子也有过艰难日子。但每一天，我都因我们国家的伟大而受到鼓舞，都因我们民众的善良感到振奋。能够代表我们所爱的这个国家，这是我的福份。我将永远为一个比其他任何头衔更有意义的身份而感到荣幸：美利坚合众国公民。
最后，我的美国同胞们：晚安。愿上帝保佑白宫和我们的下一任总统。愿上帝保佑你们和我们了不起的国家。谢谢你们。
第五篇：克林顿就职演讲稿-中英文对照
克林顿就职演讲稿-中英文对照
Inaugural Address of George W.Bush January 20 2001 President Clinton distinguished guests and my fellow citizens: The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history yet common in our country.With asimple oath we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.As I begin I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation and I thank VicePresident Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.I am honored and humbled to stand here where so many of Americas leaders havecome before me and so many will follow.We have a place all of us in a long story.A story we continue but whose end we willnot see.It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old a storyof a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom the story of a power thatwent into the world to protect but not possess to defend but not to conquer.It is theAmerican story.A story of flawed and fallible people united across the generations bygrand and enduring ideals.The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promisethat everyone belongs that everyone deserves a chance that no insignificant person wasever born.Americans are called upon to enact this promise in our lives and in our lawsand though our nation has sometimes halted and sometimes delayed we must follow noother course.Through much of the last century Americas faith in freedom and democracy was arock in a raging sea.Now it is a seed upon the wind taking root in many nations.Ourdemocratic faith is more than the creed of our country it is the inborn hope of ourhumanity an ideal we carry but do not own a trust we bear and pass along and evenafter nearly 225 years we have a long way yet to travel.While many of our citizens prosper others doubt the promise even the justice of ourown country.The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and hiddenprejudice and the circumstances of their birth and sometimes our differences run so deepit seems we share a continent but not a country.We do not accept this and we will notallow it.Our unity our union is the serious work of leaders and citizens in everygeneration and this is my solemn pledge I will work to build a single nation of justice andopportunity.I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger thanourselves who creates us equal in His image and we are confident in principles that uniteand lead us onward.America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.We are bound by ideals thatmove us beyond our backgrounds lift us above our interests and teach us what it meansto be citizens.Every child must be taught these principles.Every citizen must uphold themand every immigrant by embracing these ideals makes our country more not lessAmerican.Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nations promise through civilitycourage compassion and character.America at its best matches a commitment toprinciple with a concern for civility.A civil society demands from each of us good will andrespect fair dealing and forgiveness.Some seem to believe that our politics can afford tobe petty because in a time of peace the stakes of our debates appear small.But thestakes for America are never small.If our country does not lead the cause of freedom itwill not be led.If we do not turn the hearts of children toward knowledge and character wewill lose their gifts and undermine their idealism.If we permit our economy to drift anddecline the vulnerable will suffer most.We must live up to the calling we share.Civility isnot a tactic or a sentiment.It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism of communityover chaos.This commitment if we keep it is a way to shared accomplishment.America at its best is also courageous.Our national courage has been clear in timesof depression and war when defending common dangers defined our common good.Now
we must choose if the example of our fathers and mothers will inspire us or condemnus.We must show courage in a time of blessing by confronting problems instead ofpassing them on to future generations.Together we will reclaim Americas schools before ignorance and apathy claim moreyoung lives we will reform Social Security and Medicare sparing our children fromstruggles we have the power to prevent we will reduce taxes to recover the momentumof our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans we will buildour defenses beyond challenge lest weakness invite challenge and we will confrontweapons of mass destruction so that a new century is spared new horrors.The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake America remainsengaged in the world by history and by choice shaping a balance of power that favorsfreedom.We will defend our allies and our interests we will show purpose withoutarrogance we will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength and to allnations we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.America at its best is compassionate.In the quiet of American conscience we knowthat deep persistent poverty is unworthy of our nations promise.Whatever our views ofits cause we can agree that children at risk are not at fault.Abandonment and abuse arenot acts of God they are failures of love.The proliferation of prisons however necessaryis no substitute for hope and order in our souls.Where there is suffering there is duty.Americans in need are not strangers they are citizens not problems but priorities and allof us are diminished when any are hopeless.Government has great responsibilities forpublic safety and public health for civil rights and common schools.Yet compassion is thework of a nation not just a government.Some needs and hurts are so deep they will onlyrespond to a mentors touch or a pastors prayer.Church and charity synagogue andmosque lend our communities their humanity and they will have an honored place in ourplans and in our laws.Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty but we canlisten to those who do.I can pledge our nation to a goal When we see that woundedtraveler on the road to Jericho we will not pass to the other side.America at its best is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats it is a call to conscience.Though it requires sacrifice it brings a deeper fulfillment.We find the fullness of life notonly in options but in commitments.We find that children and community are thecommitments that set us free.Our public interest depends on private character on civicduty and family bonds and basic fairness on uncounted unhonored acts of decencywhich give direction to our freedom.Sometimes in life we are called to do great things.Butas a saint of our times has said every day we are called to do small things with great love.The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.I will live and lead bythese principles to advance my convictions with civility to pursue the public interest withcourage to speak for greater justice and compassion to call for responsibility and try tolive it as well.In all of these ways I will bring the values of our history to the care of ourtimes.What you do is as important as anything government does.I ask you to seek acommon good beyond your comfort to defend needed reforms against easy attacks toserve your nation beginning with your neighbor.I ask you to be citizens.Citizens notspectators citizens not subjects responsible citizens building communities of serviceand a nation of character.Americans are generous and strong and decent not because we believe in ourselvesbut because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves.When this spirit of citizenship is missingno government program can replace it.When this spirit is present no wrong can standagainst it.After the Declaration of Independence was signed Virginia statesman John Pagewrote to Thomas Jefferson We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to thestrong.Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm Much timehas passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration.The years and changesaccumulate but the themes of this day he would know our nations grand story ofcourage and its simple dream of dignity.We are not this storys author who fills time and eternity with His purpose.Yet Hispurpose is achieved in our duty and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.Nevertiring never yielding never finishing we renew that purpose today to make our countrymore just and generous to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life.This work continues.This story goes on.And an angel still rides in the whirlwind anddirects this storm.God bless you all and God bless America.参考中文翻译: 乔治-布什 2001 年就职演说 谢谢大家 尊敬的芮恩奎斯特大法官，卡特总统，布什总统，克林顿总统，尊敬的来宾们，我的同胞们，这次权利的和平过渡在历史上是罕见的，但在美国是平常的。我们以朴素的宣誓庄严地维护了古老的传统，同时开始了新的历程。首先，我要感谢克林顿总统为这个国家作出的贡献，也感谢副总统戈尔在竞选过程中的热情与风度。站在这里，我很荣幸，也有点受宠若惊。在我之前，许多美国领导人从这里起步在我之后，也会有许多领导人从这里继续前进。在美国悠久的历史中，我们每个人都有自己的位置我们还在继续推动着历史前进，但是我们不可能看到它的尽头。这是一部新世界的发展史，是一部后浪推前浪的历史。这是一部美国由奴隶制社会发展成为崇尚自由的社会的历史。这是一个强国保护而不是占有世界的历史，是捍卫而不是征服世界的历史。这就是美国史。它不是一部十全十美的民族发展史，但它是一部在伟大和永恒理想指导下几代人团结奋斗的历史。这些理想中最伟大的是正在慢慢实现的美国的承诺，这就是：每个人都有自身的价值，每个人都有成功的机会，每个人天生都会有所作为的。美国人民肩负着一种使命，那就是要竭力将这个诺言变成生活中和法律上的现实。虽然我们的国家过去在追求实现这个承诺的途中停滞不前甚至倒退，但我们仍将坚定不移地完成这一使命。在上个世纪的大部分时间里，美国自由民主的信念犹如汹涌大海中的岩石。现在它更像风中的种子，把自由带给每个民族。在我们的国家，民主不仅仅是一种信念，而是全人类的希望。民主，我们不会独占，而会竭力让大家分享。民主，我们将铭记于心并且不断传播。225 年过去了，我们仍有很长的路要走。有很多公民取得了成功，但也有人开始怀疑，怀疑我们自己的国家所许下的诺言，甚至怀疑它的公正。失败的教育，潜在的偏见和出身的环境限制了一些美国人的雄心。有时，我们的分歧是如此之深，似乎我们虽身处同一个大陆，但不属于同一个国家。我们不能接受这种分歧，也无法容许它的存在。我们的团结和统一，是每一代领导人和每一个公民的严肃使命。在此，我郑重宣誓：我将竭力建设一个公正、充满机会的统一国家。我知道这是我们的目标，因为上帝按自己的身形创造了我们，上帝高于一切的力量将引导我们前进。对这些将我们团结起来并指引我们向前的原则，我们充满信心。血缘、出身或地域从未将美国联合起来。只有理想，才能使我们心系一处，超越自己，放弃个人利益，并逐步领会何谓公民。每个孩子都必须学习这些原则。每个公民都必须坚持这些原则。每个移民，只有接受这些原则，才能使我们的国家不丧失而更具美国特色今天，我们在这里重申一个新的信念，即通过发扬谦恭、勇气、同情心和个性的精神来实现我们国家的理想。美国在它最鼎盛时也没忘记遵循谦逊有礼的原则。一个文明的社会需要我们每个人品质优良，尊重他人，为人公平和宽宏大量。有人认为我们的政治制度是如此的微不足道，因为在和平年代，我们所争论的话题都是无关紧要的。但是，对我们美国来说，我们所讨论的问题从来都不是什么小事。如果我们不领导和平事业，那么和平将无人来领导如果我们不引导我们的孩子们真心地热爱知识、发挥个性，他们的天分将得不到发挥，理想将难以实现。如果我们不采取适当措施，任凭经济衰退，最大的受害者将是平民百姓。我们应该时刻听取时代的呼唤。谦逊有礼不是战术也不是感情用事。这是我们最坚定的选择--在批评声中赢得信任在混乱中寻求统一。如果遵循这样的承诺，我们将会享有共同的成就。美国有强大的国力作后盾，将会勇往直前。在大萧条和战争时期，我们的人民在困难面前表现得无比英勇，克服我们共同的困难体现了我们共同的优秀品质。现在，我们正面临着选择，如果我们作出正确的选择，祖辈一定会激励我们如果我们的选择是错误的，祖辈会谴责我们的。上帝正眷顾着这个国家，我们必须显示出我们的勇气，敢于面对问题，而不是将它们遗留给我们的后代。我们要共同努力，健全美国的学校教育，不能让无知和冷漠吞噬更多的年轻生命。我们要改革社会医疗和保险制度，在力所能及的范围内拯救我们的孩子。我们要减低税收，恢复经济，酬劳辛勤工作的美国人民。我们要防患于未然，懈怠会带来麻烦。我们还要阻止武器泛滥，使新的世纪摆脱恐怖的威胁。反对自由和反对我们国家的人应该明白：美国仍将积极参与国际事务，力求世界力量的均衡，让自由的力量遍及全球。这是历史的选择。我们会保护我们的盟国，捍卫我们的利益。我们将谦逊地向世界人民表示我们的目标。我们将坚决反击各种侵略和不守信用的行径。我们要向全世界宣传孕育了我们伟大民族的价值观。正处在鼎盛时期的美国也不缺乏同情心。当我们静心思考，我们就会明了根深蒂固的贫穷根本不值得我国作出承诺。无论我们如何看待贫穷的原因，我们都必须承认，孩子敢于冒险不等于在犯错误。放纵与滥用都为上帝所不容。这些都是缺乏爱的结果。监狱数量的增长虽然看起来是有必要的，但并不能代替我们心中的希望-人人遵纪守法。哪里有痛苦，我们的义务就在哪里。对我们来说，需要帮助的美国人不是陌生人，而是我们的公民不是负担，而是急需救助的对象。当有人陷入绝望时，我们大家都会因此变得渺小。对公共安全和大众健康，对民权和学校教育，政府都应负有极大的责任。然而，同情心不只是政府的职责，更是整个国家的义务。有些需要是如此的迫切，有些伤痕是如此的深刻，只有导师的爱抚、牧师的祈祷才能有所感触。不论是教堂还是慈善机构、犹太会堂还是清真寺，都赋予了我们的社会它们特有的人性，因此它们理应在我们的建设和法律上受到尊重。我们国家的许多人都不知道贫穷的痛苦。但我们可以听到那些感触颇深的人们的倾诉。我发誓我们的国家要达到一种境界：当我们看见受伤的行人倒在远行的路上，我们决不会袖手旁观。正处于鼎盛期的美国重视并期待每个人担负起自己的责任。鼓励人们勇于承担责任不是让人们充当替罪羊，而是对人的良知的呼唤。虽然承担责任意味着牺牲个人利益，但是你能从中体会到一种更加深刻的成就感。我们实现人生的完整不单是通过摆在我们面前的选择，而且是通过我们的实践来实现。我们知道，通过对整个社会和我们的孩子们尽我们的义务，我们将得到最终自由。我们的公共利益依赖于我们独立的个性依赖于我们的公民义务，家庭纽带和基本的公正依赖于我们无数的、默默无闻的体面行动，正是它们指引我们走向自由。在生活中，有时我们被召唤着去做一些惊天动地的事情。但是，正如我们时代的一位圣人所言，每一天我们都被召唤带着挚爱去做一些小事情。一个民主制度最重要的任务是由大家每一个人来完成的。我为人处事的原则包括：坚信自己而不强加于人，为公众的利益勇往直前，追求正义而不乏同情心，勇担责任而决不推卸。我要通过这一切，用我们历史上传统价值观来哺育我们的时代。同胞们，你们所做的一切和政府的工作同样重要。我希望你们不要仅仅追求个人享受而忽略公众的利益要捍卫既定的改革措施，使其不会轻易被攻击要从身边小事做起，为我们的国家效力。我希望你们成为真正的公民，而不是旁观者，更不是臣民。你们应成为有责任心的公民，共同来建设一个互帮互助的社会和有特色的国家。美国人民慷慨、强大、体面，这并非因为我们信任我们自己，而是因为我们拥有超越我们自己的信念。一旦这种公民精神丧失了，无论何种政府计划都无法弥补它。一旦这种精神出现了，无论任何错误都无法抗衡它。在《独立宣言》签署之后，弗吉尼亚州的政治家约翰佩齐曾给托马斯杰弗逊写信说：我们知道，身手敏捷不一定就能赢得比赛，力量强大不一定就能赢得战争。难道这一切不都是上帝安排的吗 杰斐逊就任总统的那个年代离我们已经很远了。时光飞逝，美国发生了翻天覆地的变化。但是有一点他肯定能够预知，即我们这个时代的主题仍然是：我们国家无畏向前的恢宏故事和它追求尊严的纯朴梦想。我们不是这个故事的作者，是杰斐逊作者本人的伟大理想穿越时空，并通过我们每天的努力在变为现实。我们正在通过大家的努力在履行着各自的职责。带着永不疲惫、永不气馁、永不完竭的信念，今天我们重树这样的目标：使我们的国家变得更加公正、更加慷慨，去验证我们每个人和所有人生命的尊严。这项工作必须继续下去。这个故事必须延续下去。上帝会驾驭我们航行的。愿上帝保佑大家愿上帝保佑美国
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