美国总统就职演讲presentation

第一篇：美国总统就职演讲presentation

美国总统的就职演说presentation

美国总统的就职演说可以说是总统的执政纲领和执政理念的宣扬。演说除了要阐明自己的政见和立场，最重要的是鼓舞民心、提高士气。

今天我要讲一些关于美国总统就职演讲的要点：

1.date日期----220 years ago, the first American President Washington inaugurated举行就职典礼 on April 30 in New York City.However, from 1937 when President Roosevelt first re-election, the inauguration date was changed to January 20, the date has been used since then.220多年前，美国首任总统华盛顿于4月30日在纽约市就职。然而，从1937年罗斯福总统首次连任时起，就职日期改为1月20日，此后一直沿用。

2.Bible圣经---It was a tradition in American culture to swear oaths誓言 on a Bible.George Washington was the first president to place his hand on a Christian Bible when taking the oath of office.Bibles have been used since then.3.名言So help me God请上帝助我一臂之力------It is know to all that The words of the oath are in the Constitution--all except “so help me God.”That was added by tradition.Who began the tradition? It was said that Washington added it himself, and the next Presidents used it until today.在宪法规定的誓词之外，一些当选总统还各有创意。据说华盛顿自行加上了这句经典的请上帝助我一臂之力，并为接下来总统沿用至今。

4.Re-elected----So far，there are 37 President gave totally 54 inauguration addresses in American history。Some of them got re-elected for more than one times.For example, George Washington and George Bush they all got 2 re-elections.And Roosevelt got 4 re-elections because of the WWII.迄今，共有37位美国总统发表了54篇就职演说.其中有些人连任了多次。乔治华盛顿和乔治布什都连任了两次，而罗斯福由于二战的原因则连任了四次，长达十二年。

5.The shortest and the longest inaugural address

史上最长的和最短的就职演讲

George Washington gave the shortest inauguration addresses in American history--just one 135 words--during his second inauguration in1793.The longest inaugural address on record was given by William Henry Harrison哈里森 in1841.He spoke for almost two hours on a cold and rainy day, without a hat or overcoat.He caught a cold, which became pneumonia.He died a month later.美国总统的演讲有长有短，最短的是华盛顿连任演说，仅135字。而最长的出自哈里森总统，历时一小时四十五分钟。不过他也为这个纪录付出极为高昂的代价。当日哈里森在暴风雪中滔滔不绝，不幸染上肺炎，上任仅一个月便与世长辞。此后，美国总统的就职演说开始避

免长篇大论，较重视词句是否精警动人。最后一部分是关于美国总统就职演讲中的金句。就是经典名言。经典名言----Some of the best-remembered words of presidents came from their inaugural addresses.美国总统演讲中产生了不少传世名言。公认的总统就职演说佳作，不出杰弗逊、林肯，威尔逊，罗斯福和肯尼迪（1961）的几篇讲稿。

因为最难忘的演说，往往来自一些最不寻常的历史时刻。

Abraham Lincoln was always considered as one of the best inaugural speeches of all.林肯的就职演说一直被认为是最经典的。

林肯在南北战争尾声时被暗杀，不过他在死前一个月发表就职演说堪称永垂不朽。其中一句是：

林肯： It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time;

You can even fool some of the people all the time;but you can't fool all of the people all the time.林肯：你可以一时骗过所有的人，也可以在所有时间里骗过一些人，但不能在所有时间里骗过所有的人。

还有一句更经典的是;

I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.(America)

我走得很慢，但是我从来不会后退。（亚伯拉罕.林肯美国）

罗斯福在经济大萧条社会大动荡时期上台。他的第一次就职演说最为后世难忘的一点，是他道出了美国国民当时的心理危机：

He said: ”Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing to fear is fear itself." 让我们牢牢记住，“我们唯一要害怕的东西就是害怕本身。” 不过美国总统就职演说公认的第一金句，应该是肯尼迪在1961年与苏联冷战之际所说的那句：

JOHN KENNEDY: “my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.“不要问国家可以为你们做什么，问问自己可以为国家做什么”。肯尼迪的这句惊世之言，堪称经典，因为当时是冷战时代，美国的民族信心处于低潮，许多史学家们都认为这是美国总统就职演说第一金句.他的另一句经典名言应该更符合当下人们的心理

------Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.人类不结束战争,战争就会结束人类。

罗纳德?里根：各国不相互怀疑是因为它们拥有武装,而它们拥有武装是因为它们相互怀疑。

Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed;they are armed because they mistrust each other.吉米?卡特：美国没有发明人权，其实，人权造就了美国。

America did not invent human rights.In a very real sense...human rights invented America.伍德罗?威尔逊：我宁愿在终将成功的事业中遭受失败，也不愿在必定失败的事业里享受成功！

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause

that will some day lose!

第二篇：美国总统就职演讲

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！

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 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 upon 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 ourselves 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.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;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;and 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 that favors 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.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.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.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.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.Though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment.We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments.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 of 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 years and 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.美国复兴的新时代

比尔•克林顿 第一次就职演讲

星期三,1993年1月20日

同胞们：

今天，我们庆祝美国复兴的奇迹。这个仪式虽在隆冬举行，然而，我们通过自己的言语和向世界展示的面容、却促使春回大地--回到了世界上这个最古老的民主国家，并带来了重新创造美国的远见和勇气。

当我国的缔造者勇敢地向世界宣布美国独立，并向上帝表明自 己的目的时，他们知道，美国若要永存，就必须变革。不是为变革而变革，而是为了维护美国的理想--为了生命、自由和追求幸福而变革。尽管我们随着当今时代 的节拍前进，但我们的使命永恒不变。每一代美国人，部必须为作为一个美国人意味着什么下定义。今天，在冷战阴影下成长起来的一代人，在世界上负起了新的责 任。这个世界虽然沐浴着自由的阳光，但仍受到旧仇宿怨和新的祸患的威胁。

我们在无与伦比的繁荣中长大，继承了仍然是世界上最强大的经济。但由于企业倒闭，工资增长停滞、不平等状况加剧，人民的分歧加深，我们的经济已经削弱。

当乔治•华盛顿第一次宣读我刚才宜读的誓言时，人们骑马把 那个信息缓慢地传遍大地，继而又来船把它传过海洋。而现在，这个仪式的情景和声音即刻向全球几十亿人播放。通信和商务具有全球性，投资具有流动性；技术几 乎具有魔力；改善生活的理想现在具有普遍性。今天，我们美国人通过同世界各地人民进行和平竞争来谋求生存。各种深远而强大的力量正在震撼和改造我们的世 界，当今时代的当务之急是我们能否使变革成为我们的朋友，而不是成为我们的敌人。

这个新世界已经使几百万能够参与竞争并且取胜的美国人过上 了富裕的生活。但是，当多数人干得越多反而挣得越少的时候，当有些人根本不可能工作的时候，当保健费用的重负使众多家庭不堪承受、使大大小小的企业濒临破 产的时候，当犯罪活动的恐惧使守法公民不能自由行动的时候，当千百万贫穷儿童甚至不能想象我们呼唤他们过的那种生活的时候，我们就没有使变革成为我们的朋 友。我们知道，我们必须面对严酷的事实真相，并采取强有力的步骤。但我们没有这样做，而是听之任之，以致损耗了我们的资源，破坏了我们的经济，动摇了我们 的信心。

我们面临惊人的挑战，但我们同样具有惊人的力量，美国人历来是不安现状、不断追求和充满希望的民族，今天，我们必须把前人的远见卓识和坚强意志带到我们的任务中去。从革命，内战，大萧条，直到民权运动，我国人民总是下定决心，从历次危机中构筑我国历史的支柱。

托马斯•杰斐逊认为，为了维护我国的根基，我们需要时常进行激动人心的变革。美国同胞们，我们的时代就是变革的时代，让我们拥抱这个时代吧！

我们的民主制度不仅要成为举世称羡的目标，而且要成为举国复兴的动力。美国没有任何错误的东西不能被正确的东西所纠正。因此，我们今天立下誓言，要结束这个僵持停顿、放任自流的时代，一个复兴美国的新时代已经开始。

我们要复兴美国，就必须鼓足勇气。我们必须做前人无需做的 事情。我们必须更多地投资于人民，投资于他们的工作和未来，与此同时，我们必须减少巨额债务。而且，我们必须在一个需要为每个机会而竞争的世界上做到这一 切。这样做并不容易：这样做要求作出牺牲。但是，这是做得到的，而且能做得公平合理。我们不是为牺牲而牺牲，我们必须像家庭供养子女那样供养自己的国家。

我国的缔造者是用子孙后代的眼光来审视自己的。我们也必须 这样做。凡是注意过孩子蒙?o人睡的人，都知道后代意味着什么，后代就是将要到来的世界--我们为之坚持自己的理想，我们向之借用这个星球，我们对之负有 神圣的责任。我们必须做美国最拿手的事情：为所有的人提供更多的机会，要所有的人负起更多的责任。

现在是破除只求向政府和别人免费索取的恶习的时候了。让我们大家不仅为自己和家庭，而且为社区和国家担负起更多的责任吧。

我们要复兴美国，就必须恢复我们民主制度的活力。这个美丽的首都，就像文明的曙光出现以来的每一个首都一样，常常是尔虞我诈、明争暗斗之地。大腕人物争权夺势，没完没了地为官员的更替升降而烦神，却忘记了那些用辛勤和汗水把我们送到这里来，并养活了我们的人。

美国人理应得到更好的回报。在这个城市里，今天有人想把事 情办得更好一些。因此，我要时所有在场的人说：让我们下定决心改革政治，使权力和特权的喧嚣不再压倒人民的呼声。让我们撇开个人利益。这样我们就能觉察美 国的病痛，并看到官的希望。让我们下定决心，使政府成为富兰克林•罗斯福所说的进行“大胆而持久试验”的地方，成为一个面向未来而不是留恋过去的政府。让 我们把这个首都归还给它所属于的人民。

我们要复兴美国，就必须迎接国内外的种种挑战。国外和国内事务之间已不再有明确的界限--世界经济，世界环境，世界艾滋病危机，世界军备竞赛，这一切都在影响着我们大家。

我们在国内进行重建的同时，面对这个新世界的挑战不会退缩不前，也下会坐失良机。我们将同盟友一起努力进行变革，以免被变革所吞没。当我们的重要利益受到挑战，或者，当国际社会的意志和良知受到蔑视，我们将采取行动--可能时就采用和平外交手段，必要时就使用武力。

今天，在波斯湾、索马里和任何其他地方为国效力的勇敢的美国人，都证明了我们的决心。

但是，我们最伟大的力量是我们思想的威力。这些思想在许多国家仍然处于萌芽阶段。看到这些思想在世界各地被接受，我们感到欢欣鼓舞。我们的希望，我们的心，与每一个大陆正在建立民主和自由的人们是连在一起的。他们的事业也是美国的事业。

美国人民唤来了我们今天所庆祝的变革。你们毫不含糊地齐声疾呼。你们以前所未有的人数参加了投票。你们使国会、总统职务和政治进程本身全都面目一新。是的，是你们，我的美国同胞们，促使春回大地。

现在，我们必须做这个季节需要做的工作。现在，我就运用我的全部职权转向这项工作。我请求国会同我一道做这项工作。任何总统、任何国会、任何政府都不能单独完成这一使命。同胞们，在我国复兴的过程中，你们也必须发挥作用。

我向新一代美国年轻人挑战，要求你们投入这一奉献的季节--按照你们的理想主义行动起来，使不幸的儿童得到帮助，使贫困的人们得到关怀，使四分五裂的社区恢复联系。要做的事情很多--确实够多的，以至几百万在精神上仍然年轻的人也可作出奉献。

在奉献过程中，我们认识到相互需要这一简单而又强大的真 理。我们必须相互关心.今天，我们不仅是在赞颂美国，我们再一次把自己奉献给美国的理想：这个理想在革命中诞生，在两个世纪的挑战中更新；这个理想经受了 认识的考验，大家认识到，若不是命运的安排，幸运者或不幸者有可能互换位置；这个理想由于一种信念而变得崇高，即我国能够从纷繁的多佯性中实现最深刻的统 一性，这个理想洋溢着一种信：美国漫长而英勇的旅程必将永远继续。同胞们，在我恻即将跨入21世纪之际，让我们以旺盛的精力和满腔的希望，以坚定的信心和 严明的纪律开始工作，直到把工作完成。《圣经》说：“我们行善，不可丧志，若不灰心，到了时候，就要收成。”

在这个欢乐的山巅，我们听见山谷里传来了要我们作出奉献的召唤。我们听到了号角声。我们已经换岗。现在，我们必须以各自的方式，在上帝的帮助下响应这一召唤。

谢谢大家。上帝保佑大家。

First Inaugural Address of William J.Clinton

January 20, 1993

My fellow citizens :

Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.This ceremony is held in the depth of winter.But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals;life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his half-century of service to America.And I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over Depression, fascism and Communism.Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues.Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our people.When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news traveled slowly across the land by horseback and across the ocean by boat.Now, the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world.Communications and commerce are global;investment is mobile;technology is almost magical;and ambition for a better life is now universal.We earn our livelihood in peaceful competition with people all across the earth.Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it.But when most people are working harder for less;when others cannot work at all;when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small;when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom;and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead, we have not made change our friend.We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps.But we have not done so.Instead, we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence.Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths.And Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people.We must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us.From our revolution, the Civil War, to the Great Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our history.Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time.Well, my fellow citizens, this is our time.Let us embrace it.Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal.There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift;a new season of American renewal has begun.To renew America, we must be bold.We must do what no generation has had to do before.We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt.And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity.It will not be easy;it will require sacrifice.But it can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for our own sake.We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children.Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity.We can do no less.Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is.Posterity is the world to come;the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility.We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other.Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country.To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation.Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people who want to do better.And so I say to all of us here, let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people.Let us put aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America.Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called “bold, persistent experimentation,” a government for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays.Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs.To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well at home.There is no longer division between what is foreign and what is domestic;the world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race;they affect us all.Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable.Communism's collapse has called forth old animosities and new dangers.Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make.While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this new world.Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change, lest it engulf us.When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act;with peaceful diplomacy when ever possible, with force when necessary.The brave Americans serving our nation today in the Persian Gulf, in Somalia, and wherever else they stand are testament to our resolve.But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in many lands.Across the world, we see them embraced, and we rejoice.Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom.Their cause is America's cause.The American people have summoned the change we celebrate today.You have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus.You have cast your votes in historic numbers.And you have changed the face of Congress, the presidency and the political process itself.Yes, you, my fellow Americans have forced the spring.Now, we must do the work the season demands.To that work I now turn, with all the authority of my office.I ask the Congress to join with me.But no president, no Congress, no government, can undertake this mission alone.My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal.I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of service;to act on your idealism by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities.There is so much to be done;enough indeed for millions of others who are still young in spirit to give of themselves in service, too.In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth, we need each other.And we must care for one another.Today, we do more than celebrate America;we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America.An idea born in revolution and renewed through two centuries of challenge.An idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for fate we, the fortunate and the unfortunate, might have been each other.An idea ennobled by the faith that our nation can summon from its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity.An idea infused with the conviction that America's long heroic journey must go forever upward.And so, my fellow Americans, at the edge of the 21st century, let us begin with energy and hope, with faith and discipline, and let us work until our work is done.The scripture says, “And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”

From this joyful mountaintop of celebration, we hear a call to service in the valley.We have heard the trumpets.We have changed the guard.And now, each in our way, and with God's help, we must answer the call.Thank you, and God bless you all.里根第一任总统就职演说

罗纳德-里根 第一次就职演说

第40任总统(1981年-1989年)

议员海特菲尔德先生、法官先生、总统先生、副总统布什、蒙代尔先生、议员贝克先生、发言人奥尼尔先生、尊敬的摩麦先生，以及广大支持我的美国同胞们：今天对于我们中间的一些人来说，是一个非常庄严隆重的时刻。当然，对于这个国家的历史来说，却是一件普通的事情。按照宪法要求，政府权利正在有序地移交，我们已经如此“例行公事”了两个世纪，很少有人觉得这有什么特别的。但在世界上更多人看来，这个我们已经习以为常的四年一次的仪式，却实在是一个奇迹。

总统先生，我希望我们的同胞们都能知道你为了这个传承而付出的努力。通过移交程序中的通力合作，你向观察者展示了这么一个事实：我们是发誓要团结起来维护这样一个政治体制的团体，这样的体制保证了我们能够得到比其他政体更为广泛的个人自由。同时我也要感谢你和你的伙伴们的帮助，因为你们坚持了这样的传承，而这恰恰是我们共和国的根基。

我们国家的事业在继续前进。合众国正面临巨大的经济困难。我们遭遇到我国历史上历时最长、最严重之一的通货膨胀，它扰乱着我们的经济决策，打击着节俭的风气，压迫着正在挣扎谋生的青年人和收入固定的中年人，威胁着要摧毁我国千百万人民的生计。

停滞的工业使工人失业、蒙受痛苦并失去了个人尊严。即使那些有工作的人，也因税收制度的缘故而得不到公正的劳动报酬，因为这种税收制度使我们无法在事业上取得成就，使我们无法保持充分的生产力。

尽管我们的纳税负担相当沉重，但还是跟不上公共开支的增长。数十年来，我们的赤字额屡屡上升，我们为图目前暂时的方便，把自己的前途和子孙的前途抵押出去了。这一趋势如果长此以往，必然引起社会、文化、政治和经济等方面的大动荡。

作为个人，你们和我可以靠借贷过一种人不敷出的生活，然而只能维持一段有限的时期，我们怎么可以认为，作为一个国家整体，我们就不应受到同样的约束呢？为了保住明天，我们今天就必须行动起来。大家都要明白无误地懂得--我们从今天起就要采取行动。

我们深受其害的经济弊病，几十年来一直袭击着我们。这些弊病不会在几天、几星期或几个月内消失，但它们终将消失。它们之所以终将消失，是因为我们作为现在的美国人，一如既往地有能力去完成需要完成的事情，以保存这个最后而又最伟大的自由堡垒。

在当前这场危机中，政府的管理不能解决我们面临的问题。政府的管理就是问题所在。

我们时常误以为，社会已经越来越复杂，已经不可能凭借自治方式加以管理，而一个由杰出人物组成的政府要比民享、民治、民有的政府高明。可是，假如我们之中谁也管理不了自己，那么，我们之中谁还能去管理他人呢。

我们大家--不论政府官员还是平民百姓--必须共同肩负起这个责任，我们谋求的解决办法必须是公平的，不要使任何一个群体付出较高的代价。

我们听到许多关于特殊利益集团的谈论，然而。我们必须关心一个被忽视了大久的特殊利益集团。这个集团没有区域之分，没有人种之分，没有民族之分，没有 政党之分，这个集团由许许多多的男人与女人组成，他们生产粮食，巡逻街头，管理厂矿，教育儿童，照料家务和治疗疾病。他们是专业人员、实业家、店主、职 员、出租汽车司机和货车驾驶员，总而言之，他们就是“我们人民”--这个称之为美国人的民族。

本届政府的日标是必须建立一种健全的、生气勃勃的和不断发展的经济，为全体美国人民提供一种不因偏执或歧视而造成障碍的均等机会，让美国重新工作起 来，意味着让全体美国人重新工作起来。制止通货膨胀，意味着让全体美国人从失控的生活费用所造成的恐惧中解脱出来。人人都应分担“新开端”的富有成效的工 作，人人都应分享经济复苏的硕果。我国制度和力量的核心是理想主义和公正态度，有了这些，我们就能建立起强大、繁荣、国内稳定并同全世界和平相处的美国。

因此，在我们开始之际，让我们看看实际情况。我们是一个拥有政府的国家--而不是一个拥有国家的政府。这一点使我们在世界合国中独树一帜，我们的政府 除了人民授予的权力，没有任何别的权力。目前，政府权力的膨胀已显示出超过被统治者同意的迹象，制止并扭转这种状况的时候到了。

我打算压缩联邦机构的规模和权力，并要求大家承认联邦政府被授予的权力同各州或人民保留的权利这两者之间的区别。我们大家都需要提醒：不是联邦政府创 立了各州，而是各州创立了联邦政府。因此，请不要误会，我的意思不是要取消政府，而是要它发挥作用--同我们一起合作，而不是凌驾于我们之上；同我们并肩 而立，而不是骑在我们的背上。政府能够而且必须提供机会，而不是扼杀机会，它能够而且必须促进生产力，而不是抑制生产力。

如果我们要探究这么多年来我们为什么能取得这么大成就，并获得了世界上任何一个民族未曾获得的繁荣昌盛，其原因是在这片土地上，我们使人类的能力和个 人的才智得到了前所未有的发挥。在这里，个人所享有并得以确保的自由和尊严超过了世界上任何其他地方。为这种自由所付出的代价有时相当高昂，但我们从来没 有不愿意付出这代价。

我们目前的困难，与政府机构因为不必要的过度膨胀而干预、侵扰我们的生活同步增加，这决不是偶然的巧合。我们是一个泱泱大国，不能自囿于小小的梦想，现在正是认识到这一点的时候。我们并非注定走向衰落，尽管有些人想让我们相信这一点。我不相信，无论我们做些什么，我们都将命该如此，但我相信，如果我们 什么也不做，我们将的确命该如此。

为此，让我们以掌握的一切创造力来开创一个国家复兴的时代吧。让我们重新拿出决心、勇气和力量，让我们重新建立起我们的信念和希望吧。我们完全有权去做英雄梦。

有人告诉我们在他的身上发现一本日记。扉页上写着这样的标题：“我的誓言”。他写下了这样的话语：“美国必须赢得这场战争。为此，我会奋斗，我会拯救，我会牺牲，我会忍受，我会并将尽我最大的努力英勇奋战，就好比所有的战争问题都将由我一个人来肩负。”

First Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1981

Senator Hatfield, Mr.Chief Justice, Mr.President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens: To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion;and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence.The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are.In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.Mr.President, I want our fellow citizens to know how much you did to carry on this tradition.By your gracious cooperation in the transition process, you have shown a watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other, and I thank you and your people for all your help in maintaining the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic.The business of our nation goes forward.These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions.We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history.It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike.It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, causing human misery and personal indignity.Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending.For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present.To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time.Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.And let there be no misunderstanding--we are going to begin to act, beginning today.The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades.They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away.They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem.From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people.But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.We hear much of special interest groups.Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected.It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines.It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick--professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers.They are, in short, “We the people,” this breed called Americans.Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination.Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work.Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs.All must share in the productive work of this “new beginning” and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy.With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world.So, as we begin, let us take inventory.We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around.And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth.Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people.It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people.All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States;the States created the Federal Government.Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government.It is, rather, to make it work-work with us, not over us;to stand by our side, not ride on our back.Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it;foster productivity, not stifle it.If we look to the answer as to why, for so many years, we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was because here, in this land, we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before.Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on Earth.The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price.It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government.It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams.We are not, as some would have us believe, loomed to an inevitable decline.I do not believe in a fate that will all on us no matter what we do.I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal.Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength.And let us renew;our faith and our hope.We have every right to dream heroic dreams.Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look.You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates.Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond.You meet heroes across a counter--and they are on both sides of that counter.There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity.They are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education.Their patriotism is quiet but deep.Their values sustain our national life.I have used the words “they” and “their” in speaking of these heroes.I could say “you” and “your” because I am addressing the heroes of whom I speak--you, the citizens of this blessed land.Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God.We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of your makeup.How can we love our country and not love our countrymen, and loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?

Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic “yes.” To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.In the days ahead I will propose removing the roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced productivity.Steps will be taken aimed at restoring the balance between the various levels of government.Progress may be slow--measured in inches and feet, not miles--but we will progress.Is it time to reawaken this industrial giant, to get government back within its means, and to lighten our punitive tax burden.And these will be our first priorities, and on these principles, there will be no compromise.On the eve of our struggle for independence a man who might have been one of the greatest among the Founding Fathers, Dr.Joseph Warren, President of the Massachusetts Congress, said to his fellow Americans, “Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of....On you depend the fortunes of America.You are to decide the important questions upon which rests the happiness and the liberty of millions yet unborn.Act worthy of yourselves.”

Well, I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children and our children's children.And as we renew ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world.We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom.To those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen our historic ties and assure them of our support and firm commitment.We will match loyalty with loyalty.We will strive for mutually beneficial relations.We will not use our friendship to impose on their sovereignty, for or own sovereignty is not for sale.As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people.We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it;we will not surrender for it--now or ever.Our forbearance should never be misunderstood.Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will.When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act.We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength.Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.It is a weapon that we as Americans do have.Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.I am told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and for that I am deeply grateful.We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free.It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each Inauguration Day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer.This is the first time in history that this ceremony has been held, as you have been told, on this West Front of the Capitol.Standing here, one faces a magnificent vista, opening up on this city's special beauty and history.At the end of this open mall are those shrines to the giants on whose shoulders we stand.Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man: George Washington, Father of our country.A man of humility who came to greatness reluctantly.He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood.Off to one side, the stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson.The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence.And then beyond the Reflecting Pool the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial.Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David.They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom.Each one of those markers is a monument to the kinds of hero I spoke of earlier.Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam.Under one such marker lies a young man--Martin Treptow--who left his job in a small town barber shop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division.There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.We are told that on his body was found a diary.On the flyleaf under the heading, “My Pledge,” he had written these words: “America must win this war.Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.”

The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make.It does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds;to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.And, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.God bless you, and thank you.我们都是地球的乘客

理查德-尼克松 第一次就职演讲

星期一,1969年1月20日

历史的每一个时刻转瞬即逝，它既珍贵又独特。可是，其中某些显然是揭开序幕的时刻，此时，一代先河得以开创，它决定了未来数十年或几个世纪的航向。

现在可能就是这样一个时刻。

现在，各方力量正在汇聚起来，使我们第一次可以期望人类的许多夙愿最终能够实现。

不断加快的变革速度，使我们能在我们这一代期望过去花了几百年才出现的种种进步。

由于开辟了大空的天地，我们在地球上也发现了新的天地。

由于世界人民希望和平，而世界各国领袖害怕战争，因此，目前形势第一次变得有利于和平。

从现在起，再过8年，美国将庆祝建国200周年。在现在大多数人的有生之年，人类将庆祝千载难逢的、辉煌无比的新年——第三个百年盛世的开端。

我们的国家将变成怎样的国家，我们将生活在怎样的世界上，我们要不要按照我们的希望铸造未来，这些都将由我们根据自己的行动和选择来决定。

历史所能赐予我们的最大荣誉，莫过于和平缔造者这一称号。这一荣誉现在正在召唤美国——这是领导世界最终脱离**的幽谷，走向自文明开端以来人类一直梦寐以求的和平高坛的一个机会。

我们若获成功，下几代人在谈及现在在世的我们时会说，正是我们掌握了时机，正是我们协力相助，使普天之下国泰民安。

这是要我们创立宏伟大业的召唤。

我相信，美国人民准备响应这一召唤。

经过一段对抗时期，我们正进入一个谈判时代。

让所有国家都知道，在本届政府任期内，交流通道是敞开的。

我们谋求一个开放的世界——对各种思想开放，对物资和人员的交流开放，在这个世界中，任何民族，不论大小，都不会生活在怏怏不乐的孤立之中。

我们不能指望每个人都成为我们的朋友，可是我们能设法使任何人都不与我们为敌。

我们邀请那些很可能是我们对手的人进行一场和平竞赛——不是要征服领土或扩展版图，而是要丰富人类的生活。

在探索宇宙空间的时候，让我们一起走向新的世界——不是走向被征服的新世界，而是共同进行一次新的探险。

让我们同那些愿意加入这一行列的人共同合作，减少军备负担，加固和平大厦，提高贫穷挨饿的人们的生活水平。

但是，对所有那些见软就欺的人来说，让我们不容置疑地表明，我们需要多么强大就会多强大：需要强大多久，就会强大多久。

自从我作为新当选的国会议员首次来到国会大厦之后的20多年来，我已经出访过世界上大多数国家。

我结识了世界各国的领导人，了解到使世界陷于四分五裂的各种强大势力，各种深仇大恨，各种恐惧心理。

我知道，和于不会单凭愿望就能到来——这需要日复一日，甚至年复一年地进行耐心而持久的外交努力，除此别无他法。

我也了解世界各国人民。

我见到过无家可归的儿童在忍饥挨饿，战争中挂彩负伤的男人在痛苦呻吟，失去孩子的母亲在无限悲伤。我知道，这些并没有意识形态和种族之分。

我了解美国。我了解美国的心是善良的。

我从心底里，从我国人民的心底里，向那些蒙受不幸和痛苦的人们表达我们的深切关怀。

今天，我在上帝和我国同胞面前宣誓，拥护和捍卫合众国宪法。除了这一誓言，我现在还要补充一项神圣的义务：我将把自己的职责、精力以及我所能使唤的一切智慧，一并奉献给各国之间的和平事业。

让强者和弱者都能听到这一信息：

我们企求赢得的和平不是战胜任何一个民族，而是“和平天使”带来的为治愈创伤的和平：是对遭受苦难者予以同情的和平；是对那些反对过我们的人予以谅解的和平；是地球上各族人民都有选择自己命运的机会的和平。

就在几星期以前，人类如同上帝凝望这个世界一样，第一次端视了这个世界，一个在冥冥黑暗中辉映发光的独特的星球。我们分享了这一荣光。

阿波罗号上的字航员在圣诞节前夕飞越月球灰色的表面时，向我们说起地球的美丽——从穿过月距而传来的如此清晰的声音中，我们听到他们在祈祷上帝赐福人间。

在那一时刻，他们从月球上发出的意愿，激励着诗人阿奇博尔德•麦克利什写下了这样的篇章：

“在永恒的宁静中，那渺小、斑斓、美丽的地球在浮动。要真正地观望地球，就得把我们自己都看作是地球的乘客，看作是一群兄弟，他们共处于漫漫的、寒冷的字宙中。仰赖着光明的挚爱——这群兄弟懂得，而今他们是真正的兄弟。”

在那个比技术胜利更有意义的时刻，人们把思绪转向了家乡和人类——他们从那个遥远的视角中发现，地球上人类的命运是不能分开的；他们告诉我们，不管我们在宇宙中走得多远，我们的命运不是在别的星球上，而是在地球上，在我们自己手中，在我们的心头。

我们已经度过了一个反映美国精神的漫漫长夜。可是，当我们瞥见黎明前的第一缕曙光，切莫诅咒那尚未消散的黑暗。让我们迎接光明吧。

我们的命运所赐予的不是绝望的苦酒，而是机会的美餐。因此，让我们不是充满恐惧，而是满怀喜悦地去抓住这个机会吧——“地球的乘客们”，让我们以坚定的信念，朝着稳定的目标，在提防着危险中前进吧！我们对上帝的意志和人类的希望充满了信心，这将使我们持之以恒。

First Inaugural Address of Richard Milhous Nixon MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 1969

Senator Dirksen, Mr.Chief Justice, Mr.Vice President, President Johnson, Vice President Humphrey, my fellow Americans--and my fellow citizens of the world community:

I ask you to share with me today the majesty of this moment.In the orderly transfer of power, we celebrate the unity that keeps us free.Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique.But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries.This can be such a moment.Forces now are converging that make possible, for the first time, the hope that many of man's deepest aspirations can at last be realized.The spiraling pace of change allows us to contemplate, within our own lifetime, advances that once would have taken centuries.In throwing wide the horizons of space, we have discovered new horizons on earth.For the first time, because the people of the world want peace, and the leaders of the world are afraid of war, the times are on the side of peace.Eight years from now America will celebrate its 200th anniversary as a nation.Within the lifetime of most people now living, mankind will celebrate that great new year which comes only once in a thousand years--the beginning of the third millennium.What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.This honor now beckons America--the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization.If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind.This is our summons to greatness.I believe the American people are ready to answer this call.The second third of this century has been a time of proud achievement.We have made enormous strides in science and industry and agriculture.We have shared our wealth more broadly than ever.We have learned at last to manage a modern economy to assure its continued growth.We have given freedom new reach, and we have begun to make its promise real for black as well as for white.We see the hope of tomorrow in the youth of today.I know America's youth.I believe in them.We can be proud that they are better educated, more committed, more passionately driven by conscience than any generation in our history.No people has ever been so close to the achievement of a just and abundant society, or so possessed of the will to achieve it.Because our strengths are so great, we can afford to appraise our weaknesses with candor and to approach them with hope.Standing in this same place a third of a century ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a Nation ravaged by depression and gripped in fear.He could say in surveying the Nation's troubles: “They concern, thank God, only material things.”

Our crisis today is the reverse.We have found ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit;reaching with magnificent precision for the moon, but falling into raucous discord on earth.We are caught in war, wanting peace.We are torn by division, wanting unity.We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment.We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.When we listen to “the better angels of our nature,” we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things--such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.Greatness comes in simple trappings.The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.To lower our voices would be a simple thing.In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words;from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver;from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds;from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another--until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.For its part, government will listen.We will strive to listen in new ways--to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart--to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard.Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.Those left behind, we will help to catch up.For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure.As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before--not turning away from the old, but turning toward the new.In this past third of a century, government has passed more laws, spent more money, initiated more programs, than in all our previous history.In pursuing our goals of full employment, better housing, excellence in education;in rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas;in protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of life--in all these and more, we will and must press urgently forward.We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can be transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home.The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.But we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do.Our greatest need now is to reach beyond government, and to enlist the legions of the concerned and the committed.What has to be done, has to be done by government and people together or it will not be done at all.The lesson of past agony is that without the people we can do nothing;with the people we can do everything.To match the magnitude of our tasks, we need the energies of our people--enlisted not only in grand enterprises, but more importantly in those small, splendid efforts that make headlines in the neighborhood newspaper instead of the national journal.With these, we can build a great cathedral of the spirit--each of us raising it one stone at a time, as he reaches out to his neighbor, helping, caring, doing.I do not offer a life of uninspiring ease.I do not call for a life of grim sacrifice.I ask you to join in a high adventure--one as rich as humanity itself, and as exciting as the times we live in.The essence of freedom is that each of us shares in the shaping of his own destiny.Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole.The way to fulfillment is in the use of our talents;we achieve nobility in the spirit that inspires that use.As we measure what can be done, we shall promise only what we know we can produce, but as we chart our goals we shall be lifted by our dreams.No man can be fully free while his neighbor is not.To go forward at all is to go forward together.This means black and white together, as one nation, not two.The laws have caught up with our conscience.What remains is to give life to what is in the law: to ensure at last that as all are born equal in dignity before God, all are born equal in dignity before man.As we learn to go forward together at home, let us also seek to go forward together with all mankind.Let us take as our goal: where peace is unknown, make it welcome;where peace is fragile, make it strong;where peace is temporary, make it permanent.After a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation.Let all nations know that during this administration our lines of communication will be open.We seek an open world--open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people--a world in which no people, great or small, will live in angry isolation.We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy.Those who would be our adversaries, we invite to a peaceful competition--not in conquering territory or extending dominion, but in enriching the life of man.As we explore the reaches of space, let us go to the new worlds together--not as new worlds to be conquered, but as a new adventure to be shared.With those who are willing to join, let us cooperate to reduce the burden of arms, to strengthen the structure of peace, to lift up the poor and the hungry.But to all those who would be tempted by weakness, let us leave no doubt that we will be as strong as we need to be for as long as we need to be.Over the past twenty years, since I first came to this Capital as a freshman Congressman, I have visited most of the nations of the world.I have come to know the leaders of the world, and the great forces, the hatreds, the fears that divide the world.I know that peace does not come through wishing for it--that there is no substitute for days and even years of patient and prolonged diplomacy.I also know the people of the world.I have seen the hunger of a homeless child, the pain of a man wounded in battle, the grief of a mother who has lost her son.I know these have no ideology, no race.I know America.I know the heart of America is good.I speak from my own heart, and the heart of my country, the deep concern we have for those who suffer, and those who sorrow.I have taken an oath today in the presence of God and my countrymen to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.To that oath I now add this sacred commitment: I shall consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon, to the cause of peace among nations.Let this message be heard by strong and weak alike:

The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people, but the peace that comes “with healing in its wings”;with compassion for those who have suffered;with understanding for those who have opposed us;with the opportunity for all the peoples of this earth to choose their own destiny.Only a few short weeks ago, we shared the glory of man's first sight of the world as God sees it, as a single sphere reflecting light in the darkness.As the Apollo astronauts flew over the moon's gray surface on Christmas Eve, they spoke to us of the beauty of earth--and in that voice so clear across the lunar distance, we heard them invoke God's blessing on its goodness.In that moment, their view from the moon moved poet Archibald MacLeish to write:

“To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold--brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”

In that moment of surpassing technological triumph, men turned their thoughts toward home and humanity--seeing in that far perspective that man's destiny on earth is not divisible;telling us that however far we reach into the cosmos, our destiny lies not in the stars but on Earth itself, in our own hands, in our own hearts.We have endured a long night of the American spirit.But as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn, let us not curse the remaining dark.Let us gather the light.Our destiny offers, not the cup of despair, but the chalice of opportunity.So let us seize it, not in fear, but in gladness--and, “riders on the earth together,” let us go forward, firm in our faith, steadfast in our purpose, cautious of the dangers;but sustained by our confidence in the will of God and the promise of man.火炬已经传给新一代美国人

约翰-肯尼迪 就职演讲

星期五,1961年1月20日

首席法官先生、艾森豪威尔总统、尼克松副总统、杜鲁门总统、尊敬的牧师、各位公民：

今天我们庆祝的不是政党的胜利，而是自由的胜利。这象征着一个结束，也象征着一个开端，表示了一种更新，也表示了一种变革。因为我已在你们和全能的上帝面前，宣读了我们的先辈在170多年前拟定的庄严誓言。现在的世界已大不相同了，人类的巨手掌握着既能消灭人间的各种贫困，又能毁灭人间的各种生活的力量。但我们的先辈为之奋斗的那些革命信念，在世界各地仍然有着争论。这个信念就是：人的权利井非来自国家的慷慨，而是来自上帝恩赐。

今天，我们不敢忘记我们是第一次革命的继承者。让我们的朋友和敌人同样听见我此时此地的讲话：火炬已经传给新一代美国人。这一代人在本世纪诞生，在战争中受过锻炼，在艰难困苦的和平时期受过陶冶，他们为我国悠久的传统感到自豪——他们不愿目睹或听任我国一向保证的、今天仍在国内外作出保证的人权渐趋毁灭。

让每个国家都知道——不论它希望我们繁荣还是希望我们衰落——为确保自由的存在和自由的胜利，我们将付出任何代价，承受任何负担，应付任何艰难，支持任何朋友，反抗任何敌人。

这些就是我们的保证——而且还有更多的保证。

对那些和我们有着共同文化和精神渊源的老盟友，我们保证待以诚实朋友那样的忠诚。我们如果团结一致，就能在许多合作事业中无在而下胜；我们如果分歧对立，就会一事无成——因为我们不敢在争吵下休、四分五裂时迎接强大的挑战。

对那些我们欢迎其加入到自由行列中来的新国家，我们格守我们的誓言：决不让一种更为残酷的暴政来取代一种消失的殖民统治。我们并不总是指望他们会支持我们的观点。但我们始终希望看到他们坚强地维护自己的自由——而且要记住，在历史上，凡愚蠢地骑在虎背上谋求权力的人，都是以葬身虎口而告终。

对世界各地身居茅舍和乡村，为摆脱普遍贪困而斗争的人们，我们保证尽量大努力帮助他们自立，不管需要花多长时间——之所以这样做，并不是因为共产党可能正在这样做，也不是因为我们需要他们的选票，而是因为这样做是正确的，自由社会如果不能帮助众多的穷人，也就无法保全少数富人。

对我国南面的姐妹共和国，我们提出一项特殊的保证——在争取进步的新同盟中，把我们善意的话变为善意的行动，帮助自由的人们和自由的政府摆脱贫困的枷锁。但是，这种充满希望的和平革命决不可以成为敌对国家的牺牲品。我们要让所有邻国都知道，我们将和他们在一起，反对在美洲任何地区进行侵略和颠覆活动。让所有其他国家都知道，本半球的人仍然想做自己家园的主人。

联合国是主权国家的世界性议事机构，是我们在战争手段大大超过和平手段的时代里最后的、最美好的希望所在。因此，我们重申予以支持；防止它仅仅成为谩骂的场所；加强它对新生国家和弱小国家的保护；扩大它的行使法令的管束范围。

最后，对那些想与我们作时的国家，我们提出一个要求而不是一项保证：在科学释放出可怕的破坏力量，把全人类卷人到预谋的或意外的自我毁灭的深渊之前，让我们双方重新开始寻求和平。

我们不敢以怯弱来引诱他们。因为只有当我们毫无疑问地拥有足够的军备，我们才能毫无疑问地确信永远下会使用这些军备。

但是，这两个强大的国家集团都无法从目前所走的道路中得到安慰——发展现代武器所需的费用使双方负担过重，致命的原子武器的不断扩散理所当然使双方忧心忡忡，但是，双方却在争着改变那制止人类发动最后战争的不移定的恐怖均势。因此，让我们双方重新开始——双方都要牢记。礼貌并不意味着怯弱，诚意永远有侍于验证。让我们决不要由于畏惧而谈判。但我们决不能畏惧谈判。

让双方都来探讨使我们团结起来的问题，而不要操劳那些使我们分裂的问题。

让双方首次为军备检查和军备控制制订认真而又明确的提案，把毁灭他国的绝对力量置于所有国家的绝对控制之下。

让双方寻求利用科学的奇迹，而不是乞灵于科学造成的恐怖。让我们一起探索星球，征服沙漠，根除疾患，开发深梅，并鼓励艺术和商业的发展。

让双方团结起来，在全世界各个角落倾听以赛亚的训令——“解下轭上的索，使被欺压的得自由。”

如果合作的滩头阵地的逼退猜忌的丛林，那么就让双方共同作一次新的努力：不是建立一种新的均势，而是创造一个新的法治世界，在这个世界中，强者公正，弱者安全，和平将得到维护。

所有这一切下可能在第一个一百天内完成，也不可能在第一个一千天或者在本届政府任期内完成，甚至也许不可能在我们居住在这个星球上的有生之年内完成。但是，让我们开始吧。

公民们，我们方针的最终成败与其说掌握在我手中，不如说掌握在你们手中。自从合众国建立以来，每一代美国人都曾受到召唤去证明他们对国家的忠诚。响应召唤而献身的美国青年的坟墓遍及全球。

现在，号角已再次吹响——不是召唤我们拿起武器，虽然我们需要武器，不是召唤我们去作战，虽然我们严阵以待。它召唤我们为迎接黎明而肩负起漫长斗争的重任，年复一年，“从希望中得到欢乐，在苦难中保持坚韧”，去反对人类共同的敌人——专制、贫困、疾病和战争本身。

为反对这些敌人，确保人类更为丰裕的生活，我们能够组成一个包括东西南北各方的全球大联盟吗？你们愿意参加这一历史性的努力吗？

在漫长的世界历史中，只有少数几代人在自由处于最危急的时刻被赋予保卫自由的责任。我不会推卸这一责任，我欢迎这一责任。我不相信我们中间有人想同其他人或其他时代的人交换位置。我们为这一努力所奉献的精力、信念和忠诚，将照亮我们的国家和所有力国效劳的人，而这火焰发出的光芒定能照亮全世界。

因此，美国同胞们，不要问国家能力你们做些什么，而要问你们能为国家做些什么。

全世界的公民们，不要间美国将为你们做些什么，而要问我们共同能为人类的自中做些什么。

最后，不论你们是美国公民还是其他国家的公民，你们应该要求我们现出我们同样要求于你们地高度力量和牺牲。问心无愧是我们唯一可靠的奖赏，历史是我们行动的最终裁判，让我们走向前去，引导我们所珍爱的国家。我们祈求上帝的福佑和帮助，但我们知道，确切的说，上帝在尘世的工作必定是我们自己的工作。

Inaugural Address of John F.Kennedy

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1961

Vice President Johnson, Mr.Speaker, Mr.Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, reverend clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom--symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning--signifying renewal, as well as change.For I have sworn I before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears l prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.The world is very different now.For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution.Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.This much we pledge--and more.To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends.United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures.Divided, there is little we can do--for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny.We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view.But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge--to convert our good words into good deeds--in a new alliance for progress--to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty.But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers.Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas.And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support--to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective--to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak--and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.We dare not tempt them with weakness.For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course--both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.Let us never negotiate out of fear.But let us never fear to negotiate.Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms--and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors.Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah--to “undo the heavy burdens...and to let the oppressed go free.”

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.All this will not be finished in the first 100 days.Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.But let us begin.In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty.The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.Now the trumpet summons us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need;not as a call to battle, though embattled we are--but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”--a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.I do not shank from this responsibility--I welcome it.I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation.The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.四项主要的行动方针

哈里-杜鲁门 就职演讲

星期四,1949年1月20日

我国历史上的各个时期都面临过特殊的挑战。我们现在面临的挑战和过去面临的任何挑战一样严重，今天不仅标志着一届新政府的起点，而且标志着一个新时期的开始。对我们来说，对整个世界来说，这个时期特是个多事之秋，也许还将是决定性的岁月。也许命运注定我们要去体验，或者在更大程度上是去促成人类漫长历史中的一个重大转折。本世纪上半叶的特点是，人权遭到史无前例的粗暴践踏，并经历了历史上最可怕的两场战争。我们这个时代最迫切的需要是学会和睦相处。

世界各国人民都怀着忐忑不安的心情面对着未来，他们既充满希望又满腹忧虑。在这疑虑的时刻，他们比以往任何时候更期待着合众国的善意、力量以及明智的领导。

因此，我们审时度势，利用这一时机向全世界宣布指导我们生活的信念的基本原则，向所有的民族宜布我们的目标。

在今后几年，我们的和平自由纲领将着重于四项主要的行动方针。

第一，我们将继续坚定不移地支持联合国及其有关机构，继续寻求各种方法来加强这些机构的权威和增加这些机构的效率。今天，不少新的国家正在成立，正在民主原则的指引下向自治方向迈进，我们相信，联合国将因这些新国家而得到加强。

第二，我们将继续执行我们制定的世界经济复兴计划。

这意味着我们必须首先全力支持欧洲复兴计划。对于世界复兴中这一重大事业的成功，我们充满了信心。我们相信，通过这项工作，我们的伙伴将再一次取得自给国家的地位。此外，我们还必须执行为减少世界贸易壁垒、增加世界贸易额而制定的计划。经济复兴与和平本身都取决于世界贸易的增加。

第三，我们要加强热爱自由的国家的力量，以抵御侵略的威胁。

我们和许多国家一起，正在为增加北大西洋地区的安全面起草一项共同协议。这种协议将根据联合国宪章的规定，采取集体防御协定的形式。

我们已经根据里约热内卢公约为西半球建立了这样一个防御同盟。

这些协议的主要目的是明确表示自由国家抵抗来自任何地方的武装进攻的共同决心。参加这些协议的每个国家必须为共同防御贡献出全部力量。

如果我们能预先充分地表明，任何影响到我们国家安全的武装进攻必将遭到强大的抵抗，那么武装进攻也许就永远不会发生。

我希望关于北大西洋安全计划的条约不久将呈送参议院。

此外，我们还将向在维护和平与安全时同我们进行合作的自由国家，提供军事顾问和军事装备。

第四，我们必须着手拟定一项大胆的新计划，使不发达地区的进步与发展能受益于我们的先进的科学和发达的工业。

全世界半数以上的人口正濒临悲惨的境地，他们食不果腹、疾患加身。他们的经济生活原始落后，滞缀不振。无论对于他们自己还是对于比较繁荣的地区来说，他们的贫困既是一种阻碍又是一种威胁。

人类有史以来第一次掌握了能解除这些人苦难的知识和技术。

合众国在工业和科学技术发展方面居各国之首。尽管我们用来援助其他国家人民的物质资源是有限的，但我们在技术知识方面的资源却是无法估量的，是不断增长和用之不竭的。

我认为，为了帮助各爱好和平民族实现他们对美好生活的愿望，我们应该使他们受惠于我们丰富的技术知识。同时，我们还应该和其他国家合作，支持对急待开发的地区进行投资。

我们的目标应该是帮助世界上各个自由民族通过他们自己的努力，生产更多的食物，更多的衣物，更多的建筑材料，以及更多的机器来减轻他们的负担。

我们吁请其他国象汇集他们的技术力量以进行这项工作。我们热烈欢迎他们作出贡献。这应该是一种合作事业，所有国家通过联合国及其专门机构在任何可行的方面为此共同工作。这必须是在世界范围内为实现和平、繁荣和自由而作出的努力。

在我国企业、私人资本、农业和劳工等方面的协作下，这一计划能够极大促进其他国家的工业活动，从实质上提高他们的生活水平。

这种新的经济发展必须加以规划和控制，从而使被开发地区的人民有所得益。在保证投资者利益的同时，必须兼顾人民的利益，因为在这些经济发展中倾注着人民的才智和劳动。

在我们的计划中，剥削他国利润的老牌帝国主义没有立足之地。我们拟定的是一个以民主的公平交易的概念为基础的发展规划。

所有国家，包括我国在内，将极大地受益于为更合理地使用世界上的人力资源和自然资源而制定的一项建设性计划。经验证明，我们同其他国家的贸易将随着这些国家在工业和经济上的发展而扩大。

提高生产是繁荣与和平的关键，而提高生产的关键是更广泛、更积极地运用现代科学技术知识。

人类大家庭只有通过帮助最不幸的成员自助，才能享受体面的、令人满意的生活，而所有人郁有权过上这样的生活。

只有民主政治才能产生生机勃勃的力量，以激励世界人民不仅为反抗人类的压迫者，而且压力反抗人类古老的敌人——饥饿、贫困、失望——而斗争。

根据这四项主要的行动方针，我们希望有助于创造各种条件，最终实现个人自由和全人类的幸福。Inaugural Address of Harry S.Truman

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 1949

Mr.Vice President, Mr.Chief Justice, and fellow citizens, I accept with humility the honor which the American people have conferred upon me.I accept it with a deep resolve to do all that I can for the welfare of this Nation and for the peace of the world.In performing the duties of my office, I need the help and prayers of every one of you.I ask for your encouragement and your support.The tasks we face are difficult, and we can accomplish them only if we work together.Each period of our national history has had its special challenges.Those that confront us now are as momentous as any in the past.Today marks the beginning not only of a new administration, but of a period that will be eventful, perhaps decisive, for us and for the world.It may be our lot to experience, and in large measure to bring about, a major turning point in the long history of the human race.The first half of this century has been marked by unprecedented and brutal attacks on the rights of man, and by the two most frightful wars in history.The supreme need of our time is for men to learn to live together in peace and harmony.The peoples of the earth face the future with grave uncertainty, composed almost equally of great hopes and great fears.In this time of doubt, they look to the United States as never before for good will, strength, and wise leadership.It is fitting, therefore, that we take this occasion to proclaim to the world the essential principles of the faith by which we live, and to declare our aims to all peoples.The American people stand firm in the faith which has inspired this Nation from the beginning.We believe that all men have a right to equal justice under law and equal opportunity to share in the common good.We believe that all men have the right to freedom of thought and expression.We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.From this faith we will not be moved.The American people desire, and are determined to work for, a world in which all nations and all peoples are free to govern themselves as they see fit, and to achieve a decent and satisfying life.Above all else, our people desire, and are determined to work for, peace on earth--a just and lasting peace--based on genuine agreement freely arrived at by equals.In the pursuit of these aims, the United States and other like-minded nations find themselves directly opposed by a regime with contrary aims and a totally different concept of life.That regime adheres to a false philosophy which purports to offer freedom, security, and greater opportunity to mankind.Misled by this philosophy, many peoples have sacrificed their liberties only to learn to their sorrow that deceit and mockery, poverty and tyranny, are their reward.That false philosophy is communism.Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters.Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.Communism subjects the individual to arrest without lawful cause, punishment without trial, and forced labor as the chattel of the state.It decrees what information he shall receive, what art he shall produce, what leaders he shall follow, and what thoughts he shall think.Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom in the exercise of his abilities.Communism maintains that social wrongs can be corrected only by violence.Democracy has proved that social justice can be achieved through peaceful change.Communism holds that the world is so deeply divided into opposing classes that war is inevitable.Democracy holds that free nations can settle differences justly and maintain lasting peace.These differences between communism and democracy do not concern the United States alone.People everywhere are coming to realize that what is involved is material well-being, human dignity, and the right to believe in and worship God.I state these differences, not to draw issues of belief as such, but because the actions resulting from the Communist philosophy are a threat to the efforts of free nations to bring about world recovery and lasting peace.Since the end of hostilities, the United States has invested its substance and its energy in a great constructive effort to restore peace, stability, and freedom to the world.We have sought no territory and we have imposed our will on none.We have asked for no privileges we would not extend to others.We have constantly and vigorously supported the United Nations and related agencies as a means of applying democratic principles to international relations.We have consistently advocated and relied upon peaceful settlement of disputes among nations.We have made every effort to secure agreement on effective international control of our most powerful weapon, and we have worked steadily for the limitation and control of all armaments.We have encouraged, by precept and example, the expansion of world trade on a sound and fair basis.Almost a year ago, in company with 16 free nations of Europe, we launched the greatest cooperative economic program in history.The purpose of that unprecedented effort is to invigorate and strengthen democracy in Europe, so that the free people of that continent can resume their rightful place in the forefront of civilization and can contribute once more to the security and welfare of the world.Our efforts have brought new hope to all mankind.We have beaten back despair and defeatism.We have saved a number of countries from losing their liberty.Hundreds of millions of people all over the world now agree with us, that we need not have war--that we can have peace.The initiative is ours.We are moving on with other nations to build an even stronger structure of international order and justice.We shall have as our partners countries which, no longer solely concerned with the problem of national survival, are now working to improve the standards of living of all their people.We are ready to undertake new projects to strengthen the free world.In the coming years, our program for peace and freedom will emphasize four major courses of action.First, we will continue to give unfaltering support to the United Nations and related agencies, and we will continue to search for ways to strengthen their authority and increase their effectiveness.We believe that the United Nations will be strengthened by the new nations which are being formed in lands now advancing toward self-government under democratic principles.Second, we will continue our programs for world economic recovery.This means, first of all, that we must keep our full weight behind the European recovery program.We are confident of the success of this major venture in world recovery.We believe that our partners in this effort will achieve the status of self-supporting nations once again.In addition, we must carry out our plans for reducing the barriers to world trade and increasing its volume.Economic recovery and peace itself depend on increased world trade.Third, we will strengthen freedom-loving nations against the dangers of aggression.We are now working out with a number of countries a joint agreement designed to strengthen the security of the North Atlantic area.Such an agreement would take the form of a collective defense arrangement within the terms of the United Nations Charter.We have already established such a defense pact for the Western Hemisphere by the treaty of Rio de Janeiro.The primary purpose of these agreements is to provide unmistakable proof of the joint determination of the free countries to resist armed attack from any quarter.Each country participating in these arrangements must contribute all it can to the common defense.If we can make it sufficiently clear, in advance, that any armed attack affecting our national security would be met with overwhelming force, the armed attack might never occur.I hope soon to send to the Senate a treaty respecting the North Atlantic security plan.In addition, we will provide military advice and equipment to free nations which will cooperate with us in the maintenance of peace and security.Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery.Their food is inadequate.They are victims of disease.Their economic life is primitive and stagnant.Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas.For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of these people.The United States is pre-eminent among nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques.The material resources which we can afford to use for the assistance of other peoples are limited.But our imponderable resources in technical knowledge are constantly growing and are inexhaustible.I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life.And, in cooperation with other nations, we should foster capital investment in areas needing development.Our aim should be to help the free peoples of the world, through their own efforts, to produce more food, more clothing, more materials for housing, and more mechanical power to lighten their burdens.We invite other countries to pool their technological resources in this undertaking.Their contributions will be warmly welcomed.This should be a cooperative enterprise in which all nations work together through the United Nations and its specialized agencies wherever practicable.It must be a worldwide effort for the achievement of peace, plenty, and freedom.With the cooperation of business, private capital, agriculture, and labor in this country, this program can greatly increase the industrial activity in other nations and can raise substantially their standards of living.Such new economic developments must be devised and controlled to benefit the peoples of the areas in which they are established.Guarantees to the investor must be balanced by guarantees in the interest of the people whose resources and whose labor go into these developments.The old imperialism--exploitation for foreign profit--has no place in our plans.What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing.All countries, including our own, will greatly benefit from a constructive program for the better use of the world's human and natural resources.Experience shows that our commerce with other countries expands as they progress industrially and economically.Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace.And the key to greater production is a wider and more vigorous application of modern scientific and technical knowledge.Only by helping the least fortunate of its members to help themselves can the human family achieve the decent, satisfying life that is the right of all people.Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies--hunger, misery, and despair.On the basis of these four major courses of action we hope to help create the conditions that will lead eventually to personal freedom and happiness for all mankind.If we are to be successful in carrying out these policies, it is clear that we must have continued prosperity in this country and we must keep ourselves strong.Slowly but surely we are weaving a world fabric of international security and growing prosperity.We are aided by all who wish to live in freedom from fear--even by those who live today in fear under their own governments.We are aided by all who want relief from the lies of propaganda--who desire truth and sincerity.We are aided by all who desire self-government and a voice in deciding their own affairs.We are aided by all who long for economic security--for the security and abundance that men in free societies can enjoy.We are aided by all who desire freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to live their own lives for useful ends.Our allies are the millions who hunger and thirst after righteousness.In due time, as our stability becomes manifest, as more and more nations come to know the benefits of democracy and to participate in growing abundance, I believe that those countries which now oppose us will abandon their delusions and join with the free nations of the world in a just settlement of international differences.Events have brought our American democracy to new influence and new responsibilities.They will test our courage, our devotion to duty, and our concept of liberty.But I say to all men, what we have achieved in liberty, we will surpass in greater liberty.Steadfast in our faith in the Almighty, we will advance toward a world where man's freedom is secure.To that end we will devote our strength, our resources, and our firmness of resolve.With God's help, the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony, and peace.我们唯一不得不害怕的就是害怕本身

富兰克林-罗斯福 第一次就职演讲

星期六,1933年3月4日

我肯定，同胞们都期待我在就任总统时，会像我国目前形势所要求的那样，坦率而果断地向他们讲话。现在正是但白、勇敢地说出实话，说出全部实话的最好时刻，我们不必畏首畏尾，不着老实实面对我国今天的情况，这个伟大的国家会一如既住地坚持下去，它会复兴和繁荣起来。因此，让我首先表明我的坚定信念：我们唯一下得不害怕的就是害怕本身——一种莫明其妙的、丧失理智的、毫无根据的恐惧，它会把转退为进所需的种种努力化为泡影。凡在我国生活阴云密布的时刻，坦率而有活力的领导都得到过人民的理解和支持，从而为胜利准备了必不可少的条件。我相信，在目前危急时刻，大家会再次给予同样的支持。我和你们都要以这种槽神，来面对我们共同的困难。感谢上帝，这些困难只是物质方面的。价值难以想象地贬缩了；课税增加了，我们的支付能力下降了；各级政府面临着严重的收入短缺；交换手段在贸易过程中遭到了冻结；工业企业枯萎的落叶到处可见；农场主的产品找不到销路；千家万户多年的积蓄付之东流。

更重要的是，大批失业公民正面临严峻的生育问题，还有大批公民正以艰辛的劳动换取微薄的报酬。只有愚蠢的乐天派会否认当前这些阴暗的现实。但是，我们的苦恼决不是因为缺乏物资。我们没有遭到什么蝗虫灾害。我们的先辈曾以信念和无畏一次次转危为安，比起他们经历过的险阻，我们仍大可感到欣慰。大自然仍在给予我们恩惠，人类的努力已使之倍增。富足的憎景近在咫尺，但就在我们见到这种情景的时候，宽裕的生活却悄然离去。这主要是因为主宰人类物资交换的统治者们失败了，他们固执己见而又无能为力，因而已经认定失败，并撒手不管了，贪得无厌的货币兑换商的种种行径，将受到舆论法庭的起诉，将受到人类心灵和理智的唾弃。

幸福并不在于单纯地占有主钱；幸福还在于取得成就后的喜悦，在于创造性努力时的激情。务必不能再忘记劳动带来的喜悦和激励，而去疯狂地追逐那转瞬即逝的利润。如果这些暗淡的时日能使我们认识到，我们真正的夭命不是要别人侍奉，而是为自己和同胞们服务，那么，我们付出的代价就完全是值得的。认识到把物质财富当作成功的标准是错误的，我们就会抛弃以地位尊严和个人收益为唯一标准。来衡量公职和高级政治地位的错误信念，我们必须制止银行界和企业界的一种行为，它常常使神圣的委托混同于无情和自私的不正当行为，难怪信心在减弱，因为增强信心只有靠诚实、荣誉感、神圣的责任感，忠实地加以维护和无私地履行职责，而没有这些，就不可能有信心。

但是，复兴不仅仅要求改变伦理观念。这个国家要求行动起来，现在就行动起来。

根据宪法赋予我的职责、我准备提出一些措施，而一个受灾世界上的受灾国家也许需要这些措施。对于这些措施，以及国会根据本身的经验和智慧可能制订的其他类似措施，我将在宪法赋予我的权限内，设法迅速地予以采纳。

但是，如果国会拒不采纳这两条路线中的一条，如果国家紧急情况依然如故，我将下回避我所面临的明确的尽责方向。我将要求国会准许我使用唯一剩下的手殷来应付危机——向非常情况开战的广泛的行政权，就像我们真的遭到外敌人侵时授予我那样的广泛权力。

对大家寄予我的信任，我一定报以时代所要求的勇气和献身精神，我会竭尽全力。

让我们正视面前的严峻岁月，怀着举国一致给我们带来的热情和勇气，怀着寻求传统的、珍贵的道德观念的明确意识，怀着老老少少都能通过克尽职守而得到的问心无愧的满足。我们的国标是要保证国民生活的圆满和长治久安。

我们并不怀疑基本民主制度的未来。合众国人民并没有失败。他们在困难中表达了自己的委托，即要求采取直接而有力的行动。他们要求有领导的纪律和方向。他们现在选择了我作为实现他们的愿望的工具。我接受这份厚赠。

在此举国奉献之际，我们谦卑地请求上帝赐福。愿上帝保佑我们大家和每一个人，愿上帝在未来的日子里指引我。

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D.Roosevelt

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1933

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels.This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly.Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties.They concern, thank God, only material things.Values have shrunken to fantastic levels;taxes have risen;our ability to pay has fallen;government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income;the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade;the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side;farmers find no markets for their produce;the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return.Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance.We are stricken by no plague of locusts.Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for.Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it.Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated.Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition.Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money.Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence.They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money;it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits.These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit;and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance;without them it cannot live.Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone.This Nation asks for action, and action now.Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously.It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land.The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities.It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms.It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced.It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal.It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character.There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it.We must act and act quickly.Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order;there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments;there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.There are the lines of attack.I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo.Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy.I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first.I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic.It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States--a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer.It is the way to recovery.It is the immediate way.It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others--the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other;that we can not merely take but we must give as well;that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective.We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good.This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors.Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form.That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced.It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us.But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me.I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis--broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time.I can do no less.We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity;with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values;with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stem performance of duty by old and young alike.We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.We do not distrust the future of essential democracy.The people of the United States have not failed.In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action.They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership.They have made me the present instrument of their wishes.In the spirit of the gift I take it.In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God.May He protect each and every one of us.May He guide me in the days to come.永久联邦与总统权力

亚伯拉罕-林肯

第一次就职演讲

星期一,1861年3月4日

我今天正式宣誓时，并没有保留意见，也无意以任何苛刻的标准来解释宪法和法律，尽管我不想具体指明国会通过的哪些法案是适合施行的•但我确实要建议，所有的人，不论处于官方还是私人的地位，都得遵守那些未被废止的法令，这比泰然自若地认为其中某个法案是违背宪法的而去触犯它，要稳当得多。

自从第一任总统根据我国宪法就职以来已经72年了。在此期间，有15位十分杰出的公民相继主持了政府的行政部门。他们在许多艰难险阻中履行职责，大致说来都很成功。然而，虽有这样的先例，我现在开始担任这个按宪法规定任期只有短暂4年的同一职务时，却处在巨大而特殊的困难之下。联邦的分裂，在此以前只是一种威胁，现在却已成为可怕的行动。

从一般法律和宪法角度来考虑，我认为由各州组成的联邦是永久性的。在合国政府的根本法中，永久性即使没有明确规定，也是不盲而喻的。我们有把握说，从来没有哪个正规政府在自己的组织法中列入一项要结束自己执政的条款。继续执行我国宪法明文规定的条款，联邦就将永远存在，毁灭联邦是办不到的，除非采取宪法本身未予规定的某种行动。再者：假如合众国不是名副其实的政府，而只是具有契约性质的各州的联盟，那么，作为一种契约，这个联盟能够毫无争议地由纬约各方中的少数加以取消吗？缔约的一方可以违约——也可以说毁约——但是，合法地废止契约难道不需要缔约各方全都同意吗？从这些一般原则在下推，我们认为，从法律上来说，联邦是永久性的这一主张已经为联邦本身的历史所证实。联邦的历史比宪法长久得多。事实上，它在1774年就根据《联合条款》组成了。1776年，《独立宣言》使它臻子成熟并持续下来。1778年《邦联条款》使联邦愈趋成熟，当时的13个州都信誓旦旦地明确保证联邦应该永存，最后，1787年制定宪法时所宣市的日标之一就是“建设更完善的联邦”。

但是，如果联邦竟能由一个州或几个州按照法律加以取消的话，那么联邦就不如制宪前完善了，因为它丧失了永久性这个重要因素。

根据这些观点，任何一个州都不能只凭自己的动仪就能合法地脱离联邦；凡为此目的而作出的决议和法令在法律上都是无效的，任何一个州或几个州反对合众国当局的暴力行动都应根据憎况视为叛乱或革命。因此，我认为，根据宪法和法律，联邦是不容分裂的；我将按宪法本身明确授予我的权限，就自己能力所及，使联邦法律得以在各州忠实执行。我认为这仅仅是我份内的职责，我将以可行的方法去完成，除非我的合法主人——美国人民，不给予我必要的手段，或以权威的方式作出相反的指示，我相信大家下会把这看作是一种威胁，而只看作是联邦已宣布过的目标：它将按照宪法保卫和维护它自身。

以自然条件而言，我们是不能分开的，我们无法把各个地区彼此挪开，也无法在彼此之间筑起一堵无法逾越的墙垣。夫妻可以离婚，不再见面，互不接触，但是我们国家的各个地区就不可能那样做。它们仍得面对面地相处，它们之间还得有或者友好或者敌对的交往。那么，分开之后的交往是否可能比分开之前更有好处，更令人满意呢？外人之间订立条约难道还比朋友之间制定法律容易吗？外人之间执行条约难道还比朋友之间执行法律忠实吗？假定你们进行战争•你们不可能永远打下去；在双方损失惨重，任何一方都得不到好处之后，你们就会停止战斗，那时你们还会遇到诸如交往条件之类的老问题。

总统的一切权力来自人民，但人民没有授权给他为各州的分离规定条件。如果人民有此意愿，那他们可以这样做，而作为总统来说，则不可能这样做。他的责任是管理交给他的这一届政府，井将它完整地移交给他的继任者。

为什么我们不能对人民所具有的最高的公正抱有坚韧的信念呢？世界上还有比这更好或一样好的希望吗？在我何日前的分歧中，难道双方都缺乏相信自己正确的信心吗？如果万国全能的主宰以其永恒的真理和正义支持你北方这一边，或者支持你南方这一边，那么，那种真理和那种正义必将通过美国人民这个伟大法庭的裁决而取得胜利。

就是这些美国人民，通过我们现有的政府结构，明智地只给他们的公仆很小的权力，使他们不能力害作恶，并且同样明智地每隔很短的时间就把那小小的权力收回到自己手中。只要人民保持其力量和警惕，无论怎样作恶和愚蠢的执政人员都不能在短短4年的任期内十分严重地损害政府。我的同胞们，大家平静而认真地思考整个这一问题吧。任何宝贵的东西都下会因为从容对待而丧失，假使有一个目标火急地催促你们中随便哪一位采取一个措施，而你决不能不慌不忙，那么那个目标会因从容对待而落空；但是，任何好的目标是不会因为从容对待而落空的，你们现在感到不满意的人仍然有着原来的、完好元损的宪法，而且，在敏感问题上，你们有着自己根据这部宪法制定的各项法律；而新的一届政府即使想改变这两种情况，也没有直接的权力那样做。那些不满意的人在这场争论中即使被承认是站在正确的一边，也没有一点正当理由采取鲁莽的行动。理智、爱国精神、基行教义以及对从不抛弃这片幸福土地的上帝的信仰，这些仍然能以最好的方式来解决我们目前的一切困难。不满意的同胞们，内战这个重大问题的关键掌握在你们手中，而不掌握在我手中，政府不会对你们发动攻击。你们不当挑衅者，就下会面临冲突。你们没有对天发誓要毁灭政府，而我却要立下最庄严的誓言：“坚守、维护和捍卫合众国宪法。”我不愿意就此结束演说。我们不是敌人，而是朋友。我们一定不要成为敌人。尽管情绪紧张，也决不应割断我们之间的感情纽带。记忆的神秘琴弦，从每一个战场和爱国志上的坟墓伸向这片广阔土地上的每一颗跳动的心和家庭，必将再度被我们善良的夭性所拨响，那时就会高奏起联邦大团结的乐章。

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1861

Fellow-Citizens of the United States:

In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of this office."

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection.It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that--

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them;and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend;and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration.I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one section as to another.There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor.The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

第三篇：美国总统乔治华盛顿第一次就职演讲

美国总统乔治华盛顿第一次就职演讲

乔治·华盛顿，美国开国总统，由于他扮演了美国独立战争和建国中最重要的角色，华盛顿通常被称为美国国父。学者们则将他和亚伯拉罕·林肯并列为美国历史上最伟大的总统。

Nothing 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.在人生沉浮中，没有一件事能比你们于本月14日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情、满腔希望和坚定的决心选择的暮年归宿，由于爱好和习惯，时感体力不济，愈觉隐退之必要和可贵。且时光流逝，健康渐衰。

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.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；而我天资愚钝，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吾职，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。

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 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.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，保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标而做出奉献。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。

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, 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.在向公众利益和私人利益的伟大缔造者献上这份崇敬时，我保证这不仅表达了我自己的情感，这些话也同样表达了各位和广大公民的心意。没有人能比美国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冷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。

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.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，总统有责任对你们提出建议。如衡量权宜必要的判断之类的思路。但在目前与各位见面的这个场合，恕我不能进一步讨论这个问题，而只是提一下伟大的宪法，它使各位今天聚集一堂，它规定了各位的权限，提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。不是提出具体措施，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。

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 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 on the hands of the American people.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念和公平观点，即必须维护这个由不同地区和不同利益所组成的大联合；因为，其二，我国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，有着密不可分的统一；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，因为我们应该同样相信，上帝亲自规定了永恒的秩序和权利法则，它决不可能对无视这些法则的国家仁慈地加以赞许；因为人们理所当然地、满怀觉悟地，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。

第四篇：美国总统就职演讲金句

The most memorable speeches in America are all come from the mose unforgettable historic moment.It is not an accident.the civil war

Abraham Lincoln has been murdered at the end of the civil war,but his second inaugural address before his dead would be never forgot.With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the might, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds;to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations

我们不对任何人怀有丝毫恶意，我们对任何人都抱着好感，上帝令我们看到哪一边是对的，就坚定地信仰对的一边，让我们继续奋斗完成我们正在进行的工作──去治疗国家的创伤，去照顾英勇作战的志士和他的遗属，去从事一切的努力以达成并维护在我们自己之间和我国与各国之间的一个公平而持久的和平.The depression

Franklin D.Roosevelt's first inaugural address outlined in broad terms how he hoped to govern and reminded American that

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!

But the first golden verse should be

John Kennedy' inaugural address in 1961when national confidence was low.Ask not what your country can do for you;Ask what you can do for your country.

第五篇：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 consequencesuniversal 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 eyewhen 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 hereafterwith all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizensa 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 peoplea 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 livea 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 purposesthe 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 Statesa 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 forthsometimes under circumstances the most delicate and painfulmy 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 peoplea breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify itit 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 faithwhich no one understood and which at times was the subject of the mockery of allor 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 Presidentsand 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 Congressthat 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 introduceda minister or a member of the oppositionby 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 itwith 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 campthat 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 subjectsin other words, the slavesof their former fellow-citizens.If this be trueand it will scarcely be denied by anyone who has a correct idea of his own rights as an American citizenthe 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 unioncordial, confiding, fraternal unionis 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.