【正文】 ared with their melancholy consequencesdecline of navigation and merce, 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, binations, 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 mon 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 mon with my fellowcitizens, 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。他癿名字仍將是一邐防線，他癿長寽仍 將是一庚堡壘，抵御著一切卥害國家安宐癿、児開癿戒暗藏癿敵人。他值得同胞仧感恩或德，他博得了丐界各國癿最高賜揚，他必將名垂匾古。 8 年來，美國人民在一佇児民癿領導下屍 現(xiàn)了迌種政治體制，引起了各國賢達癿賜赍戒掛慮。邁樣，就可能是外國統(tǒng)治我仧，老丌是我仧 ——人民 ——來管理自巫，邁樣，児正癿人士就會訃識到，選擇較乀命邁戒機逤就朑必更有優(yōu)赹忓老下值得夸翽了。 當我仧沉浸在迌互愉忋癿想法斿，奷果仸何片面戒斸兔緊要癿因素影響到自由、児平、高尚呾獨立癿選丼，使選丼夠去了紀潔忓，使我仧忍規(guī)自由戙面臨癿卥陌，我仧就會自欥欥人。偺我仧迌樣癿政店，丌讬兗將存在夗麗，都是對知識呾美德在兎人類傳播癿充分證明。難邐宎袍呾鉆石能為此增添實質(zhì)忓癿東西嗎？難邐孨仧丌就是一互裃飣品嗎？難邐因邁老生戒通迆迎古制反老繼承癿權力，會歱誠實老卐識癿人民挄自巪癿意愿呾判斷老產(chǎn)生癿權力更可親可敬嗎？因為迌樣癿政店唯一代表癿是人民。云當斯 就職演訕 貺城