U.S. Presidential Inaugural AddressesUnited States. Presidents
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U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses
United States. Presidents
Presidents -- United States -- Inaugural addresses
That all nations are equally interested in the peace of the world and
in the political stability of free peoples, and equally responsible for
their maintenance; that the essential principle of peace is the actual
equality of nations in all matters of right or privilege; that peace
cannot securely or justly rest upon an armed balance of power; that
governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the
governed and that no other powers should be supported by the common
thought, purpose or power of the family of nations; that the seas should
be equally free and safe for the use of all peoples, under rules set up
by common agreement and consent, and that, so far as practicable, they
should be accessible to all upon equal terms; that national armaments
shall be limited to the necessities of national order and domestic
safety; that the community of interest and of power upon which peace
must henceforth depend imposes upon each nation the duty of seeing to it
that all influences proceeding from its own citizens meant to encourage
or assist revolution in other states should be sternly and effectually
suppressed and prevented.
I need not argue these principles to you, my fellow countrymen; they are
your own part and parcel of your own thinking and your own motives in
affairs. They spring up native amongst us. Upon this as a platform of
purpose and of action we can stand together. And it is imperative that
we should stand together. We are being forged into a new unity amidst
the fires that now blaze throughout the world. In their ardent heat
we shall, in God's Providence, let us hope, be purged of faction
and division, purified of the errant humors of party and of private
interest, and shall stand forth in the days to come with a new dignity
of national pride and spirit. Let each man see to it that the dedication
is in his own heart, the high purpose of the nation in his own mind,
ruler of his own will and desire.
I stand here and have taken the high and solemn oath to which you have
been audience because the people of the United States have chosen me
for this august delegation of power and have by their gracious judgment
named me their leader in affairs.
I know now what the task means. I realize to the full the responsibility
which it involves. I pray God I may be given the wisdom and the prudence
to do my duty in the true spirit of this great people. I am their
servant and can succeed only as they sustain and guide me by their
confidence and their counsel. The thing I shall count upon, the thing
without which neither counsel nor action will avail, is the unity of
America--an America united in feeling, in purpose and in its vision of
duty, of opportunity and of service.
We are to beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities
of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building
up of private power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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