f 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, upon the exercise of duties which
comprehend every thing 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 anti-republican 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
there 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 burdened; 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 trus