mplete and
uninterrupted sovereignty over the whole territory from St. Croix to the
Sabine. New States, settled from among ourselves in this and in other
parts, have been admitted into our Union in equal participation in
the national sovereignty with the original States. Our population has
augmented in an astonishing degree and extended in every direction.
We now, fellow-citizens, comprise within our limits the dimensions
and faculties of a great power under a Government possessing all the
energies of any government ever known to the Old World, with an utter
incapacity to oppress the people.

Entering with these views the office which I have just solemnly sworn
to execute with fidelity and to the utmost of my ability, I derive great
satisfaction from a knowledge that I shall be assisted in the several
Departments by the very enlightened and upright citizens from whom I
have received so much aid in the preceding term. With full confidence
in the continuance of that candor and generous indulgence from my
fellow-citizens at large which I have heretofore experienced, and with
a firm reliance on the protection of Almighty God, I shall forthwith
commence the duties of the high trust to which you have called me.

*****

John Quincy Adams Inaugural Address Friday, March 4, 1825

In compliance with an usage coeval with the existence of our Federal
Constitution, and sanctioned by the example of my predecessors in the
career upon which I am about to enter, I appear, my fellow-citizens, in
your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of
religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties allotted
to me in the station to which I have been called.

In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which I shall be
governed in the fulfillment of those duties my first resort will be
to that Constitution which I shall swear to the best of my ability to
preserve, protect, and defend. That revered instrument enumerates the
powers and prescribes the duties of the Executive Magistrate, and in its
first words declares the purposes to which these and the whole action
of the Government instituted by it should be invariably and sacredly
devoted--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 to the people of
this Union in their successive generations. Since the adoption