endeavor of all who make and execute the Federal law. Our duties
are practical and call for industrious application, an intelligent
perception of the claims of public office, and, above all, a firm
determination, by united action, to secure to all the people of the land
the full benefits of the best form of government ever vouchsafed to man.
And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledging
the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over the destiny
of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country's
history, let us invoke His aid and His blessings upon our labors.

*****

Benjamin Harrison Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1889

Fellow-Citizens:

THERE is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall
take the oath of office in the presence of the people, but there is so
manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to office of the
chief executive officer of the nation that from the beginning of the
Government the people, to whose service the official oath consecrates
the officer, have been called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The
oath taken in the presence of the people becomes a mutual covenant. The
officer covenants to serve the whole body of the people by a faithful
execution of the laws, so that they may be the unfailing defense and
security of those who respect and observe them, and that neither wealth,
station, nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just
penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the
ends of cruelty or selfishness.

My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn.
The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do
not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the
whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day
to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to
yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every other citizen
his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus solemnly into
covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke and confidently
expect the favor and help of Almighty God--that He will give to me
wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity
and a love of righteousness and peace.

This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the
Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under