It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I am to tread
lighted by examples of illustrious services successfully rendered in the
most trying difficulties by those who have marched before me. Of those
of my immediate predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I
may, however, be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with which my
heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the benedictions of a
beloved country, gratefully bestowed or exalted talents zealously
devoted through a long career to the advancement of its highest interest
and happiness.
But the source to which I look or the aids which alone can supply my
deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my
fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the
other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In
these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to
that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and
guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of
nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this
rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout
gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best
hopes for the future.
***
James Madison
Second Inaugural Address
Thursday, March 4, 1813
About to add the solemnity of an oath to the obligations imposed by a
second call to the station in which my country heretofore placed me, I
find in the presence of this respectable assembly an opportunity of
publicly repeating my profound sense of so distinguished a confidence
and of the responsibility united with it.
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