Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to the legal
administration of their affairs."
I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify
me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the
Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals,
religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are
essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that
good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious
freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and
has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence
those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every
interest of our beloved country in all future time.
Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to which the
partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionate
leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of
the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my
exalted station according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter
upon their performance with entire confidence in the support of a just
and generous people.
***
James Knox Polk
Inaugural Address
Tuesday, March 4, 1845
Fellow-Citizens:
Without solicitation on my part, I have been chosen by the free and
voluntary suffrages of my countrymen to the most honorable and most
responsible office on earth.
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