Moreover, if from
this hour we cheerfully and honestly abandon all sectional prejudice and
distrust, and determine, with manly confidence in one another, to work
out harmoniously the achievements of our national destiny, we shall
deserve to realize all the benefits which our happy form of government
can bestow.
On this auspicious occasion we may well renew the pledge of our devotion
to the Constitution, which, launched by the founders of the Republic and
consecrated by their prayers and patriotic devotion, has for almost a
century borne the hopes and the aspirations of a great people through
prosperity and peace and through the shock of foreign conflicts and the
perils of domestic strife and vicissitudes.
By the Father of his Country our Constitution was commended for adoption
as "the result of a spirit of amity and mutual concession." In that same
spirit it should be administered, in order to promote the lasting
welfare of the country and to secure the full measure of its priceless
benefits to us and to those who will succeed to the blessings of our
national life. The large variety of diverse and competing interests
subject to Federal control, persistently seeking the recognition of
their claims, need give us no fear that "the greatest good to the
greatest number" will fail to be accomplished if in the halls of
national legislation that spirit of amity and mutual concession shall
prevail in which the Constitution had its birth.
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