These topics and the constant and ever-varying wants of an active and
enterprising population may well receive the attention and the patriotic
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.
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