Home of the Brave by Jeffry Hepple

absolutely silent as Chief Justice
John Marshall appeared on Jackson’s right holding a
Bible.
    “ Fellow-Citizens ,” Jackson began in a
voice that hardly carried to Yank and Marina.
    “ About to undertake the
arduous duties that I have been appointed to perform by the choice
of a free people, I avail myself of this customary and solemn
occasion to express the gratitude which their confidence inspires
and to acknowledge the accountability which my situation enjoins.
While the magnitude of their interests convinces me that no thanks
can be adequate to the honor they have conferred, it admonishes me
that the best return I can make is the zealous dedication of my
humble abilities to their service and their good.
    As the instrument of the
Federal Constitution, it will devolve on me for a stated period to
execute the laws of the United States, to superintend their foreign
and their confederate relations, to manage their revenue, to
command their forces, and, by communications to the Legislature, to
watch over and to promote their interests generally. And the
principles of action by which I shall endeavor to accomplish this
circle of duties it is now proper for me briefly to
explain.
    In administering the laws
of Congress, I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as well
as the extent of the Executive power trusting thereby to discharge
the functions of my office without transcending its authority. With
foreign nations, it will be my study to preserve peace and to
cultivate friendship on fair and honorable terms, and in the
adjustment of any differences that may exist or arise to exhibit
the forbearance becoming a powerful nation rather than the
sensibility belonging to a gallant people.
    In such measures as I may
be called on to pursue in regard to the rights of the separate
States I hope to be animated by a proper respect for those
sovereign members of our Union, taking care not to confound the
powers they have reserved to themselves with those they have
granted to the Confederacy.
    The management of the
public revenue--that searching operation in all governments--is
among the most delicate and important trusts in ours and it will,
of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official
solicitude. Under every aspect in which it can be considered it
would appear that advantage must result from the observance of a
strict and faithful economy. This I shall aim at the more anxiously
both because it will facilitate the extinguishment of the national
debt, the unnecessary duration of which is incompatible with real
independence, and because it will counteract that tendency to
public and private profligacy which a profuse expenditure of money
by the Government is but too apt to engender. Powerful auxiliaries
to the attainment of this desirable end are to be found in the
regulations provided by the wisdom of Congress for the specific
appropriation of public money and the prompt accountability of
public officers.
    With regard to a proper
selection of the subjects of impost with a view to revenue, it
would seem to me that the spirit of equity, caution and compromise
in which the Constitution was formed requires that the great
interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures should be
equally favored, and that perhaps the only exception to this rule
should consist in the peculiar encouragement of any products of
either of them that may be found essential to our national
independence.
    Internal improvement and
the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the
constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high
importance.
    Considering standing
armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall
not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard that
salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the
military should be held subordinate to the civil power. The gradual
increase of our Navy, whose flag has displayed in distant climes
our skill in navigation and our fame in