enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
"the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States?"

I take the official oath today with no mental reservations,
and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by
any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify
particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest
that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations,
to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed,
than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having
them held to be unConstitutional.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President
under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different
and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered
the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through
many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope
of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief Constitutional
term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of
the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution,
the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied,
if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision
in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all
the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will
endure forever--it being impossible to destroy it except by some action
not provided for in the instrument itself.