deliberations. It will not be sufficient that the rash counsels of
human passion are rejected. It must be felt that there is no national
security but in the nation's humble, acknowledged dependence upon God
and His overruling providence.

We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis. Wise
counsels, like those which gave us the Constitution, prevailed to
uphold it. Let the period be remembered as an admonition, and not as an
encouragement, in any section of the Union, to make experiments where
experiments are fraught with such fearful hazard. Let it be impressed
upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric is, no earthly power or
wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments. Standing, as I do,
almost within view of the green slopes of Monticello, and, as it were,
within reach of the tomb of Washington, with all the cherished memories
of the past gathering around me like so many eloquent voices of
exhortation from heaven, I can express no better hope for my country
than that the kind Providence which smiled upon our fathers may enable
their children to preserve the blessings they have inherited.


***

James Buchanan
Inaugural Address
Wednesday, March 4, 1857

Fellow-Citizens:

I APPEAR before you this day to take the solemn oath "that I will
faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and