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. If
this involves the surrender or postponement of private interests and
the abandonment of local advantages, compensation will be found in the
assurance that the common interest is subserved and the general welfare
advanced.

In the discharge of my official duty I shall endeavor to be guided by a
just and unstrained construction of the Constitution, a careful
observance of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal
Government and those reserved to the States or to the people, and by a
cautious appreciation of those functions which by the Constitution and
laws have been especially assigned to the executive branch of the
Government.

But he who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation
which every patriotic citizen - on the farm, in the workshop, in the
busy marts of trade, and everywhere - should share with him. The
Constitution which prescribes his oath, my countrymen, is yours; the
Government you have chosen him to administer for a time is yours; the
suffrage which executes the will of freemen is yours; the laws and the
entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State
capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as
surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though
in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every
citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its
public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity