What can be more gratifying than such a retrospect as this? We look
back on obstacles avoided and dangers overcome, on expectations more
than realized and prosperity perfectly secured. To the hopes of the
hostile, the fears of the timi d, and the doubts of the anxious actual
experience has given the conclusive reply. We have seen time gradually
dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every
adverse circumstance dreaded at the outset as beyond control. Present
ex citement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true
philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can
remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to
entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our ins titutions
and an entire conviction that if administered in the true form,
character, and spirit in which they were established they are
abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children the rich
blessings already derived from them, to make our belove d land for a
thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness springs from a
perfect equality of political rights.

For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will
govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict
adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was
designed by those who framed i t. Looking back to it as a sacred
instrument carefully and not easily framed; remembering that it was
throughout a work of concession and compromise; viewing it as limited
to national objects; regarding it as leaving to the people and the
States all power not explicitly parted with, I shall endeavor to
preserve, protect, and defend it by anxiously referring to its
provision for direction in every action. To matters of domestic
concernment which it has intrusted to the Federal Government and to
such as rel ate to our intercourse with foreign nations I shall