《(优品)(入职指引)美国历届总统就职演讲稿》由会员分享,可在线阅读,更多相关《(优品)(入职指引)美国历届总统就职演讲稿(206页珍藏版)》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、(入职指引)美国历届总统就职演讲稿First Inaugural Address of George WashingtonTHE CITY OF NEW YORKTHURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1789Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification
2、was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable
3、decision, as the asylum of my declining yearsa retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste mitted on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty
4、 of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the
5、duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in
6、 executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untr
7、ied cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station,
8、 it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties an
9、d happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public
10、 and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow- citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step
11、 by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just acplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct m
12、unities from which the event has resulted can not be pared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present cr
13、isis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously mence.By the article establishing the executive department it is made
14、 the duty of the President to remend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and
15、 which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a remendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to
16、the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the prehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of munities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and i