One of the difficulties in bringing about change in an organization is that you must do so through the persons who have been most successful in that organization, no matter how faulty the system or the organization is. To such persons, you see, it is the best of all possible organizations, because look who was selected by it ad look who succeeded most in it. Yet, these are the very people through whom we must bring about improvements.

This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the State over which you preside in His holy protection; that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.

The U.S. is a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate.

Avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, we should remember also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it