First Inaugural Address by Thomas Jefferson
HS / Social Studies
Citizenship, Democracy, Dignity, Free Speech, Law
Post the follow quote from Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address on the (interactive) white
board:
“[The election] being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced
according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves
under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good.”
Ask participants to take part in the following “Opinion Corners” activity:
1. Post signs in the four corners of the classroom: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree,
Strongly Disagree.
2. Refer students to the quote from the text that is displayed on the board.
3. Have participants move to the corner that reflects their response to this statement.
4. Give participants three to five minutes to discuss in their corners why they chose that
response. Have each group select a spokesperson to share their ideas.
5. Each spokesperson in turn summarizes that group’s thinking.
6. Allow students to change corners of the room if their opinions have changed as a
result of the discussions.
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Distribute the text to students and discuss with them what they expect the text to be
about, given the title (“First Inaugural Address”) and the first few / last few sentences.
Have them number the paragraphs in the text (1-6) for ready reference in the seminar.
Finally, have them work in pairs to read the text aloud slowly, taking turns paragraph by
paragraph, marking any unfamiliar words or phrases as they read.
Share as appropriate: Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence
and the third President of the United States, took office during the first great party
conflict in American history. He was elected only after a bitterly contested general
election and a series of votes in the House of Representatives. A Federalist (early
American Political party), he was responding in part to the bitter feelings between
Federalists and Republicans.
Work as a whole group to list on the board all the unfamiliar words and phrases
identified during the Inspectional Read. Add to the list the names of the two political
parties (Federalist and Republican—which is different from today’s Republican Party) as
well as any other social studies vocabulary that you would choose to teach as a part of
this literacy cycle. Assign the words to individual or small groups of students and have
them prepare and share definitions that can be collected electronically into one common
glossary for the entire text. Share that glossary either on paper or electronically and
discuss until all students are comfortable with the language they will need to discuss
and write about the text. Encourage students to take more detailed notes in the margins
of their own texts as well as use the glossary.
On the day before the seminar, divide the participants up into six reading groups and
assign one group to each of the six paragraphs. Have each team work collaboratively
(using the glossary) to produce a two or three sentence summary of its assigned
paragraph. Have the teams share these six summaries aloud so that individual
participants can take notes on their copies of the text.
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 What one word or phrase from this speech could serve as its title? (roundrobin response)
 What makes that word or phrase so effective as a title? (spontaneous
discussion)
 What do you think Jefferson meant by “let us restore to social intercourse
that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but
dreary things”?
 Jefferson goes on to say that “every difference of opinion is not a
difference of principle.” What do you think he means by this? Why is this
idea so important in a democracy?
 Based on the text, what did Jefferson think were the rights of the majority?
 Similarly, what did he think were the rights of the minority?
 How are the two groups—the majority and the minority—related in a
democracy?
 Jefferson seems to assume that human beings have the ability to govern
themselves successfully. Do you agree? Why or why not?
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Have students list in writing everything they said, heard, and thought during the seminar
that applies to the current political situation in America.
What does Thomas Jefferson have to say to us about American politics today? After
reading and discussing Jefferson’s “First Inaugural Address,” choose a relevant
passage and write an essay in which you address the question and analyze how the
passage illuminates the current political climate in America. Support your position with
evidence from the text. (Argumentation/Analysis)
(LDC Task#:
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)
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Discuss that the audience for these essays will be the elected state and federal
representatives from your district.
Have students skim the entire speech again, highlighting possible passages they could
use to respond to the writing task. Then, have them pick two of the most pertinent
passages and discuss with a partner which would be the most interesting to write about.
Provide students with a template for this analysis essay as follows: 1) the quote from
the Inaugural Address; 2) brief introductory paragraph; 3) analysis of first point; 4)
analysis of second point; 5) analysis of third point; and 6) brief conclusion.
Have students prepare a first draft of their essays by giving their chosen quotes and
then writing a minimum five full paragraphs, including three of analysis.
Have participants work in pairs (based on similar problems/solutions) to read their first
drafts aloud to each other with emphasis on reader as creator and editor. Listener says
back one point heard clearly and asks one question for clarification. Switch roles. Stress
the importance of a clear claim supported by ample evidence. Give time for full revisions
resulting in a second draft.
Once the second draft is complete, have participants work in groups of three-four and
this time take turns reading each other’s second drafts slowly and silently, marking any
spelling or grammar errors they find. (Have dictionaries and grammar handbooks
available for reference.) Take this opportunity to clarify/reteach any specific grammar
strategies you have identified your students needing. Give time for full revisions
resulting in a third and final draft.
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Publish the final essays in both a print and electronic anthology. Keep the print
collection in the school media center and in your classroom for circulation (as exemplars
of textual analysis) and send the electronic anthology to your elected state and federal
representative, with a cover letter requesting a thoughtful reply.
Terry Roberts
National Paideia Center
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First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1801
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,
Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail
myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to
express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look
toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and
that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of
the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread
over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their
industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing
rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye -- when I contemplate these
transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved
country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the
contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly,
indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that
in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of
wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then,
gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those
associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which
may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the
conflicting elements of a troubled world.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of
discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on
strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being
now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of
the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and
unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred
principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be
rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law
must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with
one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection
without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that,
having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long
bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as
despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes
and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man,
seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the
agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this
should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions
as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.
We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all
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Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to
dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is
left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican
government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the
honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which
has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government,
the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I
believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only
one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and
would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is
said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be
trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to
govern him? Let history answer this question.
Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican
principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by
nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too
high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country,
with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;
entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the
acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens,
resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a
benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them
inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging
and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it
delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter -- with all
these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?
Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain
men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close
the circle of our felicities.
About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend
everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the
essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape
its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear,
stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men,
of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State
governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic
concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of
the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our
peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where
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peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the
majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital
principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance
in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy
of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be
lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public
faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of
information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of
religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the
habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright
constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of
revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have
been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text
of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and
should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace
our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience
enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I
have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this
station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to
that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character,
whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and
destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much
confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your
affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be
thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I
ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support
against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its
parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the
past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have
bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my
power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.
Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the
work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is
in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the
universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your
peace and prosperity.
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