My Fellow-citizens—I thank you for the wonderful demonstration of this evening. In these evidences of the good will of my friends I receive a new stimulus as I enter upon the duties of the great office to which I have been chosen. I beg to thank you again for your interest. [Great cheering.]
[WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 4, 1889.]
General Harrison and his family, accompanied by Hon. James N. Huston, Hon. W. H. H. Miller, Mr. E. W. Halford, Mr. E. F. Tibbott and family, Miss Sanger, and the representatives of the press, arrived in Washington on the evening of February 26. The President-elect was met by Col. A. T. Britton, Geo. B. Williams, Gen. H. V. Boynton, J. K. McCammon, Gen. Daniel Macauley, and other members of the Inaugural Committee, and escorted to the Arlington Hotel.
The inaugural celebration was conducted by several hundred residents of Washington, acting through committees. The Executive Committee, having supervising charge of all matters pertaining to the celebration, comprised the following prominent Washingtonians: Alex. T. Britton, Chairman; Myron M. Parker, Vice-Chairman; Brainerd H. Warner, Treasurer; Henry L. Swords, Secretary; Elmon A. Adams, Joseph K. McCammon, James E. Bell, James G. Berret, Robert Boyd, Henry V. Boynton, Almon M. Clapp, A. H. S. Davis, Frederick Douglass, John Joy Edson, Lawrence Gardner, George Gibson, Charles C. Glover, Stilson Hutchins, E. Kurtz Johnson, George E. Lemon, John McElroy, Geo. A. McIlhenny, Crosby S. Noyes, Albert Ordway, Charles B. Purvis, Melancthon L. Ruth, Thomas Somerville, Orren G. Staples, John W. Thompson, Henry A. Willard, George B. Williams, Louis D. Wine, Simon Wolf, Levi P. Wright, and Hallett Kilbourn. General James Beaver, Governor of Pennsylvania, was Chief Marshal of the day, and with a brilliant staff led the great column in its march to and from the Capitol. The veterans of the Seventieth Indiana Regiment were accorded the post of honor on the route to the Capitol, and on conclusion of the ceremonies escorted their old commander to the White House. Chief-Justice Fuller administered the oath of office.
President Harrison delivered his inaugural address from the terrace of the Capitol in the presence of a vast concourse and during a rainfall.
THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
There is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the people. But there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to office of the chief executive officer of the Nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The oath taken in the presence of the people becomes a mutual covenant; the officer covenants to serve the whole body of the people by a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the unfailing defence and security of those who respect and observe them, and that neither wealth and station nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness. My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every other citizen his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus solemnly in covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke and confidently expect the favor and help of Almighty God, that He will give to me wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity and a love of righteousness and peace.
This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under our Constitution. The first inauguration of President Washington took place in New York, where Congress was then sitting, on April 30, 1789, having been deferred by reason of delays attending the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution of the second great department of our constitutional scheme of government. When the centennial of the institution of the judicial department by the organization of the Supreme Court shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will be, our Nation will have fully entered its second century.
I will not attempt to note the marvellous and, in great part, happy contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold into its second century of organized existence under the Constitution, and that weak but wisely ordered young Nation that looked undauntedly down the first century, when all its years stretched out before it.