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 it. 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 relate to our
intercourse with foreign nations I shall zealously devote myself; beyond
those limits I shall never pass.

To enter on this occasion into a further or more minute exposition of my
views on the various questions of domestic policy would be as obtrusive
as it is probably unexpected. Before the suffrages of my countrymen were
conferred upon me I submitted to them, with great precision, my opinions
on all the most prominent of these subjects. Those opinions I shall
endeavor to carry out with my utmost ability.

Our course of foreign policy has been so uniform and intelligible as to
constitute a rule of Executive conduct which leaves little to my
discretion, unless, indeed, I were willing to run counter to the lights
of experience and the known opinions of my constituents. We sedulously
cultivate the friendship of all nations as the conditions most
compatible with our welfare and the principles of our Government. We
decline alliances as adverse to our peace. We desire commercial
relations on equal terms, being ever willing to give a fair equivalent
for advantages received. We endeavor to conduct our intercourse with
openness and sincerity, promptly avowing our objects and seeking to
establish that mutual frankness which is as beneficial in the dealings
of nations as of men. We have no disposition and we disclaim all right
to meddle in disputes, whether internal or foreign, that may molest
other countries, regarding them in their actual state as social
communities, and preserving a strict neutrality in all their
controversies. Well knowing the tried valor of our people and our
exhaustless resources, we neither anticipate nor fear any designed
aggression; and in t