its party tumults to yield the issue of the contest to
adjustment according to the forms of law.

Looking for the guidance of that Divine Hand by which the destinies of
nations and individuals are shaped, I call upon you, Senators,
Representatives, judges, fellow-citizens, here and everywhere, to unite
with me in an earnest effort to secure to our country the blessings, not
only of material prosperity, but of justice, peace, and union--a union
depending not upon the constraint of force, but upon the loving devotion
of a free people; "and that all things may be so ordered and settled
upon the best and surest foundations that peace and happiness, truth and
justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all
generations."

* * * * *

JAMES A. GARFIELD INAUGURAL ADDRESS

FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1881

[Transcriber's note: Snow on the ground discouraged many spectators from
attending the ceremony at the Capitol. Congressman Garfield had been
nominated on his party's 36th ballot at the convention; and he had won
the popular vote by a slim margin. The former Civil War general was
administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Morrison Waite on the
snow-covered East Portico of the Capitol. In the parade and the
inaugural ball later that day, John Philip Sousa led the Marine Corps
band. The ball was held at the Smithsonian Institution's new National
Museum (now the Arts and Industries Building).]

Fellow-Citizens:

We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of
national life--a century crowded with perils, but crowned with the
triumphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the onward march let us
pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our faith and renew our
hope by a glance at the pathway along which our people have traveled.

It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the
first written constitution of the United States--the Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with
danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of
nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose
centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown,
had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against
the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of
mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority
of government could be safel