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 into
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 the 30th day of
April, 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 marvelous 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.

Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which
accompanied the institution of government under the Constitution, or to
find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of Washington
and his great associates, and hope and courage in the contrast which
thirty-eight populous and prosperous States offer to the thirteen
States, weak in everything except courage and the love of liberty, that
then fringed our Atlantic seaboard.

The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the
original States (except Virginia) and greater than the aggregate of
five of the smaller States in 1790. The center of population when our
national capital was located was east of Baltimore, and it was argued
by m