at the national Republican convention which met at Minneapolis in 1892,
but was defeated at the November election, receiving 145 electoral
votes, against 276 votes for Grover Cleveland. Upon his retiring from
office located at Indianapolis, Ind., where he now resides.
* * * * *
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
FELLOW CITIZENS: 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 defense and security of those who respect and observe them,
and that neither wealth, 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 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
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