James K. Polk's inaugural speech

Since my buddy Mike has been on a Twitter rampage to promote James K. Polk as an #underratedpresident (see also his #teampolk hashtag), I thought I'd offer a link, this Presidents* Day, to President Polk's inaugural speech, which can be found at this very interesting archive of presidential speeches. An interesting excerpt:

It will be my first care to administer the government in the true spirit of that instrument, and to assume no powers not expressly granted or clearly implied in its terms. The government of the United States is one of delegated and limited powers, and it is by a strict adherence to the clearly granted powers and by abstaining from the exercise of doubtful or unauthorized implied powers that we have the only sure guaranty against the recurrence of those unfortunate collisions between the federal and state authorities which have occasionally so much disturbed the harmony of our system and even threatened the perpetuity of our glorious Union.

"To the states, respectively, or to the people" have been reserved "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states." Each state is a complete sovereignty within the sphere of its reserved powers. The government of the Union, acting within the sphere of its delegated authority, is also a complete sovereignty. While the general government should abstain from the exercise of authority not clearly delegated to it, the states should be equally careful that in the maintenance of their rights they do not overstep the limits of powers reserved to them. One of the most distinguished of my predecessors attached deserved importance to "the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administration for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwark against antirepublican tendencies," and to the "preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad."

To the government of the United States has been intrusted the exclusive management of our foreign affairs. Beyond that it wields a few general enumerated powers. It does not force reform on the states. It leaves individuals, over whom it casts its protecting influence, entirely free to improve their own condition by the legitimate exercise of all their mental and physical powers. It is a common protector of each and all the states; of every man who lives upon our soil, whether of native or foreign birth; of every religious sect, in their worship of the Almighty according to the dictates of their own conscience; of every shade of opinion, and the most free inquiry; of every art, trade, and occupation consistent with the laws of the states. And we rejoice in the general happiness, prosperity, and advancement of our country, which have been the offspring of freedom, and not of power.

It's interesting, very interesting, to read the above and to realize that Polk was a Democrat.

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*As with Veterans Day, the name of the day is normally spelled without an apostrophe. This has never sat well with me, but there we are.


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