Excerpt from "Jefferson's First Inaugural Address"

Delivered on March 4, 1801
Published in Documents of American History, edited by
Henry S. Commager, 1943

America experienced a series of revolutions in the late 1700s. First the Declaration of Independence of 1776 announced that America would separate from Britain and become its own nation. The United States secured its independence from Britain in 1783, after defeating the British in the battles of the American Revolution. In 1787, American leaders wrote the revolutionary U.S. Constitution. It was presented to the states in September 1787 and approved by mid-1788. The Constitution established the United States as a republic, a nation governed by representatives elected by the people. Then, after the presidential election of 1800, Americans witnessed another remarkable event: the calm and orderly transfer of power from the defeated political party to the opposing party. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–9), the winner of the election, referred to this as...