Intrusted by the people for a second time with the office of President, I enter upon its administration appreciating the great responsibilities which attach to this renewed honor and commission, promising unreserved devotion on my part to their faithful discharge and reverently invoking for my guidance the direction and favor of Almighty God.  I should shrink from the duties this day assumed if I did not feel that in their performance I should have the co-operation of the wise and patriotic men of all parties.  It encourages me for the great task which I now undertake to believe that those who voluntarily committed to me the trust imposed upon the Chief Executive of the Republic will give to me generous support in my duties to “preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States” and to “care that the laws be faithfully executed.”  The national purpose is indicated through a national election.  It is the constitutional method of ascertaining the public will.  When once it is registered it is a law to us all, and faithful observance should follow its decrees.

Strong hearts and helpful hands are needed, and, fortunately, we have them in every part of our beloved country.  We are reunited.  Sectionalism has disappeared.  Division on public questions can no longer be traced by the war maps of 1861.  These old differences less and less disturb the judgment.  Existing problems demand the thought and quicken the conscience of the country, and the responsibility for their presence, as well as for their righteous settlement, rests upon us all—­no more upon me than upon you.  There are some national questions in the solution of which patriotism should exclude partisanship.  Magnifying their difficulties will not take them off our hands nor facilitate their adjustment.  Distrust of the capacity, integrity, and high purposes of the American people will not be an inspiring theme for future political contests.  Dark pictures and gloomy forebodings are worse than useless.  These only becloud, they do not help to point the way of safety and honor.  “Hope maketh not ashamed.”  The prophets of evil were not the builders of the Republic, nor in its crises since have they saved or served it.  The faith of the fathers was a mighty force in its creation, and the faith of their descendants has wrought its progress and furnished its defenders.  They are obstructionists who despair, and who would destroy confidence in the ability of our people to solve wisely and for civilization the mighty problems resting upon them.  The American people, intrenched in freedom at home, take their love for it with them wherever they go, and they reject as mistaken and unworthy the doctrine that we lose our own liberties by securing the enduring foundations of liberty to others.  Our institutions will not deteriorate by extension, and our sense of justice will not abate under tropic suns in distant seas.  As heretofore, so hereafter will the nation demonstrate its fitness to administer