We know that self-government
is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of
character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright
through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it.
But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of
the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the
splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured
confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted
and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so
we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday
affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of
courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of
devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded
this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men
who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
William Howard Taft
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1909
***
A blizzard the night before caused the ceremonies to be moved into
the Senate Chamber in the Capitol. The oath of office was
administered for the sixth time by Chief Justice Melville Fuller.
The new President took his oath on the Supreme Court Bible, which
he used again in 1921 to take his oaths as the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court.
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