All will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions . . . . We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
Thomas Jefferson. First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1801) Source: Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
Jefferson’s first inaugural was delivered after the controversial, bitterly divisive and hard-fought election of 1800 in which Jefferson and Aaron Burr defeated President John Adams, but were tied in the electoral vote. The election was decided in the House of Representatives.
Thomas Jefferson, third president (Source: White House)
