President Adams On State And Federal Relations

Newly sworn-in President Quincy Adams knew the firm basis of our governmental system was a federal agent restrained within the prescribed limits of it delegated powers, and the preeminent authority of the member States.

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
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President Adams on State and Federal Relations:

“Ten years of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political contention, and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion. There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice if prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation, who have heretofore followed the standard of political party.

It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other; of embracing, as countrymen and friends, and yielding to talents and virtue alone, that confidence which, in times of contention for principle, was bestowed only upon those who wore the badge of party communion. The collisions of party spirit…which are founded on geographical divisions, adverse interests of soil, climate, and modes of domestic life, are more permanent, and therefore perhaps more dangerous. It holds out to us a perpetual admonition to preserve alike, and with equal anxiety, the rights of each individual State in its own government, and the rights of the whole nation in that of the Union.

Whatsoever is of domestic concernment, unconnected with the other members of the Union, or with foreign lands, belongs exclusively to the administration of State governments. Whatsoever directly involves the rights and interests of the federative fraternity, or foreign powers, is of the resort of the general government. To respect the rights of the State governments’, is the inviolable duty of that of the Union; the government of every State will feel its own obligation to respect and preserve the rights of the whole.

The harmony of the nation is promoted, and the whole Union is knit together, by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship, formed between the representatives of its several parts, in the performance of their service at this metropolis.”

(Inaugural Address of President John Quincy Adams, March 4, 1825 (excerpt), The Speeches, Addresses and Messages of the Several Presidents of the United States, Robert DeSilver, Publisher, 1825, pp. 532-533)
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President Adams On State And Federal Relations