Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe；too high－minded to endure the degradations of the others；possessing a chosen country，with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation；entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties，to the acquisitions of our own industry，to honor and confidence from our fellow－citizens，resulting not from birth，but from our actions and their sense of them；enlightened by a benign religion，professed，indeed，and practiced in various forms，yet all of them inculcating honesty，truth，temperance，gratitude，and the love of man；acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence，which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter with all these blessings，what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people？Still one thing more，fellow－citizens a wise and frugal Government，which shall restrain men from injuring one another，shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement，and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned．
我们受惠于大自然和大洋的阻隔，幸免于地球上四分之一地区发生的那场毁灭性浩劫；我们品格高尚，不能容忍他人的堕落；我们天赐良邦，其幅员足以容纳子孙万代；我们充分认识到在发挥个人才干、以勤劳换取收入、受到同胞的尊敬与信赖上，大家享有平等的权利，但这种尊敬和信赖不是出于门第，而是出于我们的行为和同胞的评判；我们受到仁慈的宗教的启迪，尽管教派不同，形式各异，但它们都教人以正直、忠诚、节制、恩义和仁爱；我们承认和崇拜全能的上帝，而天意表明，他乐于使这里的人们得到幸福，今后还将得到更多的幸福——我们有了这些福祉，还需要什么才能够使我们成为快乐而兴旺的民族呢？公民们，我们还需要一件，那就是贤明而节俭的政府，它会制止人们相互伤害，使他们自由地管理自己的实业和进步活动，它不会侵夺人们的劳动果实。
This is the sum of good government，and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities．
这就是良好政府的集粹，这也是我们达到幸福圆满之必需。
About to enter，fellow－citizens，on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you，it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government，and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration．
公民们，我即将履行职责，这些职责包括你们所珍爱的一切，因此，你们应当了解我所认为的政府基本原则是什么，确定其行政依据的原则又是什么。
I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear，stating the general principle，but not all its limitations．Equal and exact justice to all men，of whatever state or persuasion，religious or political；peace，commerce，and honest friendship with all nations，entangling alliances with none；the support of the State governments in all their rights，as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies；the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor，as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad；a jealous care of the right of election by the people a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided；absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority，the vital principle of republics，from which is no appeal but to force，the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism；a well disciplined militia，our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war，till regulars may relieve them；the supremacy of the civil over the military authority；economy in the public expense，that labor may be lightly burthened；the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith；encouragement of agriculture，and of commerce as its handmaid；the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason；freedom of religion；freedom of the press，and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus，and trial by juries impartially selected．