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trayed in the National Intelligencer of April 9, 1841, which contained an account of the funeral:

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Never, since the time of Washington, has any one man so concentrated upon himself the love and confidence of the American people; and never, since the melancholy day which shrouded a nation in mourning for his sudden death, has any event produced so general and so profound a sensation of surprise and sorrow.

"So brief had been the late president's illness, that now, as in the case of Washington, there had scarce been time for us to begin to fear, when the stunning blow of the reality fell upon us like the stroke of thunder from a cloudless sky. Men looked aghast, and staggered, as if amazed by something they could scarce believe. But it was true. He who, with beaming countenance, passed along our streets in the joy of his hearthe, the welcome, the long-expected, the desired, on whom all eyes were fastened, to whom all hearts went out; who had within him more stirring subjects of exhilarating consciousness than have met in any single bosom since Washington was crowned with wreaths as he came back from Yorktown, was, on Wednesday last, within one month, 'one little month,' borne along that same crowded avenue-crowded, not as before, with a jubilant people gathered from every quarter of the country, but with sincerely sorrowing multitudes following his bier. When the words, the president is dead,' met the ear, the man of business dropped his pen, the artisan dropped his tools-children looked into the faces of their parents, and wives into the countenances of their husbands-and the wail of sorrow arose as if each had lost a parent, or some near and dear friend. Could General Harrison now look down on the land he loved, he might, indeed, 'read his history in a nation's eyes;' and those whose bosoms glow and struggle with high purposes and strong desires for their country's good, may learn in what they now behold, wherever they turn their eyes, how glorious a reward awaits the memory of those who faithfully serve their country!"

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On Wednesday, the 7th of April, the funeral of President Harrison took place at Washington, and was attended by an immense concourse of citizens, who thronged to the city from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Alexandria, and other places, anxious to join in the honors and solemnities paid to the memory of the illustrious deceased. The civic and military procession was large and imposing, occupying two miles in length. The funeral service of the episcopal church was recited by the Rev. Mr. Hawley. The body was interred in the congressional burying ground, but afterward removed to North Bend, Ohio, at the request of the family of General Harrison.

All party distinctions were merged in the feeling of respect due to the memory of the honored dead; and throughout the Union, funeral honors and other testimonials of public feeling, similar to those which took place on the death of General Washington, were awarded to the memory of Harrison. At every city, town, and village, in the Union, as the unwelcome

tidings of the death of the president arrived, it was received with every demonstration of mourning and regret, and followed immediately by such marks of respect as the several communities had it in their power to offer. Such legislative bodies as happened to be in session, were among the foremost to demonstrate their sympathy with the general impulse. That exhibited by the legislature of Maryland, in leaving the seat of the state government, and attending the funeral as an organized body, was among the most touching evidences of the kind. The Pennsylvania legislature deputed a number of members from each branch of that body, to proceed from Harrisburg to Washington, to attend the funeral. The legislature of New York adopted such measures as the occasion enabled them to do, to testify their feelings. The respective courts, wherever they were in session, officially united in the general expression, as did also the municipalities of all the principal cities and towns in the Union. The occasion was also appropriately noticed by the clergy of the different denominations.

General Harrison left one son and three daughters, all living at or near North Bend, Ohio. Four sons and a daughter died before their father. All of the sons left children.

In person, General Harrison was tall and slender. Although he never had the appearance of possessing a robust constitution, yet such had been the effects of habitual activity and temperance, that few men at his age enjoyed so much bodily vigor. He had a fine dark eye, remarkable for its keenness, fire, and intelligence, and his face was strongly expressive of the vivacity of his mind, and the benevolence of his character.

The most remarkable traits of General Harrison's character, and those by which he was distinguished throughout his whole career, were his disinterestedness, his regard for the rights and comforts of others, his generous disposition, his mild and forbearing temper, and his plain, easy, and unostentatious manner.

He had a most intimate knowledge of the history, and foreign and domestic polity of the United States; and from the moderation of his political views and feelings as a party man, although firm, frank, and consistent, he was well calculated for the high station to which he was elected, and which it is believed he would have filled with ability, and to the satisfaction of the public, during his presidential term, had his life been spared. His talents, although, perhaps, not of the highest order, were very respectable, and, united with an accurate knowledge of mankind, enabled him to acquit himself well in the various public stations to which he was called. He was a bold and eloquent orator; and he has left on record numerous evidences of his literary acquirements, among which, besides his correspondence and public papers, we may mention his discourse before the Historical Society of Ohio (on the aborigines of the valley of the Ohio), published at Cincinnati, in 1839, which can not fail to please and instruct either the scholar, the lover of history, or the antiquary.

HARRISON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

MARCH 4, 1841.

CALLED from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the residue of my life, to fill the chief executive office of this great and free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the oath which the constitution prescribes as a necessary qualification for the performance of its duties. And in obedience to a custom coeval with our government, and what I believe to be your expectations, I proceed to present to you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the discharge of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.

It was the remark of a Roman consul, in an early period of that celebrated republic, that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust, before and after obtaining them -they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. However much the world may have improved, in many respects, in the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence.

Although the fiat of the people has gone forth, proclaiming me the chief magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to my principles and opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or, approving them, to doubt the sincerity with which they are uttered. But the lapse of a few months will confirm or dispel their fears. The outline of principles to govern, and measures to be adopted by an administration not yet begun, will soon be exchanged for immutable history, and I shall stand, either exonerated by my countrymen, or classed with the mass of those who promised that they might deceive, and flattered with the intention to betray.

However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the infirmities of human nature, and the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed, from the magnitude of the power which it has been the will of the people to commit to my hands, not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me, and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts, heretofore confided to me by my country.

The broad foundation upon which our constitution rests being the people -a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it-it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who are called upon

to administer it must recognise, as its leading principle, the duty of shaping their measures, so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number. But, with these broad admissions, if we could compare the sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of the people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond. We admit of no government by divine right believing that, so far as power is concerned, the beneficent Creator has made no distinction among men, that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed. The constitution of the United States is the instrument containing the grant of power to the several departments composing the gov ernment. On an examination of that instrument, it will be found to contain declarations of power granted, and of power withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into power which the majority had the right to grant, but which they did not think proper to intrust to their agents, and that which they could not have granted, not being possessed by themselves. In other words, there are certain rights possessed by each individual American citizen, which, in his compact with the others, he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed, he is unable to surrender; being, in the language of our system, inalienable.

The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield only against a petty provincial ruler, while the proud democrat of Athens could console himself under a sentence of death, for a supposed violation of the national faith, which no one understood, and which at times was the subject of the mockery of all, or of banishment from his home, his family, and his country, with or without an alleged cause: that it was the act, not of a single tyrant, or hated aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen. Far different is the power of our sovereignty. It can interfere with no one's faith, prescribe forms of worship for no one's observance, inflict no punishment but after well-ascertained guilt, the result of investigation under forms prescribed by the constitution itself. These precious privileges, and those scarcely less important of giving expression to his thoughts and opinions, either by writing or speaking, unrestrained but by the liability for injury to others, and that of a full participation in all the advantages which flow from the government, the acknowledged property of all, the American citizen derives from no charter granted from his fellow-man. He claims them because he is himself a man, fashioned by the same Almighty hand as the rest of his species, and entitled to a full share of the blessings with which he has endowed them.

Notwithstanding the limited sovereignty possessed by the people of the United States, and the restricted grant of power to the government which they have adopted, enough has been given to accomplish all the objects for which it was created. It has been found powerful in war, and, hitherto, justice has been administered, an intimate union effected, domestic tranquillity preserved, and personal liberty secured to the citizen. As was to be expected, however, from the defect of language, and the necessarily sententious manner in which the constitution is written, disputes have arisen as to the amount of power which it has actually granted, or was intended to grant. This is more particularly the case in relation to that part of the

instrument which treats of the legislative branch. And not only as regards the exercise of powers claimed under a general clause, giving that body the authority to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the specified powers, but in relation to the latter also. It is, however, consolatory to reflect that most of the instances of alleged departure from the letter or spirit of the constitution have ultimately received the sanction of a majority of the people. And the fact, that many of our statesmen, most distinguished for talent and patriotism, have been, at one time or other of their political career, on both sides of each of the most warmly disputed questions, forces upon us the inference that the errors, if errors there were, are attributable to the intrinsic difficulty, in many instances, of ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the constitution, rather than the influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive.

But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation, by the government, of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation, in one of the departments, of that which was assigned to others. Limited as are powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism, if concentrated in one of the departments. This danger is greatly heightened, as it has always been observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of one department upon another, than upon their own reserved rights.

When the constitution of the United States first came from the hands of the convention which formed it, many of the sternest republicans of the day were alarmed at the extent of the power which had been granted to the federal government, and more particularly of that portion, which had been assigned to the executive branch. There were in it features which appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative democracy, or republic. And knowing the tendency of power to increase itself, particularly when executed by a single individual, predictions were made that, at no very remote period, the government would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been already realized. But, as I sincerely believe that the tendency of measures, and of men's opinions, for some years past, has been in that direction, it is, I conceive, strictly proper that I should take this occasion to repeat the assurances I have heretofore given, of my determination to arrest the progress of that tendency, if it really exists, and restore the government to its pristine health and vigor, as far as this can be effected by any legitimate exercise of the power placed in my hands.

I proceed to state, in as summary a manner as I can, my opinion of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of, and the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the constitution; others, in my judgment, are attributable to misconstruction of some of its provisions. Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the states to its correction.

As, however, one mode of correction is in the power of every president, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the constitution may have been the source, and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it, if it continues to disfigure our system. It may be observed, however, as a general

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