INAUGURAL ADDRESS

OF

H. H. HAIGHT,

Governor of the State of California,

AT THE

Seventeenth Session of the Legislature,

AND

SPECIAL MESSAGE

OF

GOVERNOR H. H. HAIGHT,

OF CALIFORNIA,

DECLINING TO TRANSMIT SENATE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNATORY OF
PRESIDENT JOHNSON.

NEW YORK:

DOUGLAS TAYLOR'S DEMOCRATIC BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE.

Commercial Advertiser Building.

1868.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY $22733

ACTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

R

1915

L

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

FELLOW CITIZENS :

In assuming the office of Chief Magistrate, it becomes my duty, in accordance with usage, to indicate the policy which will govern me in the execution of this great trust.

I should do great injustice to my own feelings, did I not express my grateful sense of the regard and confidence shown me by my fellow-citizens in the late election. Conscious of many deficiencies, and diffi dent of being able always to meet the expectations of the people, I shall promise nothing but a faithful endeavor to promote their interests, and ask nothing in return but confidence in the purity of my motives and

purposes.

Before alluding to matters of local concern, the posture of national affairs renders it proper that I should express frankly certain views upon the great questions of public policy now pending before the country. They have been formed after much anxious reflection, and seem to me worthy of the consideration of all good citizens, without distinction of party. There is nothing which all of us have more at heart than the prosperity and true glory of our country, and the perpetuity of our free institutions; and those questions which relate most nearly to these great objects, demand our first and most earnest attention. It is not to be disguised that we have arrived at a critical period of our country's `history, and that the capacity of the people for maintaining a constitutional government is being subjected to a severer test than ever before.

We ought to approach the consideration of the issues before us with charity for each other's opinions, mindful of our obligations as citizens of a common country; anxious, each and all, to maintain the Federal Constitution inviolate, and to preserve the Federal Union in the spirit of our fathers.

Whatever our party relations may be, our interests are inseparable, and our motives and objects should be identical. Political parties will