Citizenship

The man who takes the oath today to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen - on the farm, in the workshop, in the busy marts of trade and everywhere-should share with him. The Constitution which prescribes his [the President's] oath, my countrymen, is yours; the government you have chosen him to administer for a time is yours; the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil policy-municipal, state and federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the republic.

Grover Cleveland