clouds should be thrown over it, more especially by excesses on the part of our own citizens.
While our population is advancing with a celerity which exceeds the most sanguine calculations; while every part of the United States displays indications of rapid and various improvement; while we are in the enjoyment of protection and security by mild and wholesome laws, administered by governments founded on the genuine principles of rational liberty, a secure foundation will be laid for accelerating, maturing, and establishing the prosperity of our country if, by treaty and amicable negotiation, all those causes of external discord which heretofore menaced our tranquillity shall be extinguished on terms compatible with our national rights and honor and with our Constitution and great commercial interests.
Among the various circumstances in our internal situation none can be viewed with more satisfaction and exultation than that the late scene of disorder and insurrection has been completely restored to the enjoyment of order and repose. Such a triumph of reason and of law is worthy of the free Government under which it happened, and was justly to be hoped from the enlightened and patriotic spirit which pervades and actuates the people of the United States.
In contemplating that spectacle of national happiness which our country exhibits, and of which you, sir, have been pleased to make an interesting summary, permit us to acknowledge and declare the very great share which your zealous and faithful services have contributed to it, and to express the affectionate attachment which we feel for your character.
The several interesting subjects which you recommend to our consideration will receive every degree of attention which is due to them; and whilst we feel the obligation of temperance and mutual indulgence in all our discussions, we trust and pray that the result to the happiness and welfare of our country may correspond with the pure affection we bear to it.
DECEMBER 16, 1795.
REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.
GENTLEMEN: Coming as you do from all parts of the United States, I receive great satisfaction from the concurrence of your testimony in the justness of the interesting summary of our national happiness which, as the result of my inquiries, I presented to your view. The sentiments we have mutually expressed of profound gratitude to the source of those numerous blessings, the Author of all Good, are pledges of our obligations to unite our sincere and zealous endeavors, as the instruments of Divine Providence, to preserve and perpetuate them.
Accept, gentlemen, my thanks for your declaration that to my agency you ascribe the enjoyment of a great share of these benefits. So far as my services contribute to the happiness of my country, the acknowledgment thereof by my fellow-citizens and their affectionate attachment will ever prove an abundant reward.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
DECEMBER 17, 1795.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
UNITED STATES, _December 9, 1795_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
I lay before you, for your consideration, a treaty of peace which has been negotiated by General Wayne, on behalf of the United States, with all the late hostile tribes of Indians northwest of the river Ohio, together with the instructions which were given to General Wayne and the proceedings at the place of treaty.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _December 21, 1795_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
Herewith I transmit, for your information and consideration, the original letter from the Emperor of Morocco, recognizing the treaty of peace and friendship between the United States and his father, the late Emperor, accompanied with a translation thereof, and various documents relating to the negotiation by which the recognition was effected.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _January 4, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
A letter from the minister plenipotentiary of the French Republic, received on the 22d of the last month, covered an address, dated the 21st of October, 1794, from the committee of public safety to the Representatives of the United States in Congress, and also informed me that he was instructed by the committee to present to the United States the colors of France. I thereupon proposed to receive them last Friday, the first day of the new year, a day of general joy and congratulation. On that day the minister of the French Republic delivered the colors, with an address, to which I returned an answer. By the latter Congress will see that I have informed the minister that the colors will be deposited with the archives of the United States. But it seemed to me proper previously to exhibit to the two Houses of Congress these evidences of the continued friendship of the French Republic, together with the sentiments expressed by me on the occasion in behalf of the United States. They are herewith communicated.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _January 8, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
I transmit to you a memorial of the commissioners appointed by virtue of an act entitled “An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States,” on the subject of the public buildings under their direction.
Since locating a district for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States, as heretofore announced to both Houses of Congress, I have accepted the grants of money and of land stated in the memorial of the commissioners. I have directed the buildings therein mentioned to be commenced on plans which I deemed consistent with the liberality of the grants and proper for the purposes intended.
I have not been inattentive to this important business intrusted by the Legislature to my care. I have viewed the resources placed in my hands, and observed the manner in which they have been applied. The progress is pretty fully detailed in the memorial from the commissioners, and one of them attends to give further information if required. In a case new and arduous, like the present, difficulties might naturally be expected. Some have occurred, but they are in a great degree surmounted, and I have no doubt, if the remaining resources are properly cherished, so as to prevent the loss of property by hasty and numerous sales, that all the buildings required for the accommodation of the Government of the United States may be completed in season without aid from the Federal Treasury. The subject is therefore recommended to the consideration of Congress, and the result will determine the measures which I shall cause to be pursued with respect to the property remaining unsold.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _January 29, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
I send herewith for the information of Congress:
First. An act of the legislature of the State of Rhode Island, ratifying an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prevent suits in certain cases against a State.
Second. An act of the State of North Carolina making the like ratification.
Third. An act of the State of North Carolina, assenting to the purchase by the United States of a sufficient quantity of land on Shell Castle Island for the purpose of erecting a beacon thereon, and ceding the jurisdiction thereof to the United States.
Fourth. A copy from the journal of proceedings of the governor in his executive department of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio from July 1 to December 31, 1794.
Fifth. A copy from the records of the executive proceedings of the same governor from January 1 to June 30, 1795; and
Sixth and seventh. A copy of the journal of the proceedings of the governor in his executive department of the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio from September 1, 1794, to September 1, 1795.
Eighth. The acts of the first and second sessions of the general assembly of the same territory.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _January 29, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
In pursuance of the authority vested in the President of the United States by an act of Congress passed the 3d of March last, to reduce the weights of the copper coin of the United States whenever he should think it for the benefit of the United States, provided that the reduction should not exceed 2 pennyweights in each cent, and in the like proportion in a half cent, I have caused the same to be reduced since the 27th of last December, to wit, 1 pennyweight and 16 grains in each cent, and in the like proportion in a half cent; and I have given notice thereof by proclamation.
By the letter of the judges of the circuit court of the United States, held at Boston in June last, and the inclosed application of the underkeeper of the jail at that place, of which copies are herewith transmitted, Congress will perceive the necessity of making a suitable provision for the maintenance of prisoners committed to the jails of the several States under the authority of the United States.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _February 2, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith the copy of a letter, dated the 19th of December last, from Governor Blount to the Secretary of War, stating the avowed and daring designs of certain persons to take possession of the lands belonging to the Cherokees, and which the United States have by treaty solemnly guaranteed to that nation. The injustice of such intrusions and the mischievous consequences which must necessarily result therefrom demand that effectual provision be made to prevent them.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _February 15, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
Herewith I transmit, for your consideration and advice, a treaty of peace and amity, concluded on the 5th day of last September by Joseph Donaldson, Jr., on the part of the United States, with the Dey of Algiers, for himself, his Divan, and his subjects.
The instructions and other necessary papers relative to this negotiation are also sent herewith, for the information of the Senate.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _February 26, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
I send herewith the treaty concluded on the 27th of October last between the United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries.
The communications to the Senate referred to in my message of the 16th of December, 1793, contain the instructions to the commissioners of the United States, Messrs. Carmichael and Short, and various details relative to the negotiations with Spain. Herewith I transmit copies of the documents authorizing Mr. Pinckney, the envoy extraordinary from the United States to the Court of Spain, to conclude the negotiation agreeably to the original instructions above mentioned, and to adjust the claims of the United States for the spoliations committed by the armed vessels of His Catholic Majesty on the commerce of our citizens.
The numerous papers exhibiting the progress of the negotiation under the conduct of Mr. Pinckney, being in the French and Spanish languages, will be communicated to the Senate as soon as the translations which appear necessary shall be completed.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 1, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation concluded between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty having been duly ratified, and the ratifications having been exchanged at London on the 28th day of October, 1795, I have directed the same to be promulgated, and herewith transmit a copy thereof for the information of Congress.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 8, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
I send herewith, for the information of Congress, the treaty concluded between the United States and the Dey and Regency of Algiers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 15, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
By the ninth section of the act entitled “An act to provide a naval armament” it is enacted “that if a peace shall take place between the United States and the Regency of Algiers, that no further proceedings be had under this act.”
The peace which is here contemplated having taken place, it is incumbent upon the Executive to suspend all orders respecting the building of the frigates, procuring materials for them, or preparing materials already obtained, which may be done without intrenching upon contracts or agreements made and entered into before this event.
But inasmuch as the loss which the public would incur might be considerable from dissipation of workmen, from certain works or operations being suddenly dropped or left unfinished, and from the derangement in the whole system consequent upon an immediate suspension of all proceedings under it, I have therefore thought advisable, before taking such a step, to submit the subject to the Senate and House of Representatives, that such measures may be adopted in the premises as may best comport with the public interest.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 25, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
I send herewith, for your information, the translation of a letter from the minister plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Secretary of State, announcing the peace made by the Republic with the Kings of Prussia and Spain, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and that the republican constitution decreed by the National Convention had been accepted by the people of France and was in operation. I also send you a copy of the answer given by my direction to this communication from the French minister. My sentiments therein expressed I am persuaded will harmonize with yours and with those of all my fellow-citizens.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 29, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:
I send herewith a copy of the treaty of friendship, limits, and navigation, concluded on the 27th of October last, between the United States and His Catholic Majesty. This treaty has been ratified by me agreeably to the Constitution, and the ratification has been dispatched for Spain, where it will doubtless be immediately ratified by His Catholic Majesty.
This early communication of the treaty with Spain has become necessary because it is stipulated in the third article that commissioners for running the boundary line between the territory of the United States and the Spanish colonies of East and West Florida shall meet at the Natchez before the expiration of six months from the ratification; and as that period will undoubtedly arrive before the next meeting of Congress, the House will see the necessity of making provision in their present session for the object here mentioned. It will also be necessary to provide for the expense to be incurred in executing the twenty-first article of the treaty, to enable our fellow-citizens to obtain with as little delay as possible compensation for the losses they have sustained by the capture of their vessels and cargoes by the subjects of His Catholic Majesty during the late war between France and Spain.
Estimates of the moneys necessary to be provided for the purposes of this and several other treaties with foreign nations and the Indian tribes will be laid before you by the proper Department.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 30, 1796_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
With the utmost attention I have considered your resolution of the 24th instant, requesting me to lay before your House a copy of the instructions to the minister of the United States who negotiated the treaty with the King of Great Britain, together with the correspondence and other documents relative to that treaty, excepting such of the said papers as any existing negotiation may render improper to be disclosed.
In deliberating upon this subject it was impossible for me to lose sight of the principle which some have avowed in its discussion, or to avoid extending my views to the consequences which must flow from the admission of that principle.
I trust that no part of my conduct has ever indicated a disposition to withhold any information which the Constitution has enjoined upon the President as a duty to give, or which could be required of him by either House of Congress as a right; and with truth I affirm that it has been, as it will continue to be while I have the honor to preside in the Government, my constant endeavor to harmonize with the other branches thereof so far as the trust delegated to me by the people of the United States and my sense of the obligation it imposes to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution” will permit.
The nature of foreign negotiations requires caution, and their success must often depend on secrecy; and even when brought to a conclusion a full disclosure of all the measures, demands, or eventual concessions which may have been proposed or contemplated would be extremely impolitic; for this might have a pernicious influence on future negotiations, or produce immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and mischief, in relation to other powers. The necessity of such caution and secrecy was one cogent reason for vesting the power of making treaties in the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, the principle on which that body was formed confining it to a small number of members. To admit, then, a right in the House of Representatives to demand and to have as a matter of course all the papers respecting a negotiation with a foreign power would be to establish a dangerous precedent.
It does not occur that the inspection of the papers asked for can be relative to any purpose under the cognizance of the House of Representatives, except that of an impeachment, which the resolution has not expressed. I repeat that I have no disposition to withhold any information which the duty of my station will permit or the public good shall require to be disclosed; and, in fact, all the papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain were, laid before the Senate when the treaty itself was communicated for their consideration and advice.
The course which the debate has taken on the resolution of the House leads to some observations on the mode of making treaties under the Constitution of the United States.
Having been a member of the General Convention, and knowing the principles on which the Constitution was formed, I have ever entertained but one opinion on this subject; and from the first establishment of the Government to this moment my conduct has exemplified that opinion–that the power of making treaties is exclusively vested in the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and that every treaty so made and promulgated thenceforward became the law of the land. It is thus that the treaty-making power has been understood by foreign nations, and in all the treaties made with them _we_ have declared and _they_ have believed that, when ratified by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, they became obligatory. In this construction of the Constitution every House of Representatives has heretofore acquiesced, and until the present time not a doubt or suspicion has appeared, to my knowledge, that this construction was not the true one. Nay, they have more than acquiesced; for till now, without controverting the obligation of such treaties, they have made all the requisite provisions for carrying them into effect.
There is also reason to believe that this construction agrees with the opinions entertained by the State conventions when they were deliberating on the Constitution, especially by those who objected to it because there was not required in _commercial treaties_ the consent of two-thirds of the whole number of the members of the Senate instead of two-thirds of the Senators present, and because in treaties respecting territorial and certain other rights and claims the concurrence of three-fourths of the whole number of the members of both Houses, respectively, was not made necessary.
It is a fact declared by the General Convention and universally understood that the Constitution of the United States was the result of a spirit of amity and mutual concession; and it is well known that under this influence the smaller States were admitted to an equal representation in the Senate with the larger States, and that this branch of the Government was invested with great powers, for on the equal participation of those powers the sovereignty and political safety of the smaller States were deemed essentially to depend.
If other proofs than these and the plain letter of the Constitution itself be necessary to ascertain the point under consideration, they may be found in the journals of the General Convention, which I have deposited in the office of the Department of State. In those journals it will appear that a proposition was made “that no treaty should be binding on the United States which was not ratified by a law,” and that the proposition was explicitly rejected.
As, therefore, it is perfectly clear to my understanding that the assent of the House of Representatives is not necessary to the validity of a treaty; as the treaty with Great Britain exhibits in itself all the objects requiring legislative provision, and on these the papers called for can throw no light, and as it is essential to the due administration of the Government that the boundaries fixed by the Constitution between the different departments should be preserved, a just regard to the Constitution and to the duty of my office, under all the circumstances of this case, forbids a compliance with your request.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 31, 1776_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and Great Britain requiring that commissioners should be appointed to fix certain boundaries between the territories of the contracting parties, and to ascertain the losses and damages represented to have been sustained by their respective citizens and subjects, as set forth in the fifth, sixth, and seventh articles of the treaty, in order to carry those articles into execution I nominate as commissioners on the part of the United States:
For the purpose mentioned in the fifth article, Henry Knox, of Massachusetts;
For the purpose mentioned in the sixth article, Thomas Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania, and James Innes, of Virginia; and
For the purposes mentioned in the seventh article, Christopher Gore, of Massachusetts, and William Pinckney, of Maryland.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _April 8, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
By an act of Congress passed on the 26th of May, 1790, it was declared that the inhabitants of the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio should enjoy all the privileges, benefits, and advantages set forth in the ordinance of Congress for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, and that the government of the said territory south of the Ohio should be similar to that which was then exercised in the territory northwest of the Ohio, except so far as was otherwise provided in the conditions expressed in an act of Congress passed the 2d of April, 1790, entitled “An act to accept a cession of the claims of the State of North Carolina to a certain district of western territory.”
Among the privileges, benefits, and advantages thus secured to the inhabitants of the territory south of the river Ohio appear to be the right of forming a permanent constitution and State government, and of admission as a State, by its Delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, when it should have therein 60,000 free inhabitants; provided the constitution and government so to be formed should be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in the articles of the said ordinance.
As proofs of the several requisites to entitle the territory south of the river Ohio to be admitted as a State into the Union, Governor Blount has transmitted a return of the enumeration of its inhabitants and a printed copy of the constitution and form of government on which they have agreed, which, with his letters accompanying the same, are herewith laid before Congress.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _April 28, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
Herewith I lay before you a letter from the Attorney-General of the United States, relative to compensation to the attorneys of the United States in the several districts, which is recommended to your consideration.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _May 2, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
Some time last year Jeremiah Wadsworth was authorized to hold a treaty with the Cohnawaga Indians, styling themselves the Seven Nations of Canada, to enable the State of New York to extinguish, by purchase, a claim which the said Indians had set up to a parcel of land lying within that State. The negotiation having issued without effecting its object, and the State of New York having requested a renewal of the negotiation, and the Indians having come forward with an application on the same subject, I now nominate Jeremiah Wadsworth to be a commissioner to hold a treaty with the Cohnawaga Indians, styling themselves the Seven Nations of Canada, for the purpose of enabling the State of New York to extinguish the aforesaid claim.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _May 5, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
I lay before you, for your consideration and advice, an explanatory article proposed to be added to the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and Great Britain, together with a copy of the full power to the Secretary of State to negotiate the same.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _May 25, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
The measures now in operation for taking possession of the posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac render it proper that provision should be made for extending to these places and any others alike circumstanced the civil authority of the Northwestern Territory. To do this will require an expense to defray which the ordinary salaries of the governor and secretary of that Territory appear to be incompetent.
The forming of a new county, or new counties, and the appointment of the various officers, which the just exercise of government must require, will oblige the governor and secretary to visit those places, and to spend considerable time in making the arrangements necessary for introducing and establishing the Government of the United States. Congress will consider what provision will in this case be proper.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _May 28, 1796_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
The extraordinary expenses to be incurred in the present year in supporting our foreign intercourse I find will require a provision beyond the ordinary appropriation and the additional $20,000 already granted.
I have directed an estimate to be made, which is sent herewith, and will exhibit the deficiency for which an appropriation appears to be necessary.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
EIGHTH ANNUAL ADDRESS.
UNITED STATES, _December 7, 1796_.
_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
In recurring to the internal situation of our country since I had last the pleasure to address you, I find ample reason for a renewed expression of that gratitude to the Ruler of the Universe which a continued series of prosperity has so often and so justly called forth.
The acts of the last session which required special arrangements have been as far as circumstances would admit carried into operation.
Measures calculated to insure a continuance of the friendship of the Indians and to preserve peace along the extent of our interior frontier have been digested and adopted. In the framing of these care has been taken to guard on the one hand our advanced settlements from the predatory incursions of those unruly individuals who can not be restrained by their tribes, and on the other hand to protect the rights secured to the Indians by treaty–to draw them nearer to the civilized state and inspire them with correct conceptions of the power as well as justice of the Government.
The meeting of the deputies from the Creek Nation at Colerain, in the State of Georgia, which had for a principal object the purchase of a parcel of their land by that State, broke up without its being accomplished, the nation having previous to their departure instructed them against making any sale. The occasion, however, has been improved to confirm by a new treaty with the Creeks their preexisting engagements with the United States, and to obtain their consent to the establishment of trading houses and military posts within their boundary, by means of which their friendship and the general peace may be more effectually secured.
The period during the late session at which the appropriation was passed for carrying into effect the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and His Britannic Majesty necessarily procrastinated the reception of the posts stipulated to be delivered beyond the date assigned for that event. As soon, however, as the Governor-General of Canada could be addressed with propriety on the subject, arrangements were cordially and promptly concluded for their evacuation, and the United States took possession of the principal of them, comprehending Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Fort Miami, where such repairs and additions have been ordered to be made as appeared indispensable.
The commissioners appointed on the part of the United States and of Great Britain to determine which is the river St. Croix mentioned in the treaty of peace of 1783, agreed in the choice of Egbert Benson, esq., of New York, for the third commissioner. The whole met at St. Andrews, in Passamaquoddy Bay, in the beginning of October, and directed surveys to be made of the rivers in dispute; but deeming it impracticable to have these surveys completed before the next year, they adjourned to meet at Boston in August, 1797, for the final decision of the question.
Other commissioners appointed on the part of the United States, agreeably to the seventh article of the treaty with Great Britain, relative to captures and condemnation of vessels and other property, met the commissioners of His Britannic Majesty in London in August last, when John Trumbull, esq., was chosen by lot for the fifth commissioner. In October following the board were to proceed to business. As yet there has been no communication of commissioners on the part of Great Britain to unite with those who have been appointed on the part of the United States for carrying into effect the sixth article of the treaty.
The treaty with Spain required that the commissioners for running the boundary line between the territory of the United States and His Catholic Majesty’s provinces of East and West Florida should meet at the Natchez before the expiration of six months after the exchange of the ratifications, which was effected at Aranjuez on the 25th day of April; and the troops of His Catholic Majesty occupying any posts within the limits of the United States were within the same period to be withdrawn. The commissioner of the United States therefore commenced his journey for the Natchez in September, and troops were ordered to occupy the posts from which the Spanish garrisons should be withdrawn. Information has been recently received of the appointment of a commissioner on the part of His Catholic Majesty for running the boundary line, but none of any appointment for the adjustment of the claims of our citizens whose vessels were captured by the armed vessels of Spain.
In pursuance of the act of Congress passed in the last session for the protection and relief of American seamen, agents were appointed, one to reside in Great Britain and the other in the West Indies. The effects of the agency in the West Indies are not yet fully ascertained, but those which have been communicated afford grounds to believe the measure will be beneficial. The agent destined to reside in Great Britain declining to accept the appointment, the business has consequently devolved on the minister of the United States in London, and will command his attention until a new agent shall be appointed.
After many delays and disappointments arising out of the European war, the final arrangements for fulfilling the engagements made to the Dey and Regency of Algiers will in all present appearance be crowned with success, but under great, though inevitable, disadvantages in the pecuniary transactions occasioned by that war, which will render further provision necessary. The actual liberation of all our citizens who were prisoners in Algiers, while it gratifies every feeling heart, is itself an earnest of a satisfactory termination of the whole negotiation. Measures are in operation for effecting treaties with the Regencies of Tunis and Tripoli.
To an active external commerce the protection of a naval force is indispensable. This is manifest with regard to wars in which a State is itself a party. But besides this, it is in our own experience that the most sincere neutrality is not a sufficient guard against the depredations of nations at war. To secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval force organized and ready to vindicate it from insult or aggression. This may even prevent the necessity of going to war by discouraging belligerent powers from committing such violations of the rights of the neutral party as may, first or last, leave no other option. From the best information I have been able to obtain it would seem as if our trade to the Mediterranean without a protecting force will always be insecure and our citizens exposed to the calamities from which numbers of them have but just been relieved.
These considerations invite the United States to look to the means, and to set about the gradual creation of a navy. The increasing progress of their navigation promises them at no distant period the requisite supply of seamen, and their means in other respects favor the undertaking. It is an encouragement, likewise, that their particular situation will give weight and influence to a moderate naval force in their hands. Will it not, then, be advisable to begin without delay to provide and lay up the materials for the building and equipping of ships of war, and to proceed in the work by degrees, in proportion as our resources shall render it practicable without inconvenience, so that a future war of Europe may not find our commerce in the same unprotected state in which it was found by the present?
Congress have repeatedly, and not without success, directed their attention to the encouragement of manufactures. The object is of too much consequence not to insure a continuance of their efforts in every way which shall appear eligible. As a general rule, manufactures on public account are inexpedient; but where the state of things in a country leaves little hope that certain branches of manufacture will for a great length of time obtain, when these are of a nature essential to the furnishing and equipping of the public force in time of war, are not establishments for procuring them on public account to the extent of the ordinary demand for the public service recommended by strong considerations of national policy as an exception to the general rule? Ought our country to remain in such cases dependent on foreign supply, precarious because liable to be interrupted? If the necessary article should in this mode cost more in time of peace, will not the security and independence thence arising form an ample compensation? Establishments of this sort, commensurate only with the calls of the public service in time of peace, will in time of war easily be extended in proportion to the exigencies of the Government, and may even perhaps be made to yield a surplus for the supply of our citizens at large, so as to mitigate the privations from the interruption of their trade. If adopted, the plan ought to exclude all those branches which are already, or likely soon to be, established in the country, in order that there may be no danger of interference with pursuits of individual industry.
It will not be doubted that with reference either to individual or national welfare agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity this truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage. Institutions for promoting it grow up, supported by the public purse; and to what object can it be dedicated with greater propriety? Among the means which have been employed to this end none have been attended with greater success than the establishment of boards (composed of proper characters) charged with collecting and diffusing information, and enabled by premiums and small pecuniary aids to encourage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvement. This species of establishment contributes doubly to the increase of improvement by stimulating to enterprise and experiment, and by drawing to a common center the results everywhere of individual skill and observation, and spreading them thence over the whole nation. Experience accordingly has shewn that they are very cheap instruments of immense national benefits.
I have heretofore proposed to the consideration of Congress the expediency of establishing a national university and also a military academy. The desirableness of both these institutions has so constantly increased with every new view I have taken of the subject that I can not omit the opportunity of once for all recalling your attention to them.
The assembly to which I address myself is too enlightened not to be fully sensible how much a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation.
True it is that our country, much to its honor, contains many seminaries of learning highly respectable and useful; but the funds upon which they rest are too narrow to command the ablest professors in the different departments of liberal knowledge for the institution contemplated, though they would be excellent auxiliaries.
Amongst the motives to such an institution, the assimilation of the principles, opinions, and manners of our countrymen by the common education of a portion of our youth from every quarter well deserves attention. The more homogeneous our citizens can be made in these particulars the greater will be our prospect of permanent union; and a primary object of such a national institution should be the education of our youth in the science of _government_. In a republic what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?
The institution of a military academy is also recommended by cogent reasons. However pacific the general policy of a nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies. The first would impair the energy of its character, and both would hazard its safety or expose it to greater evils when war could not be avoided; besides that, war might often not depend upon its own choice. In proportion as the observance of pacific maxims might exempt a nation from the necessity of practicing the rules of the military art ought to be its care in preserving and transmitting, by proper establishments, the knowledge of that art. Whatever argument may be drawn from particular examples superficially viewed, a thorough examination of the subject will evince that the art of war is at once comprehensive and complicated, that it demands much previous study, and that the possession of it in its most improved and perfect state is always of great moment to the security of a nation. This, therefore, ought to be a serious care of every government, and for this purpose an academy where a regular course of instruction is given is an obvious expedient which different nations have successfully employed.
The compensations to the officers of the United States in various instances, and in none more than in respect to the most important stations, appear to call for legislative revision. The consequences of a defective provision are of serious import to the Government. If private wealth is to supply the defect of public retribution, it will greatly contract the sphere within which the selection of character for office is to be made, and will proportionally diminish the probability of a choice of men able as well as upright. Besides that, it would be repugnant to the vital principles of our Government virtually to exclude from public trusts talents and virtue unless accompanied by wealth.
While in our external relations some serious inconveniences and embarrassments have been overcome and others lessened, it is with much pain and deep regret I mention that circumstances of a very unwelcome nature have lately occurred. Our trade has suffered and is suffering extensive injuries in the West Indies from the cruisers and agents of the French Republic, and communications have been received from its minister here which indicate the danger of a further disturbance of our commerce by its authority, and which are in other respects far from agreeable.
It has been my constant, sincere, and earnest wish, in conformity with that of our nation, to maintain cordial harmony and a perfectly friendly understanding with that Republic. This wish remains unabated, and I shall persevere in the endeavor to fulfill it to the utmost extent of what shall be consistent with a just and indispensable regard to the rights and honor of our country; nor will I easily cease to cherish the expectation that a spirit of justice, candor, and friendship on the part of the Republic will eventually insure success.
In pursuing this course, however, I can not forget what is due to the character of our Government and nation, or to a full and entire confidence in the good sense, patriotism, self-respect, and fortitude of my countrymen.
I reserve for a special message a more particular communication on this interesting subject.
_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:
I have directed an estimate of the appropriations necessary for the service of the ensuing year to be submitted from the proper Department, with a view of the public receipts and expenditures to the latest period to which an account can be prepared.
It is with satisfaction I am able to inform you that the revenues of the United States continue in a state of progressive improvement.
A reenforcement of the existing provisions for discharging our public debt was mentioned in my address at the opening of the last session. Some preliminary steps were taken toward it, the maturing of which will no doubt engage your zealous attention during the present. I will only add that it will afford me a heartfelt satisfaction to concur in such further measures as will ascertain to our country the prospect of a speedy extinguishment of the debt. Posterity may have cause to regret if from any motive intervals of tranquillity are left unimproved for accelerating this valuable end.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
My solicitude to see the militia of the United States placed on an efficient establishment has been so often and so ardently expressed that I shall but barely recall the subject to your view on the present occasion, at the same time that I shall submit to your inquiry whether our harbors are yet sufficiently secured.
The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced, and I can not omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that His providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual,
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
ADDRESS OF THE SENATE TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
We thank you, sir, for your faithful and detailed exposure of the existing situation of our country, and we sincerely join in sentiments of gratitude to an overruling Providence for the distinguished share of public prosperity and private happiness which the people of the United States so peculiarly enjoy.
We are fully sensible of the advantages that have resulted from the adoption of measures (which you have successfully carried into effect) to preserve peace, cultivate friendship, and promote civilization amongst the Indian tribes on the Western frontiers. Feelings of humanity and the most solid political interests equally encourage the continuance of this system.
We observe with pleasure that the delivery of the military posts lately occupied by the British forces within the territory of the United States was made with cordiality and promptitude as soon as circumstances would admit, and that the other provisions of our treaties with Great Britain and Spain that were objects of eventual arrangement are about being carried into effect with entire harmony and good faith.
The unfortunate but unavoidable difficulties that opposed a timely compliance with the terms of the Algerine treaty are much to be lamented, as they may occasion a temporary suspension of the advantages to be derived from a solid peace with that power and a perfect security from its predatory warfare. At the same time, the lively impressions that affected the public mind on the redemption of our captive fellow-citizens afford the most laudable incentive to our exertions to remove the remaining obstacles.
We perfectly coincide with you in opinion that the importance of our commerce demands a naval force for its protection against foreign insult and depredation, and our solicitude to attain that object will be always proportionate to its magnitude.
The necessity of accelerating the establishment of certain useful manufactures by the intervention of legislative aid and protection and the encouragement due to agriculture by the creation of boards (composed of intelligent individuals) to patronize this primary pursuit of society are subjects which will readily engage our most serious attention.
A national university may be converted to the most useful purposes. The science of legislation being so essentially dependent on the endowments of the mind, the public interests must receive effectual aid from the general diffusion of knowledge, and the United States will assume a more dignified station among the nations of the earth by the successful cultivation of the higher branches of literature.
A military academy may be likewise rendered equally important. To aid and direct the physical force of the nation by cherishing a military spirit, enforcing a proper sense of discipline, and inculcating a scientific system of tactics is consonant to the soundest maxims of public policy. Connected with and supported by such an establishment a well-regulated militia, constituting the natural defense of the country, would prove the most effectual as well as economical preservative of peace.
We can not but consider with serious apprehensions the inadequate compensations of the public officers, especially of those in the more important stations. It is not only a violation of the spirit of a public contract, but is an evil so extensive in its operation and so destructive in its consequences that we trust it will receive the most pointed legislative attention.
We sincerely lament that, whilst the conduct of the United States has been uniformly impressed with the character of equity, moderation, and love of peace in the maintenance of all their foreign relationships, our trade should be so harassed by the cruisers and agents of the Republic of France throughout the extensive departments of the West Indies.
Whilst we are confident that no cause of complaint exists that could authorize an interruption of our tranquillity or disengage that Republic from the bonds of amity, cemented by the faith of treaties, we can not but express our deepest regrets that official communications have been made to you indicating a more serious disturbance of our commerce. Although we cherish the expectation that a sense of justice and a consideration of our mutual interests will moderate their councils, we are not unmindful of the situation in which events may place us, nor unprepared to adopt that system of conduct which, compatible with the dignity of a respectable nation, necessity may compel us to pursue.
We cordially acquiesce in the reflection that the United States, under the operation of the Federal Government, have experienced a most rapid aggrandizement and prosperity as well political as commercial.
Whilst contemplating the causes that produce this auspicious result, we must acknowledge the excellence of the constitutional system and the wisdom of the legislative provisions; but we should be deficient in gratitude and justice did we not attribute a great portion of these advantages to the virtue, firmness, and talents of your Administration, which have been conspicuously displayed in the most trying time and on the most critical occasions. It is therefore with the sincerest regret that we now receive an official notification of your intentions to retire from the public employments of your country.
When we review the various scenes of your public life, so long and so successfully devoted to the most arduous services, civil and military, as well during the struggles of the American Revolution as the convulsive periods of a recent date, we can not look forward to your retirement without our warmest affections and most anxious regards accompanying you, and without mingling with our fellow-citizens at large in the sincerest wishes for your personal happiness that sensibility and attachment can express.
The most effectual consolation that can offer for the loss we are about to sustain arises from the animating reflection that the influence of your example will extend to your successors, and the United States thus continue to enjoy an able, upright, and energetic administration.
JOHN ADAMS,
_Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate_.
DECEMBER 10, 1796.
REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.
GENTLEMEN: It affords me great satisfaction to find in your address a concurrence in sentiment with me on the various topics which I presented for your information and deliberation, and that the latter will receive from you an attention proportioned to their respective importance.
For the notice you take of my public services, civil and military, and your kind wishes for my personal happiness, I beg you to accept my cordial thanks. Those services, and greater had I possessed ability to render them, were due to the unanimous calls of my country, and its approbation is my abundant reward.
When contemplating the period of my retirement, I saw virtuous and enlightened men among whom I relied on the discernment and patriotism of my fellow-citizens to make the proper choice of, a successor–men who would require no influential example to insure to the United States “an able, upright, and energetic administration.” To such men I shall cheerfully yield the palm of genius and talents to serve our common country; but at the same time I hope I may be indulged in expressing the consoling reflection (which consciousness suggests), and to bear it with me to my grave, that none can serve it with purer intentions than I have done or with a more disinterested zeal.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
DECEMBER 12, 1796.
ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
SIR: The House of Representatives have attended to your communication respecting the state of our country with all the sensibility that the contemplation of the subject and a sense of duty can inspire.
We are gratified by the information that measures calculated to insure a continuance of the friendship of the Indians and to maintain the tranquillity of the Western frontier have been adopted, and we indulge the hope that these, by impressing the Indian tribes with more correct conceptions of the justice as well as power of the United States, will be attended with success.
While we notice with satisfaction the steps that you have taken in pursuance of the late treaties with several foreign nations, the liberation of our citizens who were prisoners at Algiers is a subject of peculiar felicitation. We shall cheerfully cooperate in any further measures that shall appear on consideration to be requisite.
We have ever concurred with you in the most sincere and uniform disposition to preserve our neutral relations inviolate, and it is of course with anxiety and deep regret we hear that any interruption of our harmony with the French Republic has occurred, for we feel with you and with our constituents the cordial and unabated wish to maintain a perfectly friendly understanding with that nation. Your endeavors to fulfill that wish, and by all honorable means to preserve peace, and to restore that harmony and affection which have heretofore so happily subsisted between the French Republic and the United States, can not fail, therefore, to interest our attention. And while we participate in the full reliance you have expressed on the patriotism, self-respect, and fortitude of our countrymen, we cherish the pleasing hope that a mutual spirit of justice and moderation will insure the success of your perseverance.
The various subjects of your communication will respectively meet with the attention that is due to their importance.
When we advert to the internal situation of the United States, we deem it equally natural and becoming to compare the present period with that immediately antecedent to the operation of the Government, and to contrast it with the calamities in which the state of war still involves several of the European nations, as the reflections deduced from both tend to justify as well as to excite a warmer admiration of our free Constitution, and to exalt our minds to a more fervent and grateful sense of piety toward Almighty God for the beneficence of His providence, by which its administration has been hitherto so remarkably distinguished. And while we entertain a grateful conviction that your wise, firm, and patriotic Administration has been signally conducive to the success of the present form of government, we can not forbear to express the deep sensations of regret with which we contemplate your intended retirement from office.
As no other suitable occasion may occur, we can not suffer the present to pass without attempting to disclose some of the emotions which it can not fail to awaken.
The gratitude and admiration of your countrymen are still drawn to the recollection of those resplendent virtues and talents which were so eminently instrumental to the achievement of the Revolution, and of which that glorious event will ever be the memorial. Your obedience to the voice of duty and your country when you quitted reluctantly a second time the retreat you had chosen and first accepted the Presidency afforded a new proof of the devotedness of your zeal in its service and an earnest of the patriotism and success which have characterized your Administration. As the grateful confidence of the citizens in the virtues of their Chief Magistrate has essentially contributed to that success, we persuade ourselves that the millions whom we represent participate with us in the anxious solicitude of the present occasion.
Yet we can not be unmindful that your moderation and magnanimity, twice displayed by retiring from your exalted stations, afford examples no less rare and instructive to mankind than valuable to a republic.
Although we are sensible that this event of itself completes the luster of a character already conspicuously unrivaled by the coincidence of virtue, talents, success, and public estimation, yet we conceive we owe it to you, sir, and still more emphatically to ourselves and to our nation (of the language of whose hearts we presume to think ourselves at this moment the faithful interpreters), to express the sentiments with which it is contemplated.
The spectacle of a free and enlightened nation offering, by its Representatives, the tribute of unfeigned approbation to its first citizen, however novel and interesting it may be, derives all its luster (a luster which accident or enthusiasm could not bestow, and which adulation would tarnish) from the transcendent merit of which it is the voluntary testimony.
May you long enjoy that liberty which is so dear to you, and to which your name will ever be so dear. May your own virtues and a nation’s prayers obtain the happiest sunshine for the decline of your days and the choicest of future blessings. For our country’s sake, for the sake of republican liberty, it is our earnest wish that your example may be the guide of your successors, and thus, after being the ornament and safeguard of the present age, become the patrimony of our descendants.
DECEMBER 15, 1796.
REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.
GENTLEMEN: To a citizen whose views were unambitious, who preferred the shade and tranquillity of private life to the splendor and solicitude of elevated stations, and whom the voice of duty and his country could alone have drawn from his chosen retreat, no reward for his public services can be so grateful as public approbation, accompanied by a consciousness that to render those services useful to that country has been his single aim; and when this approbation is expressed by the Representatives of a free and enlightened nation, the reward will admit of no addition. Receive, gentlemen, my sincere and affectionate thanks for this signal testimony that my services have been acceptable and useful to my country. The strong confidence of my fellow-citizens, while it animated all my actions, insured their zealous cooperation, which rendered those services successful. The virtue and wisdom of my successors, joined with the patriotism and intelligence of the citizens who compose the other branches of Government, I firmly trust will lead them to the adoption of measures which, by the beneficence of Providence, will give stability to our system of government, add to its success, and secure to ourselves and to posterity that liberty which is to all of us so dear.
While I acknowledge with pleasure the sincere and uniform disposition of the House of Representatives to preserve our neutral relations inviolate, and with them deeply regret any degree of interruption of our good understanding with the French Republic, I beg you, gentlemen, to rest assured that my endeavors will be earnest and unceasing by all honorable means to preserve peace and to restore that harmony and affection which have heretofore so happily subsisted between our two nations; and with you I cherish the pleasing hope that a mutual spirit of justice and moderation will crown those endeavors with success.
I shall cheerfully concur in the beneficial measures which your deliberations shall mature on the various subjects demanding your attention; and while directing your labors to advance the real interests of our country, you receive its blessings. With perfect sincerity my individual wishes will be offered for your present and future felicity.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
DECEMBER 16, 1796.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
UNITED STATES, _January 4, 1797_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
I lay before you for your consideration a treaty which has been negotiated and concluded on the 29th day of June last by Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, and George Clymer, commissioners on behalf of the United States, with the Creek Indians, together with the instructions which were given to the said commissioners and the proceedings at the place of treaty.
I submit also the proceedings and result of a treaty, held at the city of New York, on behalf of the State of New York, with certain nations or tribes of Indians denominating themselves the Seven Nations of Canada.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _January 9, 1797_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
Herewith I lay before you in confidence reports from the Departments of State and the Treasury, by which you will see the present situation of our affairs with the Dey and Regency of Algiers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _January 19, 1797_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
At the opening of the present session of Congress I mentioned that some circumstances of an unwelcome nature had lately occurred in relation to France; that our trade had suffered, and was suffering, extensive injuries in the West Indies from the cruisers and agents of the French Republic, and that communications had been received from its minister here which indicated danger of a further disturbance of our commerce by its authority, and that were in other respects far from agreeable, but that I reserved for a special message a more particular communication on this interesting subject. This communication I now make.
The complaints of the French minister embraced most of the transactions of our Government in relation to France from an early period of the present war, which, therefore, it was necessary carefully to review. A collection has been formed of letters and papers relating to those transactions, which I now lay before you, with a letter to Mr. Pinckney, our minister at Paris, containing an examination of the notes of the French minister and such information as I thought might be useful to Mr. Pinckney in any further representations he might find necessary to be made to the French Government. The immediate object of his mission was to make to that Government such explanations of the principles and conduct of our own as, by manifesting our good faith, might remove all jealousy and discontent and maintain that harmony and good understanding with the French Republic which it has been my constant solicitude to preserve. A government which required only a knowledge of the _truth_ to justify its measures could not but be anxious to have this fully and frankly displayed.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, _March 2, 1797_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
Application having been made to me to permit a treaty to be held with the Seneca Nation of Indians to effect the purchase of a parcel of their land under a preemption right derived from the State of Massachusetts and situated within the State of New York, and it appearing to me reasonable that such opportunity should be afforded, provided the negotiation shall be conducted at the expense of the applicant, and at the desire and with the consent of the Indians, always considering these as prerequisites, I now nominate Isaac Smith to be a commissioner to hold a treaty with the Seneca Nation for the aforesaid purpose.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
VETO MESSAGE.
UNITED STATES, _February 28, 1797_.
_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:
Having maturely considered the bill to alter and amend an act entitled “An act to ascertain and fix the military establishment of the United States,” which was presented to me on the 22d day of this month, I now return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with my objections:
First. If the bill passes into a law, the two companies of light dragoons will be from that moment _legally_ out of service, though they will afterwards continue _actually_ in service; and for their services during this interval, namely, from the time of _legal_ to the time of _actual_ discharge, it will not be lawful to pay them, unless some future provision be made by law. Though they may be discharged at the pleasure of Congress, in justice they ought to receive their pay, not only to the time of passing the law, but at least to the time of their actual discharge.
Secondly. It will be inconvenient and injurious to the public to dismiss the light dragoons as soon as notice of the law can be conveyed to them, one of the companies having been lately destined to a necessary and important service.
Thirdly. The companies of light dragoons consist of 126 noncommissioned officers and privates, who are bound to serve as dismounted dragoons when ordered so to do. They have received in bounties about $2,000. One of them is completely equipped, and above half of the noncommissioned officers and privates have yet to serve more than one-third of the time of their enlistment; and besides, there will in the course of the year be a considerable deficiency in the complement of infantry intended to be continued. Under these circumstances, to discharge the dragoons does not seem to comport with economy.
Fourthly. It is generally agreed that some cavalry, either militia or regular, will be necessary; and according to the best information I have been able to obtain, it is my opinion that the latter will be less expensive and more useful than the former in preserving peace between the frontier settlers and the Indians, and therefore a part of the military establishment should consist of cavalry.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
PROCLAMATION.
[From Senate Journal, vol. 2, p. 397.]
MARCH 1, 1797.
_To the Vice-President and Senators of the United States, respectively_.
SIR: It appearing to me proper that the Senate of the United States should be convened on Saturday, the 4th of March instant, you are desired to attend in the Chamber of the Senate on that day, at 10 o’clock in the forenoon, to receive any communications which the President of the United States may then lay before you touching their interests.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
FAREWELL ADDRESS.
UNITED STATES, _September 17, 1796_.
_Friends and Fellow-Citizens:_
The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the Executive Government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of and continuance hitherto in the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this previous to the last election had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence impelled me to abandon the idea. I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that in the present circumstances of our country you will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my political life my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me, and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise and as an instructive example in our annals that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead; amidst appearances sometimes dubious; vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging; in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and a guaranty of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution which is the work of your hands may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare which can not end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occasion like the present to offer to your solemn contemplation and to recommend to your frequent review some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget as an encouragement to it your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
The _North_, in an unrestrained intercourse with the _South_, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The _South_, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of the _North_, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the _North_, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes in different ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The _East_, in a like intercourse with the _West_, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The _West_ derives from the _East_ supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the _secure_ enjoyment of indispensable _outlets_ for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as _one nation_. Any other tenure by which the _West_ can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and imbitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by _geographical_ discriminations–_Northern_ and _Southern, Atlantic_ and _Western_–whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views, One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You can not shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head. They have seen in the negotiation by the Executive and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi. They have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties–that with Great Britain and that with Spain–which secure to them everything they could desire in respect to our foreign relations toward confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Toward the preservation of your Government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what can not be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember especially that for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property. I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness–these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation _desert_ the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives; but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that toward the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the Government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.
Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.
So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be _constantly_ awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little _political_ connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached, and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish–that they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good–that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism–this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated.
How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.
In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe my proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice and by that of your representatives in both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined as far as should depend upon me to maintain it with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity toward other nations.
The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.
Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence, and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a