Contents    Prev    Next    Last

President[ Franklin Pierce

         Date[ December 31, 1855

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall assemble

annually on the first Monday of December, and it has been usual for the

President to make no communication of a public character to the Senate and

House of Representatives until advised of their readiness to receive it. I

have deferred to this usage until the close of the first month of the

session, but my convictions of duty will not permit me longer to postpone

the discharge of the obligation enjoined by the Constitution upon the

President "to give to the Congress information of the state of the Union

and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge

necessary and expedient." It is matter of congratulation that the Republic

is tranquilly advancing in a career of prosperity and peace.

Whilst relations of amity continue to exist between the United States and

all foreign powers, with some of them grave questions are depending which

may require the consideration of Congress.

Of such questions, the most important is that which has arisen out of the

negotiations with Great Britain in reference to Central America. By the

convention concluded between the two Governments on the 19th of April,

1850, both parties covenanted that "neither will ever" "occupy, or fortify,

or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua. Costa Rica,

the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America."

It was the undoubted understanding of the United States in making this

treaty that all the present States of the former Republic of Central

America and the entire territory of each would thenceforth enjoy complete

independence, and that both contracting parties engaged equally and to the

same extent, for the present and, for the future, that if either then had

any claim of right in Central America such claim and all occupation or

authority under it were unreservedly relinquished by the stipulations of

the convention, and that no dominion was thereafter to be exercised or

assumed in any part of Central America by Great Britain or the United

States.

This Government consented to restrictions in regard to a region of country

wherein we had specific and peculiar interests only upon the conviction

that the like restrictions were in the same sense obligatory on Great

Britain. But for this understanding of the force and effect of the

convention it would never have been concluded by us.

So clear was this understanding on the part of the United States that in

correspondence contemporaneous with the ratification of the convention it

was distinctly expressed that the mutual covenants of nonoccupation were

not intended to apply to the British establishment at the Balize. This

qualification is to be ascribed to the fact that, in virtue of successive

treaties with previous sovereigns of the country, Great Britain had

obtained a concession of the right to cut mahogany or dyewoods at the

Balize, but with positive exclusion of all domain or sovereignty; and thus

it confirms the natural construction and understood import of the treaty as

to all the rest of the region to which the stipulations applied.

It, however, became apparent at an early day after entering upon the

discharge of my present functions that Great Britain still continued in the

exercise or assertion of large authority in all that part of Central

America commonly called the Mosquito Coast, and covering the entire length

of the State of Nicaragua and a part of Costa Rica; that she regarded the

Balize as her absolute domain and was gradually extending its limits at the

expense of the State of Honduras, and, that she had formally colonized a

considerable insular group known as the Bay Islands, and belonging of right

to that State.

All these acts or pretensions of Great Britain, being contrary to the

rights of the States of Central America and to the manifest tenor of her

stipulations with the United States as understood by this Government, have

been made the subject of negotiation through the American minister in

London. I transmit herewith the instructions to him on the subject and the

correspondence between him and the British secretary for foreign affairs,

by which you will perceive that the two Governments differ widely and

irreconcilably as to the construction of the convention and its effect on

their respective relations to Central America.

Great Britain so construes the convention as to maintain unchanged all her

previous pretensions over the Mosquito Coast and in different parts of

Central America. These pretensions as to the Mosquito Coast are founded on

the assumption of political relation between Great Britain and the remnant

of a tribe of Indians on that coast, entered into at a time when the whole

country was a colonial possession of Spain. It can not be successfully

controverted that by the public law of Europe and America no possible act

of such Indians or their predecessors could confer on Great Britain any

political rights.

Great Britain does not allege the assent of Spain as the origin of her

claims on the Mosquito Coast. She has, on the contrary, by repeated and

successive treaties renounced and relinquished all pretensions of her own

and recognized the full and sovereign rights of Spain in the most

unequivocal terms. Yet these pretensions, so without solid foundation in

the beginning and thus repeatedly abjured, were at a recent period revived

by Great Britain against the Central American States, the legitimate

successors to all the ancient jurisdiction of Spain in that region. They

were first applied only to a defined part of the coast of Nicaragua,

afterwards to the whole of its Atlantic coast, and lastly to a part of the

coast of Costa Rica, and they are now reasserted to this extent

notwithstanding engagements to the United States.

On the eastern coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica the interference of Great

Britain, though exerted at one time in the form of military occupation of

the port of San Juan del Norte, then in the peaceful possession of the

appropriate authorities of the Central American States, is now presented by

her as the rightful exercise of a protectorship over the Mosquito tribe of

Indians.

But the establishment at the Balize, now reaching far beyond its treaty

limits into the State of Honduras, and that of the Bay Islands,

appertaining of right to the same State, are as distinctly colonial

governments as those of Jamaica or Canada, and therefore contrary to the

very letter, as well as the spirit, of the convention with the United

States as it was at the time of ratification and now is understood by this

Government.

The interpretation which the British Government thus, in assertion and act,

persists in ascribing to the convention entirely changes its character.

While it holds us to all our obligations, it in a great measure releases

Great Britain from those which constituted the consideration of this

Government for entering into the convention. It is impossible, in my

judgment, for the United States to acquiesce in such a construction of the

respective relations of the two Governments to Central America.

To a renewed call by this Government upon Great Britain to abide by and

Carry into effect the stipulations of the convention according to its

obvious import by withdrawing from the possession or colonization of

portions of the Central American States of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa

Rica, the British Government has at length replied, affirming that the

operation of the treaty is prospective only and did not require Great

Britain to abandon or contract any possessions held by her in Central

America at the date of its conclusion.

This reply substitutes a partial issue in the place of the general one

presented by the United States. The British Government passes over the

question of the rights of Great Britain, real or supposed, in Central

America, and assumes that she had such rights at the date of the treaty and

that those rights comprehended the protectorship of the Mosquito Indians,

the extended jurisdiction and limits of the Balize, and the colony of the

Bay Islands, and thereupon proceeds by implication to infer that if the

stipulations of the treaty be merely future in effect Great Britain may

still continue to hold the contested portions of Central America. The

United States can not admit either the inference or the premises. We

steadily deny that at the date of the treaty Great Britain had any

possessions there other than the limited and peculiar establishment at the

Balize, and maintain that if she had any they were surrendered by the

convention.

This Government, recognizing the obligations of the treaty, has, of course,

desired to see it executed in good faith by both parties, and in the

discussion, therefore, has not looked to rights which we might assert

independently of the treaty in consideration of our geographical position

and of other circumstances which create for us relations to the Central

American States different from those of any government of Europe. The

British Government, in its last communication, although well knowing the

views of the United States, still declares that it sees no reason why a

conciliatory spirit may not enable the two Governments to overcome all

obstacles to a satisfactory adjustment of the subject.

Assured of the correctness of the construction of the treaty constantly

adhered to by this Government and resolved to insist on the rights of the

United States, yet actuated also by the same desire which is avowed by the

British Government, to remove all causes of serious misunderstanding

between two nations associated by so many ties of interest and kindred, it

has appeared to me proper not to consider an amicable solution of the

controversy hopeless.

There is, however, reason to apprehend that with Great Britain in the

actual occupation of the disputed territories, and the treaty therefore

practically null so far as regards our rights, this international

difficulty can not long remain undetermined without involving in serious

danger the friendly relations which it is the interest as well as the duty

of both countries to cherish and preserve. It will afford me sincere

gratification if future efforts shall result in the success anticipated

heretofore with more confidence than the aspect of the case permits me now

to entertain.

One other subject of discussion between the United States and Great Britain

has grown out of the attempt, which the exigencies of the war in which she

is engaged with Russia induced her to make, to draw recruits from the

United States.

It is the traditional and settled policy of the United States to maintain

impartial neutrality during the wars which from time to time occur among

the great powers of the world. Performing all the duties of neutrality

toward the respective belligerent states, we may reasonably expect them not

to interfere with our lawful enjoyment of its benefits. Notwithstanding the

existence of such hostilities, our citizens retained the individual right

to continue all their accustomed pursuits, by land or by sea, at home or

abroad, subject only to such restrictions in this relation as the laws of

war, the usage of nations, or special treaties may impose; and it is our

sovereign right that our territory and jurisdiction shall not be invaded by

either of the belligerent parties for the transit of their armies, the

operations of their fleets, the levy of troops for their service, the

fitting out of cruisers by or against either, or any other act or incident

of war. And these undeniable rights of neutrality, individual and national,

the United States will under no circumstances surrender.

In pursuance of this policy, the laws of the United States do not forbid

their citizens to sell to either of the belligerent powers articles

contraband of war or take munitions of war or soldiers on board their

private ships for transportation; and although in so doing the individual

citizen exposes his property or person to some of the hazards of war, his

acts do not involve any breach of national neutrality nor of themselves

implicate the Government. Thus, during the progress of the present war in

Europe, our citizens have, without national responsibility therefor, sold

gunpowder and arms to all buyers, regardless of the destination of those

articles. Our merchantmen have been, and still continue to be, largely

employed by Great Britain and by France in transporting troops, provisions,

and munitions of war to the principal seat of military operations and in

bringing home their sick and wounded soldiers; but such use of our

mercantile marine is not interdicted either by the international or by our

municipal law, and therefore does not compromise our neutral relations with

Russia. But our municipal law, in accordance with the law of nations,

peremptorily forbids not only foreigners, but our own citizens, to fit out

within the United States a vessel to commit hostilities against any state

with which the United States are at peace, or to increase the force of any

foreign armed vessel intended for such hostilities against a friendly

state.

Whatever concern may have been felt by either of the belligerent powers

lest private armed cruisers or other vessels in the service of one might be

fitted out in the ports of this country to depredate on the property of the

other, all such fears have proved to be utterly groundless. Our citizens

have been withheld from any such act or purpose by good faith and by

respect for the law.

While the laws of the Union are thus peremptory in their prohibition of the

equipment or armament of belligerent cruisers in our ports, they provide

not less absolutely that no person shall, within the territory or

jurisdiction of the United States, enlist or enter himself, or hire or

retain another person to enlist or enter himself, or to go beyond the

limits or jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be enlisted or

entered, in the service of any foreign state, either as a soldier or as a

marine or seaman on board of any vessel of war, letter of marque, or

privateer. And these enactments are also in strict conformity with the law

of nations, which declares that no state has the right to raise troops for

land or sea service in another state without its consent, and that, whether

forbidden by the municipal law or not, the very attempt to do it without

such consent is an attack on the national sovereignty.

Such being the public rights and the municipal law of the United States, no

solicitude on the subject was entertained by this Government when, a year

since, the British Parliament passed an act to provide for the enlistment

of foreigners in the military service of Great Britain. Nothing on the face

of the act or in its public history indicated that the British Government

proposed to attempt recruitment in the United States, nor did it ever give

intimation of such intention to this Government. It was matter of surprise,

therefore, to find subsequently that the engagement of persons within the

United States to proceed to Halifax, in the British Province of Nova

Scotia, and there enlist in the service of Great Britain, was going on

extensively, with little or no disguise. Ordinary legal steps were

immediately taken to arrest and punish parties concerned, and so put an end

to acts infringing the municipal law and derogatory to our sovereignty.

Meanwhile suitable representations on the subject were addressed to the

British Government.

Thereupon it became known, by the admission of the British Government

itself, that the attempt to draw recruits from this country originated with

it, or at least had its approval and sanction; but it also appeared that

the public agents engaged in it had "stringent instructions" not to violate

the municipal law of the United States.

It is difficult to understand how it should have been supposed that troops

could be raised here by Great Britain without violation of the municipal

law. The unmistakable object of the law was to prevent every such act which

if performed must be either in violation of the law or in studied evasion

of it, and in either alternative the act done would be alike injurious to

the sovereignty of the United States. In the meantime the matter acquired

additional importance by the recruitments in the United States not being

discontinued, and the disclosure of the fact that they were prosecuted upon

a systematic plan devised by official authority; that recruiting rendezvous

had been opened in our principal cities and depots for the reception of

recruits established on our frontier, and the whole business conducted

under the supervision and by the regular cooperation of British officers,

civil and military, some in the North American Provinces and some in the

United States. The complicity of those officers in an undertaking which

could only be accomplished by defying our laws, throwing suspicion over our

attitude of neutrality, and disregarding our territorial rights is

conclusively proved by the evidence elicited on the trial of such of their

agents as have been apprehended and convicted. Some of the officers thus

implicated are of high official position, and many of them beyond our

jurisdiction, so that legal proceedings could not reach the source of the

mischief.

These considerations, and the fact that the cause of complaint was not a

mere casual occurrence, trot a deliberate design, entered upon with full

knowledge of our laws and national policy and conducted by responsible

public functionaries, impelled me to present the case to the British

Government, in order to secure not only a cessation of the, wrong, but its

reparation. The subject is still under discussion, the result of which will

be communicated to you in due time.

I repeat the recommendation submitted to the last Congress, that provision

be made for the appointment of a commissioner, in connection with Great

Britain, to survey and establish the boundary line which divides the

Territory of Washington from the contiguous British possessions. By reason

of the extent and importance of the country in dispute, there has been

imminent danger of collision between the subjects of Great Britain and the

citizens of the United States, including their respective authorities, in

that quarter. The prospect of a speedy arrangement has contributed hitherto

to induce on both sides forbearance to assert by force what each claims as

a right. Continuance of delay on the part of the two Governments to act in

the matter will increase the dangers and difficulties of the controversy.

Misunderstanding exists as to the extent, character, and value of the

possessory rights of the Hudsons Bay Company and the property of the Pugets

Sound Agricultural Company reserved in our treaty with Great Britain

relative to the Territory of Oregon. I have reason to believe that a

cession of the rights of both companies to the United States, which would

be the readiest means of terminating all questions, can be obtained on

reasonable terms, and with a view to this end I present the subject to the

attention of Congress.

The colony of Newfoundland, having enacted the laws required by the treaty

of the 5th of June, 1854, is now placed on the same footing in respect to

commercial intercourse with the United States as the other British North

American Provinces.

The commission which that treaty contemplated, for determining the rights

of fishery in rivers and mouths of rivers on the coasts of the United

States and the British North American Provinces, has been organized, and

has commenced its labors, to complete which there are needed further

appropriations for the service of another season.

In pursuance of the authority conferred by a resolution of the Senate of

the United States passed on the 3d of March last, notice was given to

Denmark on the 14th day of April of the intention of this Government to

avail itself of the stipulation of the subsisting convention of friendship,

commerce, and navigation between that Kingdom and the United States whereby

either party might after ten years terminate the same at the expiration of

one year from the date of notice for that purpose.

The considerations which led me to call the attention of Congress to that

convention and induced the Senate to adopt the resolution referred to still

continue in full force. The convention contains an article which, although

it does not directly engage the United States to submit to the imposition

of tolls on the vessels and cargoes of Americans passing into or from the

Baltic Sea during the continuance of the treaty, yet may by possibility be

construed as implying such submission. The exaction of those tolls not

being justified by any principle of international law, it became the right

and duty of the United States to relieve themselves from the implication of

engagement on the subject, so as to be perfectly free to act in the

premises in such way as their public interests and honor shall demand.

I remain of the opinion that the United States ought not to submit to the

payment of the Sound dues, not so much because of their amount, which is a

secondary matter, but because it is in effect the recognition of the right

of Denmark to treat one of the great maritime highways of nations as a

close sea, and prevent the navigation of it as a privilege, for which

tribute may be imposed upon those who have occasion to use it.

This Government on a former occasion, not unlike the present, signalized

its determination to maintain the freedom of the seas and of the great

natural channels of navigation. The Barbary States had for a long time

coerced the payment of tribute from all nations whose ships frequented the

Mediterranean. To the last demand of such payment made by them the United

States, although suffering less by their depredations than many other

nations, returned the explicit answer that we preferred war to tribute, and

thus opened the way to the relief of the commerce of the world from an

ignominious tax, so long submitted to by the more powerful nations of

Europe.

If the manner of payment of the Sound dues differ from that of the tribute

formerly conceded to the Barbary States, still their exaction by Denmark

has no better foundation in right. Each was in its origin nothing but a tax

on a common natural right, extorted by those who were at that time able to

obstruct the free and secure enjoyment of it, but who no longer possess

that power.

Denmark, while resisting our assertion of the freedom of the Baltic Sound

and Belts, has indicated a readiness to make some new arrangement on the

subject, and has invited the governments interested, including the United

States, to be represented in a convention to assemble for the purpose of

receiving and considering a proposition which she intends to submit for the

capitalization of the Sound dues and the distribution of the sum to be paid

as commutation among the governments according to the respective

proportions of their maritime commerce to and from the Baltic. I have

declined, in behalf of the United States, to accept this invitation, for

the most cogent reasons. One is that Denmark does not offer to submit to

the convention the question of her right to levy the Sound dues. The second

is that if the convention were allowed to take cognizance of that

particular question, still it would not be competent to deal with the great

international principle involved, which affects the right in other cases of

navigation and commercial freedom, as well as that of access to the Baltic.

Above all, by the express terms of the proposition it is contemplated that

the consideration of the Sound dues shall be commingled with and made

subordinate to a matter wholly extraneous--the balance of power among the

Governments of Europe.

While, however, rejecting this proposition and insisting on the right of

free transit into and from the Baltic, I have expressed to Denmark a

willingness on the part of the United States to share liberally with other

powers in compensating her for any advantages which commerce shall

hereafter derive from expenditures made by her for the improvement and

safety of the navigation of the Sound or Belts.

I lay before you herewith sundry documents on the subject, in which my

views are more fully disclosed. Should no satisfactory arrangement be soon

concluded, I shall again call your attention to the subject, with

recommendation of such measures as may appear to be required in order to

assert and secure the rights of the United States, so far as they are

affected by the pretensions of Denmark.

I announce with much gratification that since the adjournment of the last

Congress the question then existing between this Government and that of

France respecting the French consul at San Francisco has been

satisfactorily determined, and that the relations of the two Governments

continue to be of the most friendly nature.

A question, also, which has been pending for several years between the

United States and the Kingdom of Greece, growing out of the sequestration

by public authorities of that country of property belonging to the present

American consul at Athens, and which had been the subject of very earnest

discussion heretofore, has recently been settled to the satisfaction of the

party interested and of both Governments.

With Spain peaceful relations are still maintained, and some progress has

been made in securing the redress of wrongs complained of by this

Government. Spain has not only disavowed and disapproved the conduct of the

officers who illegally seized and detained the steamer Black Warrior at

Havana, but has also paid the sum claimed as indemnity for the loss thereby

inflicted on citizens of the United States.

In consequence of a destructive hurricane which visited Cuba in 1844, the

supreme authority of that island issued a decree permitting the importation

for the period of six months of certain building materials and provisions

free of duty, but revoked it when about half the period only had elapsed,

to the injury of citizens of the United States who had proceeded to act on

the faith of that decree. The Spanish Government refused indemnification to

the parties aggrieved until recently, when it was assented to, payment

being promised to be made so soon as the amount due can be ascertained.

Satisfaction claimed for the arrest and search of the steamer El Dorado has

not yet been accorded, but there is reason to believe that it will be; and

that case, with others, continues to be urged on the attention of the

Spanish Government. I do not abandon the hope of concluding with Spain some

general arrangement which, if it do not wholly prevent the recurrence of

difficulties in Cuba, will render them less frequent, and, whenever they

shall occur, facilitate their more speedy settlement.

The interposition of this Government has been invoked by many of its

citizens on account of injuries done to their persons and property for

which the Mexican Republic is responsible. The unhappy situation of that

country for some time past has not allowed its Government to give due

consideration to claims of private reparation, and has appeared to call for

and justify some forbearance in such matters on the part of this

Government. But if the revolutionary movements which have lately occurred

in that Republic end in the organization of a stable government, urgent

appeals to its justice will then be made, and, it may be hoped, with

success, for the redress of all complaints of our citizens.

In regard to the American Republics, which from their proximity and other

considerations have peculiar relations to this Government, while it has

been my constant aim strictly to observe all the obligations of political

friendship and of good neighborhood, obstacles to this have arisen in some

of them from their own insufficient power to cheek lawless irruptions,

which in effect throws most of the task on the United States. Thus it is

that the distracted internal condition of the State of Nicaragua has made

it incumbent on me to appeal to the good faith of our citizens to abstain

from unlawful intervention in its affairs and to adopt preventive measures

to the same end, which on a similar occasion had the best results in

reassuring the peace of the Mexican States of Sonora and Lower California.

Since the last session of Congress a treaty of amity, commerce, and

navigation and for the surrender of fugitive criminals with the Kingdom of

the Two Sicilies; a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation with

Nicaragua, and a convention of commercial reciprocity with the Hawaiian

Kingdom have been negotiated. The latter Kingdom and the State of Nicaragua

have also acceded to a declaration recognizing as international rights the

principles contained in the convention between the United States and Russia

of July 22, 1854. These treaties and conventions will be laid before the

Senate for ratification.

The statements made in my last annual message respecting the anticipated

receipts and expenditures of the Treasury have been substantially

verified.

It appears from the report of the Secretary of the Treasury that the

receipts during the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 1855, from all

sources were $65,003,930, and that the public expenditures for the same

period, exclusive of payments on account of the public debt, amounted to

$56,365,393. During the same period the payments made in redemption of the

public debt, including interest and premium, amounted to $9,844,528.

The balance in the Treasury at the beginning of the present fiscal year,

July 1, 1855, was $18,931,976; the receipts for the first quarter and the

estimated receipts for the remaining three quarters amount together to

$67,918,734; thus affording in all, as the available resources of the

current fiscal year, the sum of $86,856,710.

If to the actual expenditures of the first quarter of the current fiscal

year be added the probable expenditures for the remaining three quarters,

as estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury, the sum total will be

$71,226,846, thereby leaving an estimated balance in the Treasury on July

1, 1856, of $15,623,863.41.

In the above-estimated expenditures of the present fiscal year are included

$3,000,000 to meet the last installment of the ten millions provided for in

the late treaty with Mexico and $7,750,000 appropriated on account of the

debt due to Texas, which two sums make an aggregate amount of $10,750,000

and reduce the expenditures, actual or estimated, for ordinary objects of

the year to the sum of $60,476,000.

The amount of the public debt at the commencement of the present fiscal

year was $40,583,631, and, deduction being made of subsequent payments, the

whole public debt of the Federal Government remaining at this time is less

than $40,000,000. The remnant of certain other Government stocks, amounting

to $243,000, referred to in my last message as outstanding, has since been

paid.

I am fully persuaded that it would be difficult to devise a system superior

to that by which the fiscal business of the Government is now conducted.

Notwithstanding the great number of public agents of collection and

disbursement, it is believed that the checks and guards provided, including

the requirement of monthly returns, render it scarcely possible for any

considerable fraud on the part of those agents or neglect involving hazard

of serious public loss to escape detection. I renew, however, the

recommendation heretofore made by me of the enactment of a law declaring it

felony on the part of public officers to insert false entries in their

books of record or account or to make false returns, and also requiring

them on the termination of their service to deliver to their successors all

books, records, and other objects of a public nature in their custody.

Derived, as our public revenue is, in chief part from duties on imports,

its magnitude affords gratifying evidence of the prosperity, not only of

our commerce, but of the other great interests upon which that depends.

The principle that all moneys not required for the current expenses of the

Government should remain for active employment in the hands of the people

and the conspicuous fact that the annual revenue from all sources exceeds

by many millions of dollars the amount needed for a prudent and economical

administration of public affairs can not fail to suggest the propriety of

an early revision and reduction of the tariff of duties on imports. It is

now so generally conceded that the purpose of revenue alone can justify the

imposition of duties on imports that in readjusting the impost tables and

schedules, which unquestionably require essential modifications, a

departure from the principles of the present tariff is not anticipated.

The Army during the past year has been actively engaged in defending the

Indian frontier, the state of the service permitting but few and small

garrisons in our permanent fortifications. The additional regiments

authorized at the last session of Congress have been recruited and

organized, and a large portion of the troops have already been sent to the

field. All the duties which devolve on the military establishment have been

satisfactorily performed, and the dangers and privations incident to the

character of the service required of our troops have furnished additional

evidence of their courage, zeal, and capacity to meet any requisition which

their country may make upon them. For the details of the military

operations, the distribution of the troops, and additional provisions

required for the military service, I refer to the report of the Secretary

of War and the accompanying documents.

Experience gathered from events which have transpired since my last annual

message has but served to confirm the opinion then expressed of the

propriety of making provision by a retired list for disabled officers and

for increased compensation to the officers retained on the list for active

duty. All the reasons which existed when these measures were recommended on

former occasions continue without modification, except so far as

circumstances have given to some of them additional force.

The recommendations heretofore made for a partial reorganization of the

Army are also renewed. The thorough elementary education given to those

officers who commenced their service with the grade of cadet qualifies them

to a considerable extent to perform the duties of every arm of the service;

but to give the highest efficiency to artillery requires the practice and

special study of many years, and it is not, therefore, believed to be

advisable to maintain in time of peace a larger force of that arm than can

be usually employed in the duties appertaining to the service of field and

siege artillery. The duties of the staff in all its various branches belong

to the movements of troops, and the efficiency of an army in the field

would materially depend upon the ability with which those duties are

discharged. It is not, as in the case of the artillery, a specialty, but

requires also an intimate knowledge of the duties of an officer of the

line, and it is not doubted that to complete the education of an officer

for either the line or the general staff it is desirable that he shall have

served in both. With this view, it was recommended on a former occasion

that the duties of the staff should be mainly performed by details from the

line, and, with conviction of the advantages which would result from such a

change, it is again presented for the consideration of Congress.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy, herewith submitted, exhibits in

full the naval operations of the past year, together with the present

condition of the service, and it makes suggestions of further legislation,

to which your attention is invited.

The construction of the six steam frigates for which appropriations were

made by the last Congress has proceeded in the most satisfactory manner and

with such expedition as to warrant the belief that they will be ready for

service early in the coming spring. Important as this addition to our naval

force is, it still remains inadequate to the contingent exigencies of the

protection of the extensive seacoast and vast commercial interests of the

United States. In view of this fact and of the acknowledged wisdom of the

policy of a gradual and systematic increase of the Navy an appropriation is

recommended for the construction of six steam sloops of war.

In regard to the steps taken in execution of the act of Congress to promote

the efficiency of the Navy, it is unnecessary for me to say more than to

express entire concurrence in the observations on that subject presented by

the Secretary in his report.

It will be perceived by the report of the postmaster-General that the gross

expenditure of the Department for the last fiscal year was $9,968,342 and

the gross receipts $7,342,136, making an excess of expenditure over

receipts of $2,626,206; and that the cost of mail transportation during

that year was $674,952 greater than the previous year. Much of the heavy

expenditures to which the Treasury is thus subjected is to be ascribed to

the large quantity of printed matter conveyed by the mails, either franked

or liable to no postage by law or to very low rates of postage compared

with that charged on letters, and to the great cost of mail service on

railroads and by ocean steamers. The suggestions of the Postmaster-General

on the subject deserve the consideration of Congress.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior will engage your attention as

well for useful suggestions it contains as for the interest and importance

of the subjects to which they refer.

The aggregate amount of public land sold during the last fiscal year,

located with military scrip or land warrants, taken up under grants for

roads, and selected as swamp lands by States is 24,557,409 acres, of which

the portion sold was 15,729,524 acres, yielding in receipts the sum of

$11,485,380. In the same period of time 8,723,854 acres have been surveyed,

but, in consideration of the quantity already subject to entry, no

additional tracts have been brought into market.

The peculiar relation of the General Government to the District of Columbia

renders it proper to commend to your care not only its material but also

its moral interests, including education, more especially in those parts of

the District outside of the cities of Washington and Georgetown.

The commissioners appointed to revise and codify the laws of the District

have made such progress in the performance of their task as to insure its

completion in the time prescribed by the act of Congress.

Information has recently been received that the peace of the settlements in

the Territories of Oregon and Washington is disturbed by hostilities on the

part of the Indians, with indications of extensive combinations of a

hostile character among the tribes in that quarter, the more serious in

their possible effect by reason of the undetermined foreign interests

existing in those Territories, to which your attention has already been

especially invited. Efficient measures have been taken, which, it is

believed, will restore quiet and afford protection to our citizens.

In the Territory of Kansas there have been acts prejudicial to good order,

but as yet none have occurred under circumstances to justify the

interposition of the Federal Executive. That could only be in case of

obstruction to Federal law or of organized resistance to Territorial law,

assuming the character of insurrection, which, if it should occur, it would

be my duty promptly to overcome and suppress. I cherish the hope, however,

that the occurrence of any such untoward event will be prevented by the

sound sense of the people of the Territory, who by its organic law,

possessing the right to determine their own domestic institutions, are

entitled while deporting themselves peacefully to the free exercise of that

right, and must be protected in the enjoyment of it without interference on

the part of the citizens of any of the States. The southern boundary line

of this Territory has never been surveyed and established. The rapidly

extending settlements in that region and the fact that the main route

between Independence, in the State of Missouri, and New Mexico is

contiguous in this line suggest the probability that embarrassing questions

of jurisdiction may consequently arise. For these and other considerations

I commend the subject to your early attention.

I have thus passed in review the general state of the Union, including such

particular concerns of the Federal Government, whether of domestic or

foreign relation, as it appeared to me desirable and useful to bring to the

special notice of Congress. Unlike the great States of Europe and Asia and

many of those of America, these United States are wasting their strength

neither in foreign war nor domestic strife. Whatever of discontent or

public dissatisfaction exists is attributable to the imperfections of human

nature or is incident to all governments, however perfect, which human

wisdom can devise. Such subjects of political agitation as occupy the

public mind consist to a great extent of exaggeration of inevitable evils,

or over zeal in social improvement, or mere imagination of grievance,

having but remote connection with any of the constitutional functions or

duties of the Federal Government. To whatever extent these questions

exhibit a tendency menacing to the stability of the Constitution or the

integrity of the Union, and no further, they demand the consideration of

the Executive and require to be presented by him to Congress.

Before the thirteen colonies became a confederation of independent States

they were associated only by community of transatlantic origin, by

geographical position, and by the mutual tie of common dependence on Great

Britain. When that tie was sundered they severally assumed the powers and

rights of absolute self-government. The municipal and social institutions

of each, its laws of property and of personal relation, even its political

organization, were such only as each one chose to establish, wholly without

interference from any other. In the language of the Declaration of

Independence, each State had "full power to levy war, conclude peace,

contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things

which independent states may of right do." The several colonies differed in

climate, in soil, in natural productions, in religion, in systems of

education, in legislation, and in the forms of political administration,

and they continued to differ in these respects when they voluntarily allied

themselves as States to carry on the War of the Revolution. The object of

that war was to disenthrall the united colonies from foreign rule, which

had proved to be oppressive, and to separate them permanently from the

mother country. The political result was the foundation of a Federal

Republic of the free white men of the colonies, constituted, as they were,

in distinct and reciprocally independent State governments. As for the

subject races, whether Indian or African, the wise and brave statesmen of

that day, being engaged in no extravagant scheme of social change, left

them as they were, and thus preserved themselves and their posterity from

the anarchy and the ever-recurring civil wars which have prevailed in other

revolutionized European colonies of America.

When the confederated States found it convenient to modify the conditions

of their association by giving to the General Government direct access in

some respects to the people of the States, instead of confining it to

action on the States as such, they proceeded to frame the existing

Constitution, adhering steadily to one guiding thought, which was to

delegate only such power as was necessary and proper to the execution of

specific purposes, or, in other words, to retain as much as possible

consistently with those purposes of the independent powers of the

individual States. For objects of common defense and security, they

intrusted to the General Government certain carefully defined functions,

leaving all others as the undelegated rights of the separate independent

sovereignties.

Such is the constitutional theory of our Government, the practical

observance of which has carried us, and us alone among modern republics,

through nearly three generations of time without the cost of one drop of

blood shed in civil war. With freedom and concert of action, it has enabled

us to contend successfully on the battlefield against foreign foes, has

elevated the feeble colonies into powerful States, and has raised our

industrial productions and our commerce which transports them to the level

of the richest and the greatest nations of Europe. And the admirable

adaptation of our political institutions to their objects, combining local

self-government with aggregate strength, has established the practicability

of a government like ours to cover a continent with confederate states.

The Congress of the United States is in effect that congress of

sovereignties which good men in the Old World have sought for, but could

never attain, and which imparts to America an exemption from the mutable

leagues for common action, from the wars, the mutual invasions, and vague

aspirations after the balance of power which convulse from time to time the

Governments of Europe. Our cooperative action rests in the conditions of

permanent confederation prescribed by the Constitution. Our balance of

power is in the separate reserved rights of the States and their equal

representation in the Senate. That independent sovereignty in every one of

the States, with its reserved rights of local self-government assured to

each by their coequal power in the Senate, was the fundamental condition of

the Constitution. Without it the Union would never have existed. However

desirous the larger States might be to reorganize the Government so as to

give to their population its proportionate weight in the common counsels,

they knew it was impossible unless they conceded to the smaller ones

authority to exercise at least a negative influence on all the measures of

the Government, whether legislative or executive, through their equal

representation in the Senate. Indeed, the larger States themselves could

not have failed to perceive that the same power was equally necessary to

them for the security of their own domestic interests against the aggregate

force of the General Government. In a word, the original States went into

this permanent league on the agreed premises of exerting their common

strength for the defense of the whole and of all its parts, but of utterly

excluding all capability of reciprocal aggression. Each solemnly bound

itself to all the others neither to undertake nor permit any encroachment

upon or intermeddling with another's reserved rights.

Where it was deemed expedient particular rights of the States were

expressly guaranteed by the Constitution, but in all things besides these

rights were guarded by the limitation of the powers granted and by express

reservation of all powers not granted in the compact of union. Thus the

great power of taxation was limited to purposes of common defense and

general welfare, excluding objects appertaining to the local legislation of

the several States; and those purposes of general welfare and common

defense were afterwards defined by specific enumeration as being matters

only of co-relation between the States themselves or between them and

foreign governments, which, because of their common and general nature,

could not be left to the separate control of each State.

Of the circumstances of local condition, interest, and rights in which a

portion of the States, constituting one great section of the Union,

differed from the rest and from another section, the most important was the

peculiarity of a larger relative colored population in the Southern than in

the Northern States.

A population of this class, held in subjection, existed in nearly all the

States, but was more numerous and of more serious concernment in the South

than in the North on account of natural differences of climate and

production; and it was foreseen that, for the same reasons, while this

population would diminish and sooner or later cease to exist in some

States, it might increase in others. The peculiar character and magnitude

of this question of local rights, not in material relations only, but still

more in social ones, caused it to enter into the special stipulations of

the Constitution.

Hence, while the General Government, as well by the enumerated powers

granted to it as by those not enumerated, and therefore refused to it, was

forbidden to touch this matter in the sense of attack or offense, it was

placed under the general safeguard of the Union in the sense of defense

against either invasion or domestic violence, like all other local

interests of the several States. Each State expressly stipulated, as well

for itself as for each and all of its citizens, and every citizen of each

State became solemnly bound by his allegiance to the Constitution that any

person held to service or labor in one State, escaping into another, should

not, in consequence of any law or regulation thereof, be discharged from

such service or labor, but should be delivered up on claim of the party to

whom such service or labor might be due by the laws of his State.

Thus and thus only, by the reciprocal guaranty of all the rights of every

State against interference on the part of another, was the present form of

government established by our fathers and transmitted to us, and by no

other means is it possible for it to exist. If one State ceases to respect

the rights of another and obtrusively intermeddles with its local

interests; if a portion of the States assume to impose their institutions

on the others or refuse to fulfill their obligations to them, we are no

longer united, friendly States, but distracted, hostile ones, with little

capacity left of common advantage, but abundant means of reciprocal injury

and mischief. Practically it is immaterial whether aggressive interference

between the States or deliberate refusal on the part of any one of them to

comply with constitutional obligations arise from erroneous conviction or

blind prejudice, whether it be perpetrated by direction or indirection. In

either case it is full of threat and of danger to the durability of the

Union.

Placed in the office of Chief Magistrate as the executive agent of the

whole country, bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and

specially enjoined by the Constitution to give information to Congress on

the state of the Union, it would be palpable neglect of duty on my part to

pass over a subject like this, which beyond all things at the present time

vitally concerns individual and public security.

It has been matter of painful regret to see States conspicuous for their

services in rounding this Republic and equally sharing its advantages

disregard their constitutional obligations to it. Although conscious of

their inability to heal admitted and palpable social evils of their own,

and which are completely within their jurisdiction, they engage in the

offensive and hopeless undertaking of reforming the domestic institutions

of other States, wholly beyond their control and authority. In the vain

pursuit of ends by them entirely unattainable, and which they may not

legally attempt to compass, they peril the very existence of the

Constitution and all the countless benefits which it has conferred. While

the people of the Southern States confine their attention to their own

affairs, not presuming officiously to intermeddle with the social

institutions of the Northern States, too many of the inhabitants of the

latter are permanently organized in associations to inflict injury on the

former by wrongful acts, which would be cause of war as between foreign

powers and only fail to be such in our system because perpetrated under

cover of the Union.

Is it possible to present this subject as truth and the occasion require

without noticing the reiterated but groundless allegation that the South

has persistently asserted claims and obtained advantages in the practical

administration of the General Government to the prejudice of the North, and

in which the latter has acquiesced? That is, the States which either

promote or tolerate attacks on the rights of persons and of property in

other States, to disguise their own injustice, pretend or imagine, and

constantly aver, that they, whose constitutional rights are thus

systematically assailed, are themselves the aggressors. At the present time

this imputed aggression, resting, as it does, only in the vague declamatory

charges of political agitators, resolves itself into misapprehension, or

misinterpretation, of the principles and facts of the political

organization of the new Territories of the United States.

What is the voice of history? When the ordinance which provided for the

government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio and for its

eventual subdivision into new States was adopted in the Congress of the

Confederation, it is not to be supposed that the question of future

relative power as between the States which retained and those which did not

retain a numerous colored population escaped notice or failed to be

considered. And yet the concession of that vast territory to the interests

and opinions of the Northern States, a territory now the seat of five among

the largest members of the Union, was in great measure the act of the State

of Virginia and of the South.

When Louisiana was acquired by the United States, it was an acquisition not

less to the North than to the South; for while it was important to the

country at the mouth of the river Mississippi to become the emporium of the

country above it, so also it was even more important to the whole Union to

have that emporium; and although the new province, by reason of its

imperfect settlement, was mainly regarded as on the Gulf of Mexico, yet in

fact it extended to the opposite boundaries of the United States, with far

greater breadth above than below, and was in territory, as in everything

else, equally at least an accession to the Northern States. It is mere

delusion and prejudice, therefore, to speak of Louisiana as acquisition in

the special interest of the South.

The patriotic and just men who participated in the act were influenced by

motives far above all sectional jealousies. It was in truth the great event

which, by completing for us the possession of the Valley of the

Mississippi, with commercial access to the Gulf of Mexico, imparted unity

and strength to the whole Confederation and attached together by

indissoluble ties the East and the West, as well as the North and the

South.

As to Florida, that was but the transfer by Spain to the United States of

territory on the east side of the river Mississippi in exchange for large

territory which the United States transferred to Spain on the west side of

that river, as the entire diplomatic history of the transaction serves to

demonstrate. Moreover, it was an acquisition demanded by the commercial

interests and the security of the whole Union. In the meantime the people

of the United States had grown up to a proper consciousness of their

strength, and in a brief contest with France and in a second serious war

with Great Britain they had shaken off all which remained of undue

reverence for Europe, and emerged from the atmosphere of those

transatlantic influences which surrounded the infant Republic, and had

begun to turn their attention to the full and systematic development of the

internal resources of the Union.

Among the evanescent controversies of that period the most conspicuous was

the question of regulation by Congress of the social condition of the

future States to be rounded in the territory of Louisiana.

The ordinance for the government of the territory northwest of the river

Ohio had contained a provision which prohibited the use of servile labor

therein, subject to the condition of the extraditions of fugitives from

service due in any other part of the United States. Subsequently to the

adoption of the Constitution this provision ceased to remain as a law, for

its operation as such was absolutely superseded by the Constitution. But

the recollection of the fact excited the zeal of social propagandism in

some sections of the Confederation, and when a second State, that of

Missouri, came to be formed in the territory of Louisiana proposition was

made to extend to the latter territory the restriction originally applied

to the country situated between the rivers Ohio and Mississippi.

Most questionable as was this proposition in all its constitutional

relations, nevertheless it received the sanction of Congress, with some

slight modifications of line, to save the existing rights of the intended

new State. It was reluctantly acquiesced in by Southern States as a

sacrifice to the cause of peace and of the Union, not only of the rights

stipulated by the treaty of Louisiana, but of the principle of equality

among the States guaranteed by the Constitution. It was received by the

Northern States with angry and resentful condemnation and complaint,

because it did not concede all which they had exactingly demanded. Having

passed through the forms of legislation, it took its place in the statute

book, standing open to repeal, like any other act of doubtful

constitutionality, subject to be pronounced null and void by the courts of

law, and possessing no possible efficacy to control the rights of the

States which might thereafter be organized out of any part of the original

territory of Louisiana.

In all this, if any aggression there were, any innovation upon preexisting

rights, to which portion of the Union are they justly chargeable? This

controversy passed away with the occasion, nothing surviving it save the

dormant letter of the statute.

But long afterwards, when by the proposed accession of the Republic of

Texas the United States were to take their next step in territorial

greatness, a similar contingency occurred and became the occasion for

systematized attempts to intervene in the domestic affairs of one section

of the Union, in defiance of their rights as States and of the stipulations

of the Constitution. These attempts assumed a practical direction in the

shape of persevering endeavors by some of the Representatives in both

Houses of Congress to deprive the Southern States of the supposed benefit

of the provisions of the act authorizing the organization of the State of

Missouri.

But the good sense of the people and the vital force of the Constitution

triumphed over sectional prejudice and the political errors of the day, and

the State of Texas returned to the Union as she was, with social

institutions which her people had chosen for themselves and with express

agreement by the reannexing act that she should be susceptible of

subdivision into a plurality of States.

Whatever advantage the interests of the Southern States, as such, gained by

this were far inferior in results, as they unfolded in the progress of

time, to those which sprang from previous concessions made by the South.

To every thoughtful friend of the Union, to the true lovers of their

country, to all who longed and labored for the full success of this great

experiment of republican institutions, it was cause of gratulation that

such an opportunity had occurred to illustrate our advancing power on this

continent and to furnish to the world additional assurance of the strength

and stability of the Constitution. Who would wish to see Florida still a

European colony? Who would rejoice to hail Texas as a lone star instead of

one in the galaxy of States? Who does not appreciate the incalculable

benefits of the acquisition of Louisiana? And yet narrow views and

sectional purposes would inevitably have excluded them all from the Union.

But another struggle on the same point ensued when our victorious armies

returned from Mexico and it devolved on Congress to provide for the

territories acquired by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The great

relations of the subject had now become distinct and clear to the

perception of the public mind, which appreciated the evils of sectional

controversy upon the question of the admission of new States. In that

crisis intense solicitude pervaded the nation. But the patriotic impulses

of the popular heart, guided by the admonitory advice of the Father of his

Country, rose superior to all the difficulties of the incorporation of a

new empire into the Union. In the counsels of Congress there was manifested

extreme antagonism of opinion and action between some Representatives, who

sought by the abusive and unconstitutional employment of the legislative

powers of the Government to interfere in the condition of the inchoate

States and to impose their own social theories upon the latter, and other

Representatives, who repelled the interposition of the General Government

in this respect and maintained the self-constituting rights of the States.

In truth, the thing attempted was in form alone action of the General

Government, while in reality it was the endeavor, by abuse of legislative

power, to force the ideas of internal policy entertained in particular

States upon allied independent States. Once more the Constitution and the

Union triumphed signally. The new territories were organized without

restrictions on the disputed point, and were thus left to judge in that

particular for themselves; and the sense of constitutional faith proved

vigorous enough in Congress not only to accomplish this primary object, but

also the incidental and hardly less important one of so amending the

provisions of the statute for the extradition of fugitives from service as

to place that public duty under the safeguard of the General Government,

and thus relieve it from obstacles raised up by the legislation of some of

the States.

Vain declamation regarding the provisions of law for the extradition of

fugitives from service, with occasional episodes of frantic effort to

obstruct their execution by riot and murder, continued for a brief time to

agitate certain localities. But the true principle of leaving each State

and Territory to regulate its own laws of labor according to its own sense

of right and expediency had acquired fast hold of the public judgment, to

such a degree that by common consent it was observed in the organization of

the Territory of Washington. When, more recently, it became requisite to

organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, it was the natural and

legitimate, if not the inevitable, consequence of previous events and

legislation that the same great and sound principle which had already been

applied to Utah and New Mexico should be applied to them--that they should

stand exempt from the restrictions proposed in the act relative to the

State of Missouri.

These restrictions were, in the estimation of many thoughtful men, null

from the beginning, unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary to the

treaty stipulations for the cession of Louisiana, and inconsistent with the

equality of these States.

They had been stripped of all moral authority by persistent efforts to

procure their indirect repeal through contradictory enactments. They had

been practically abrogated by the legislation attending the organization of

Utah, New Mexico, and Washington. If any vitality remained in them it would

have been taken away, in effect, by the new Territorial acts in the form

originally proposed to the Senate at the first session of the last

Congress. It was manly and ingenuous, as well as patriotic and just, to do

this directly and plainly, and thus relieve the statute book of an act

which might be of possible future injury, but of no possible future

benefit; and the measure of its repeal was the final consummation and

complete recognition of the principle that no portion of the United States

shall undertake through assumption of the powers of the General Government

to dictate the social institutions of any other portion.

The scope and effect of the language of repeal were not left in doubt. It

was declared in terms to be "the true intent and meaning of this act not to

legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom,

but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their

domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of

the United States."

The measure could not be withstood upon its merits alone. It was attacked

with violence on the false or delusive pretext that it constituted a breach

of faith. Never was objection more utterly destitute of substantial

justification. When before was it imagined by sensible men that a

regulative or declarative statute, whether enacted ten or forty years ago,

is irrepealable; that an act of Congress is above the Constitution? If,

indeed, there were in the facts any cause to impute bad faith, it would

attach to those only who have never ceased, from the time of the enactment

of the restrictive provision to the present day, to denounce and condemn

it; who have constantly refused to complete it by needful supplementary

legislation; who have spared no exertion to deprive it of moral force; who

have themselves again and again attempted its repeal by the enactment of

incompatible provisions, and who, by the inevitable reactionary effect of

their own violence on the subject, awakened the country to perception of

the true constitutional principle of leaving the matter involved to the

discretion of the people of the respective existing or incipient States.

It is not pretended that this principle or any other precludes the

possibility of evils in practice, disturbed, as political action is liable

to be, by human passions. No form of government is exempt from

inconveniences; but in this case they are the result of the abuse, and not

of the legitimate exercise, of the powers reserved or conferred in the

organization of a Territory. They are not to be charged to the great

principle of popular sovereignty. On the contrary, they disappear before

the intelligence and patriotism of the people, exerting through the ballot

box their peaceful and silent but irresistible power.

If the friends of the Constitution are to have another struggle, its

enemies could not present a more acceptable issue than that of a State

whose constitution clearly embraces "a republican form of government" being

excluded from the Union because its domestic institutions may not in all

respects comport with the ideas of what is wise and expedient entertained

in some other State. Fresh from groundless imputations of breach of faith

against others, men will commence the agitation of this new question with

indubitable violation of an express compact between the independent

sovereign powers of the United States and of the Republic of Texas, as well

as of the older and equally solemn compacts which assure the equality of

all the States.

But deplorable as would be such a violation of compact in itself and in all

its direct consequences, that is the very least of the evils involved. When

sectional agitators shall have succeeded in forcing on this issue, can

their pretensions fail to be met by counter pretensions? Will not different

States be compelled, respectively, to meet extremes with extremes? And if

either extreme carry its point, what is that so far forth but dissolution

of the Union? If a new State, formed from the territory of the United

States, be absolutely excluded from admission therein, that fact of itself

constitutes the disruption of union between it and the other States. But

the process of dissolution could not stop there. Would not a sectional

decision producing such result by a majority of votes, either Northern or

Southern, of necessity drive out the oppressed and aggrieved minority and

place in presence of each other two irreconcilably hostile confederations?

It is necessary to speak thus plainly of projects the offspring of that

sectional agitation now prevailing in some of the States, which are as

impracticable as they are unconstitutional, and which if persevered in must

and will end calamitously. It is either disunion and civil war or it is

mere angry, idle, aimless disturbance of public peace and tranquillity.

Disunion for what? If the passionate rage of fanaticism and partisan spirit

did not force the fact upon our attention, it would be difficult to believe

that any considerable portion of the people of this enlightened country

could have so surrendered themselves to a fanatical devotion to the

supposed interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States as

totally to abandon and disregard the interests of the 25,000,000 Americans;

to trample under foot the injunctions of moral and constitutional

obligation, and to engage in plans of vindictive hostility against those

who are associated with them in the enjoyment of the common heritage of our

national institutions.

Nor is it hostility against their fellow-citizens of one section of the

Union alone. The interests, the honor, the duty, the peace, and the

prosperity of the people of all sections are equally involved and imperiled

in this question. And are patriotic men in any part of the Union prepared

on such issue thus madly to invite all the consequences of the forfeiture

of their constitutional engagements? It is impossible. The storm of frenzy

and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken rock

of the Constitution. I shall never doubt it. I know that the Union is

stronger a thousand times than all the wild and chimerical schemes of

social change which are generated one after another in the unstable minds

of visionary sophists and interested agitators. I rely confidently on the

patriotism of the people, on the dignity and self-respect of the States, on

the wisdom of Congress, and, above all, on the continued gracious favor of

Almighty God to maintain against all enemies, whether at home or abroad,

the sanctity of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union.

	Contents    Prev    Next    Last