Saturday, February 28.
Retiring of the Vice President.
The Vice President addressed the Senate as follows:
Gentlemen of the Senate:
To give the usual opportunity of appointing a President, pro tempore, I now propose to retire from the chair of the Senate; and, as the time is near at hand when the relations will cease which have for some time subsisted between this honorable House and myself, I beg leave, before I withdraw, to return them my grateful thanks for all the instances of attention and respect with which they have been pleased to honor me. In the discharge of my functions here, it has been my conscientious endeavor to observe impartial justice, without regard to persons or subjects; and if I have failed of impressing this on the mind of the Senate, it will be to me a circumstance of the deepest regret. I may have erred at times—no doubt I have erred—this is the law of human nature. For honest errors, however, indulgence may be hoped.
I owe to truth and justice, at the same time, to declare, that the habits of order and decorum, which so strongly characterize the proceedings of the Senate, have rendered the umpirage of their President an office of little difficulty; that, in times and on questions which have severely tried the sensibilities of the House, calm and temperate discussion has rarely been disturbed by departures from order.
Should the support which I have received from the Senate, in the performance of my duties here, attend me into the new station to which the public will has transferred me, I shall consider it as commencing under the happiest auspices.
With these expressions of my dutiful regard to the Senate as a body, I ask leave to mingle my particular wishes for the health and happiness of the individuals who compose it, and to tender them my cordial and respectful adieu.
After which the Vice President retired.
Whereupon the Senate proceeded to the election of a President pro tempore, as the constitution provides; and James Hillhouse was duly elected.
Ordered, That the Address of the Vice President, made this day, taking leave of the Senate, be referred to a committee, with instruction to prepare and report the draft of an Address in answer thereto; and that Messrs. Morris, J. Mason, and Dayton, be the committee.