GIVEN at the Council-Chamber, in Boston, the Nineteenth day of February in the year of our LORD, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Four, and in the Eighteenth Year of the Independence of the United States of America.
SAMUEL ADAMS.
By His Honor's command, with the advice and consent of the Council,
JOHN AVERY, jun. Secry.
GOD save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
TO THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
MAY 31, 1794.
[Independent Chronicle, June 2, 1794; a draft is in the Samuel Adams
Papers, Lenox Library, and two manuscript texts (those sent to the
Senate and House respectively) are in the Massachusetts Archives.]
FELLOW-CITIZENS!
While I attempt a short, but very respectful address to the two Branches of this new General Court, I cannot help expressing a great satisfaction in the continuance of the right which the citizens of the Commonwealth at large enjoy, of exercising their own sovereignty. In pursuance of the direction of our Constitution, which is expressive of their will, they have again in their anniversary meetings, made their free elections of such persons as they have judged meet to administer their public affairs. In this great transaction, they must surely have felt their own dignity; and however different their sentiments may have been with regard to the men of their choice, each elector having given his suffrage according to the dictates of his own conscience, must enjoy the consoling reflection of having honestly done his duty. Those in whom the people have placed their confidence, it is presumed will faithfully watch over, and guard their general interests, and take care that the liberties and the sovereignty of right belonging to this Commonwealth, shall suffer no diminution.
Fellow-Citizens!