Tuesday, December 8.
Humphrey Marshall, from the State of Kentucky, attended.
A message from the House of Representatives informed the Senate that the House are now ready to meet the Senate in the Chamber of that House, to receive such communications as the President of the United States shall be pleased to make to them.
Whereupon, the Senate repaired to the Chamber of the House of Representatives for the purpose above expressed.
The Senate then returned to their own Chamber, and a copy of the Speech of the President of the United States to both Houses of Congress was read, as follows:
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:
I trust I do not deceive myself, while I indulge the persuasion that I have never met you at any period, when, more than at the present, the situation of our public affairs has afforded just cause for mutual congratulation, and for inviting you to join with me in profound gratitude to the Author of all good for the numerous and extraordinary blessings we enjoy.
The termination of the long, expensive, and distressing war in which we have been engaged with certain Indians north-west of the Ohio, is placed in the option of the United States, by a treaty which the commander of our army has concluded, provisionally, with the hostile tribes in that region.
In the adjustment of the terms, the satisfaction of the Indians was deemed an object worthy no less of the policy than of the liberality of the United States, as the necessary basis of durable tranquillity. The object, it is believed, has been fully attained. The articles agreed upon will immediately be laid before the Senate, for their consideration.
Contemplating the internal situation, as well as the external relations, of the United States, we discover equal cause for contentment and satisfaction. While many of the nations of Europe, with their American dependencies, have been involved in a contest unusually bloody, exhausting, and calamitous; in which the evils of foreign war have been aggravated by domestic convulsions and insurrection; in which many of the arts most useful to society have been exposed to discouragement and decay; in which scarcity of subsistence has embittered other sufferings; while even the anticipations of a return of the blessings of peace and repose are alloyed by the sense of heavy and accumulating burdens which press upon all the departments of industry, and threaten to clog the future springs of Government; our favored country, happy in a striking contrast, has enjoyed general tranquillity—a tranquillity the more satisfactory, because maintained at the expense of no duty. Faithful to ourselves, we have violated no obligation to others. Our agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, prosper beyond former example; the molestations of our trade (to prevent a continuance of which, however, very pointed remonstrances have been made) being overbalanced by the aggregate benefits which it derives from a neutral position. Our population advances with a celerity which, exceeding the most sanguine calculations, proportionally augments our strength and resources, and guarantees our future security. Every part of the Union displays indications of rapid and various improvement; and with burdens so light as scarcely to be perceived; with resources fully adequate to our present exigencies; with Governments founded on the genuine principles of rational liberty; and with mild and wholesome laws—is it too much to say, that our country exhibits a spectacle of national happiness never surpassed, if ever before equalled?