This anticipation is not justified merely by the past experience of your signal services. It is particularly suggested by the pious impressions under which you mean to commence your administration, and the enlightened maxims by which you mean to conduct it. We feel with you the strongest obligations to adore the invisible hand which has led the American people through so many difficulties, to cherish a conscious responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty; and to seek the only sure means of preserving and recommending the precious deposit in a system of legislation founded on the principles of an honest policy, and directed by the spirit of a diffusive patriotism.
The question arising out of the fifth article of the Constitution will receive all the attention demanded by its importance; and will, we trust, be decided, under the influence of all the considerations to which you allude.
In forming the pecuniary provisions for the Executive Department, we shall not lose sight of a wish resulting from motives which give it a peculiar claim to our regard. Your resolution, in a moment critical to the liberties of your country, to renounce all personal emolument, was among the many presages of your patriotic services, which have been amply fulfilled; and your scrupulous adherence now to the law then imposed on yourself, cannot fail to demonstrate the purity, whilst it increases the lustre of a character which has so many titles to admiration.
Such are the sentiments which we have thought fit to address to you. They flow from our own hearts, and we verily believe that, among the millions we represent, there is not a virtuous citizen whose heart will disown them.
All that remains is, that we join in your fervent supplications for the blessings of heaven on our country; and that we add our own for the choicest of these blessings on the most beloved of our citizens.
Said address was committed to a Committee of the Whole; and the House immediately resolved itself into a committee, Mr. Page in the chair. The committee proposing no amendment thereto, rose and reported the address, and the House agreed to it, and resolved that the Speaker, attended by the members of this House, do present the said address to the President.
Ordered, That Messrs. Sinnickson, Coles, and Smith (of South Carolina), be a committee to wait on the President to know when it will be convenient for him to receive the same.
Mr. Clymer, from the committee appointed for the purpose, reported a bill for laying a duty on goods, wares, and merchandise, imported into the United States, which passed its first reading.
Amendment of the Constitution.
[Mr. Bland presented the application of the Legislature of Virginia, to have a convention called of deputies from all the States, to consider the defects of the Constitution and report amendments; and moved to refer the application to the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union.]