The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the Address to be presented to the President of the United States in answer to his Speech to both Houses, at the commencement of the present session.
Mr. Gregg moved, that the words distinguished by italics, in the third and fourth lines of the second paragraph of the Address, be struck out, and that the words "act in" be inserted in their stead; which produced a short debate, and was finally negatived.
The committee then rose, and the Address was reported without amendment; and was agreed to by the House, in the words following, viz:
To the President of the United States:
Sir: While the House of Representatives contemplate the flattering prospects of abundance from the labors of the people, by land and by sea, the prosperity of our extended commerce, notwithstanding the interruptions occasioned by the belligerent state of a great part of the world, the return of health, industry and trade, to those cities which have lately been afflicted with disease, and the various and inestimable advantages, civil and religious, which, secured under our happy frame of Government, are continued to us unimpaired, we cannot fail to offer up to the benevolent Deity our sincere thanks for these the merciful dispensations of his protecting Providence.
That any portion of the people of America should permit themselves, amid such numerous blessings, to be seduced by the arts and misrepresentations of designing men into an open resistance of a law of the United States, cannot be heard without deep and serious regret. Under a constitution where the public burdens can only be imposed by the people themselves, for their own benefit, and to promote their own objects, a hope might well have been indulged that the general interest would have been too well understood, and the general welfare too highly prized, to have produced in any of our citizens a disposition to hazard so much felicity, by the criminal effort of a part, to oppose with lawless violence the will of the whole. While we lament that depravity which could produce a defiance of the civil authority, and render indispensable the aid of the military force of the nation, real consolation is to be derived from the promptness and fidelity with which that aid was afforded. That zealous and active co-operation with the judicial power, of the volunteers and militia called into service, which has restored order and submission to the laws, is a pleasing evidence of the attachment of out fellow-citizens to their own free Government, and of the truly patriotic alacrity with which they will support it.
To give due effect to the civil administration of Government, and to ensure a just execution of the laws, are objects of such real magnitude as to secure proper attention to your recommendation of a revision and amendment of the judiciary system.
Highly approving, as we do, the pacific and humane policy which has been invariably professed and sincerely pursued by the Executive authority of the United States, a policy which our best interests enjoined and of which honor has permitted the observance, we consider as the most unequivocal proof of your inflexible perseverance in the same well chosen system, your preparation to meet the first indications on the part of the French Republic, of a disposition to accommodate the existing differences between the two countries, by a nomination of Ministers on certain conditions, which the honor of our country unquestionably dictated, and which its moderation had certainly given it a right to prescribe. When the assurances thus required of the French Government, previous to the departure of our Envoys, had been given through their Minister of Foreign Relations, the direction that they should proceed on their mission, was, on your part, a completion of the measure, and manifests the sincerity with which it was commenced. We offer up our fervent prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the success of their embassy, and that it may be productive of peace and happiness to our common country. The uniform tenor of your conduct, through a life useful to your fellow-citizens and honorable to yourself, gives a sure pledge of the sincerity with which the avowed objects of the negotiation will be pursued on your part, and we earnestly pray that similar dispositions may be displayed on the part of France. The differences which unfortunately subsist between the two nations, cannot fail, in that event, to be happily terminated. To produce this end, to all so desirable, firmness, moderation, and union at home, constitute, we are persuaded, the surest means. The character of the gentlemen you have deputed, and still more, the character of the Government which deputes them, are safe pledges to their country, that nothing incompatible with its honor or interest, nothing inconsistent with our obligations of good faith or friendship to any other nation, will be stipulated.
We learn, with pleasure, that our citizens, with their property, trading to those ports of St. Domingo with which commercial intercourse has been renewed, have been duly respected, and that privateering from those ports has ceased.
With you, we sincerely regret that the execution of the sixth article of the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, with Great Britain, an article produced by a mutual spirit of amity and justice, should have been unavoidably interrupted. We doubt not the same spirit of amity, and the same sense of justice in which it originated, will lead to satisfactory explanations; and we hear with approbation that our Minister at London will be immediately instructed to obtain them. While the engagements which America has contracted by her treaty with Great Britain, ought to be fulfilled with that scrupulous punctuality and good faith to which our Government has ever so tenaciously adhered, yet no motive exists to induce, and every principle forbids us to adopt a construction which might extend them beyond the instrument by which they are created. We cherish the hope that the Government of Great Britain will disclaim such extension, and by cordially uniting with that of the United States for the removal of all difficulties, will soon enable the boards appointed under the sixth and seventh articles of our treaty with that nation, to proceed, and bring the business committed to them respectively to a satisfactory conclusion.