attachment can express.

"The most effectual consolation that can offer for the loss we are
about to sustain, arises from the animating reflection, that the
influence of your example will extend to your successors, and the
United States thus continue to enjoy an able, upright, and energetic
administration."

In the house of representatives, a committee of five had been
appointed to prepare a respectful answer to the speech, three of whom
were friends to the administration. Knowing well that the several
propositions it contained could not be noticed in detail, without
occasioning a debate in which sentiments opposed to those of the
address would be expressed, probably by a majority of the house; and
hoping that the disposition would be general to avow in strong terms
their attachment to the person and character of the President, the
committee united in reporting an answer, which, in general terms,
promised due attention to the various subjects recommended to their
consideration, but was full and explicit in the expression of
attachment to himself, and of approbation of his administration.

But the unanimity which prevailed in the committee did not extend to
the house.

After amplifying and strengthening the expressions of the report which
stated the regrets of the house that any interruption should have
taken place in the harmony which had subsisted between the United
States and France, and modifying those which declared their hopes in
the restoration of that affection which had formerly subsisted between
the two republics, so as to avoid any implication that the rupture of
that affection was exclusively ascribable to France, a motion was made
by Mr. Giles to expunge from the answer the following paragraphs.

"When we advert to the internal situation of the United States, we
deem it equally natural and becoming to compare the present period
with that immediately antecedent to the operation of the government,
and to contrast it with the calamities in which the state of war still
involves several of the European nations, as the reflections deduced
from both tend to justify, as well as to excite a warmer admiration of
our free constitution, and to exalt our minds to a more fervent and
grateful sense of piety towards Almighty God for the beneficence of
his Providence, by which its administration has been hitherto so
remarkably distinguished.

"And while we entertain a grateful conviction that your wise, firm,
and pa