dom as to
what can be done now. Augmented interest is given to this subject by the
actual commencement of work upon the Pacific Railroad, under auspices
so favorable to rapid progress and completion. The enlarged navigation
becomes a palpable need to the great road.

I transmit the second annual report of the Commissioner of the Department
of Agriculture, asking your attention to the developments in that vital
interest of the nation.

When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had already lasted nearly
twenty months, and there had been many conflicts on both land and sea,
with varying results; the rebellion had been pressed back into reduced
limits; yet the tone of public feeling and opinion, at home and abroad,
was not satisfactory. With other signs, the popular elections then just
past indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while, amid much that was cold
and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered in accents
of pity that we are too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce
was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels built upon and furnished from
foreign shores, and we were threatened with such additions from the same
quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea and raise our blockade. We
had failed to elicit from European governments anything hopeful upon this
subject. The preliminary emancipation proclamation, issued in September,
was running its assigned period to the beginning of the new year. A month
later the final proclamation came, including the announcement that colored
men of suitable condition would be received into the war service. The
policy of emancipation and of employing black soldiers gave to the future
a new aspect, about which hope and fear and doubt contended in uncertain
conflict. According to our political system, as a matter of civil
administration, the General Government had no lawful power to effect
emancipation in any State, and for a long time it had been hoped that
the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military
measure. It was all the while deemed possible that the necessity for it
might come, and that if it should the crisis of the contest would then be
presented. It came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and
doubtful days. Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take
another review. The rebel borders are pressed still farther back, and
by the complete opening of the Mississippi the country dominated by the