the special attention of
Congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the propriety of
passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the
circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary
publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.

I felt it to be my duty in the first message which I communicated to
Congress to urge upon its attention the propriety of amending that part
of the Constitution which provides for the election of the President and
the Vice-President of the United States. The leading object which I had
in view was the adoption of some new provisions which would secure to
the people the performance of this high duty without any intermediate
agency. In my annual communications since I have enforced the same
views, from a sincere conviction that the best interests of the country
would be promoted by their adoption. If the subject were an ordinary
one, I should have regarded the failure of Congress to act upon it as an
indication of their judgment that the disadvantages which belong to the
present system were not so great as those which would result from any
attainable substitute that had been submitted to their consideration.
Recollecting, however, that propositions to introduce a new feature in
our fundamental laws can not be too patiently examined, and ought not to
be received with favor until the great body of the people are thoroughly
impressed with their necessity and value as a remedy for real evils,
I feel that in renewing the recommendation I have heretofore made on
this subject I am not transcending the bounds of a just deference to
the sense of Congress or to the disposition of the people. However much
we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the
administration of the Government, there can be but little doubt in the
minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of
our system that one of its most important securities consists in the
separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that
each is held responsible to the great source of authority, which is
acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally
expressed. My reflection and experience satisfy me that the framers of
the Constitution, although they were anxious to mark this feature as a
settled and fixed principle in the structure of the Government, did not
adopt all the precautions that were necessary to secure i