an overruling
Providence seems to have marked out for them. Exempt from domestic
convulsion and at peace with all the world, we are left free to consult
as to the best means of securing and advancing the happiness of the
people. Such are the circumstances under which you now assemble in your
respective chambers and which should lead us to unite in praise and
thanksgiving to that great Being who made us and who preserves us as
a nation.

I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the happy change in the aspect
of our foreign affairs since my last annual message. Causes of complaint
at that time existed between the United States and Great Britain which,
attended by irritating circumstances, threatened most seriously the
public peace. The difficulty of adjusting amicably the questions at
issue between the two countries was in no small degree augmented by the
lapse of time since they had their origin. The opinions entertained by
the Executive on several of the leading topics in dispute were frankly
set forth in the message at the opening of your late session. The
appointment of a special minister by Great Britain to the United States
with power to negotiate upon most of the points of difference indicated
a desire on her part amicably to adjust them, and that minister was met
by the Executive in the same spirit which had dictated his mission.
The treaty consequent thereon having been duly ratified by the two
Governments, a copy, together with the correspondence which accompanied
it, is herewith communicated. I trust that whilst you may see in it
nothing objectionable, it may be the means of preserving for an
indefinite period the amicable relations happily existing between the
two Governments. The question of peace or war between the United States
and Great Britain is a question of the deepest interest, not only to
themselves, but to the civilized world, since it is scarcely possible
that a war could exist between them without endangering the peace of
Christendom. The immediate effect of the treaty upon ourselves will be
felt in the security afforded to mercantile enterprise, which, no longer
apprehensive of interruption, adventures its speculations in the most
distant seas, and, freighted with the diversified productions of every
land, returns to bless our own. There is nothing in the treaty which in
the slightest degree compromits the honor or dignity of either nation.
Next to the settlement of the boundary line, which must a