ry occasion has occurred rendering it necessary
and proper that the Senate of the United States shall be convened to
receive and act upon such communications as have been or may be made
to it on the part of the Executive:

Now, therefore, I, James Buchanan, President of the United States, do
issue this my proclamation, declaring that an extraordinary occasion
requires the Senate of the United States to convene for the transaction
of business at the Capitol, in the city of Washington, on the 26th day
of June instant, at 12 o'clock at noon of that day, of which all who
shall then be entitled to act as members of that body are hereby
required to take notice.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washington,
this 25th day of June, A. D. 1860, and of the Independence of the United
States the eighty-fourth.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

By the President:
LEWIS CASS,
_Secretary of State_.

FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON CITY, _December 3, 1860_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

Throughout the year since our last meeting the country has been
eminently prosperous in all its material interests. The general health
has been excellent, our harvests have been abundant, and plenty smiles
throughout the land. Our commerce and manufactures have been prosecuted
with energy and industry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In
short, no nation in the tide of time has ever presented a spectacle of
greater material prosperity than we have done until within a very recent
period.

Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the
Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is
threatened with destruction?

The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people
with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length
produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are
now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much
dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographical parties
have been formed.

I have long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of the now
impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the
part of Congress or the Territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from
the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the
execution of the fugitive-slave law. All or any of these evils might
have bee