his Government and relating to public business of whatever kind,
including suggestions for legislation, claims, contracts, employment,
appointments, and removals from office, and pardons, must be transmitted
through the Department to which the care of the subject-matter of the
communication properly belongs. Communications otherwise transmitted
will not receive attention.

By order of the President:

HAMILTON FISH, _Secretary of State_.

FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, D.C., December 6, 1869_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In coming before you for the first time as Chief Magistrate of this
great nation, it is with gratitude to the Giver of All Good for the many
benefits we enjoy. We are blessed with peace at home, and are without
entangling alliances abroad to forebode trouble; with a territory
unsurpassed in fertility, of an area equal to the abundant support of
500,000,000 people, and abounding in every variety of useful mineral in
quantity sufficient to supply the world for generations; with exuberant
crops; with a variety of climate adapted to the production of every
species of earth's riches and suited to the habits, tastes, and
requirements of every living thing; with a population of 40,000,000 free
people, all speaking one language; with facilities for every mortal to
acquire an education; with institutions closing to none the avenues to
fame or any blessing of fortune that may be coveted; with freedom of
the pulpit, the press, and the school; with a revenue flowing into the
National Treasury beyond the requirements of the Government. Happily,
harmony is being rapidly restored within our own borders. Manufactures
hitherto unknown in our country are springing up in all sections,
producing a degree of national independence unequaled by that of any
other power.

These blessings and countless others are intrusted to your care and
mine for safe-keeping for the brief period of our tenure of office.
In a short time we must, each of us, return to the ranks of the people,
who have conferred upon us our honors, and account to them for our
stewardship. I earnestly desire that neither you nor I may be condemned
by a free and enlightened constituency nor by our own consciences.

Emerging from a rebellion of gigantic magnitude, aided, as it was,
by the sympathies and assistance of nations with which we were at
peace, eleven States of the Union were, four years ago, left