ates are blessed with peace. It is a
state most consistent with their prosperity and happiness. It will be my
sincere desire to preserve it, so far as depends on the Executive, on
just principles with all nations, claiming nothing unreasonable of any
and rendering to each what is its due.

Equally gratifying is it to witness the increased harmony of opinion
which pervades our Union. Discord does not belong to our system.
Union is recommended as well by the free and benign principles of our
Government, extending its blessings to every individual, as by the other
eminent advantages attending it. The American people have encountered
together great dangers and sustained severe trials with success. They
constitute one great family with a common interest. Experience has
enlightened us on some questions of essential importance to the country.
The progress has been slow, dictated by a just reflection and a faithful
regard to every interest connected with it. To promote this harmony in
accord with the principles of our republican Government and in a manner
to give them the most complete effect, and to advance in all other
respects the best interests of our Union, will be the object of my
constant and zealous exertions.

Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever
was success so complete. If we look to the history of other nations,
ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic,
of a people so prosperous and happy. In contemplating what we have still
to perform, the heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he
reflects how near our Government has approached to perfection; that in
respect to it we have no essential improvement to make; that the great
object is to preserve it in the essential principles and features which
characterize it, and that that is to be done by preserving the virtue
and enlightening the minds of the people; and as a security against
foreign dangers to adopt such arrangements as are indispensable to the
support of our independence, our rights and liberties. If we persevere
in the career in which we have advanced so far and in the path already
traced, we can not fail, under the favor of a gracious Providence, to
attain the high destiny which seems to await us.

In the Administrations of the illustrious men who have preceded me
in this high station, with some of whom I have been connected by the
closest ties from early life, examples are presented whi