h
a due attention to public credit, and an unsullied honor toward all
nations, we may meet, under every assurance of success, our enemies
from within and from without.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

NOVEMBER 22, 1794.

ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: The House of Representatives, calling to mind the blessings enjoyed
by the people of the United States, and especially the happiness of
living under constitutions and laws which rest on their authority alone,
could not learn with other emotions than those you have expressed that
any part of our fellow-citizens should have shewn themselves capable
of an insurrection. And we learn with the greatest concern that any
misrepresentations whatever of the Government and its proceedings,
either by individuals or combinations of men, should have been made
and so far credited as to foment the flagrant outrage which has been
committed on the laws. We feel with you the deepest regret at so painful
an occurrence in the annals of our country. As men regardful of the
tender interests of humanity, we look with grief at scenes which might
have stained our land with civil blood; as lovers of public order, we
lament that it has suffered so flagrant a violation; as zealous friends
of republican government, we deplore every occasion which in the hands
of its enemies may be turned into a calumny against it.

This aspect of the crisis, however, is happily not the only one which
it presents. There is another, which yields all the consolations which
you have drawn from it. It has demonstrated to the candid world, as
well as to the American people themselves, that the great body of them
everywhere are equally attached to the luminous and vital principle of
our Constitution, which enjoins that the will of the majority shall
prevail; that they understand the indissoluble union between true
liberty and regular government; that they feel their duties no less than
they are watchful over their rights; that they will be as ready at all
times to crush licentiousness as they have been to defeat usurpation.
In a word, that they are capable of carrying into execution that noble
plan of self-government which they have chosen as the guaranty of their
own happiness and the asylum for that of all, from every clime, who may
wish to unite their destiny with ours.

These are the just inferences flowing from the promptitude with which
the summons to