The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-17 00:00:00

our fair record, and trust I may safely give the assurance
that no act within the legitimate scope of my constitutional
control will be tolerated, on the part of any portion of our
citizens, which cannot challenge a ready justification be-
fore the tribunal of the civilised world. An Administra-
tion would be unworthy of confidence at home, or respect
abroad, should it cease to be influenced by the conviction
that no apparent advantage can be purchased at a price so
dear as that of national wrong or dishonour. It is not
your privilege, as a nation, to speak of a distant past. The
striking incidents of your history, replete with instruction,
and furnishing abundant grounds for hopeful confidence,
are comprised in a period comparatively brief. But if
your past is limited, your future is boundless. Its obliga-
tions throng the unexplored pathway of advancement, and
will be limitless as duration. Hence a sound and compre-
hensive policy should embrace not less the distant future
than the urgent present.
"The great objects of our pursuit, as a people, are best
to be attained by peace, and are entirely consistent with
the tranquillity and interests of the rest of mankind.
With the neighbouring nations upon our continent we
should cultivate kindly and fraternal relations. We can
desire nothing in regard to them so much as to see them
consolidate their strength and pursue the paths of pros-
perity and happiness. If in the course of their growth we
should open new channels of trade and create additional
facilities for friendly intercourse, the benefits realised will
be equal and mutual. Of the complicated European sys-
tems of national polity we have heretofore been independ-
ent. From their wars, their tumults, and anxieties, we
have been, happily, almost entirely exempt. While these
are confined to the nations which gave them existence,
and within their legitimate jurisdiction, they cannot affect
us, except as they appeal to our sympathies in the cause of
human freedom and universal advancement. But the vast
interests of commerce are common to all mankind, and the
advantages of trade and international intercourse must
always present a noble field for the moral influence of a
great people.
"With these views firmly and honestly carried out, we
have a right to expect, and shall under all circumstances
require, prompt reciprocity. The rights which belong to
us as a nation are not alone to be regarded, but those which
pertain to every citizen in his individual capacity, at home
and abroad, must be sacredly maintained. So 4ong as he
can discern every star in its place upon that ensign, without
wealth to purchase for him preferment or title to secure for
him place, it will be his privilege, and must be his acknow-
ledged right, to stand unabashd even in the presence of
princes, with a proud consciousness that he is himself one
of a nation of sovereigns, and that he cannot, in legitimate
pursuit, wander so far from home that the agent whom he
shall leave behind in the place which I now occupy will
not see that no rude hand of power or tyrannical passion
is laid upon him with impunity. He must realise that,
upon every sea and on every soil where our enterprise may
rightfully seek the protection of our flag, American citizen-
ship is an inviolable panoply for the security of American
rights. And in this connexion it can hardly be necessary
to re-affirm a principle which should now be regarded as
fundamental. The rights, security, and repose of this
Confederacy reject the idea of interference or colonisation
on this side of the ocean by any foreign Power, beyond
present jurisdiction, as utterly inadmissible.
" The opportunities of observation furnished by my brief
experience as a soldier confirmed in my own mind the
opinion entertained and acted upon by others from the
formation of the Government, that the maintenance of
large standing armies in our country would be not only
dangerous but unnecessary. They also illustrated the im-
portance—l might well say the absolute necessity—of the
military science and practical skill furnished in such an
eminent degree by the institution which has made your
army what it is, under the discipline and instruction of
officers not more distinguished for their solid attainments,
gallantry, and devotion to the public service, than for
unobtrusive bearing and high moral tone. The' army, as
organised, must be the nucleus around which; in every time
of need, the strength of your military power, the sure bul-
wark of your defence—a national militia—may be readily
formed into a well-disciplined and efficient organisation.
And the skill and self-devotion of the navy assure you that
you may take the performance of the past as a pledge for
the future, and may confidently expect that the flag which
has waved its untarnished folds over every sea will still
float in undiminished honour. But these, like many other
subjects, will be appropriately brought at a future time to
the attention of the co-ordinate branches of the Govern-
ment, to which I shUll always look with profound respect
and with trustful confidence that they will accord to me
the aid and support which I shall so much need, and which
their experience and wisdom will readily suggest.
" In the administration of domestic affairs you expect
a devoted integrity in the public service, and an observance
of rigid economy in all departments, so marked as never
justly to be questioned. If this reasonable expectation be
not realised, I frankly confess that one of your leading hopes
is doomed to disappointment, and that my efforts in a very
important particular must result in a humiliating failure.
Offices can be properly regarded only in the light of aids for
the accomplishment of thse objects, and as occupancy can
confer no prerogative, nor importunate desire for prefer-
ment any claim, the public interest imperatively demands
that they be considered with sole reference to the duties to
be performed. Good citizens may well claim the protec-
tion of good laws and the benign influence of good govern-
ment ; but a claim for office is what the people of a Repub-
lic should never recognise. No reasonable man of any
party will expect the Administration to be so regardless of
its responsibility and of the obvious elements of success as
to retain persons, known to be under the influence of poli-
tical hostility and partisan prejudice, in positions which
will require not only severe labour, but cordial co-opera-
tion. Having no implied engagements to ratify, no re-
wards to bestow, no resentments to remember, and no
personal wishes o consult in selections for official station,
I shall fulfil this difficult and delicate trust, admitting no
motive as worthy either of my character or position which
does not contemplate an efficient discharge of duty and the
best interests of my country. I acknowledge my obliga-
tions to the masses of my count.),• en, and to them alone.
Higher objects than personal aggrandisement gave direction
and energy to their exertions in the late canvass, and they
shall not be disappointed. They require at my hands
diligence, integrity, and capacity, wherever there are
duties to be performed. Without these qualities in their
public servants, more stringent laws for the prevention or
punishment of fraud, negligence, and peculation will be
vain. With them they will be unnecessary.
" But these are not the only points to which you look
for vigilant watchfulness. The dangers of a concentration
of all power in. the general government of a confederacy
like ours are too obvious to be disregarded. You have a
right, therefore, to expect your agents in every department
to regard strictly the limits imposed upon them by the con-
stitution of the United States.
" The great scheme of our constitutional liberty rests
upon a proper distribution of power between the State and
federal authorities, and experience has shown that the har-
mony and happiness of our people must depend upon a just
discrimination between the separate rights and responsibi-
lities of the States and your common rights and obliga-
tions under the General Government. And here, in my
opinion, are the considerations which should form the true
basis of future concord in regard to the questions which
have most seriously disturbed public tranquillity. If the
Federal Government will confine itself to the exercise of
powers clearly granted by the Constitution, it can hardly
happen that its action upon any question should endanger
the institutions of the States, or interfere with their right
to manage matters strictly domestic according to the will
of their own people.

" In expressing briefly my views upon an important sub-
ect which has recently agitated the nation to almost a
earful degree, I am moved by no other impulse than a
moat earnest desire for the perpetuation of that Union
which has made us what we are—showering upon us bless-
ings and conferring a power and influence which our fathers
could hardly have anticipated even with their most san-
guine hopes directed to a far-off future. The sentiments I
now announce were not unknown before the expression of
the voice which called me here. My own position upon
the subject was clear and unequivocal, upon the record of
my words and my acts, and it is only recurred to at this
time because silence might perhaps be misconstrued. With
the Union my best and dearest earthly hopes aro entwined.
Without it what are we, individually or collectively?
What becomes of the noblest field ever opened for the ad-
vancement of our race in religion, in government, in the
arts, and in all that dignifies and adorns mankind? From
that radiant constellation, which both illumines our own
way and points out to struggling nations their course,
let but a single star be lost, and if there be not utter dark-
ness, the lustre of the whole is dimmed. Do my country-
men need any assurance that such a catastrophe is not to
overtake them while I possess the power to stay it? It is
with me an earnest and vital belief, that as the Union has
been the source, under Providence, of our prosperity to
this time, so it is the surest pledge of a continuance of the
blessings we have enjoyed, and which we are sacredly
bound to transmit undiminished to our children. The
field of calm and free discussion in our country is open, and
will always be so ; but it never has been and never can he
traversed for good in a spirit of sectionalism and unchari-
tableness. The founders of the Republic dealt with things
as they were presented to them, in a spirit of self-sacrificing
patriotism, and, as time has proved, with a comprehensive
wisdom which it will always be safe for us to consult.
Every measure tending to strengthen the fraternal feelings
of all the members of the Union has had my heartfelt ap-
probation. To every theory of society or government,
whether the offspring of feverish ambition or of morbid
enthusiasm, calculated to dissolve the bonds of law and
affection which unite us, I shall oppose a ready and stern
resistance. I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists
in different States of this confederacy, is recognised by the
constitution. I believe that it stands like any other ad-
mitted right, and that the States wherein it exists are en-
titled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional
provisions. I hold that the laws of 1850, commonly called
the compromise measures, are strictly constitutional, and
to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. I believe that the
constitutional authorities of this Republic are bound to re-
gard the rights of the South in this respect as they would
view any other legal and constitutional right, and that the
laws to enforce them should be respected and obeyed, not
wia
in
reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to
thetici proprietya different state of society, but cheer-
fully, and according to the decisions of the tribunal to
which their exposition belongs. Such have been and are
my convictions, and upon them I shall act. I fervently
hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or
ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the
durability of our institutions, or obscure the light of our
prosperity.
" But let not the foundation of our hope rest upon man's
wisdom. It will not be sufficient that sectional prejudices
find no place in the public deliberations. It will not be
sufficient that the rash- counsels of human passion are re-
jected. It must be felt that there is no national security
but in the nation's humble acknowledged dependence upon
God and his overruling providence.
"We ,have been carried in safety through a perilous
crisis. Wise counsels, like those which gave us the con-
stitution, prevailed to uphold it. Let the period be re-
!membered as an admonition, and not as an encouragement,
in any section of the Union, to make experiments where
experiments are fraught with such fearful hazard. Let it
be impressed upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric
is, no earthly power or wisdom could ever reunite its
broken fragments.
" Standing as I do almost within view of the green
slopes of Monticello, and, as it were, within reach of the
tomb of Washington, with all the cherished memories of
the past gathering around me, like so many eloquent voices '
of exhortation from Heaven, I can expiess no better hope
for my country than that the kind Providence which smiled
upon our fathers may enable their children to preserve the
blessings they have inherited."
Great cheering and firing of cannon succeeded
the address, which the President delivered as if
extempore. "He had no papers or notes," says a
correspondent,
But delivered the address beautifully and gracefully,
without a blemish, to the end. It will be rememberedthat Presidents Taylor, Polk, and others, read their ad-
dresses from the manuscript. When he came to that part
of his address which related to the protection of American
citizens abroad, he turned face to face with Mr. Fillm9r
and the diplomatic corps and laid down the law with