The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1856-12-04

KreSss
FeHou- Citizens Of the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatiUes:
The Constitution requires that the Presi-
dent SHALL from time to time, not only recon-
mend to the consideration Of Congress such
measures as he may judge necessary and ex-
pedient, but also that he shall give information
to them of the state of the Union. To do this
fully involves exposition of all matters in the
actual condition of the country, domestic or
foreign, which essentially concern the general
welfare. While performing his constitutional
duty in this respect the President does not
speak merely to express personal convictions,
but as the executive minister of The govern
ment, enabled by his position, and called upon
by his official obligations, to scan with an i'm
partial eye tho interests of the whole and Of
every part of the United States.
Of the condition of the domestic interests
of the Union, its agriculture, mines, manufac-
lures, navigation and commerce, it is necessary
only to say that the internal prosperity of the
country, its continuous and steady advance
ment in wealth and population, and III private
as well as public well-being attest the wisdom
of our institutions, and the predominant spirit
of intelligence and patriototism, which not
withstanding occasional Irregularities of opin-
ion or action resulting from popular freedom,
has distinguished and characterized the peo-
pie Of America
In the brief interval between the termina-
ton OF the last and the announcement Of the
present session of Congress, the public mind
has been occupied with the of selecting
for another constitutional term, the President
and Vice President Of the United States.
The determination of the persons who are
of right, or contingently, to preside over the
administration of the government, is under
our system committed to the States and the
people. We appeal to them, by their voice
pronounced in the forms Of law, to call whom
soeVer they will to the high post Of Chief
Magistrate.
And thus it is that as the Senators repre-
sent the respective States of the Union, and
the members Of the House Of Representatives
the several constituencies of each State, so the
President represents the aggregate population
of the United States. Their election of him
is the explicit and solemn act of the sole SOW
ereign authority of the Union.
1t is impossible to misapprehend the great
principles, which, by their recent political ac-
ton, the people of the United States have
sanctioned and announced.
They have asserted the constitutional equal
ity of each and Of all the States of the Union
as States; they have affirmed the constitution
al equality of each and all of the citizens of the
DCdlCS dS ClJlAeHS, WnaL6Ver tflGlr re-
ligion, wherever their birth, or their residence,
they have maintained the inviolability Of the
constitutional rights Of the different sections
of the Union; and they have proclaimed their
devoted and unalterable attachment to the
Union and to the constitution, as objects of
interest superior to all subjects of local or Sec
tonal controversy, as the safeguard of the
rights of all, as the spirit and essence of the
liberty, peace and greatness of the Republic
In doing this, they have, at the same time,
emphatically condemned the idea of organic
ing in these United State mere geographical
parties; of marshalllng in hostile array towards
each other the different parts of the country,
North or South, East or West.
Schemes of this nature, fraught with meal
culable mischief and which the cousiderate
sense of the people has rejected, could have
had countenancc in no part of the country, had
they not been disguised by suggestions pausi-
BILE in appearance, acting upon an excited
state OF the public mind induced By causes
temporary in their character, and it is to be
hoped transient in their influence.
Perfect liberty ofassociation for political OBJ
jects, and the widest scope of discussion
are the received and ordinary conditions o
government in our country. Our institutions
formed in the spirit of confidence in the intel
ligence and integrity of the people, do not for
together, to attack by writing speech or any
other methods short of physical force, the Con
sttution and the very existence Of the Union
Under the shelter Of this great liberty, ant
protected by the laws and the uSages of the
government they assail, associations have beef
formed, in some of the States, of individual
who, pretending to seek only to prevent tn
spread of the institution of slavery into tn
present or future nchoate States Of the Uniol
are really inhamed with desire to change tn
domestic institutions of existing States. Il
accomplish their objects they dedicate them
selves to the odlouS task of depreciating tn
government organization which stands in thei
way and OF eliminating, with indiscrimnat
IN e;tlve, not only the citizens OF particula
States, with whose laws they find fault bu
all others of their fellow. citizens Throughout
the country, who do not participate with then
in their assaults upon the Constitution frame
and adopted by our fathers, and claiming 70
the privileges it has secured, and the bless
ings it has conferred, the steady support AM
grateful reverence of their children. The
seek an object which they we'll know to be
revolutionary one. They are perfectly awar
that the change in the relative condition of tn
white and black race in the slaveholding State
which they woeld promote, is beyond thei
lawful authority; that to them it is foreig
object; that it cannot be effected by any peace
full instrumentality of theirs; that for then
and the States of which they are citizens, tn
only path to it's accomplishment is throug
burning cities, and ravaged fields, and slaugt
tered populations, and all that is most terri
bic to foreign complicated with civil and sci
vile war; and that the first step in the attemE
is the forcible disruption of country embrac
n re hoCOn q Of