Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-12-06
Presidents Message.
lloss Citizens ofthe Senate and

House Of Representatives..
The Constitution requires that the Presi-
dent shall, from time to time, not only rec
ommend to the consideration of Congress such
measures as he may judge necessary and expe-
dent, but also that he shall give Information
10 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 10 express his personal conVic-
tions, but as to the executive minister of the
government, enabled by bis position, and call
ed upon by his official obligations, to scan with
an impartial eye the 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, manufactures,
navigation, and commerce, it is necessary only
to say that the internalprosperity of the conn
try. its continuous and steady advancement in
wealth and population, and in private as well
as public well-being attest the wisdom of our
institutions, and the predominant spirit of 10
telligence and patriotism, which, notwithstand
ing occasional irregularities of opinion or action
resulting from popular freedom, has disting
uished and characterized the people ofAmerica.
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 form of law, to call whom
soever they will to the high post of Chief Mag
istrate.
And thus it is that as the Senators represent
the respective States of the Union, and the
members of the House of Representatives the
several constituencies of each Stale, so the
President represents the aggregate population
of the United States. Their election of him is
the explicit and solemn act of the sole soYer-
eign authority of the Union.
Ii is impossible to misapprehend the great
principles, by which their recent political ac-
tion, the people ofthe United States have sane
tioned and announced.
They have asserted the constitutional equal
ity of each and all of the States, they have
affirmed the constitutional equality of each and
all of the citizens Of the United States as citi-
gems, whatever their religion, wherever their
birth, or their residence; they have maintain
ed the inviolsbity of the Constitutional rights of
the different sections of the Union; and they
have proclaimed their devoted and unalterable
attachment to the Union aud the Constitution,
as objects Of interest superior to all subjects of
local or sectional controversy, as the safeguard
of the rights of all, as the spirit and the ess-
euce of the liberty, peace, and greatness Of the
Republic.
In doing this, they have, at the same time
emphsticaly condemned the idea of organic
ing in these United States, mere geographic
al parties; of marshalling in hostile array to-
wards each other the different parts of the
country, North or South, East or West.
Schemes of this nature, fraught with meal
cuable mischief and which the consderate
sense of the people has rejected, could have
had countenance in no part of the country,
had they not been disguised by suggestions
plausible in appearance, acting upon an exct-
ed state of the public mind, induced by causes
temporary in their character, and it is to be
hoped transient in their influence
Perfect liberty of association of political OBJ
jects, and the widest scope of discussion, are
the received and ordinary conditions of gov
ernment in our country. Our institutions, fra
med in the spirit of confidence in the intelli-
gence and integrity Of the people, do 7ot for
bid citizens either individually or associated
together, to attack by writing, speech, or any
other methods short of physical force, the
Constitution and the very existence of the
Union. Under the shelter of this great liberty,
and protected by the laws and usages of the
government they assail, associations have been
formed, in some of the States, of individuals,
who, pretending TO seek only to prevent the
spread of the institution of slavery into the
present or future incbOate States of the Union
are really infamed with desire to change the
domestic Institutions Of existing States To
accomplish their objects, they dedicate thems
tbelves to the Odous task of deprecating the
government organiza ion which stands in their
way, and of eliminating, with indiscrminate
invective, not only the citizens of particular
States, with whose laws they find fault, but all
others of their feow-citizens throughout the
country, who do not participate with them in
hair aa-aulfo ka Constitution
and adopted by our fathers, and claiming for
the privileges it has secured, and the blessings
il has conferred, the steady support and CRATE
ful reverence Of their children. They seek an
object they well know TO be q revolutionary
one. They arc perfectly aware that the rela
tive condition of the white and black races in
the slavehOlding StBtes, which they would pro.
mote, is beyond their lawful authority; that to
them it is a foreign object that it cannot be
effected by any peaceful nstrumentaty Of
theirs; that for them, and the States of which
they are citizens, the only path to its accom-
plishment is through burning cities, aud raw
aged fields and slaughtered populations, aud
all there is most terrible in foreign, complicat-
ed with civil aud seryile val; aud that the first
step in their attempt is he forcibe disruption
of q country embracing in its broad bosom a
degree of liberty, and al amount of Individual
and public prOsperty,to which there is no par
ael in history, and substituting in its place
hostile governments driven at once and nevis
tably into mutual devastation and fratricidal
carnage, Transforming the now peaceful and
felicitous brotherhood into a vast permanent
camp of armed men like the rival monarchies
of Europe and Asia. Well knowing that such
and such ouly, are the means and consequence
of their plans and purposes, they endesvor TO
prepare the people of the United States for
cival war by doing everything in their power
60 deprive the Constitution and the laws Of
moral authority, and to undermine the fabric
of the Union by appeals 10 passion and Sec
tional prejudice, by indOctrinating its people
with reciprocal hatred, and by educating them
10 stand face to face las enemies rather than
shoulder 20 shoulder as,frlends
IL is by the agency of such unwarrantable
interference, foreign and domestic, that the
minds Of many, otherwise good citizens have
been 40 iufamed into the passionate condem
nation Of the domestic institutions OF the
Southern States as at length 10 pass insensi-
bly, TO almost equally passionate hostility to-
wards their fellow-citiEens Of those States,
aud thus finally 10 iall into temporary fellow
ship with the Ayowed and active enemies Of
the Constitution. Arden,y attached 10 liber-
~ iu the Distract, they DO hot stop 10 consid.
er practically how the objects they would at.
tain can be accomplished, nor 20 reflect that
even IL the evil were ms great as they deemed
IL, they have 40 remedy 10 apply, aud that IL
can be only aggravated by their violence aud
unconstitutional action. a question, which
is one of the most difficult of all tn, problems
of social institution, political economy and
statesmanship, they treat with unreasoning