ge. These reflections arising out of the present
crisis have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed.
You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under
the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can
more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty
of the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures as he
shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I
now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject farther than
to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are
assembled, and which in defining your powers designates the objects to
which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with
those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which
actuate me to substitute in place of a recommendation of particular
measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the
patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them.
In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges that as
on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views, no
party animosities will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which
ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests,
so on another, that the foundations of our national policy will be laid
in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the
pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes
which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of
the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an
ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more
thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course
of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between
duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and
magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of the public prosperity and
felicity. Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious
smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the
eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained, and
since the preservation of the sacred fire of Liberty, and the destiny of
the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply,
perhaps as finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands