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 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, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked
on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain
with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power
delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient
at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been
urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given
birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this
subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official
opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your
discernment and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that
whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the
benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await
the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic
rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will sufficiently
influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can
be impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously
promoted.

To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will be most
properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself,
and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored
with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an
arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my
duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From
this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under
the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to
myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably
included in a permanent provision for the