Read Ebook: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. by Richardson James D James Daniel Editor

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The President of the United States withdrew from the Senate Chamber, and the Vice-President put the question of adjournment, to which the Senate agreed.

Having yesterday received a letter written in this month by the governor of Rhode Island at the request and in behalf of the general assembly of that State, addressed to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the eleven United States of America in Congress assembled, I take the earliest opportunity of laying a copy of it before you.

Go. WASHINGTON.

The critical situation in which the people of this State are placed engage us to make these assurances on their behalf of their attachment and friendship to their sister States and of their disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and friendly intercourse. They know themselves to be a handful, comparatively viewed; and although they now stand, as it were, alone, they have not separated themselves or departed from the principles of that Confederation which was formed by the sister States in their struggle for freedom and in the hour of danger. They seek by this memorial to call to your remembrance the hazards which we have run, the hardships we have endured, the treasure we have spent, and the blood we have lost together in one common cause, and especially the object we had in view--the preservation of our liberty; wherein, ability considered, they may truly say they were equal in exertions with the foremost, the effects whereof, in great embarrassments and other distresses consequent thereon, we have since experienced with severity; which common sufferings and common danger we hope and trust yet form a bond of union and friendship not easily to be broken.

Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government formed and adopted by most of our sister States we doubt not have given uneasiness to them. That we have not seen our way clear to do it consistent with our idea of the principles upon which we all embarked together has also given pain to us. We have not doubted but we might thereby avoid present difficulties, but we have apprehended future mischief. The people of this State from its first settlement have been accustomed and strongly attached to a democratical form of government. They have viewed in the Constitution an approach, though perhaps but small, toward that form of government from which we have lately dissolved our connection at so much hazard and expense of life and treasure; they have seen with pleasure the administration thereof from the most important trust downward committed to men who have highly merited and in whom the people of the United States place unbounded confidence. Yet even in this circumstance, in itself so fortunate, they have apprehended danger by way of precedent. Can it be thought strange, then, that with these impressions they should wait to see the proposed system organized and in operation, to see what further checks and securities would be agreed to and established, by way of amendments, before they could adopt it as a constitution of government for themselves and their posterity? These amendments, we believe, have already afforded some relief and satisfaction to the minds of the people of this State, and we earnestly look for the time when they may with clearness and safety be again united with their sister States under a constitution and form of government so well poised as neither to need alteration or be liable thereto by a majority only of nine States out of thirteen--a circumstance which may possibly take place against the sense of a majority of the people of the United States. We are sensible of the extremes to which democratical government is sometimes liable, something of which we have lately experienced; but we esteem them temporary and partial evils compared with the loss of liberty and the rights of a free people. Neither do we apprehend they will be marked with severity by our sister States when it is considered that during the late trouble the whole United States, notwithstanding their joint wisdom and efforts, fell into the like misfortune; that from our extraordinary exertions this State was left in a situation nearly as embarrassing as that during the war; that in the measures which were adopted government unfortunately had not that aid and support from the moneyed interest which our sister States of New York and the Carolinas experienced under similar circumstances; and especially when it is considered that upon some abatement of that fermentation in the minds of the people which is so common in the collision of sentiments and of parties a disposition appears to provide a remedy for the difficulties we have labored under on that account. We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether considered as foreigners having no particular affinity or connection with the United States, but that trade and commerce, upon which the prosperity of this State much depends, will be preserved as free and open between this and the United States as our different situations at present can possibly admit; earnestly desiring and proposing to adopt such commercial regulations on our part as shall not tend to defeat the collection of the revenue of the United States, but rather to act in conformity to or cooperate therewith, and desiring also to give the strongest assurances that we shall during our present situation use our utmost endeavors to be in preparation from time to time to answer our proportion of such part of the interest or principal of the foreign and domestic debt as the United States shall judge expedient to pay and discharge.

We feel ourselves attached by the strongest ties of friendship, kindred, and of interest with our sister States, and we can not without the greatest reluctance look to any other quarter for those advantages of commercial intercourse which we conceive to be more natural and reciprocal between them and us.

I am, at the request and in behalf of the general assembly, your most obedient, humble servant,

His Excellency the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Among the persons appointed during the last session to offices under the National Government there were some who declined serving. Their names and offices are specified in the first column of the foregoing list. I supplied these vacancies, agreeably to the Constitution, by temporary appointments, which you will find mentioned in the second column of the list. These appointments will expire with your present session, and, indeed, ought not to endure longer than until others can be regularly made. For that purpose I now nominate to you the persons named in the third column of the list as being, in my opinion, qualified to fill the offices opposite to their names in the first.

Go. WASHINGTON.

Having informed Congress of the expedition which had been directed against certain Indians northwest of the Ohio, I embrace the earliest opportunity of laying before you the official communications which have been received upon that subject.

Go. WASHINGTON.

Mr. PRESIDENT:

The National Assembly has worn during three days mourning for Benjamin Franklin, your fellow-citizen, your friend, and one of the most useful of your cooperators in the establishment of American liberty. They charge me to communicate their resolution to the Congress of the United States. In consequence I have the honor to address to you, Mr. President, the extract from the proceedings of their session of the 11th which contains the deliberations.

The National Assembly have not been stopped in their decree by the consideration that Franklin was a stranger. Great men are the fathers of universal humanity; their loss ought to be felt as a common misfortune by all the tribes of the great human family; and it belongs without doubt to a nation still affected by all the sentiments which accompany the achievement of their liberty, and which owes its enfranchisement essentially to the progress of the public reason, to be the first to give the example of the filial gratitude of the people toward their true benefactors. Besides that, these ideas and this example are so proper to disseminate a happy emulation of patriotism, and thus to extend more and more the empire of reason and virtue, which could not fail promptly to determine a body devoted to the most important legislative combinations. Charged with assuring to the French the rights of men and citizens, it has believed without doubt that fruitful and great truths were likewise numbered among the rights of man.

The name of Benjamin Franklin will be immortal in the records of freedom and philosophy, but it is more particularly dear to a country where, conducted by the most sublime mission, this venerable man grew very soon to acquire an infinite number of friends and admirers as well by the simplicity and sweetness of his manners as by the purity of his principles, the extent of his knowledge, and the charms of his mind.

It will be remembered that every success which he obtained in his important negotiation was applauded and celebrated all over France as so many crowns conferred on genius and virtue.

Even then the sentiment of our rights existed in the bottom of our souls. It was easily perceived that it feelingly mingled in the interest which we took in America and in the public vows which we preferred for your liberty.

At last the hour of the French has arrived. We love to think that the citizens of the United States have not regarded with indifference our steps toward liberty. Twenty-six millions of men breaking their chains and seriously occupied in giving themselves a durable constitution are not unworthy the esteem of a generous people who have preceded them in that noble career.

We hope they will learn with interest the funeral homage which we have rendered the Nestor of America. May this solemn act of fraternal friendship serve more and more to bind the tie which ought to unite two free nations. May the common enjoyment of liberty shed itself over the whole globe and become an indissoluble chain of connection among all the people of the earth. For ought they not to perceive that they will march more steadfastly and more certainly to their true happiness in understanding and loving each other than in being jealous and fighting?

May the Congress of the United States and the National Assembly of France be the first to furnish this fine spectacle to the world! And may the individuals of the two nations connect themselves by a mutual affection worthy of the friendship which unites the two men at this day most illustrious by their exertions for liberty--Washington and Lafayette!

Permit me, Mr. President, to offer on this occasion my particular homage of esteem and admiration.

I have the honor to be, with respectful consideration, Mr. President, your most humble and most obedient servant,

DECREE OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE 11TH OF JUNE, 1790.

The National Assembly decree that their members shall wear during three days mourning for Benjamin Franklin, to commence on Monday next; that the discourse pronounced on this occasion be printed, and that the president write to the American Congress in the name of the National Assembly.

Compared with the original by us, president and secretaries of the National Assembly, at Paris, June 10, 1790.

I have received from the Secretary of State a report on the proceedings of the governor of the Northwestern Territory at Kaskaskia, Kahokia, and Prairie under the resolution of Congress of August 29, 1788, which, containing matter proper for your consideration, I lay the same before you.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I lay before you a report of the Secretary of War, relative to the appointment of two brigadier-generals of militia in the territory of the United States south of the Ohio, and I nominate John Sevier to be brigadier-general of the militia of Washington district and James Robertson to be brigadier-general of the militia of Miro district, both within the said territory.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I lay before you, for your consideration, the copy of a letter which I have received from the Attorney-General of the United States.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I lay before you an official statement of the expenditures to the end of the year 1791 from the sum of ,000 granted to defray the contingent expenses of Government by an act passed on the 26th of March, 1790.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I lay before you copies of certain papers relative to the Spanish interference in the execution of the treaty entered into in the year 1790 between the United States and the Creek Nation of Indians, together with a letter from the Secretary of State to the President of the United States on the same subject.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I now transmit you a report by the Secretary of State of such laws, decrees, and ordinances, or their substance, respecting commerce in the countries with which the United States have commercial intercourse as he has received and had not stated in his report of the 16th instant.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I communicate to you the translation of a letter received from the representatives of Spain here in reply to that of the Secretary of State to them of the 21st instant, which had before been communicated to you.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I now lay before you a letter from the Secretary of State, with his account of the expenditure of the moneys appropriated for our intercourse with foreign nations from the 1st of July, 1792, to the 1st of July, 1793, and other papers relating thereto.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I herewith transmit the copy of a letter from the Secretary of War, stating the circumstances which have hitherto prevented any explanation of the fourth article of the treaty with the Wabash Indians.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I lay before you an official statement of the expenditure to the end of the year 1793 from the sum of ,000 granted to defray the contingent expenses of Government by an act passed on the 26th of March, 1790.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I lay before you, as being connected with the correspondence already in your possession between the Secretary of State and the minister plenipotentiary of the French Republic, the copy of a letter from that minister of the 25th of December, 1793, and a copy of the proceedings of the legislature of the State of South Carolina.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I transmit for your information certain intelligence lately received from Europe, as it relates to the subject of my past communications.

Go. WASHINGTON.

I forward to you extracts from the last advices from our minister in London, as being connected with communications already made.

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