for the period of six months.

By order:

R. JONES,

_Adjutant-General_.




FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _December 4, 1849_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:_

Sixty years have elapsed since the establishment of this Government, and
the Congress of the United States again assembles to legislate for an
empire of freemen. The predictions of evil prophets, who formerly
pretended to foretell the downfall of our institutions, are now
remembered only to be derided, and the United States of America at this
moment present to the world the most stable and permanent Government on
earth.

Such is the result of the labors of those who have gone before us. Upon
Congress will eminently depend the future maintenance of our system of
free government and the transmission of it unimpaired to posterity.