SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.


EXECUTIVE MANSION, _December 2, 1878_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

Our heartfelt gratitude is due to the Divine Being who holds in His
hands the destinies of nations for the continued bestowal during the
last year of countless blessings upon our country.

We are at peace with all other nations. Our public credit has greatly
improved, and is perhaps now stronger than ever before. Abundant
harvests have rewarded the labors of those who till the soil, our
manufacturing industries are reviving, and it is believed that general
prosperity, which has been so long anxiously looked for, is at last
within our reach.

The enjoyment of health by our people generally has, however, been
interrupted during the past season by the prevalence of a fatal
pestilence (the yellow fever) in some portions of the Southern States,
creating an emergency which called for prompt and extraordinary
measures of relief. The disease appeared as an epidemic at New Orleans
and at other places on the Lower Mississippi soon after midsummer.
It was rapidly spread by fugitives from the infected cities and
towns, and did not disappear until early in November. The States of
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have suffered severely. About
100,000 cases are believed to have occurred, of which about 20,000,