TO THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

JANUARY 27, 1797.

[Independent Chronicle, January 30, 1797; a text is in the
Massachusetts Archives].

FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,

SINCE your last adjournment, the President of the United States has
officially announced to the Legislature of the Union his determination
to retire from the cares of public life.--When a citizen so distinguished
by his country withdraws himself from the Councils of the Nation, and
retires to peaceful repose, it must afford very pleasurable feelings in
his own mind, to be conscious of the good will of the people towards
him--how much more consoling must his feelings be, in reflecting that he
has served them many years with purity of intention and disinterested
zeal. We sincerely wish him tranquility in his retirement and strong
consolation in the latter stage of life.

In pursuance of the provision in the Constitution, the people have
recently exercised their own sovereign power in the election of another
President. Elections to offices, even in the smallest Corporations, are
and ought to be deemed highly important; of how much more importance is
it, that elections to the highest offices in our extensive Republic,
should be conducted in a manner and with a spirit becoming a free,
virtuous and enlightened people, who justly estimate the value of their
sacred rights. In the late elections, the people have turned their
attention to several citizens, who have rendered eminent services to
our federal Commonwealth in exalted stations. Upon which ever of the