great interests of those by whom they are deputed, learn to estimate
the talents and do justice to the virtues of each other. The harmony of
the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the
sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the
ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its
several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

Passing from this general review of the purposes and injunctions of the
Federal Constitution and their results as indicating the first traces
of the path of duty in the discharge of my public trust, I turn to the
Administration of my immediate predecessor as the second. It has passed
away in a period of profound peace, how much to the satisfaction of our
country and to the honor of our country's name is known to you all. The
great features of its policy, in general concurrence with the will of
the Legislature, have been to cherish peace while preparing for
defensive war; to yield exact justice to other nations and maintain the
rights of our own; to cherish the principles of freedom and of equal
rights wherever they were proclaimed; to discharge with all possible
promptitude the national debt; to reduce within the narrowest limits of
efficiency the military force; to improve the organization and
discipline of the Army; to provide and sustain a school of military
science; to extend equal protection to all the great interests of the
nation; to promote the civilization of the Indian tribes, and to
proceed in the great system of internal improvements within the limits
of the constitutional power of the Union. Under the pledge of these
promises, made by that eminent citizen at the time of his first
induction to this office, in his career of eight years the internal
taxes have been repealed; sixty millions of the public debt have been
discharged; provision has been made for the comfort and relief of the
aged and indigent among the surviving warriors of the Revolution; the