teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere producing astonishing
results, has passed along, but on our institutions it has left no
injurious mark. From a small co mmunity we have risen to a people
powerful in numbers and in strength; but with our increase has gone
hand in hand the progress of just principles. The privileges, civil and
religious, of the humblest individual are still sacredly protected at
home, and w hile the valor and fortitude of our people have removed far
from us the slightest apprehension of foreign power, they have not yet
induced us in a single instance to forget what is right. Our commerce
has been extended to the remotest nations; the value a nd even nature
of our productions have been greatly changed; a wide difference has
arisen in the relative wealth and resources of every portion of our
country; yet the spirit of mutual regard and of faithful adherence to
existing compacts has continued to prevail in our councils and never
long been absent from our conduct. We have learned by experience a
fruitful lesson - that an implicit and undeviating adherence to the
principles on which we set out can carry us prosperously onward through
all the co nflicts of circumstances and vicissitudes inseparable from
the lapse of years.

An imperfect experience during the struggles of the Revolution was
supposed to warrant the belief that the people would not bear the
taxation requisite to discharge an immense public debt already incurred
and to pay the necessary expen ses of the Government. The cost of two
wars has been paid, not only without a murmur, but with unequaled
alacrity. No one is now left to doubt that every burden will be
cheerfully borne that may be necessary to sustain our civil
institutions or guard our honor or welfare. Indeed, all experience has
shown that the willingness of the people to contribute to these ends in
cases of emergency has uniformly outrun the confidence of their