Chapter 3

Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise of the powers with which the Constitution clothes them. The attempt of those of one State to control the domestic institutions of another can only result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion, violence, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our free institutions. Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the terms and principles governing a common copartnership. There is a fund of power to be exercised under the direction of the joint councils of the allied members, but that which has been reserved by the individual members is intangible by the common Government or the individual members composing it. To attempt it finds no support in the principles of our Constitution.

It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our Confederacy. Experience has abundantly taught us that the agitation by citizens of one part of the Union of a subject not confided to the General Government, but exclusively under the guardianship of the local authorities, is productive of no other consequences than bitterness, alienation, discord, and injury to the very cause which is intended to be advanced. Of all the great interests which appertain to our country, that of union--cordial, confiding, fraternal union--is by far the most important, since it is the only true and sure guaranty of all others.

In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the currency, some of the States may meet with difficulty in their financial concerns. However deeply we may regret anything imprudent or excessive in the engagements into which States have entered for purposes of their own, it does not become us to disparage the State governments, nor to discourage them from making proper efforts for their own relief. On the contrary, it is our duty to encourage them to the extent of our constitutional authority to apply their best means and cheerfully to make all necessary sacrifices and submit to all necessary burdens to fulfill their engagements and maintain their credit, for the character and credit of the several States form a part of the character and credit of the whole country. The resources of the country are abundant, the enterprise and activity of our people proverbial, and we may well hope that wise legislation and prudent administration by the respective governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restore former prosperity.

Unpleasant and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes be between the constituted authorities of the citizens of our country in relation to the lines which separate their respective jurisdictions, the results can be of no vital injury to our institutions if that ardent patriotism, that devoted attachment to liberty, that spirit of moderation and forbearance for which our countrymen were once distinguished, continue to be cherished. If this continues to be the ruling passion of our souls, the weaker feeling of the mistaken enthusiast will be corrected, the Utopian dreams of the scheming politician dissipated, and the complicated intrigues of the demagogue rendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for every injury which our institutions may receive. On the contrary, no care that can be used in the construction of our Government, no division of powers, no distribution of checks in its several departments, will prove effectual to keep us a free people if this spirit is suffered to decay; and decay it will without constant nurture. To the neglect of this duty the best historians agree in attributing the ruin of all the republics with whose existence and fall their writings have made us acquainted. The same causes will ever produce the same effects, and as long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men can be warped and their affections changed by operations upon their passions and prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation. The danger to all well-established free governments arises from the unwillingness of the people to believe in its existence or from the influence of designing men diverting their attention from the quarter whence it approaches to a source from which it can never come. This is the old trick of those who would usurp the government of their country. In the name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History, ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Caesar became the master of the Roman people and the senate under the pretense of supporting the democratic claims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter; Cromwell, in the character of protector of the liberties of the people, became the dictator of England, and Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power with the title of his country's liberator. There is, on the contrary, no instance on record of an extensive and well-established republic being changed into an aristocracy. The tendencies of all such governments in their decline is to monarchy, and the antagonist principle to liberty there is the spirit of faction--a spirit which assumes the character and in times of great excitement imposes itself upon the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and, like the false Christs whose coming was foretold by the Savior, seeks to, and were it possible would, impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of liberty. It is in periods like this that it behooves the people to be most watchful of those to whom they have intrusted power. And although there is at times much difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit, a calm and dispassionate investigation will detect the counterfeit, as well by the character of its operations as the results that are produced. The true spirit of liberty, although devoted, persevering, bold, and uncompromising in principle, that secured is mild and tolerant and scrupulous as to the means it employs, whilst the spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vindictive, and intolerant, and totally reckless as to the character of the allies which it brings to the aid of its cause. When the genuine spirit of liberty animates the body of a people to a thorough examination of their affairs, it leads to the excision of every excrescence which may have fastened itself upon any of the departments of the government, and restores the system to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign of an intolerant spirit of party amongst a free people seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to the executive power introduced and established amidst unusual professions of devotion to democracy.

The foregoing remarks relate almost exclusively to matters connected with our domestic concerns. It may be proper, however, that I should give some indications to my fellow-citizens of my proposed course of conduct in the management of our foreign relations. I assure them, therefore, that it is my intention to use every means in my power to preserve the friendly intercourse which now so happily subsists with every foreign nation, and that although, of course, not well informed as to the state of pending negotiations with any of them, I see in the personal characters of the sovereigns, as well as in the mutual interests of our own and of the governments with which our relations are most intimate, a pleasing guaranty that the harmony so important to the interests of their subjects as well as of our citizens will not be interrupted by the advancement of any claim or pretension upon their part to which our honor would not permit us to yield. Long the defender of my country's rights in the field, I trust that my fellow-citizens will not see in my earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers any indication that their rights will ever be sacrificed or the honor of the nation tarnished by any admission on the part of their Chief Magistrate unworthy of their former glory. In our intercourse with our aboriginal neighbors the same liberality and justice which marked the course prescribed to me by two of my illustrious predecessors when acting under their direction in the discharge of the duties of superintendent and commissioner shall be strictly observed. I can conceive of no more sublime spectacle, none more likely to propitiate an impartial and common Creator, than a rigid adherence to the principles of justice on the part of a powerful nation in its transactions with a weaker and uncivilized people whom circumstances have placed at its disposal.

Before concluding, fellow-citizens, I must say something to you on the subject of the parties at this time existing in our country. To me it appears perfectly clear that the interest of that country requires that the violence of the spirit by which those parties are at this time governed must be greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or consequences will ensue which are appalling to be thought of.

If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples of republics where the love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens. It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer that "in the Roman senate Octavius had a party and Antony a party, but the Commonwealth had none." Yet the senate continued to meet in the temple of liberty to talk of the sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and gaze at the statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, and the people assembled in the forum, not, as in the days of Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates or pass upon the acts of the senate, but to receive from the hands of the leaders of the respective parties their share of the spoils and to shout for one or the other, as those collected in Gaul or Egypt and the lesser Asia would furnish the larger dividend. The spirit of liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums. A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the world, must be deprecated by every patriot and every tendency to a state of things likely to produce it immediately checked. Such a tendency has existed--does exist. Always the friend of my countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests--hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views, selfish in its objects. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few even to the destruction of the interests of the whole. The entire remedy is with the people. Something, however, may be effected by the means which they have placed in my hands. It is union that we want, not of a party for the sake of that party, but a union of the whole country for the sake of the whole country, for the defense of its interests and its honor against foreign aggression, for the defense of those principles for which our ancestors so gloriously contended. As far as it depends upon me it shall be accomplished. All the influence that I possess shall be exerted to prevent the formation at least of an Executive party in the halls of the legislative body. I wish for the support of no member of that body to any measure of mine that does not satisfy his judgment and his sense of duty to those from whom he holds his appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people but that asked for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to the legal administration of their affairs."

I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every interest of our beloved country in all future time.

Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my exalted station according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon their performance with entire confidence in the support of a just and generous people.

MARCH 4, 1841.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

March 5, 1841. _To the Senate of the United States_:

I hereby withdraw all nominations made to the Senate on or before the 3d instant and which were not definitely acted on at the close of its session on that day.

W.H. HARRISON.

PROCLAMATION.

[From Statutes at Large (Little, Brown & Co.), Vol. XI, p. 786.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas sundry important and weighty matters, principally growing out of the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, appear to me to call for the consideration of Congress at an earlier day, than its next annual session, and thus form an extraordinary occasion, such as renders necessary, in my judgment, the convention of the two Houses as soon as may be practicable:

I do therefore by this my proclamation convene the two Houses of Congress to meet in the Capitol, at the city of Washington, on the last Monday, being the 31st day, of May next; and I require the respective Senators and Representatives then and there to assemble, in order to receive such information respecting the state of the Union as may be given to them and to devise and adopt such measures as the good of the country may seem to them, in the exercise of their wisdom and discretion, to require.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 17th day of March, A.D. 1841, and of the Independence of the United States the sixty-fifth.

W.H. HARRISON

By the President: DANIEL WEBSTER, _Secretary of State_.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT HARRISON.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT.

[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April 5, 1841.]

WASHINGTON, _April 4, 1841_.

An all-wise Providence having suddenly removed from this life William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States, we have thought it our duty, in the recess of Congress and in the absence of the Vice-President from the seat of Government, to make this afflicting bereavement known to the country by this declaration under our hands.

He died at the President's house, in this city, this 4th day of April, A.D. 1841, at thirty minutes before 1 o'clock in the morning.

The people of the United States, overwhelmed, like ourselves, by an event so unexpected and so melancholy, will derive consolation from knowing that his death was calm and resigned, as his life has been patriotic, useful, and distinguished, and that the last utterance of his lips expressed a fervent desire for the perpetuity of the Constitution and the preservation of its true principles. In death, as in life, the happiness of his country was uppermost in his thoughts.

DANIEL WEBSTER, _Secretary of State_. THOMAS EWING, _Secretary of the Treasury_. JOHN BELL, _Secretary of War_. J.J. CRITTENDEN, _Attorney-General_. FRANCIS GRANGER, _Postmaster-General_.

[The Secretary of the Navy was absent from the city.]

ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE VICE-PRESIDENT.

[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April 5, 1841.]

WASHINGTON, _April 4, 1841_. JOHN TYLER, _Vice-President of the United States_.

Sir: It has become our most painful duty to inform you that William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States, has departed this life.

This distressing event took place this day at the President's mansion, in this city, at thirty minutes before 1 in the morning.

We lose no time in dispatching the chief clerk in the State Department as a special messenger to bear you these melancholy tidings.

We have the honor to be, with the highest regard, your obedient servants,

DANIEL WEBSTER, _Secretary of State_. THOMAS EWING, _Secretary of the Treasury_. JOHN BELL, _Secretary of War_. JOHN J. CRITTENDEN, _Attorney-General_. FRANCIS GRANGER, _Postmaster-General_.

ANNOUNCEMENT TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES ABROAD.

[From official records in the State Department.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _Washington, April 4, 1841_.

Sir: It has become my most painful duty to announce to you the decease of William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States.

This afflicting event took place this day at the Executive Mansion, in this city, at thirty minutes before 1 o'clock in the morning.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

DANL. WEBSTER.

ANNOUNCEMENT TO REPRESENTATIVES OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES.

[From official records in the State Department.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _Washington, April 5, 1841_.

Sir: It is my great misfortune to be obliged to inform you of an event not less afflicting to the people of the United States than distressing to my own feelings and the feelings of all those connected with the Government.

The President departed this life yesterday at thirty minutes before 1 o'clock in the morning.

You are respectfully invited to attend the funeral ceremonies, which will take place on Wednesday next, and with the particular arrangements for which you will be made acquainted in due time.

Not doubting your sympathy and condolence with the Government and people of the country on this bereavement, I have the honor to be, sir, with high consideration, your obedient servant,

DANL. WEBSTER.

ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE ARMY.

[From official records in the War Department.]

DEPARTMENT OF WAR, _Washington April 5, 1841_.

It is with feelings of the deepest sorrow that the Secretary of War announces to the Army the death of the President of the United States. William Henry Harrison is no more. His long and faithful services in many subordinate but important stations, his recent elevation to the highest in honor and power, and the brief term allotted to him in the enjoyment of it are circumstances of themselves which must awaken the liveliest sympathy in every bosom. But these are personal considerations; the dispensation is heaviest and most afflicting on public grounds. This great calamity has befallen the country at a period of general anxiety for its present, and some apprehension for its future, condition--at a time when it is most desirable that all its high offices should be filled and all its high trusts administered in harmony, wisdom, and vigor. The generosity of character of the deceased, the conspicuous honesty of his principles and purposes, together with the skill and firmness with which he maintained them in all situations, had won for him the affection and confidence of his countrymen; but at the moment when by their voice he was raised to a station in the discharge of the powers and duties of which the most beneficent results might justly have been anticipated from his great experience, his sound judgment, the high estimation in which he was held by the people, and his unquestioned devotion to the Constitution and to the Union, it has pleased an all-wise but mysterious Providence to remove him suddenly from that and every other earthly employment.

While the officers and soldiers of the Army share in the general grief which these considerations so naturally and irresistibly inspire, they will doubtless be penetrated with increased sensibility and feel a deeper concern in testifying in the manner appropriate to them the full measure of a nation's gratitude for the eminent services of the departed patriot and in rendering just and adequate honors to his memory because he was himself a soldier, and an approved one, receiving his earliest lessons in a camp, and, when in riper years called to the command of armies, illustrating the profession of arms by his personal qualities and contributing largely by his successes to the stock of his country's glory.

It is to be regretted that the suddenness of the emergency has made it necessary to announce this sad event in the absence of the Vice-President from the seat of Government; but the greatest confidence is felt that he will cordially approve the sentiments expressed, and that he will in due time give directions for such further marks of respect not prescribed by the existing regulations of the Army as may be demanded by the occasion.

JOHN BELL, _Secretary of War_.

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 20.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, _Washington, April 7, 1841_.

The death of the President of the United States having been officially announced from the War Department, the Major-General Commanding in Chief communicates to the Army the melancholy intelligence with feelings of the most profound sorrow. The long, arduous, and faithful military services in which President Harrison has been engaged since the first settlement of the Western country, from the rank of a subaltern to that of a commander in chief, are too well known to require a recital of them here. It is sufficient to point to the fields of Tippecanoe, the banks of the Miami, and the Thames, in Upper Canada, to recall to many of the soldiers of the present Army the glorious results of some of his achievements against the foes of his country, both savage and civilized.

The Army has on former occasions been called upon to mourn the loss of distinguished patriots who have occupied the Presidential chair, but this is the first time since the adoption of the Constitution it has to lament the demise of a President while in the actual exercise of the high functions of the Chief Magistracy of the Union.

The members of the Army, in common with their fellow-citizens of all classes, deeply deplore this national bereavement; but although they have lost a friend ever ready to protect their interests, his bright example in the paths of honor and glory still remains for their emulation.

The funeral honors directed to be paid by the troops in paragraph 523 of the General Regulations will be duly observed, and the troops at the several stations will be paraded at 10 o'clock a.m., when this order will be read, after which all labors for the day will cease; the national flag will be displayed at half-staff; at dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, besides the half-hour guns as directed by the Regulations, and at the close of the day a national salute. The standards, guidons, and colors of the several regiments will be put in mourning for the period of six months, and the officers will wear the usual badge of mourning on the left arm above the elbow and on the hilt of the sword for the same period.

By order of Alexander Macomb, Major-General Commanding in Chief: R. JONES, _Adjutant-General_.