A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 2: John Adams
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 2: John Adams
Adams, John, 1735-1826; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
SIR: While the House of Representatives contemplate the flattering
prospects of abundance from the labors of the people by land and by
sea, the prosperity of our extended commerce notwithstanding the
interruptions occasioned by the belligerent state of a great part of the
world, the return of health, industry, and trade to those cities which
have lately been afflicted with disease, and the various and inestimable
advantages, civil and religious, which, secured under our happy frame of
Government, are continued to us unimpaired, we can not fail to offer
up to a benevolent Deity our sincere thanks for these the merciful
dispensations of His protecting providence.
That any portion of the people of America should permit themselves,
amid such numerous blessings, to be seduced by the arts and
misrepresentations of designing men into an open resistance of a law
of the United States can not be heard without deep and serious regret.
Under a Constitution where the public burthens can only be imposed by
the people themselves for their own benefit and to promote their own
objects, a hope might well have been indulged that the general interest
would have been too well understood and the general welfare too highly
prized to have produced in any of our citizens a disposition to hazard
so much felicity by the criminal effort of a part to oppose with lawless
violence the will of the whole. While we lament that depravity which
could produce a defiance of the civil authority and render indispensable
the aid of the military force of the nation, real consolation is to
be derived from the promptness and fidelity with which that aid was
afforded. That zealous and active cooperation with the judicial power of
the volunteers and militia called into service, which has restored order
and submission to the laws, is a pleasing evidence of the attachment of
our fellow-citizens to their own free Government, and of the truly
patriotic alacrity with which they will support it.
To give due effect to the civil administration of Government and to
insure a just execution of the laws are objects of such real magnitude
as to secure a proper attention to your recommendation of a revision and
amendment of the judiciary system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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