And may I not be allowed to add to this gratifying spectacle that I shall read in the character of the American people, in their devotion to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium, sure presages that the destined career of my country will exhibit a Government pursuing the public good as its sole object, and regulating its means by the great principles consecrated in its charter and by those moral principles to which they are so well allied; a Government which watches over the purity of elections, the freedom of speech and of the press, the trial by jury, and the equal interdict against encroachments and compacts between religion and the state; which maintains inviolably the maxims of public faith, the security of persons and property, and encourages in every authorized mode that general diffusion of knowledge which guarantees to public liberty its permanency and to those who possess the blessing the true enjoyment of it; a Government which avoids intrusions on the internal repose of other nations, and repels them from its own; which does justice to all nations with a readiness equal to the firmness with which it requires justice from them; and which, whilst it refines its domestic code from every ingredient not congenial with the precepts of an enlightened age and the sentiments of a virtuous people, seeks by appeals to reason and by its liberal examples to infuse into the law which governs the civilized world a spirit which may diminish the frequency or circumscribe the calamities of war, and meliorate the social and beneficent relations of peace; a Government, in a word, whose conduct within and without may bespeak the most noble of all ambitions---that of promoting peace on earth and good will to man. These contemplations, sweetening the remnant of my days, will animate my prayers for the happiness of my beloved country, and a perpetuity of the institutions under which it is enjoyed. JAMES MADISON. SPECIAL MESSAGES. DECEMBER 6, 1816. _To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_: The ninth section of the act passed at the last session of Congress "to authorize the payment for property lost, captured, or destroyed by the enemy while in the military service of the United States, and for other purposes," having received a construction giving to it a scope of great and uncertain extent, I thought it proper that proceedings relative to claims under that part of the act should be suspended until Congress should have an opportunity of defining more precisely the cases contemplated by them. With that view I now recommend the subject to their consideration. They will have an opportunity at the same time of considering how far other provisions of the act may be rendered more clear and precise in their import. JAMES MADISON. DECEMBER 10, 1816. _To the Senate of the United States_: