A similar treaty was concluded on the 10th July, 1856, was submitted to the Senate, and was by a resolution of that body approved, with an amendment, on the 10th March, 1857. Before this amendment could be laid before the Government of Venezuela for acceptance a new minister of the United States was accredited to that Government. Meantime the attention of this Government had been drawn to the disadvantage which would result to our citizens residing in Venezuela if the second article of the treaty of 1856 were permitted to go into effect, the "pecuniary equivalent" for exemption from military duty being an arbitrary and generally an excessive sum. In view of this fact it was deemed preferable to instruct our new minister to negotiate a new treaty which should omit the objectionable second article and also the few words of the twenty-eighth article which had been stricken out by the Senate. With these changes, and with the addition of the last clause to the twenty-seventh article, the treaty is the same as that already approved by the Senate. JAMES BUCHANAN. WASHINGTON CITY, _January 8, 1861_. _To the Senate and House of Representatives_: At the opening of your present session I called your attention to the dangers which threatened the existence of the Union. I expressed my opinion freely concerning the original causes of those dangers, and recommended such measures as I believed would have the effect of tranquilizing the country and saving it from the peril in which it had been needlessly and most unfortunately involved. Those opinions and recommendations I do not propose now to repeat. My own convictions upon the whole subject remain unchanged. The fact that a great calamity was impending over the nation was even at that time acknowledged by every intelligent citizen. It had already made itself felt throughout the length and breadth of the land. The necessary consequences of the alarm thus produced were most deplorable. The imports fell off with a rapidity never known before, except in time of war, in the history of our foreign commerce; the Treasury was unexpectedly left without the means which it had reasonably counted upon to meet the public engagements; trade was paralyzed; manufactures were stopped; the best public securities suddenly sunk in the market; every species of property depreciated more or less, and thousands of poor men who depended upon their daily labor for their daily bread were turned out of employment.