State of the Union AddressesPolk, James K. (James Knox)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Polk, James K. (James Knox)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The Secretary of the Treasury, by a circular letter addressed to collectors
of the customs on the 7th day of October last, a copy of which is herewith
transmitted, exercised all the power with which he was invested by law.
In pursuance of the act of the 14th of August last, extending the benefit
of our post-office laws to the people of California, the Postmaster-General
has appointed two agents, who have proceeded, the one to California and the
other to Oregon, with authority to make the necessary arrangements for
carrying its provisions into effect.
The monthly line of mail steamers from Panama to Astoria has been required
to "stop and deliver and take mails at San Diego, Monterey, and San
Francisco." These mail steamers, connected by the Isthmus of Panama with
the line of mail steamers on the Atlantic between New York and Chagres,
will establish a regular mail communication with California.
It is our solemn duty to provide with the least practicable delay for New
Mexico and California regularly organized Territorial governments. The
causes of the failure to do this at the last session of Congress are well
known and deeply to be regretted. With the opening prospects of increased
prosperity and national greatness which the acquisition of these rich and
extensive territorial possessions affords, how irrational it would be to
forego or to reject these advantages by the agitation of a domestic
question which is coeval with the existence of our Government itself, and
to endanger by internal strifes, geographical divisions, and heated
contests for political power, or for any other cause, the harmony of the
glorious Union of our confederated States--that Union which binds us
together as one people, and which for sixty years has been our shield and
protection against every danger. In the eyes of the world and of posterity
how trivial and insignificant will be all our internal divisions and
struggles compared with the preservation of this Union of the States in all
its vigor and with all its countless blessings! No patriot would foment and
excite geographical and sectional divisions. No lover of his country would
deliberately calculate the value of the Union. Future generations would
look in amazement upon the folly of such a course. Other nations at the
present day would look upon it with astonishment, and such of them as
desire to maintain and perpetuate thrones and monarchical or aristocratical
principles will view it with exultation and delight, because in it they
will see the elements of faction, which they hope must ultimately overturn
our system. Ours is the great example of a prosperous and free
self-governed republic, commanding the admiration and the imitation of all
the lovers of freedom throughout the world. How solemn, therefore, is the
duty, how impressive the call upon us and upon all parts of our country, to
cultivate a patriotic spirit of harmony, of good-fellowship, of compromise
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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