To this address the President returned the following answer: "I receive, with the most respectful and affectionate sentiments, in this impressive address, the obliging expressions of your regret for the loss our country has sustained in the death of her most esteemed, beloved, and admired citizen. "In the multitude of my thoughts and recollections on this melancholy event, you will permit me to say that I have seen him in the days of adversity, in some of the scenes of his deepest distress and most trying perplexities. I have also attended him in his highest elevation and most prosperous felicity, with uniform admiration of his wisdom, moderation, and constancy. "Among all our original associates in that memorable _league of this continent_ in 1774, which first expressed the SOVEREIGN WILL OF A FREE NATION IN AMERICA, he was the only one remaining in the general government. Although with a constitution more enfeebled than his, at an age when he thought it necessary to prepare for retirement, I feel myself alone, bereaved of my last brother; yet I derive a strong consolation from the unanimous disposition which appears in all ages and classes to mingle their sorrows with mine on this common calamity to the world. "The life of our WASHINGTON can not suffer by a comparison with those of other countries who have been most celebrated and exalted by fame. The attributes and decorations of _royalty_ could only have served to eclipse the majesty of those virtues which made him, from being a modest _citizen_, a more resplendent luminary. Misfortune, had he lived, could hereafter have sullied his glory only with those superficial minds who, believing that characters and actions are marked by success alone, rarely deserve to enjoy it. _Malice_ could never blast his honour, and _Envy_ made him a singular exception to her universal rule. For himself, he had lived long enough to life and to glory:--for his fellow citizens, if their prayers could have been answered, he would have been immortal: for me, his departure is at a most unfortunate moment. Trusting, however, in the wise and righteous dominion of Providence over the passions of men, and the results of their councils and actions, as well as over their lives, nothing remains for me but _humble resignation_. "His example is now complete; and it will teach wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men, not only in the present age, but in future generations, as long as our history shall be read. If a Trajan found a Pliny, a Marcus Aurelius can never want biographers, eulogists, or historians." The joint committee which had been appointed to devise the mode by which the nation should express its feelings on this melancholy occasion, reported the following resolutions: