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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



its benefits to those who have left their homes in the 

 defence of the country in this arduous crisis. 



I invite your attention to the views of the Secretary 

 as to the propriety of raising, by appropriate legisla- 

 tion, a revenue from the mineral lands of the United 

 States. 



The measures provided at your last session for the 

 removal of certain Indian tribes have been carried into 

 effect. Sundry treaties have been negotiated, which 

 will in due time be submitted for the constitutional 

 action of the Senate. They contain stipulations for 

 extinguishing the possessory rights of the Indians to 

 large and valuable tracts of land. 



U is hoped that the effect of these treaties will result 

 in the establishment of permanent friendly relations 

 with such of these tribes as have been brought into fre- 

 quent and bloody collision with our outlying; settle- 

 ments and emigrants. Sound policy and our impera- 

 tive duty to these wards of the Government demand 

 our anxious and constant attention to their material 

 well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, 

 and, above all, to that moral training which, under the 

 blessing of Divine Providence, will confer upon them 

 the elevated and sanctifying influences, the hopes and 

 consolations of the Christian faith. 



I suggested in my last annual message the propriety 

 of remodelling our Indian system. Subsequent events 

 have satisfied me of its necessity. The details set forth 

 in the report of the Secretary evince the urgent need 

 for immediate legislative action. 



I commend the benevolent institutions, established 

 or patronized by the Government in this District, to 

 your generous and fostering care. 



The attention of Congress, during the last session, 

 was engaged to some extent with the proposition for 

 enlarging the water communication between the Missis- 

 sippi river and the northern seaboard ; which propo- 

 sition, however, failed for the time. Since then, upon 

 a call of the greatest respectability, a convention has 

 been held at Chicago upon the same subject, a sum- 

 mary of whose views is contained in a memorial ad- 

 dressed to the President and Congress, and which I 

 now have the honor to lay before you. That this in- 

 terest is one which, ere long, will force its own way, I 

 do not entertain a doubt, while it is submitted entirely 

 to your wisdom as to what can be done now. Aug- 

 mented interest is given to this subject by the actual 

 commencement of work upon the Pacific Railroad, un- 

 der auspices so favorable to rapid progress and com- 

 pletion. The enlarged navigation becomes a palpable 

 need to the great road. 



I transmit the second annual report of the Commis- 

 sioner of the Department of Agriculture, asking your 

 attention to the developments in that vital interest of 

 the nation. 



When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had 

 already lasted nearly twenty months, and there had 

 been many conflicts on both land and sea, with vary- 

 ing results. The rebellion had been pressed back into 

 reduced limits ; yet the tone of public feeling and 

 opinion, at home and abroad, was not satisfactory. 

 With other signs, the popular elections, then just past, 

 indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while, amid 

 much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words 

 coming from Europe were uttered in accents of pity 

 that we were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. 

 Our commerce was suffering greatly by a few armed 

 vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores, 

 and we were threatened with such additions from the 

 same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea 

 and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from 

 European Governments anything hopeful upon this 

 subject. The preliminary emancipation proclamation, 

 issued in September, was running its assigned period 

 to the beginning of the new year. A month later the 

 final proclamation came, including the announcement 

 that colored men of suitable condition would be re- 

 ceived into the war service. The policy of emancipa- 

 tion and of employing black soldiers gave to the future 

 a new aspect, about which hope, and fear, and doubt 

 contended in.unccrtain conflict. According to our polit- 



ical system, as a matter of civil administration, the 

 General Government had no lawful power to effect 

 emancipation in any State, and for a long time it had 

 been hoped that the_ rebellion could be suppressed 

 without resorting to it as a military measure. It was 

 all the while deemed possible that the necessity for it 

 might come, and that, if it should, the crisis of the 

 contest would then be presented. It came, and, as 

 we anticipated, it was followed by dark and doubtful 

 days. 



Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted 

 to take another review. The rebel hordes are pressed 

 still farther back, and, by the complete opening of the 

 Mississippi, the country dominated by the rebellion 

 is divided into distinct parts, with no practical com- 

 munication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas 

 have been substantially cleared of insurgent control, 

 and influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and 

 advocates of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, 

 now declare openly for emancipation in their respec- 

 tive States. Of those States not included in the eman- 

 cipation proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither 

 of which, three years ago, would tolerate any restraint 

 upon the extension of slavery into new Territories, 

 only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it 

 within their own limits. Of those who were slaves at 

 the beginning of the rebellion, full one hundred thou- 

 sand are now in the United States military service, 

 about one half of which number actually bear arms in 

 the ranks ; thus giving the double advantage of taking 

 so much labor from the insurgent cause, and supplying 

 the places which otherwise must be filled with so many 

 white men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say they 

 are not as good soldiers as any. No servile insurrec- 

 tion, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked 

 the measures of emancipation or arming the blacks. 

 These measures have been much discussed in foreign 

 countries, and contemporary with such discussion the 

 tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At 

 home the same measures have been fully discussed, 

 supported, criticized, and denounced, and the annual 

 elections following are highly encouraging to those 

 whose official duty it is to bear the country through 

 this great trial. "Thus we have the new reckoning. 

 The crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the 

 Union is past. 



Looking now to the present and future, and with 

 reference to a resumption of the national authority 

 within the States wherein that authority has been sus- 

 pended, I have thought fit to issue a proclamation, a 

 copy of which is herewith transmitted. 



On examination of this proclamation it will appear, 

 as is believed, that nothing is attempted beyond what 

 is amply justified by the Constitution. True, the form 

 of an oath is given, but no man is coerced to take it. 

 The man is only promised a pardon in case he volun- 

 tarily takes the oath. The Constitution authorizes the 

 executive to grant or withhold the pardon at his own 

 absolute discretion ; and this includes the power to 

 grant on terms, as is fully established by judicial and 

 other authorities. It is also proffered that if, in any 

 of the States named, a State Government shall be, in 

 the mode prescribed, set up, such Government shall 

 be recognized and guaranteed by the United States, 

 and that under it the State shall, on the constitutional 

 conditions, be protected against invasion and domestic 

 violence. The constitutional obligation of the United 

 States to guarantee to every State in the Union a re- 

 publican form of government, and to protect the State 

 in the case stated, is explicit and full. 



But why tender the benefits of this provision onlv to 

 State Government set up in this particular way ? This 

 section of the Constitution contemplates a case wherein 

 the element within a State, favorable to republican 

 government, in the Union, may be too feeble for an 

 opposite and hostile element external to or even with- 

 in the State ; and such are precisely the cases with 

 which we are now dealing. An attempt to guarantee 

 and protect a revived State Government, constructed 

 in whole or in preponderating part from the very ele- 

 ment against whose hostility and violence it is to be 



