We of to-day, in dealing with all our fellow-citizens, white or colored, North or South, should strive to show just the qualities that Lincoln showed; his steadfastness in striving after the right, and his infinite patience and forbearance…

It is a discredit to be dishonest, just as it is a discredit to be a coward.

This is the spirit in which mighty Lincoln sought to bind up the nation's wounds when its soul was yet seething with fierce hatreds, with wrath, with rancor, with all the evil and dreadful passions provoked by civil war.

Only preliminary explorations have yet been made in the archipelago, and it should be a matter of pride to the Government of the United States fully to investigate and to describe the entire region.

The scientific surveys which should be undertaken go far beyond any surveys or explorations which the government of the Philippine Islands, however completely self-supporting, could be expected to make.

The islands of that group present as many interesting and novel questions with respect to their ethnology, their fauna and flora, and their geology and mineral resources as any region of the world.

The surveys, while of course beneficial to the people of the Philippine Islands, should be undertaken as a national work for the information not merely of the people of the Philippine Islands, but of the people of this country and of the…

It should not be under the control of the authorities of the Philippine Islands, for it should be undertaken as a national work and subject to a board to be appointed by Congress or the President.

It is not probable that the survey would be completed in a less period than that of eight or ten years, but it is well that it should be begun in the near future.

I recommend, therefore, that provision be made for the appointment of a board of surveys to superintend the national surveys and explorations to be made in the Philippine Islands.

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives dated the 4th instant (the Senate concurring), I return herewith House bill No. 3286, entitled 'An act granting an increase of pension to Jacob F. French.'

Circumstances have placed under the control of this Government the Philippine Archipelago.

No such organized surveys have ever yet been attempted anywhere; but the idea is in harmony with modern, scientific, and industrial methods.

I doubt not that Congress has already seen the necessity of replacing these vicious incorporation laws by those which are governed by sounder principles.

The evil growing out of these laws is of such magnitude and the necessity for action is so urgent that I recommend to Congress the immediate consideration of the subject.

The institution of marriage is, of course, at the very foundation of our social organization.

No finally satisfactory result can be expected from merely State action.

Justice—so far as it is humanly possible to give and to get justice—is the foundation of our government.