George Washington: “Gentlemen of the Senate, I submit to your consideration the report of the Secretary of State.”

I must not conceal from you my earnest wish that the choice had fallen upon a man less declined in years and better qualified to encounter the usual vicissitudes of war.

I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one's life, the foundation of happiness or misery.

Satisfied, therefore, that you have sincerely wished and endeavored to avert war, and exhausted to the last drop the cup of reconciliation, we can with pure hearts appeal to Heaven for the justice of our cause.

It is with peculiar satisfaction I can say, that prompted by a high sense of duty in my attendance on public worship, I have been gratified by the liberal and interesting discourses delivered in your Churches.