When we view the great blessings with which our country has been favored, those which we now enjoy, and the means which we possess of handing them down unimpaired to our latest posterity, our attention is irresistibly drawn to the source from whence they flow.
Second Annual Message
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I recommend them particularly to the consideration of Congress, believing that although there may be ground for controversy with regard to the application of the engagements of the treaty to the case, yet a liberal construction of those engagements would be compatible at once with a conciliatory and a judicious policy.
The Secretary of State, one of the ministers referred to, has already expressed a desire that Mr. Russell's letter should be communicated, and that I would transmit at the same time a communication from him respecting it.
On the perusal of the document called for I find that it communicates a difference of opinion between Mr. Russell and a majority of his colleagues in certain transactions which occurred in the negotiations at Ghent.
Having cause to infer that the reasons which led to the construction which I gave to the act of the last session entitled 'An act to reduce and fix the peace establishment of the United States' have not been well understood, I consider it my duty to explain more fully the view which I took of that act and of the principles on which I executed the very difficult and important duty enjoined on me by it.
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