For the chapter on the Coast Survey we have been indebted to the politeness of the Superintendent, under whose direction it was prepared.

In the chapter on Foreign Affairs, we have given all the documents necessary to illustrate the several topics discussed. in this connexion in the PRESIDENT's message.

The APPENDIX contains an abstract or notice of every document annexed to the reports, and the most important statements and tables entire.

At the close will be found a very full INDEX to the contents of the volume; containing a complete synopsis of every chapter, besides a particular reference to the several topics of each under their initial letters.

CONTENTS.

I. THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

Message from the President of the United States to the two houses of Congress at the commencement of the second session of the Thirtythird Congress, December 4, 1854..

Correspondence accompanying the Message.......

II. THE TREASURY.

Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances

1-25

25-31

32-54

Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office...................

158-179

Special Message of the President to the Senate and House of Representatives, dated December 30, 1854...................

XI. THE COAST SURVEY.

220-236

Abstract of the Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey.. 237-251

XII. ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORIES.

An act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas.

252-272

THE STATE OF THE UNION.

I.-MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate

and of the House of Representatives:

THE past has been an eventful year, and will be hereafter referred to as a marked epoch in the history of the world. While we have been happily preserved from the calamities of war, our domestic prosperity has not been entirely uninterrupted. The crops, in portions of the country, have been nearly cut off. Disease has prevailed to a greater extent than usual, and the sacrifice of human life, through casualties by sea and land, is without parallel. But the pestilence has swept by, and restored salubrity invites the absent to their homes, and the return of business to its ordinary channels. If the earth has rewarded the labor of the husbandman less bountifully than in preceding seasons, it has left him with. abundance for domestic wants, and a large surplus for exportation. In the present, therefore, as in the past, we find ample grounds for reverent thankfulness to the God of Grace and Providence, for His protecting care and merciful dealings with us as a people.

Although our attention has been arrested by painful interest in passing events, yet our country feels no more than the slight vibrations of the convulsions which have shaken Europe. As individuals, we cannot repress sympathy with human suffering, nor regret for the causes which produce it. As a nation, we are reminded, that whatever interrupts the peace, or checks the prosperity, of any part of Christendom, tends, more or less, to involve our own. The condition of States is not unlike that of individuals. They are mutually dependent upon each other. Amicable relations between them, and reciprocal good will, are essential for the promotion of whatever is desirable in their moral, social, and po