Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washington, this 26th day of February, A. D. 1859, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-third.

[SEAL.]

By the President:

LEWIS CASS, Secretary of State.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, March 9, 1859.

To the Senate of the United States:

It has become my sad duty to announce to the Senate the death of Aaron V. Brown, late Postmaster-General, at his residence in this city on yesterday morning at twenty minutes past 9 o'clock.

The death of this distinguished public officer, especially at the present moment, when his eminent services are so much needed, is a great loss to his country. He was able, honest, and indefatigable in the discharge of his high and responsible duties, whilst his benevolent heart and his kind deportment endeared him to all who approached him.

Submitting, as I do, with humble resignation to the will of Divine Providence in this calamitous dispensation, I shall ever cherish his memory with affectionate regard.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS.

[From the Evening Star, March 10, 1859.]

GENERAL ORDER.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, March 8, 1859.

Under instructions from the President of the United States, the Secretary of War with unfeigned sorrow announces to the Army the decease of the Hon. A. V. Brown, Postmaster-General, which occurred in this city at an early hour this morning.

An enlightened statesman and a distinguished and able member of the General Government has thus been stricken down at his post. The nation will mourn the afflicting dispensation which has left so great a void in its councils. A worthy and estimable citizen has been removed from the circle of his numerous friends. Society will mingle its grief with the patriotic regrets which the loss of a statesman will not fail to call forth.

While the President, with the surviving members of the Cabinet, the legislative and judicial departments of the Government, will unite in every testimonial the sad occasion demands, it is fitting a similar respect should be shown to the memory of the distinguished deceased by the national arms of defense. Accordingly, half-hour guns will be fired from sunrise to sunset at every garrisoned military post the day succeeding the receipt of this order, the national flag will be displayed at half-staff during the same time, and officers of the Army will wear for three months the proper badge of military mourning.

The War Department and its bureaus will be closed until the day succeeding the funeral obsequies.

JOHN B. FLOYD,
Secretary of War.

[From the Daily National Intelligencer, March 10, 1859.]

GENERAL ORDER.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, March 9, 1859.

The Secretary of the Navy, by the direction of the President, announces to the Navy and to the Marine Corps the lamented death of the Hon. Aaron V. Brown, Postmaster-General of the United States. He died at his residence in the city of Washington on the 8th of the present month.

As a mark of respect to his high character, his eminent position, and great public services, it is directed that on the day after the receipt of this order by the different navy-yards and stations and vessels of war of the United States in commission the flags be hoisted at half-mast from sunrise to sunset and that seventeen minute guns be fired at noon.

Officers of the Navy and Marine Corps will wear crape on the left arm for thirty days.

The Navy Department will be draped in mourning and will be closed until after the funeral. ISAAC TOUCEY, Secretary of the Navy.

THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON CITY, December 19, 1859.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Our deep and heartfelt gratitude is due to that Almighty Power which has bestowed upon us such varied and numerous blessings throughout the past year. The general health of the country has been excellent, our harvests have been unusually plentiful, and prosperity smiles throughout the land. Indeed, notwithstanding our demerits, we have much

reason to believe from the past events in our history that we have enjoyed the special protection of Divine Providence ever since our origin as a nation. We have been exposed to many threatening and alarming difficulties in our progress, but on each successive occasion the impending cloud has been dissipated at the moment it appeared ready to burst upon our head, and the danger to our institutions has passed away. ever be under the divine guidance and protection.

May we

Whilst it is the duty of the President "from time to time to give to Congress information of the state of the Union," I shall not refer in detail to the recent sad and bloody occurrences at Harpers Ferry. Still, it is proper to observe that these events, however bad and cruel in themselves, derive their chief importance from the apprehension that they are but symptoms of an incurable disease in the public mind, which may break out in still more dangerous outrages and terminate at last in an open war by the North to abolish slavery in the South.

Whilst for myself I entertain no such apprehension, they ought to afford a solemn warning to us all to beware of the approach of danger. Our Union is a stake of such inestimable value as to demand our constant and watchful vigilance for its preservation. In this view, let me implore my countrymen, North and South, to cultivate the ancient feelings of mutual forbearance and good will toward each other and strive to allay the demon spirit of sectional hatred and strife now alive in the land. This advice proceeds from the heart of an old public functionary whose service commenced in the last generation, among the wise and conservative statesmen of that day, now nearly all passed away, and whose first and dearest earthly wish is to leave his country tranquil, prosperous, united, and powerful.

We ought to reflect that in this age, and especially in this country, there is an incessant flux and reflux of public opinion. Questions which in their day assumed a most threatening aspect have now nearly gone from the memory of men. They are "volcanoes burnt out, and on the lava and ashes and squalid scoria of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn." Such, in my opinion, will prove to be the fate of the present sectional excitement should those who wisely seek to apply the remedy continue always to confine their efforts within the pale of the Constitution. If this course be pursued, the existing agitation on the subject of domestic slavery, like everything human, will have its day and give place to other and less threatening controversies. Public opinion in this country is all-powerful, and when it reaches a dangerous excess upon any question the good sense of the people will furnish the corrective and bring it back within safe limits. Still, to hasten this auspicious result at the present crisis we ought to remember that every rational creature must be presumed to intend the natural consequences of his own teachings. Those who announce abstract doctrines subversive of the Constitution and the Union must not

be surprised should their heated partisans advance one step further and attempt by violence to carry these doctrines into practical effect. In this view of the subject, it ought never to be forgotten that however great may have been the political advantages resulting from the Union to every portion of our common country, these would all prove to be as nothing should the time ever arrive when they can not be enjoyed without serious danger to the personal safety of the people of fifteen members of the Confederacy. If the peace of the domestic fireside throughout these States should ever be invaded, if the mothers of families within this extensive region should not be able to retire to rest at night without suffering dreadful apprehensions of what may be their own fate and that of their children before the morning, it would be vain to recount to such a people the political benefits which result to them from the Union. Self-preservation is the first instinct of nature, and therefore any state of society in which the sword is all the time suspended over the heads of the people must at last become intolerable. But I indulge in no such gloomy forebodings. On the contrary, I firmly believe that the events at Harpers Ferry, by causing the people to pause and reflect upon the possible peril to their cherished institutions, will be the means under Providence of allaying the existing excitement and preventing further outbreaks of a similar character. They will resolve that the Constitution and the Union shall not be endangered by rash counsels, knowing that should "the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken * * * at the fountain" human power could never reunite the scattered and hostile fragments.

I cordially congratulate you upon the final settlement by the Supreme Court of the United States of the question of slavery in the Territories, which had presented an aspect so truly formidable at the commencement of my Administration. The right has been established of every citizen to take his property of any kind, including slaves, into the common Territories belonging equally to all the States of the Confederacy, and to have it protected there under the Federal Constitution. Neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature nor any human power has any authority to annul or impair this vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the country, which is a coordinate branch of the Government, has sanctioned and affirmed these principles of constitutional law, so manifestly just in themselves and so well calculated to promote peace and harmony among the States. It is a striking proof of the sense of justice which is inherent in our people that the property in slaves has never been disturbed, to my knowledge, in any of the Territories. Even throughout the late troubles in Kansas there has not been any attempt, as I am credibly informed, to interfere in a single instance with the right of the master. Had any such attempt been made, the judiciary would doubtless have afforded an adequate remedy. Should they fail to do this hereafter, it will then be time enough to strengthen their hands by further legisla tion. Had it been decided that either Congress or the Territorial legis

lature possess the power to annul or impair the right to property in slaves, the evil would be intolerable. In the latter event there would be a struggle for a majority of the members of the legislature at each successive election, and the sacred rights of property held under the Federal Constitution would depend for the time being on the result. The agitation would thus be rendered incessant whilst the Territorial condition remained, and its baneful influence would keep alive a dangerous excitement among the people of the several States.

Thus has the status of a Territory during the intermediate period from its first settlement until it shall become a State been irrevocably fixed by the final decision of the Supreme Court. Fortunate has this been for the prosperity of the Territories, as well as the tranquillity of the States. Now emigrants from the North and the South, the East and the West, will meet in the Territories on a common platform, having brought with them that species of property best adapted, in their own opinion, to promote their welfare. From natural causes the slavery question will in each case soon virtually settle itself, and before the Territory is prepared for admission as a State into the Union this decision, one way or the other, will have been a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile the settlement of the new Territory will proceed without serious interruption, and its progress and prosperity will not be endangered or retarded by violent political struggles.

When in the progress of events the inhabitants of any Territory shall have reached the number required to form a State, they will then proceed in a regular manner and in the exercise of the rights of popular sovereignty to form a constitution preparatory to admission into the Union. After this has been done, to employ the language of the Kansas and Nebraska act, they "shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission." This sound principle has happily been recognized in some form or other by an almost unanimous vote of both Houses of the last Congress.

All lawful means at my command have been employed, and shall continue to be employed, to execute the laws against the African slave trade. After a most careful and rigorous examination of our coasts and a thorough investigation of the subject, we have not been able to discover that any slaves have been imported into the United States except the cargo by the Wanderer, numbering between three and four hundred. Those engaged in this unlawful enterprise have been rigorously prosecuted, but not with as much success as their crimes have deserved. A number of them are still under prosecution.

Our history proves that the fathers of the Republic, in advance of all other nations, condemned the African slave trade. It was, notwithstanding, deemed expedient by the framers of the Constitution to deprive Congress of the power to prohibit "the migration or importation of such