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 suc-
ceeding the funeral obsequies.
JOHN B. FLOYD,
Secretary of War.

2

[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. May we ever be under the divine guidance and protection.

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

In this

be surprised should their heated partisans advance one step further and
attempt by violence to carry these doctrines into practical effect.
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 Con-
federacy. 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-preser-
vation 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 fore-
bodings. 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 Terri-
tories 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 sanc-
tioned 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 dis-
turbed, to my knowledge, in any of the Territories. Even throughout
the late troubles in Kansas there has not been any attempt, as I am cred-
ibly informed, to interfere in a single instance with the right of the mas-
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-

ter.

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

persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit" It will be seen that this restriction on the "prior to the year 1808." power of Congress was confined to such States only as might think proper to admit the importation of slaves. It did not extend to other States or to the trade carried on abroad. Accordingly, we find that so early as the 22d March, 1794, Congress passed an act imposing severe penalties and punishments upon citizens and residents of the United States who should engage in this trade between foreign nations. The provisions of this act were extended and enforced by the act of 10th May,

1800.

Again, the States themselves had a clear right to waive the constitutional privilege intended for their, benefit, and to prohibit by their own laws this trade at any time they thought proper previous to 1808. eral of them exercised this right before that period, and among them. some containing the greatest number of slaves. This gave to Congress the immediate power to act in regard to all such States, because they themselves had removed the constitutional barrier. Congress accordingly passed an act on 28th February, 1803, "to prevent the importation of certain persons into certain States where by the laws thereof their admission is prohibited." In this manner the importation of African slaves into the United States was to a great extent prohibited some years in advance of 1808.

As the year 1808 approached Congress determined not to suffer this trade to exist even for a single day after they had the power to abolish it. On the 2d of March, 1807, they passed an act, to take effect "from and after the 1st day of January, 1808," prohibiting the importation of African slaves into the United States. This was followed by subsequent acts of a similar character, to which I need not specially refer. Such were the principles and such the practice of our ancestors more than fifty years ago in regard to the African slave trade. It did not occur to the revered patriots who had been delegates to the Convention, and afterwards became members of Congress, that in passing these laws they had violated the Constitution which they had framed with so much care and deliberation. They supposed that to prohibit Congress in express terms from exercising a specified power before an appointed day necessarily involved the right to exercise this power after that day had arrived.

If this were not the case, the framers of the Constitution had expended much labor in vain. Had they imagined that Congress would possess no power to prohibit the trade either before or after 1808, they would not have taken so much care to protect the States against the exercise of this power before that period. Nay, more, they would not have attached such vast importance to this provision as to have excluded it from the possibility of future repeal or amendment, to which other portions of the Constitution were exposed. It would, then, have been wholly unnecessary to ingraft on the fifth article of the Constitution, prescribing the