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.