With these changes, and with the addition of the last clause to the twenty-seventh article, the treaty is the same as that already approved by the Senate.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON CITY, January 8, 1861.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

At the opening of your present session I called your attention to the dangers which threatened the existence of the Union.  I expressed my opinion freely concerning the original causes of those dangers, and recommended such measures as I believed would have the effect of tranquilizing the country and saving it from the peril in which it had been needlessly and most unfortunately involved.  Those opinions and recommendations I do not propose now to repeat.  My own convictions upon the whole subject remain unchanged.

The fact that a great calamity was impending over the nation was even at that time acknowledged by every intelligent citizen.  It had already made itself felt throughout the length and breadth of the land.  The necessary consequences of the alarm thus produced were most deplorable.  The imports fell off with a rapidity never known before, except in time of war, in the history of our foreign commerce; the Treasury was unexpectedly left without the means which it had reasonably counted upon to meet the public engagements; trade was paralyzed; manufactures were stopped; the best public securities suddenly sunk in the market; every species of property depreciated more or less, and thousands of poor men who depended upon their daily labor for their daily bread were turned out of employment.

I deeply regret that I am not able to give you any information upon the state of the Union which is more satisfactory than what I was then obliged to communicate.  On the contrary, matters are still worse at present than they then were.  When Congress met, a strong hope pervaded the whole public mind that some amicable adjustment of the subject would speedily be made by the representatives of the States and of the people which might restore peace between the conflicting sections of the country.  That hope has been diminished by every hour of delay, and as the prospect of a bloodless settlement fades away the public distress becomes more and more aggravated.  As evidence of this it is only necessary to say that the Treasury notes authorized by the act of 17th of December last were advertised according to the law and that no responsible bidder offered to take any considerable sum at par at a lower rate of interest than 12 per cent.  From these facts it appears that in a government organized like ours domestic strife, or even a well-grounded fear of civil hostilities, is more destructive to our public and private interests than the most formidable foreign war.