and constitutional right, and that the laws to enforce them should be respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully and according to the decisions of the tribunal to which their exposition belongs.  Such have been, and are, my convictions, and upon them I shall act.  I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity.

But let not the foundation of our hope rest upon man’s wisdom.  It will not be sufficient that sectional prejudices find no place in the public deliberations.  It will not be sufficient that the rash counsels of human passion are rejected.  It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation’s humble, acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence.

We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis.  Wise counsels, like those which gave us the Constitution, prevailed to uphold it.  Let the period be remembered as an admonition, and not as an encouragement, in any section of the Union, to make experiments where experiments are fraught with such fearful hazard.  Let it be impressed upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric is, no earthly power or wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments.  Standing, as I do, almost within view of the green slopes of Monticello, and, as it were, within reach of the tomb of Washington, with all the cherished memories of the past gathering around me like so many eloquent voices of exhortation from heaven, I can express no better hope for my country than that the kind Providence which smiled upon our fathers may enable their children to preserve the blessings they have inherited.

March 4, 1853.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

Washington, March 21, 1853.

To the Senate of the United States: 

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 17th instant, respecting certain propositions to Nicaragua and Costa Rica relative to the settlement of the territorial controversies between the States and Governments bordering on the river San Juan, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.

Franklin Pierce.

Washington, March 21, 1853.

To the Senate: 

The eleventh article of the treaty with the Chickasaw Indians of the 20th October, 1832, provides that certain moneys arising from the sales of the lands ceded by that treaty shall be laid out under the direction of the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, in such safe and valuable stock as he may approve of, for the benefit of the Chickasaw Nation.