In submitting my eighth and last annual message to Congress it seems proper that I should refer to and in some degree recapitulate the events and official acts of the past eight years.

It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training.  From the age of 17 I had never even witnessed the excitement attending a Presidential campaign but twice antecedent to my own candidacy, and at but one of them was I eligible as a voter.

Under such circumstances it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred.  Even had they not, differences of opinion between the Executive, bound by an oath to the strict performance of his duties, and writers and debaters must have arisen.  It is not necessarily evidence of blunder on the part of the Executive because there are these differences of views.  Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit, but it seems to me oftener in the selections made of the assistants appointed to aid in carrying out the various duties of administering the Government—­in nearly every case selected without a personal acquaintance with the appointee, but upon recommendations of the representatives chosen directly by the people.  It is impossible, where so many trusts are to be allotted, that the right parties should be chosen in every instance.  History shows that no Administration from the time of Washington to the present has been free from these mistakes.  But I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people.  Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent.

My civil career commenced, too, at a most critical and difficult time.  Less than four years before, the country had emerged from a conflict such as no other nation had ever survived.  Nearly one-half of the States had revolted against the Government, and of those remaining faithful to the Union a large percentage of the population sympathized with the rebellion and made an “enemy in the rear” almost as dangerous as the more honorable enemy in the front.  The latter committed errors of judgment, but they maintained them openly and courageously; the former received the protection of the Government they would see destroyed, and reaped all the pecuniary advantage to be gained out of the then existing state of affairs, many of them by obtaining contracts and by swindling the Government in the delivery of their goods.

Immediately on the cessation of hostilities the then noble President, who had carried the country so far through its perils, fell a martyr to his patriotism at the hands of an assassin.