In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 23d day of November, A.D. 1880, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fifth.

R.B.  HAYES.

By the President: 
  WM. M. EVARTS,
    Secretary of State.

EXECUTIVE ORDER.

[From the Evening Star, Washington, D.C., May 27, 1880.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, D.C., May 27, 1880.

DEAR SIR:[41] I am directed by the President to say that the several Departments of the Government will be closed on Saturday, the 29th instant, in remembrance of those who fell in defense of the nation, and to enable the employees to participate in the commemorative ceremonies of the day.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

  W.K.  ROGERS,
  Private Secretary.

[Footnote 41:  Addressed to the heads of the Executive Departments, etc.]

FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 6, 1880.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I congratulate you on the continued and increasing prosperity of our country.  By the favor of Divine Providence we have been blessed during the past year with health, with abundant harvests, with profitable employment for all our people, and with contentment at home, and with peace and friendship with other nations.  The occurrence of the twenty-fourth election of Chief Magistrate has afforded another opportunity to the people of the United States to exhibit to the world a significant example of the peaceful and safe transmission of the power and authority of government from the public servants whose terms of office are about to expire to their newly chosen successors.  This example can not fail to impress profoundly thoughtful people of other countries with the advantages which republican institutions afford.  The immediate, general, and cheerful acquiescence of all good citizens in the result of the election gives gratifying assurance to our country and to its friends throughout the world that a government based on the free consent of an intelligent and patriotic people possesses elements of strength, stability, and permanency not found in any other form of government.

Continued opposition to the full and free enjoyment of the rights of citizenship conferred upon the colored people by the recent amendments to the Constitution still prevails in several of the late slaveholding States.  It has, perhaps, not been manifested in the recent election to any large extent in acts of violence or intimidation.  It has, however, by fraudulent practices in connection with the ballots, with the regulations as to the places and manner of voting, and with counting, returning, and canvassing the votes cast, been successful in defeating the exercise of the right preservative of all rights—­the right of suffrage—­which the Constitution expressly confers upon our enfranchised citizens.