Title:  State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson

Author:  Andrew Johnson

Release Date:  February, 2004 [EBook #5025] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 11, 2002] [Date last updated:  December 16, 2004]

Edition:  11

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK of addresses by Andrew Johnson ***

This eBook was produced by James Linden.

The addresses are separated by three asterisks:  ***

Dates of addresses by Andrew Johnson in this eBook: 
   December 4, 1865
   December 3, 1866
   December 3, 1867
   December 9, 1868

***

State of the Union Address
Andrew Johnson
December 4, 1865

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: 

To express gratitude to God in the name of the people for the preservation of the United States is my first duty in addressing you.  Our thoughts next revert to the death of the late President by an act of parricidal treason.  The grief of the nation is still fresh.  It finds some solace in the consideration that he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy to which he had been elected; that he brought the civil war substantially to a close; that his loss was deplored in all parts of the Union, and that foreign nations have rendered justice to his memory.  His removal cast upon me a heavier weight of cares than ever devolved upon any one of his predecessors.  To fulfill my trust I need the support and confidence of all who are associated with me in the various departments of Government and the support and confidence of the people.  There is but one way in which I can hope to gain their necessary aid.  It is to state with frankness the principles which guide my conduct, and their application to the present state of affairs, well aware that the efficiency of my labors will in a great measure depend on your and their undivided approbation.

The Union of the United States of America was intended by its authors to last as long as the States themselves shall last.  “The Union shall be perpetual” are the words of the Confederation.  “To form a more perfect Union,” by an ordinance of the people of the United States, is the declared purpose of the Constitution.  The hand of Divine Providence was never more plainly visible in the affairs of men than in the framing and the adopting of that instrument.  It is beyond comparison the greatest event in American history, and, indeed, is it not of all events in modern times the most pregnant with consequences for every people of the earth?  The members of the Convention which prepared it brought to their work the experience of the Confederation,