I desire respectfully to call the attention of Congress to the inadequate salaries of a number of the most important offices of the Government.  In this message I will not enumerate them, but will specify only the justices of the Supreme Court.  No change has been made in their salaries for fifteen years.  Within that time the labors of the court have largely increased and the expenses of living have at least doubled.  During the same time Congress has twice found it necessary to increase largely the compensation of its own members, and the duty which it owes to another department of the Government deserves, and will undoubtedly receive, its due consideration.

There are many subjects not alluded to in this message which might with propriety be introduced, but I abstain, believing that your patriotism and statesmanship will suggest the topics and the legislation most conducive to the interests of the whole people.  On my part I promise a rigid adherence to the laws and their strict enforcement.

U. S. GRANT

***

State of the Union Address
Ulysses S. Grant
December 5, 1870

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

A year of peace and general prosperity to this nation has passed since the last assembling of Congress.  We have, through a kind Providence, been blessed with abundant crops, and have been spared from complications and war with foreign nations.  In our midst comparative harmony has been restored.  It is to be regretted, however, that a free exercise of the elective franchise has by violence and intimidation been denied to citizens in exceptional cases in several of the States lately in rebellion, and the verdict of the people has thereby been reversed.  The States of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas have been restored to representation in our national councils.  Georgia, the only State now without representation, may confidently be expected to take her place there also at the beginning of the new year, and then, let us hope, will be completed the work of reconstruction.  With an acquiescence on the part of the whole people in the national obligation to pay the public debt created as the price of our Union, the pensions to our disabled soldiers and sailors and their widows and orphans, and in the changes to the Constitution which have been made necessary by a great rebellion, there is no reason why we should not advance in material prosperity and happiness as no other nation ever did after so protracted and devastating a war.

Soon after the existing war broke out in Europe the protection of the United States minister in Paris was invoked in favor of North Germans domiciled in French territory.  Instructions were issued to grant the protection.  This has been followed by an extension of American protection to citizens of Saxony, Hesse and Saxe-Coburg, Gotha, Colombia, Portugal, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, and Venezuela in Paris.  The charge was an onerous one, requiring constant and severe labor, as well as the exercise of patience, prudence, and good judgment.  It has been performed to the entire satisfaction of this Government, and, as I am officially informed, equally so to the satisfaction of the Government of North Germany.