I find the remark, "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view" is no less true of the political than of the natural world.

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.

I speak of the war as fruitless; for it is clear that, prosecuted upon the basis of the proclamations of September 22d and September 24th, 1862, prosecuted, as I must understand these proclamations, to say nothing of the kindred blood which has followed, upon the theory of emancipation, devastation, subjugation, it cannot fail to be fruitless in every thing except the harvest of woe which it is ripening for what was once the peerless republic.

In expressing briefly my views upon an important subject which has recently agitated the nation..., 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.

You have summoned me in my weakness. You must sustain me in your strength.

It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation's humble, acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence.

READILY and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all . . . to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States . . . .