If my humble efforts have in any degree contributed to preserve to you
these blessings, I have been more than rewarded by the honors you have
heaped upon me, and, above all, by the generous confidence with which
you have supported me in every peril, and with which you have continued
to animate and cheer my path to the closing hour of my political life.
The time has now come when advanced age and a broken frame warn me to
retire from public concerns, but the recollection of the many favors
you have bestowed upon me is engraven upon my heart, and I have felt
that I could not part from your service without making this public
acknowledgment of the gratitude I owe you. And if I use the occasion
to offer to you the counsels of age and experience, you will, I trust,
receive them with the same indulgent kindness which you have so often
extended to me, and will at least see in them an earnest desire to
perpetuate in this favored land the blessings of liberty and equal law.
We have now lived almost fifty years under the Constitution framed by
the sages and patriots of the Revolution. The conflicts in which the
nations of Europe were engaged during a great part of this period, the
spirit in which they waged war against each other, and our intimate
commercial connections with every part of the civilized world rendered
it a time of much difficulty for the Government of the United States.
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