his installation he has paid the great debt of nature, leaving behind
him a name associated with the recollection of numerous benefits
conferred upon the country during a long life of patriotic devotion.
With this public bereavement are connected other considerations which
will not escape the attention of Congress. The preparations necessary
for his removal to the seat of Government in view of a residence of four
years must have devolved upon the late President heavy expenditures,
which, if permitted to burthen the limited resources of his private
fortune, may tend seriously to the embarrassment of his surviving
family; and it is therefore respectfully submitted to Congress whether
the ordinary principles of justice would not dictate the propriety of
its legislative interposition. By the provisions of the fundamental law
the powers and duties of the high station to which he was elected have
devolved upon me, and in the dispositions of the representatives of the
States and of the people will be found, to a great extent, a solution of
the problem to which our institutions are for the first time subjected.

In entering upon the duties of this office I did not feel that it would
be becoming in me to disturb what had been ordered by my lamented
predecessor. Whatever, therefore, may have been my opinion originally as
to the propriety of convening Congress at so early a day from that of
its late adjournment, I found a new and controlling inducement not to
interfere with the patriotic desires of the late President in the
novelty of the situation in which I was so unexpectedly placed. My first
wish under such circumstances would necessarily have been to have called
to my aid in the administration of public affairs the combined wisdom of
the two Houses of Congress, in order to take their counsel and advice as
to the best mode of extricating the Government and the country from the
embarrassments weighing heavily on both. I am, then, most happy in
finding myself so soon after my accession to the Presidency surrounded