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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
for what you are pleased to regard as my "private worth," you cer- tainly have my most sincere and unaffected gratitude; but as mere personal popularity has always been less an object of consideration with me than the good of the Country, I must be permitted to acknowledge the still higher gratification which I derive from the assurance which your letter affords, that my labors for the public welfare have not been unavailing 'to the nation, nor unappreciated by the people. To those who are disposed to view the acts of the government with candor and moderation, I need not intimate the sincerity of my intentions in every measure that has been adopted. I do not claim exemption from error; but I do assert an ardent and exclusive devot [ion l to the public weal, which would preclude the possibility of any purposed wrong in the dis- charge of the high duties confided to me; and that my fellow citizens are disposed to do justice to me upon this point, and receive the integrity of my motives in extenuation of any slight errors which their judgments may have detected in the management of the public interest, is a matter of pride and consolation, which I would not barter for the highest re- wards of a selfish ambition. When I came into office,. the country was in a disorganized condition throughout its various departments, civil and military. The public offices were in a state of chaos and confusion; the military strength of the nation was unknown and unorganized; the army had been reduc·ed ·to a mere skeleton and the navy annihilated. If either had an existence ·it was nominal merely, and they were incapable of uny useful purposes. 'Our inland frontier exhibited a melancholy scene of Indian ravages :and massacres whilst our entire coast, exposed and unprotected, might bave been harrassed at any moment, and our ports blockaded by a single armed vessel. Deriving confidence from this obvious exhaustion dis- organization and imbecility of the government, our national enemy was threatening to renew his efforts at subjugation, and was only restrained by circumstances, which this government had no agency in producing-. Under such a state of affairs, the proper course for the Executive to pursue was obvious and plain. To systematize the various departments; to establish a strict accountability in the discharge of public trusts; -economize the national resources; extend protection to our bleeding frontier; and to place the country as 8peedily as practicable in a state -of defence against all its enemies, whether savage or civilized, by organ- izing the militia, creating a new army, resuscitating the navy, anil supplying the general deficiency of arms, ammunition and military stores, ,,,ere among the early objects of my contemplation, from which I have n,ever permitted myself for a moment to depart, even amid the many perplexing embarrassments by which I have been almost c011- tinually surrounded. In a word, it has been my unceasing anxiety to do whatever might seem essential to the stability of our Civil institu- tions, and to the perfect safety of the nation in peace or war; and to these ends, I have thus far adopted a system of measures, which have folly realized my own expectations, and which, if steadily pursued and properly sustained by the people and the coordinate departments of government, I fondly hope will conduct the nation ·to peace prosperity and happiness. Whilst I am entirely satisfied that the general policy cif my adminis- tration has been approved by an almost undivided voice of an enlightened
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