Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/342

 make them with comparatively small cost; and, by the plan in view, without the increase of taxation, or the expenditure of any means necessary to the support of Government.

Reports and exhibits from the several departments accompany this communication, and the Executive will always be ready to furnish, with pleasure, such information to the honorable Congress as may develop and explain the minutest transactions of the administration. The ability, fidelity, and economy with which the business of the several departments has been conducted, leave him no ground for wishing to eschew the examination; and, on his own part, the most rigid accountability.

The discharge of the duties which necessarily devolve upon the legislative and executive departments of Government in the present condition of our national affairs, can not fail to inculcate a unity of action, stimulated by a sincere and ardent desire to promote and advance the only objects for which Governments are instituted.

That the result of our joint labors may not only meet the expectations of our constituents, but that they may add to the general happiness and prosperity of the country, is my earnest hope.

That our country has enjoyed frequent manifestations of the favor and kindness of an overruling Providence, all must be duly sensible, and it should therefore be our increasing care by acts of justice and uprightness to merit a continuance of divine favor, without which no people can be happy, and no nation great or prosperous.

In meeting again and for the last time during my official term, now about to close, the assembled representatives of the people of Texas, in their annual session, I avail myself of the occasion to congratulate them upon the condition of the country, in its foreign and domestic relations, and to join with them in unaffected thanks to a propitious Providence for the numerous favors which have been vouchsafed to us as a people. We have many reasons to feel grateful to that omnipotent arm which has been so constantly stretched out to supply our wants and to sustain us in every trial, alike in peace and war.

As my services as Chief Magistrate must now so soon come to an end, it will only be necessary for me to lay before the honorable Congress a succient view ol the principal transactions of the Government within the last year, and to make such suggestions as may naturally arise out of the facts submitted—leaving to my successor the further duty of proposing for legislative consideration such subjects as may seem to him proper for the security and welfare of the nation.

Since your last adjournment, our relations have been extended upon the continent of Europe, by the negotiation of treaties of amity, navigation, and commerce with some of the German States, with which a respectable trade, convenient and profitable, has already sprung up.