Be assured,
the cases will be so rare as to produce no embarrassment, as never to
settle into an injurious habit. The single feature of a sixty years'
service, as no other instance of it has yet occurred in our country, so
it probably never may again. And should it occur, even once and again,
it will not impoverish your treasury, as it takes nothing from that, and
asks but a simple permission, by an act of natural right, to do one of
moral justice.
In the 'Thoughts on Lotteries,' the following paper is referred to. It
is here copied to spare the trouble of seeking for the-book.
_Farewell Address To Th: Jefferson, President Of The United States_.
[Agreed to by both Houses, February 7, 1809.]
Sir, The General Assembly of your native State cannot close their
session, without acknowledging your services in the office which you are
just about to lay down, and bidding you a respectful and affectionate
farewell.
We have to thank you for the model of an administration conducted on
the purest principles of republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside;
patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of superfluous
officers disbanded; the monarchic maxim that 'a national debt is a
national blessing,' renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of
our debt discharged; the native right to nearly one hundred millions
of acres of our national domain extinguished; and, without the guilt or
calamities of conquest, a vast and, fertile region added to our country,
far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with
it the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the west to the
Pacific Ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source
of permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue.
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