CITY OF WASHINGTON, _November 26, 1800_.
_Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate_:
For this excellent address, so respectful to the memory of my
illustrious predecessor, which I receive from the Senate of the United
States at this time and in this place with peculiar satisfaction, I pray
you to accept of my unfeigned acknowledgments. With you I ardently hope
that permanence and stability will be communicated as well to the
Government itself as to its beautiful and commodious seat. With you
I deplore the death of that hero and sage who bore so honorable and
efficient a part in the establishment of both. Great indeed would have
been my gratification if his sum of earthly happiness had been completed
by seeing the Government thus peaceably convened at this place, himself
at its head; but while we submit to the decisions of Heaven, whose
councils are inscrutable to us, we can not but hope that the members of
Congress, the officers of Government, and all who inhabit the city or
the country will retain his virtues in lively recollection and make his
patriotism, morals, and piety models for imitation.
I thank you, gentlemen, for your assurance that the several subjects for
legislative consideration recommended in my communication to both Houses
shall receive from the Senate a deliberate and candid attention.
With you, gentlemen, I sincerely deprecate all spirit of innovation
which may weaken the sacred bond that connects the different parts
of this nation and Government, and with you I trust that under the
protection of Divine Providence the wisdom and virtue of our citizens
will deliver our national compact unimpaired to a free, prosperous,
happy, and grateful posterity. To this end it is my fervent prayer that
in this city the foundations of wisdom may be always opened and the
streams of eloquence forever flow. Here may the youth of this extensive
country forever look up without disappointment, not only to the
monuments and memorials of the dead, but to the examples of the living,
in the members of Congress and officers of Government, for finished
models of all those virtues, graces, talents, and accomplishments which
constitute the dignity of human nature and lay the only foundation for
the prosperity or duration of empires.