Part 16

In conformity with the provisions of the act of 20th May last, to provide for erecting a penitentiary in the district of Columbia, and for other purposes, three commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a penitentiary for the district, and also a site in the county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been effected. The building of the penitentiary has been commenced, and is in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of the next Congress. This consideration points to the expediency of maturing at the present session a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining the class of offenses which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice.

In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting at this place the fiftieth anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that solemn scene--the hand that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate--were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of mankind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!

John Quincy Adams.

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SPECIAL MESSAGES.

Washington, December 7, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I now transmit a report from the Secretary of War, with that of the Board of Engineers of Internal Improvement, concerning the proposed Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, December 8, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of War, with sundry documents, containing the information requested by a resolution of the House of the 8th of May last, relating to the lead mines belonging to the United States in Illinois and Missouri.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, December 8, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of War, with several documents, containing information required by a resolution of the House of the 20th of May last, respecting certain proposed donations of land by Indian tribes to any agent or commissioner of the United States.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, December 12, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their advice with regard to their ratification, the following treaties with Indian tribes:

1. A treaty made and concluded at the Fond du Lac of Lake Superior, between Lewis Cass and Thomas L. McKenney, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the Chippewa tribe of Indians, on the 5th of August, 1826.

2. A treaty made and concluded near the mouth of the Mississinewa, upon the Wabash, in the State of Indiana, between Lewis Cass, James B. Ray, and John Tipton, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Potawatamie tribe of Indians, on the 16th of October, 1826.

3. A treaty made and concluded near the mouth of the Mississinewa, upon the Wabash, in the State of Indiana, between Lewis Cass, James B. Ray, and John Tipton, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Miami tribe of Indians, on the 23d of October, 1826.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington, December 18, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to Congress extracts of a letter, received since the commencement of their session, from the minister of the United States at London, having relation to the late discussions with the Government of Great Britain concerning the trade between the United States and the British colonies in America.

John Quincy Adams.