with or assume to adjudicate any right, title, or claim of property between private individuals, and to suspend all action upon any orders heretofore made in respect to the ownership or delivery of property and the validity of contracts between private persons. They are also forbidden from being directly or indirectly interested in any sales or contracts for cotton or other products of said State, and from using or suffering to be used any Government transportation for the transporting of cotton or other products of said State for or in behalf of private persons on any pretense whatever. Military officers have no authority to interfere in any way in questions of sale or contracts of any kind between individuals or to decide any question of property between them without special instructions from this Department authorizing their action, and the usurpation of such power will be treated as a grave military offense. Major-General Steedman, commanding the Department of Georgia, is specially charged with the enforcement of this order, and directed to make report as to any acts, proceedings, or orders of Brevet Major-General King and Brevet Brigadier-General Grosvenor, provost-marshalgeneral, in regard to contracts or conflicting claims of individuals in relation to cotton or other products, and to suspend all action upon any such orders until further instructions. By order of the President of the United States. E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General. GENERAL ORDERS, NO. 145. WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, October 9, 1865. Whereas certain tracts of land, situated on the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, at the time for the most part vacant, were set apart by Major-General W. T. Sherman's special field order No. 15 for the benefit of refugees and freedmen that had been congregated by the operations of war or had been left to take care of themselves by their former owners; and Whereas an expectation was thereby created that they would be able to retain possession of said lands; and Whereas a large number of the former owners are earnestly soliciting the restoration of the same and promising to absorb the labor and care for the freedmen: It is ordered, That Major-General Howard, Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, proceed to the several above-named States and endeavor to effect an arrangement mutually satisfactory to the freedmen and the landowners, and make report. And in case a mutually satisfactory arrangement can be effected, he is duly empowered and directed to issue such orders as may become necessary, after a full and careful investigation of the interests of the parties concerned. By order of the President of the United States: E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General. EXECUTIVE OFFICE, October 11, 1865. Whereas the following-named persons, to wit, John A. Campbell, of Alabama; John H. Reagan, of Texas; Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia; George A. Trenholm, of South Carolina, and Charles Clark, of Mississippi, lately engaged in rebellion against the United States Government, who are now in close custody, have made their submission to the authority of the United States and applied to the President for pardon under his proclamation; and Whereas the authority of the Federal Government is sufficiently restored in the aforesaid States to admit of the enlargement of said persons from close custody: It is ordered, That they be released on giving their respective paroles to appear at such time and place as the President may designate to answer any charge that he may direct to be preferred against them, and also that they will respectively abide until further orders in the places herein designated, and not depart therefrom, to wit: John A. Campbell, in the State of Alabama; John H. Reagan, in the State of Texas; Alexander H. Stephens, in the State of Georgia; George A. Trenholm, in the State of South Carolina; and Charles Clark, in the State of Mississippi. And if the President should grant his pardon to any of said persons, such person's parole will be thereby discharged. ANDREW JOHNSON, President. EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Washington City, November 11, 1865. Ordered, That the civil and military agents of the Government transfer to the assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for Alabama the use and custody of all real estate, buildings, or other property, except cotton, seized or held by them in that State as belonging to the late rebel government, together with all such funds as may arise or have arisen from the rent, sale, or disposition of such property which have not been finally paid into the Treasury of the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON, President. Ordered, That GENERAL Orders, No. 164. WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, I. All persons claiming reward for the apprehension of John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Payne, G. A. Atzerodt, and David E. Herold, and Jefferson Davis, or either of them, are notified to file their claims and their proofs with the Adjutant-General for final adjudication by the special commission appointed to award and determine upon the validity of such claims before the 1st day of January next, after which time no claims will be received. II. The rewards offered for the arrest of Jacob Thompson, Beverley Tucker, George N. Sanders, William G. Cleary, and John H. Surratt are revoked. By order of the President of the United States: E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General. FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE. WASHINGTON, December 4, 1865. Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: Our To express gratitude to God in the name of the people for the preservation of the United States is my first duty in addressing you. thoughts next revert to the death of the late President by an act of parricidal treason. The grief of the nation is still fresh. It finds some solace in the consideration that he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy to which he had been elected; that he brought the civil war substantially to a close; that his loss was deplored in all parts of the Union, and that foreign nations have rendered justice to his memory. His removal cast upon me a heavier weight of cares than ever devolved upon any one of his predecessors. To fulfill my trust I need the support and confidence of all who are associated with me in the various departments of Government and the support and confidence of the people. There is but one way in which I can hope to gain their necessary aid. It is to state with frankness the principles which guide my conduct, and their application to the present state of affairs, well aware that the efficiency of my labors will in a great measure depend on your and their undivided approbation. The Union of the United States of America was intended by its authors M P-VOL VI- 23 "The Union shall be to last as long as the States themselves shall last. perpetual" are the words of the Confederation. To form a more perfect Union," by an ordinance of the people of the United States, is the declared purpose of the Constitution. The hand of Divine Providence was never more plainly visible in the affairs of men than in the framing and the adopting of that instrument. It is beyond comparison the greatest event in American history, and, indeed, is it not of all events in modern times the most pregnant with consequences for every people of the earth? The members of the Convention which prepared it brought to their work the experience of the Confederation, of their several States, and of other republican governments, old and new; but they needed. and they obtained a wisdom superior to experience. And when for its validity it required the approval of a people that occupied a large part of a continent and acted separately in many distinct conventions, what is more wonderful than that, after earnest contention and long discussion, all feelings and all opinions were ultimately drawn in one way to its support? The Constitution to which life was thus imparted contains within itself ample resources for its own preservation. It has power to enforce the laws, punish treason, and insure domestic tranquillity. In case of the usurpation of the government of a State by one man or an oligarchy, it becomes a duty of the United States to make good the guaranty to that State of a republican form of government, and so to maintain the homogeneousness of all. Does the lapse of time reveal defects? A simple mode of amendment is provided in the Constitution itself, so that its conditions can always be made to conform to the requirements of advancing civilization. No room is allowed even for the thought of a possibility of its coming to an end. And these powers of self-preservation have always been asserted in their complete integrity by every patriotic Chief Magistrate-by Jefferson and Jackson not less than by Washington and Madison. The parting advice of the Father of his Country, while yet President, to the people of the United States was that the free Constitution, which was the work of their hands, might be sacredly maintained; and the inaugural words of President Jefferson held up "the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad." The Constitution is the work of "the people of the United States," and it should be as indestructible as the people. It is not strange that the framers of the Constitution, which had no model in the past, should not have fully comprehended the excellence of their own work. Fresh from a struggle against arbitrary power, many patriots suffered from harassing fears of an absorption of the State governments by the General Government, and many from a dread that the States would break away from their orbits. But the very greatness of our country should allay the apprehension of encroachments by the General Government. The subjects that come unquestionably within its juris diction are so numerous that it must ever naturally refuse to be embarrassed by questions that lie beyond it. Were it otherwise the Executive would sink beneath the burden, the channels of justice would be choked, legislation would be obstructed by excess, so that there is a greater temptation to exercise some of the functions of the General Government through the States than to trespass on their rightful sphere. The "absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority" was at the beginning of the century enforced by Jefferson as "the vital principle of republics; " and the events of the last four years have established, we will hope forever, that there lies no appeal to force. The maintenance of the Union brings with it "the support of the State governments in all their rights," but it is not one of the rights of any State government to renounce its own place in the Union or to nullify the laws of the Union. The largest liberty is to be maintained in the discussion of the acts of the Federal Government, but there is no appeal from its laws except to the various branches of that Government itself, or to the people, who grant to the members of the legislative and of the executive departments no tenure but a limited one, and in that manner always retain the powers of redress. "The sovereignty of the States" is the language of the Confederacy, and not the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the emphatic words This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. Certainly the Government of the United States is a limited government, and so is every State government a limited government. With us this idea of limitation spreads through every form of administration— general, State, and municipal-and rests on the great distinguishing principle of the recognition of the rights of man. The ancient republics absorbed the individual in the state-prescribed his religion and controlled his activity. The American system rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties. As a consequence the State government is limited-as to the General Government in the interest of union, as to the individual citizen in the interest of freedom. States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to the existence of the Constitution of the United States. At the very commencement, when we assumed a place among the powers of the earth, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by States; so also were the Articles of Confederation; and when "the people of the United States" ordained and established the Constitution it was the assent of the States, one by |