SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, UPON THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS SECOND TERM AS GOVERNOR, DELIVERED JANUARY 11, 1846, BEFORE THE TWO HOUSES OF THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE. FELLOW-CITIZENS: Honored by you with a re-election to the office of Governor, I appear before you a second time, to renew my obligations to support your constitution, and faithfully to discharge my duties. In doing so, allow me to enter into covenants, again to requite your generous confidence, by a continued watchfulness over all your varied interests. Two years have now passed away since I entered, with trembling anxiety, on the high duties to which your partiality had called me. You have passed your verdict of approval on my conduct, and I thank you-from a heart full and overflowing with gratitude I thank you. I enter on a second term with increased anxiety-and with a determination, quickened by your approval of the past, still to merit your confidence, and to retire from your service without having forfeited your good opinion. To be chosen from fifty thousand voters, to administer the affairs of a sovereign state, is a distinction of which any man may boast, but which no one has a right to claim. I have it by your sufferance-it shall be my constant effort to wear it without reproach, and to surrender it without dishonor. 66 Indulge me, fellow-citizens, in a remark or two touching the present attitude of our state, her future prospects, and the means to be employed in advancing her to greatness and glory. Proud as I am of Mississippi, the home of my childhood, and of my maturer years, I am prouder still of her attitude before the world, of the noble bearing which she exhibits amid the reproaches and contumely cast upon her. Is she accused by bankers and bonders of pestilential and seditious conduct, and of being "a ringleader of the sect" called repudiators? She answers as did Paul before Festus. "I stand at Cæsar's judgment seat, where I ought to be judged to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. For if I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die; but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Cæsar." Mississippi is to be judged by her own written constitution; if against that she has offended, she expects to be reproached, but if she has not, no man may deliver her into the hands of Jewish or other bond holders. She appeals to the constitution. This day fifty thousand hearts, scattered over the broad surface of Mississippi, swell with emotion, as fifty thousand freemen turn their eyes towards this city to behold the actions of their representatives assembled here. The state has been maligned and her fair fame traduced by those who are ignorant of her cause, or, knowing her to be right, refuse to do her justice. She has taken her position, and from it she will not depart. The shafts levelled at her honor fall harmless at her feet, because they come not from the hand of justice. Let those who are the guardians of her unsullied fame preserve it free from taint or blemish. You stood by her in her noble attitude of vindicating her constitution, in refusing to pay demands contracted in its violation; stand by her with equal firmness in her no less lofty attitude of vindicating that constitution still further by paying debts contracted by its approval and sanctioned by its language. If Mississippi was called upon by her constitution to reject the Union Bank bonds, that same constitution bids her pay those of the Planters' Bank "to the last mill." I will not ask you if it shall be done, because I will not ask you if Mississippi shall be dishonored. What are the future prospects of our state, and how shall we advance her in the highway to glory and renown? are questions to be determined by your action. With a fertility of soil equal to any in the world; with the mighty river of her own name, so aptly termed "an inland sea," washing her western border for more than four hundred miles, and bearing upon its bosom the richest product that ever rewarded the toils of man; with navigable rivers like arteries running from her heart to all her extremities; with salubrity of climate equal to Italy, and a population the bravest and best on God's earth, there is not a land of fairer promise, nor one which may aspire to a higher or a more glorious destiny. How shall we assist her? Let a portion of our energies be directed to internal improvements. The day will come when Mississippi should be spanned from east to west by a great central railroad; when the waters of the Mississippi should be fenced in, and the fertile lands on its borders be made to throw their rich treasures into the pockets of our people. It was improvements like these that added millions to the wealth of New York, and gave immortality to the name of Clinton. These improvements cannot be made the next year, or completed perhaps by this generation; but the natal energy and indomitable perseverance of our people will sooner or later carry them out. It is our duty to commence them. There is a feature in the character of this state which the historian cannot pass by in silence. It is the independence which marks her conduct. Determining for herself what is right, she fearlessly pursues the conviction of her own judgment, regardless of the opinions and conduct of others. She was first to elect judges by the people; she first established a purely metallic currency, and, amidst the taunts and jeers of friends and foes, she first stood up in the face of the civilized world and refused to pay an unconstitutional debt contracted in her name. A state which thus pursues its own inclinations, and which has already invested its people with more power than any other in the Union, or perhaps in Christendom, should be the foremost in giving universal instruction to its people. An ignorant multitude, excited by some fancied wrong, and led by some daring and popular demagogue, may, in a single hour, commit breaches in the fabric of our government which the wisdom and ingenuity of ages may not be able to repair. The educated masses are never frenzied thus; appreciating the blessings of liberty, they will never commit excesses in its name. Then by every consideration of patriotism; by your love of liberty; by the devotion which you bear to your offspring; by the safety of your firesides; and the accumulated wealth of years of toil; by the holy religion of your fathers; by all that you hold dear in this world, or sacred in the world to come, I exhort you to spread the blessings of education among the people! The legislation of this country is wisely divided into state and national. As a member of the great family of states, we are the victims or beneficiaries of national legislation as chance may direct, our voice being as one to fifty in her councils. Whilst we direct our domestic legislation so as to develope the resources of our state, and secure to ourselves and our property the blessings of liberty in a free government, may we not, in earnest and respectful terms, address our petitions and our remonstrances to the federal legislature, so to govern its councils as not to retard us in our onward march to prosperity and happiness? Nay! whilst others are the recipients of governmental favor, may we not ask for justice? If the tariff oppresses us, may we not ask that it be relaxed? If protection retards. us, may we not ask that it be removed? Our cotton whitens every sea, and enlivens every port. It is the axis on which the commercial world revolves. Shall Congress restrict us to a home market, and call this protection? verily, "it is such protection as vultures give to lambs.' No, let Congress protect us in foreign lands; let Congress protect us as we float on every sea, and barter in every port, and we will protect ourselves and our government at home. Millions on millions of the nation's money is yearly lavished in developing the resources and advancing the prosperity of other states, under the specious pretext of "providing for the common defence and the general welfare." Mississippi has remonstrated, and her remonstrance has not been heard; she must stand firm on the broad platform of the constitution, and as she grows older and stronger she will increase in the compass and strength of her appeals for justice. She asks for nothing from the nation's coffers to her local works; but she asks for "defences" commensurate with her commercial importance, and such as are demanded by her position in the Union, and her contributions to the national wealth. Our southern coast for three hundred miles is undefended; scarcely a light-house to direct the storm-beaten mariner has been erected. Not an arsenal nor a fort is built on our shores. The nation, liberal to others, but parsimonious to us, has not even surveyed our coast. A harbor equal to almost any on the Atlantic, was better known to British seamen in 1812-15 than to American statesmen in 1846. Are we members of the same family, or are we strangers to the sisterhood of states, that our interests are thus neglected and our safety set at nought? If it were competent for Congress to aid in the construction of the Wabash Canal, with a grant from the public domain, why may not the rivers that span our state in all directions, and bear upon their bosoms the rich products of our soil, demand like contributions from the nation's bounty? The Pearl, Yazoo, Black, Tallahatchie, and other rivers, are as important to us in their navigation as the Wabash Canal can be to any portion of the western people. For years and years, Mississippi has appealed, but she has appealed in vain, for a graduation in the price of the public lands. The older states have clung to these lands with a miser's iron grasp. Gloating over the prospect of gain, they have regarded each dollar wrung from the reluctant grasp of the hardy settler, as so much added to their coffers. In a lucky hour the principle of graduation was ingrafted into the treaty with the Chickasaw Indians. Witness its fruits. In ten years, the lands ceded by the Chickasaw tribe, have made more advances in population and in agriculture than those in the Choctaw cession have in twice that number of years. We have seen the less productive lands in the Choctaw cession go uncultivated for almost a quarter of a century, and a thrifty population, such as would do credit to any state, driven west, where the more liberal government of Texas gave them lands on better terms. Our appeals must be renewed. The policy of the United States will ultimately induce her to listen to our petitions. The feeling is now for war-war with England; a war in which we are to be the greatest sufferers. This war will give impetus to New England manufactures, and open new and profitable markets for western produce to us it will bring blight and desolation. Our hearths, now happy and cheerful, will become lonely and desolate our fields, no longer covered with a snowy white staple and enlivened by the negro's happy song, will grow up in thorns and thick weeds, and become the resting place of reptiles and ill-omened birds. Yet are we ready for the crisis. Let no one doubt our fealty to the general good-let no one say that Mississippi will be unfaithful to the nation's honor-let her but know that her cause is just, and she will march to victory or death. Let the nation be faithful to herself and us-let her stand by her President, who has asked for nothing but what is right," and who has already sworn, upon the altar of his country's glory, that "he will submit to nothing which is wrong;" and if for this England wages war upon us, why, let it come-in God's name let it come. In such a cause, there is not a tongue that would not cry for war; and though houses were burned and cities sacked, and though biting hunger should even claim us for his victims, still our voice would be for war-and our mothers, the matrons of the land, would cheer us in this goodly work. Like the mother of the Spartan heroes, they would bid us return from such a conflict "with our shields, or upon them." With England must ever rest the question of peace or war. We crave an honorable peace, and if this be denied us, we ask for war. I pray that justice may hold the scales in the hands of England, and that the genius of peace may preside over her deliberations. With no disposition to trespass further on your indulgence, I conclude with an earnest wish that you, the people, may be united in all your efforts to promote the public good; and that the counsels of your representatives, under the supervision of Divine Providence, may be directed to the union of the states, the happiness of the people, and the perpetuity of liberty, and universal peace among men. ALBERT G. BROWN. FIRST THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION IN MISSISSIPPI. THE year eighteen hundred and forty-seven draws to a close. Its seasons have been propitious beyond precedent. The toils of the husbandman have been rewarded with an abundant harvest. Health has blessed our state, and general prosperity is everywhere visible. earth has yielded its fruits in rich abundance to supply our wants, and minister to our comfort. The A glowing patriotism, and a steady devotion to the laws and constitution, under which our state has attained her present enviable rank in social order, wealth, population, learning, and religion, continue to pervade all classes of her citizens. The beneficent beams of a common Christianity, undimmed in their lustre by any collision of sects or interference of legislation, shed their rich blessings upon a people capable of appreciating and willing to acknowledge their obligations to the Great Ruler of the Universe on this behalf. Under the smiles of Providence, these states have grown, prospered, and multiplied, until they constitute a great and powerful nation; with whom agriculture, commerce, the arts, sciences, and literature, have flourished as in no other country in modern times. Unhappily, involved in war! Under the eye of God, by the valor of our troops and the skill of our officers, the arms of our beloved country have everywhere been victorious. These, and innumerable other blessings and benefits of a kindred character, constantly flowing upon our state and nation, call for devout thanksgiving to the bountiful Giver of every blessing. I therefore, in obedience to the expressed wish of a large number of Christian professors, as well as in pursuit of my own inclinations, respectfully recommend Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of the present month (November), to be observed as a day of public and general thanksgiving, that the people of the state, abstaining from their ordinary business avocations, may assemble in their usual places of religious worship, and, uniting with each other, and with their fellow-citizens of many other states, may pay their tribute of thanks to the Author of all our spiritual and temporal good gifts-and may pour out their hearts to Him that his rich smiles may be continued to our state and nation, through each cycle of their future existence, and that the abundant blessing of this year may be crowned by the termination of the existing war in an honorable and just peace. [SEAL.] In testimony whereof, I hereunto set my hand, and cause the |