every sort, for education, benevolence, reformation, and government. Whatever American architecture can do, should be exhi bited in our public buildings. Whatever American painting and sculpture can do, should be displayed in commemorating here the great deeds and the great men of our history.

This, Sir, was evidently the spirit in which your city was originally laid out and founded by the Father of his Country and his illustrious compeers. We see it in the length and breadth of your avenues, in the noble squares which they reserved for public purposes, and in the fine proportions and ample dimensions of the Capitol and the Executive Mansion. We know it, too, from their own predictions. They looked forward to the time when this city should be a kind of American Zion,-beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, to which all the tribes should annually come up, and find fresh impulses to patriotism, and fresh incentives to Union, in the beauty and grandeur of a common temple. They looked forward to the day, when all men should find here a City worthy of the great objects to which it has been dedicated, and not altogether unworthy of the incomparable name by which it has been called.

We all rejoice, I am sure, in witnessing some first approaches to a realization of this idea, in the improvements which have marked your progress during a few years past, in the erection of a National Observatory, in the foundation of a National Museum, in the commencement of a National Monument, and in the establishment of the National and the Smithsonian Institutes. I cannot name the Smithsonian Institute, however, without expressing the hope that, if the capital of this Republic is ever to be the seat of a great institution of learning and science, — if this long-cherished wish of Washington is at length to be accomplished it may not be wholly owing to the dying bequest of a munificent foreigner. I have no objection to the importation of a little foreign patronage for such an object, but I trust that even the Secretary of the Treasury himself, will regard it as a venial violation of his free-trade principles, if I advocate the encouragement of the domestic article also.

Once more let me thank you, Sir, in the name of the members of Congress around me, for the hospitalities of this occa

sion, and for the many other hospitalities and kindnesses, public and private, which we have all received at your hands in time past; and let me relieve your patience, without further delay, by proposing to the company as a sentiment,—

"The City of Washington, and its accomplished and excellent Mayor, Mr. Seaton."

REPLY TO A VOTE OF THANKS.

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE FINAL ADJOURNMENT OF THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS, MARCH, 4, 1849.

The hour has arrived which terminates our relations to the country, and our relations to each other, as members of the Thirtieth Congress; and you have already pronounced the word which puts an end at once to my vocation and to your own.

But neither the usage of the occasion, nor my own feelings, will allow me to leave the Chair, without a word of acknow ledgment, and a word of farewell, to those with whom I have been so long associated, and by whom I have been so highly honored.

Certainly, gentlemen, I should subject myself to a charge of great ingratitude, were I not to thank you for the Resolution in reference to my official services, which you have placed upon the records within a few hours past.

Such a resolution, I need not say, is the most precious testimonial which any presiding officer can receive, and affords the richest remuneration for any labors which it may have cost.

It did not require, however, this formal tribute at your hands, to furnish me with an occasion of grateful acknowledgment to you all. I am deeply sensible, that no intentions, however honest, and no efforts, however earnest, could have carried me safely and successfully through with the duties which have been imposed upon me, had I not been seconded and sustained, from first to last, by your kind coöperation and friendly forbearance.

I beg you, then, to receive my most hearty thanks, not merely for so generous an appreciation of my services, but for the uni

form courtesy and confidence which you have manifested towards me, during my whole official term, and which have done so much to lighten the labors and relieve the responsibilities which are inseparable from the Chair of this House. I can honestly say, that I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, to fulfil the pledges with which I entered upon this arduous station, and to discharge its complicated and difficult duties without partiality and without prejudice. Nor am I conscious of having given just cause of imputation or offence to any member of the House. If there be one, however, towards whom I have seemed, at any moment, to exhibit any thing of injustice, or any thing of impatience, I freely offer him the only reparation in my power, in this public expression of my sincere regret.

We have been associated, gentlemen, during a most eventful period in the history of our country and of the world. It would be difficult to designate another era in the modern annals of mankind, which has been signalized by so rapid a succession of startling political changes. Let us rejoice that while the powers of the earth have almost everywhere else been shaken, that while more than one of the mightiest monarchies and stateliest empires of Europe have tottered or have fallen,-our own American Republic has stood firm. Let us rejoice at the evidence which has thus been furnished to the friends of liberty throughout the world, of the inherent stability of institutions, which are founded on the rock of a written constitution, and which are sustained by the will of a free and intelligent people. And let us hope and trust as I, for one, most fervently and confidently do - that, by the blessing of God, upon prudent, conciliatory, and patriotic counsels, every cause of domestic dissension and fraternal discord may be speedily done away, and that the States and the people, whose representatives we are, may be bound together forever in a firm, cordial, and indissoluble Union.

Offering once more to you all, my most grateful acknowledgments of your kindness, and my best wishes for your individual health and happiness, I proceed to the performance of the only duty which remains to me, by announcing, as I now do, That the House of Representatives of the United States stands adjourned, sine die.

NOTE.

INVITATION TO A PUBLIC DINNER.

BOSTON, August 28, 1848.

DEAR SIR: A large number of Whigs, of the Suffolk Congressional District, among your strongest personal and political friends, "entertaining a high respect for the character and abilities of their distinguished Representative in Congress, and a deep sense of gratitude for the services which he has rendered. and the honor he has reflected upon the State and the Union, by his faithful and successful discharge of the arduous duties of Speaker of the House of Representatives, during a long and laborious session," have requested us to tender you, in their behalf, a public dinner, at such time and place as may be most agreeable to you.

Joining, to that of our friends, our own earnest and sincere desire that you find it convenient to accede to their request,

may

GENTLEMEN: Absence from home prevented me from receiving your most

obliging communication of the 28th ult., until a late day.