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Show 456 INAUGURAL AND F ARE\VELL ADDRESSES. FAREWELL ADDRESS OF ANDREW J' ACKSON TO TH PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. ]1) .Fellow-citizeus. - Bcing about to reLiro finally from public life, I beg leave to offer yon my grateful thanks for the many proofs of kindne .. and confluence which I hnve recei vccl at your hands. It has been my fortune, in the dischat'O'C of public duties, civil and military, frcqneutly to have found myself in difficult and trying situations, where prompt d~cision and energetic action were necessary, and where the 1ntcrest of the country required that high respon-ibilities should be fearlessly encountered; and it i with the decpc t cmotious of gratitude that I acknowledge the continued and unbroken conlidcncc with which you have sustained me iu every trial. My public life has been a long one, and I cannot hope that it has, at aJI times, been free ~rom. errors. But I have tho consolation of knowing that, If mistakes have been committed, they have not seriously injured the country I so anxiously endeavored to servo; and at the moment when I surrender my last public trust I I leave this O'rcat people prosperous and happy, in tho f~1n enjoyment of liberty and peace, and honored and respected by every nation of the world. If my humble efforts have, in any degree, contributed to preserve to you these blessings, I have been more than rewarded by the honors yon have heaped upon me, and, abovo all, by the generous confidence with which you have supported me in every peril, and with which you have continued to .a~1ima~e and cheer my path to the closing hour of my pohtJCal hfe. The time has now come, when advanced age and a broken frame warn me to retire from public concerns· but the recollection of the many favors you have bestowed upon me is cngraven upon my heart, aud I have folt that I could not part from your service without making this publio acknowledgment of the gratitude I owe you. And if I usa IN AUG U I~A TJ A~ D FA fllC\V JC L I. ADD RK 'SES. 457 the occu, ion to offer tO yon t.hc COUll.'els of age and experience, yon wil1, I trust, receive them with t.he snme indulgent kindness \vhich you have so often extended to mo; and will, at least, S<'e in them an enntcst d<'sire to perpetuate, in this favored lund, the ole sings of liberty UIIU equal law. We have now lived almost fifty yenrR lltHl cr the co ns titntion fmmed by the sarrcs and patriots of Lite Rcvolutiou. rrho conflicts in which the natio11s of J~uropc were engaged during a great part of this period, the pirit in which they waO'cd war against each other, ancl our intimate commercial coHnections with every part of the civilized world, rendered it a time of mnch diflicult.y for the Government of the Uniterl States. vV c have had our sen. ons of peace and of war, with all the evil.· which precede or follow a state of bo tility with powerful 11atious. We encountered these trials with our constitution yet in its infuney, und nuder the disadvantages which a new and untried gover111nent must nlways feel when it is called npon to put forth its whole strength, without the lights of experience to o·ui<lc iL, or the weight of precedents to justify its mcn su rcs. lluL we havo pas. ed triumphantly through all th so difficulties. Our Constitution is no longer a doubtful experiment; and, at the end of nearly half n. century, we find that it has preserved unimpaired the liberties of the people, secured the rigl1ts of property, and tlJat our country has improved and is !1 \l tl rish ing beyond nny former example in the history of untious. In our domestic concerns there is everything to encour- • age us ; aud, if you arc true to yourselves, nothing can impede your march to the highest point of national prosperity. 'rhe States which had so long been retarded in their improvement by the Judian tribes retiiding iu the midst of them, arc at length relieved from the evil; and this unhappy race-tho original d wclJers in our land-a7e |