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Appendix.
Governor's Message
[See page 15.]
Gentlemen of the Senate, and House of Representatives, Assembled here as the guardians of a young and growing Commonwealth, it is gratifying to remark that your duties relate more intimately to protecting, cherishing, and educating, than to legislating for the deteriorating or corrupted. With a Constitution and laws so formed as never to have warranted any objection to their republican character, and but rarely to the wisdom of their authors, it would be ingratitude to propose any speculative views, as it would be rashness to adopt any experimental arrangements, either of hope or discontent, which might operate against our existing system. I am authorized by facts to congratulate you on this occasion, not only on the continued success of our own municipal regulations, dispensing, as they commonly do, the primary securities of all that law is destined to guard & preserve, in its impartial beneficence, but to accord to the United States the acknowledgment of its cherishing influence. Some of the measures, however, of the Congress formerly assembled, have been thought to be not simply prejudiced in a national view, but exceedingly unequal in their hard pressure on this part of our Union. Without presuming to question & not doubting the high integrity and ability of the assembly which made the Tariff, and being disposed to yield a venerating submission to its eventual decision, it is hoped you will seriously inquire whether or not there has been a sacrifice made to the cupidity of manufacturers and the ambition of politicians; and if you shall discover there has been, that you will declare accordingly the belief that you may entertain. Yet with every advantage