to whom I am responsible for a firm and faithful discharge according to my own convictions of duty of the high stewardship confided to me by them.  I protest against it in the name of all regulated liberty and all limited government as a proceeding tending to the utter destruction of the checks and balances of the Constitution and the accumulating in the hands of the House of Representatives, or a bare majority of Congress for the time being, an uncontrolled and despotic power.  And I respectfully ask that this my protest may be entered upon the Journal of the House of Representatives as a solemn and formal declaration for all time to come against the injustice and unconstitutionality of such a proceeding.

JOHN TYLER.

SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, December 6, 1842.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

We have continued reason to express our profound gratitude to the Great Creator of All Things for numberless benefits conferred upon us as a people.  Blessed with genial seasons, the husbandman has his garners filled with abundance, and the necessaries of life, not to speak of its luxuries, abound in every direction.  While in some other nations steady and industrious labor can hardly find the means of subsistence, the greatest evil which we have to encounter is a surplus of production beyond the home demand, which seeks, and with difficulty finds, a partial market in other regions.  The health of the country, with partial exceptions, has for the past year been well preserved, and under their free and wise institutions the United States are rapidly advancing toward the consummation of the high destiny which an overruling Providence seems to have marked out for them.  Exempt from domestic convulsion and at peace with all the world, we are left free to consult as to the best means of securing and advancing the happiness of the people.  Such are the circumstances under which you now assemble in your respective chambers and which should lead us to unite in praise and thanksgiving to that great Being who made us and who preserves us as a nation.

I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the happy change in the aspect of our foreign affairs since my last annual message.  Causes of complaint at that time existed between the United States and Great Britain which, attended by irritating circumstances, threatened most seriously the public peace.  The difficulty of adjusting amicably the questions at issue between the two countries was in no small degree augmented by the lapse of time since they had their origin.  The opinions entertained by the Executive on several of the leading topics in dispute were frankly set forth in the message at the opening of your late session.  The appointment of a special minister by Great Britain to the United States with power to negotiate upon most of the points of difference indicated