time to aggravate existing evils by sudden and violent changes of policy, or by bold experiments, or by rash innovations. The immediate welfare of the people and their permanent prosperity will be better promoted by a steady adherence to the settled policy of the state, with economy and retrenchment in its prosecution, and by the preservation of institutions intimately connected with that policy, and with the various individual interests of our fellow-citizens. Nor ought we to forget that the counsels of government are ineffectual to promote the common welfare, if they are not guided by that sense of dependence upon Divine favor, which the remembrance of past blessings is so well calculated to inspire.

ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE LEGISLATURE,

JANUARY 5, 1841.

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY:

THE field of public service to which you have been called is bounded by no narrow limits. It includes the responsibilities of securing civil rights; of defining crimes of every grade, and prescribing their appropriate punishments; of establishing laws concerning the acquisition, tenure, and alienation, of property; of instituting and maintaining courts of justice; of prescribing and enforcing all duties arising out of the domestic and social relations; of organizing associations designed to promote the public good, and of controlling or suppressing such as are injurious; of taking care of the public health; of providing a medium of exchange, and sustaining domestic trade; of regulating elections, and preserving the purity of the elective franchise; of enacting laws for the discipline and instruction of the militia, the education of youth, the support of the poor, the relief of the afflicted, the encouragement of agriculture and all useful arts, and the development of the resources of the state by the improvement of rivers and the construction of roads and canals; and finally all the responsibilities and powers which sovereign states may assume and exercise, with the exception only of those expressly granted to the federal government, and subject only to the limitations prescribed by the constitution of this state and that of the United States. These responsibilities affect the welfare, honor, and happiness, of two and a half millions of free people. Although distinguished for the refinement of its social condition,

NOTE-During the preceding year Mr. Seward had been re-elected governor, and General Harrison had been elected president. The governor alludes to the latter fact, in this message, in appropriate terms. The subject of internal improvements again occupies a large share of the message, and is discussed in the same able and comprehensive manner as in his previous messages.-Ed.

this community is only in the beginning of its existence. Notwithstanding its thousand towns, it has yet an extensive region altogether unoccupied; and with an aggregate wealth of a thousand millions of dollars, its soil is imperfectly cultivated, its minerals have hardly been disturbed in their beds, the natural obstacles to trade have been only partially removed, and the perfect subdivision of industry in its various departments is yet to take place. We are in the midst of communities which are neither hostile nor rival powers, nor yet dependent colonies, exhausting our wealth for their support; but free and prosperous states, bound to us not only by the federal compact, but by the stronger ties of common sympathies and affection, and obliged by the natural direction of their trade to contribute to our revenues and increase our commercial importance.

When the federal government has discharged its duty in maintaining peaceful and advantageous relations with foreign countries, in conducting its fiscal affairs so as not to derange the business of the people, in making the necessary improvement of navigable rivers and lakes, and in affording proper facilities for the transmission of intelligence, it can do little more to promote the public welfare. On the other hand, the state legislature, which, by salutary reform, effects a decrease of crime, raises the standard of general education, establishes a new safeguard around the elective franchise, or opens a new channel for commerce, does more to increase the general prosperity, and even to strengthen the bonds of the Union, than Congress with its limited powers can often accomplish.

The year which we are permitted to review has been crowned with the blessings of health, plenty, and peace. No pestilence has been abroad, severing the ties from which happiness arises, and recompensing with disease and death the unavailing offices of affection; nor has war, with its fearful desolation, diverted from domestic sorrows their rightful sympathy and consolation. Contentment has been in our dwellings; and the abundance we have received has rendered it more easy to give than to withhold. The laws have maintained their supremacy; and the administration of justice has encountered no resistance. All the departments of the government have performed their functions without interruption, and with general success. The harvest has been followed by a partial resuscitation of confidence, and general indiVOL. II.-17

cations of a revival of enterprise promise a return of prosperity. Sentiments favorable to frugal and patient industry have regained their just influence; and the agitation which, for a time, threatened to array against each other masses having common interests, and to establish new, impracticable, and revolutionary measures, in the policy of the government, has given way to a prevailing conviction that the public welfare is best promoted by mutual harmony and confidence, and by a conservative support of tried institutions and laws.

The amount of tolls and rents of surplus waters collected during the last fiscal year, on all the canals of the state, was..... .$1,606,827 45

And the amount of charges on all the canals, exclusive of interest on loans, was.

Leaving a net revenue of.

586,011 87 .$1,020,815 58

Being $36,981 17 less than the amount of net income of the preceding year.

All the colleges in the state are in a flourishing condition. The number of students attending these institutions is six hundred and sixty-two; of whom one hundred and twenty are in Columbia College, one hundred and fifteen in the University of the City of New York, two hundred and seventy-three in Union College, ninety-four in Hamilton College, and sixty in the college at Geneva. The communication from the president of Columbia College, herewith submitted, shows that that institution is suffering a singular inconvenience, resulting from some erroneous restraints connected with the past liberality of the state.

The number of students in all the academies and grammarschools in the state is thirty-six thousand, eight hundred and three. The number of children attending the common schools is about five hundred and seventy thousand; and the whole number of children between five and sixteen years of age, as nearly as can be ascertained, is about six hundred thousand. There are about eleven thousand common-school districts in the state, including those under the charge of the Public School Society in the city of New York, in all of which schools are maintained during an average period of eight months in the year. Of these school-districts, there are very few which have not complied with the act providing for the establishment of school-district libraries, and there are at this time in these various district libraries about one million of volumes. Within the five years limited by the law, there will have been expended in the purchase of books more

than half a million of dollars. Although an injudicious choice of books is sometimes made, these libraries generally include history and biography, voyages and travels, works on natural history and the physical sciences, treatises upon agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the arts, and judicious selections from modern literature. Henceforth no citizen, who shall have improved the advantages offered by our common schools and the district libraries, will be without some scientific knowledge of the earth, its physical condition and its phenomena, the animals that inhabit it, the vegetables that clothe it with verdure, and the minerals under its surface, the physiology and the intellectual powers of man, the laws of mechanics and their practical uses, those of chemistry and their application to the arts, the principles of moral and political economy, the history of nations, and especially that of our own country; the progress and triumph of the democratic principle in the governments on this continent, and the prospects of its ascendency throughout the world; the trials and faith, valor and constancy of our ancestors; with the inspiring examples of benevolence, virtue, and patriotism, exhibited in the lives of the benefactors of mankind. The fruits of this enlightened and beneficent enterprise are chiefly to be gathered by our successors. But the present generation will not be altogether unrewarded. Although many of our citizens may pass the district library, heedless of the treasures it contains, the unpretending volumes will find their way to the fireside, diffusing knowledge, increasing domestic happiness, and promoting public virtue.

The institution for the instruction of deaf mutes and the asylum for the blind continue to make ample returns for the patronage they have received.

The legislature of 1839 very properly directed the immediate attention of the commissioners of the asylum for the insane to the completion of one of the four edifices contemplated by my predecessor. The building is designed to accommodate about two hundred and fifty persons, and can be prepared during the ensuing season for the reception of those who unhappily are to become its tenants. It devolves upon you to adopt a system for the government of the institution. There is not within the range of the healing art a department that requires so rare a combination of profound knowledge of the physical and intellectual con