MESSAGE TO THE LEGISLATURE,

SECOND SESSION, AUGUST 16, 1842.

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY:

I TRANSMIT a law of Congress which reduces the house of representatives to two hundred and twenty-three members, and the number of representatives from this state to thirty-four. Regret for the reduction of the ratio of representation will be relieved by the more perfect expression of the popular voice which will be obtained by elections in uniform single districts.

I tender you congratulations on the general prevalence of health and the abundant harvests of the year.

The edifice of the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, a flourishing institution which has been favored with aid from the treasury, has been destroyed by fire; but private liberality, encouraged by forbearance on the part of the state, promises a speedy renewal of the usefulness of the institution.

The administration of justice has become more efficient; but I hope the importance of preventing abuses of the writ of habeas corpus and of the privilege of bail may not be overlooked, as well as the manifest necessity for more effectually securing the attendance of grand and petit jurors in courts having jurisdiction in criminal cases.

The discipline in the stateprisons now blends kindness and religious instructions with regular but not oppressive labor, and is producing results propitious to morality and consoling to virtuous sympathy; but I deeply regret the failure of all my efforts to induce the legislature to prevent the growth of crime by reform in the construction of houses of detention and correction, and in the government of such institutions.

NOTE-A special object of this extra session of the legislature was to divide the state into Congressional districts.-Ed.

An agent has been appointed to explore the mineral districts and inquire into the expediency of substituting labor in mines for the present mode of employing convicts.

A recent election in the city of New York was attended by a turbulent outbreak, in which officers engaged in canvassing votes were compelled to leave the ballot-boxes, and the outrage was followed by an attack upon a Christian church and the dwelling of its ministers. The interruption of the canvass resulted in a suspension of the functions of the common council during nearly two months. The principle of universal suffrage was nevertheless vindicated by the tranquillity with which the people awaited and obeyed decisions on the questions in issue by the judicial tribunals.

A spacious aqueduct has been constructed, by which the Croton river, having been raised to the height of one hundred and sixty-six feet above tide, is diverted from its natural channel in Westchester county, conveyed nearly forty miles over formidable inequalities of surface, and across the Harlem river, and discharged into capacious reservoirs, from which the waters are dispensed throughout the city of New York. This new and successful achievement in the march of internal improvement, provides the metropolis with an element indispensable to health, comfort, and security, exceeding in volume the supply of the city of London, and fully anticipates the wants of the vast population which must eventually be concentrated in our commercial capital. The cost of the work exceeds twelve millions of dollars, and I deem it a subject of just pride, that the credit of a mere municipality has proved adequate to an enterprise which in any other age could have been attempted only by the strong arm of an imperial or despotic government. The structures, not less enduring than useful, will remain a perpetual monument, not only of the forecast and public spirit of the municipal council, but also of the advanced state of science in our country.

The remainder of the journals of the Revolutionary legislature and convention, containing the correspondence of those bodies with Congress, with other states, with citizens in arms, and in the public councils, and with friends of liberty in America and Europe, has been printed and will vindicate the memories of our ancestors from cotemporaneous suspicions of disloyalty to their

country, and enhance our already high veneration by making us more fully acquainted with their trials and virtues.

Aided by the liberal interposition of the president of the United States and the efficient assistance of the American ministers in London and Paris, our agent has obtained access to the public archives in those capitals; and the documents which he is transcribing, together with those he has procured in Holland, will furnish complete transatlantic annals of the colony of New York from its foundation until its independence. We were before indebted to the government of Great Britain for very munificent contributions to our library. I ask your permission to mark our appreciation of the high national courtesies we have received from European states, by transmitting to them copies of the forthcoming reports on the natural history of our commonwealth.

I have great pleasure in informing you that the publication of those reports is in such rapid progress that portions will be submitted at the present session. A suite of the specimens which have been collected has been partially arranged in the Geological Museum, and the seven other collections intended for the seminaries of learning will soon be ready for their destination. The enterprise thus consummated, originated in a merely economical desire to explore our mountains in search of coal. All that has been gained in that view, is, a certain knowledge that this important mineral does not exist within our borders, and that an adequate supply can only be introduced by improving and extending the channels of our trade with other communities. But the absence of coal is bountifully compensated by saline springs, and rich accumulations of lime, gypsum, marble, and hydraulic cement, in the Silurian formations; by marl, and peat, in the quaternary regions; by plumbago; and also by deposites of iron, lead, zinc, and copper, in the granite districts, in the vicinity of almost inexhaustible forests furnishing the fuel indispensable for the reduction of these minerals. Our lyceums, moreover, will be enriched with specimens of all the animals and plants, and of every soil, rock, mineral, and fossil, as yet discovered within our territory. The field within which medicinal science, agricultural chemistry, mineralogy and economical geology, have hitherto pursued their beneficent investigations, is thus broadly enlarged ; and such are the regularity of our rock strata and their exposure,

and such the variety and perfection of organic remains, that the survey, although its results are as yet but partially disclosed, is regarded in the European schools as affording a contribution of great value to the cause of science, with data for a more philosophical classification of facts, and important aids in reading the unerring and imperishable records in which Nature has written her own annals on the globe we inhabit.

I call your attention to some cases in which the law of Virginia, retaliating on peaceful citizens of New York injuries supposed to have been committed by her executive and legislative authorities, has been put in operation. Although our commerce is not greatly embarrassed by these unfraternal proceedings, yet unoffending citizens ought not in such cases to be left to incur inconvenience, or suffer loss. I, therefore, renew my request for authority to instruct them to test the validity of the law of Virginia in the legal tribunals.

The terms in which the supreme court of the United States assigned reasons for their judgment, in a recent case between Maryland and Pennsylvania, would invalidate every state law concerning fugitives from justice, which should fail to facilitate the capture, even without legal process, of persons claimed as slaves, whether they had ever been subjected to servitude or not; but the authority of the decision can not be extended to cases presenting facts materially varying from those which marked the case thus adjudicated. It is, therefore, believed that the privileges of habeas corpus, and the right of trial by jury, as yet remain unimpaired in this state; and that we are not obliged to retrace what is justly regarded as an important advance toward that complete political and legal equality which, being conformable to Divine laws and essential to the best interests of mankind, will ultimately constitute the perfection of our republican institutions.

Rhode Island has been made a theatre of resistance to public authority, growing out of unwise delays in establishing equality of suffrage. A person assuming the character of chief magistrate of that state, transmitted to me a resolution passed by assemblages which claimed to be a legislature, announcing to the executive and legislative authorities of this state, the organization

of a new government in that commonwealth, under a constitution approved by a portion of the people in an election held and conducted without previous legislative authority. Almost simultaneously, the governor, in conformity with constitutional laws of the United States, gave me notice that the individual who had thus assumed executive functions had taken refuge in the city of New York, and required me to arrest him as a fugitive, charged with the crime of treason, committed in an attempt to subvert the government of Rhode Island by military force. I complied with the requirement, by issuing process; but the offender was not found within our jurisdiction. I also adopted proper measures to prevent the arms and military stores in our arsenal near the sea-board, from being used in the attempt to desolate a sisterstate with a civil war. The people of Rhode Island nobly sustained their government, without the aid they had a right to expect from the federal executive; and measures have since been adopted by their legislature, designed to allay any public discontent and satisfy just claims for an enlargement of suffrage.

The long-delayed negotiations between the United States and Great Britain are supposed to be on the eve of completion by a treaty in which our northern boundary will be re-adjusted, so as to secure to this state an accession of territory on the shore of Lake Champlain important to its defence against future aggression, and controversies, which have endangered the peace of the two nations, will be permanently settled on principles consistent with the national honor.

I have forborne to demand fugitives from justice who have fled to the British provinces, and also to surrender criminals from those provinces who have taken refuge in this state, from the time when the supreme court of the United States virtually decided that the powers necessary for those purposes were exclusively national, and, therefore, belonged to the federal government. The governor-general of British North America, however, surrendered fugitives upon my informal request, until instructions, very recently received from the royal government, have obliged him to discontinue such courtesies. The evils resulting from the facility with which offenders against the laws of either country may secure impunity for their crimes, are so great, that I have thought proper to invoke the constitutional interposition of the general government, in the hope that the subject might find