Printed by virtue of an Act of the Legislature, under the supervision and direction of DETROIT: J. S. AND S. A. BAGG, PRINTERS. DOCUMENTS. GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE. Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives : Addressing to you the last annual communication I shall be called upon to present to the people of Michigan, it is a source of unfeigned gratification to be able to congratulate you on the prosperous condition to which our rising commonwealth has attained. You are assembled at a period of peculiar interest. Our people have been favored with general health; rich rewards have been gathered in the fields of agriculture; and in every branch of trade, industry and labor have been crowned with unexampled success. With such an earnest from the past, and with just hopes and expectations for the future, we cannot fail to reach that high destiny which has been assigned us with our sister republics. Neither are these indications of prosperity confined to the limits of our own state. We have but to look abroad upon the condition of our common country, to be satisfied with the lot Providence has assigned us. With a government the freest in the world, we are exempt from internal dissentions; our external relations with foreign powers are as yet undisturbed; our commerce is known to every clime; the increase of our population is beyond former example; and on every side our country presents the evidences of that continued favor which has elevated us from feeble and dependant colonics to an extended and powerful confederacy. Based as our government is, upon the representative will of the people, the legislature is emphatically the depository of their rights and liberties. It will, therefore, fellow citizens, become you to watch with a vigilant eye the different interests committed to your charge, to guard against all encroachments upon the rights of those you represent, to expose all abuses of power or |