The two treaties between the United States and Italy for the regulation of consular powers and the extradition of criminals, negotiated and ratified here during the last session of Congress, have been accepted and confirmed by the Italian government. A liberal consular convention which has been negotiated with Belgium will be submitted to the Senate. The very important treaties which were negotiated between the United States and North Germany and Bavaria, for the regulation of the rights of naturalized citizens, have been duly ratified and exchanged, and similar treaties have been entered into with the kingdoms of Belgium and Wurtemberg, and with the Grand Duchies of Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt. I hope soon to be able to submit equally satisfactory conventions of the same character now in the course of negotiation with the respective governments of Spain, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire.

Examination of claims against the United States by the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, on account of certain possessory rights in the State of Oregon and Territory of Washington, alleged by those companies in virtue of provisions of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain of June 15, 1846, has been diligently prosecuted, under the direction of the joint international commission to which they were submitted for adjudication by treaty between the two governments of July 1, 1863, and will, it is expected, be concluded at an early day.

No practical regulation concerning colonial trade and the fisheries can be accomplished by treaty between the United States and Great Britain until Congress shall have expressed their judgment concerning the principles involved. Three other questions, however, between the United States and Great Britain remain open for adjustment. These are the mutual rights of naturalized citizens, the boundary question involving the title to the island of San Juan, on the Pacific coast, and mutual claims arising since the year 1853 of the citizens and subjects of the two countries for injuries and depredations committed under the authority of their respective governments. Negotiations upon these subjects are pending, and I am not without hope of being able to lay before the Sen-" ate, for its consideration during the present session, protocols calculated to bring to an end these justly-exciting and long-existing controversies. We are not advised of the action of the Chinese government upon the liberal and auspicious treaty which was recently celebrated with its plenipotentiaries at this capital.

Japan remains a theatre of civil war, marked by religious incidents and political severities peculiar to that long-isolated empire. The Executive has hitherto maintained strict neutrality among the belligerents, and acknowledges with pleasure that it has been frankly and fully sustained in that course by the enlightened concurrence and co-operation of the other treaty powers, namely, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, North Germany, and Italy.

Spain having recently undergone a revolution marked by extraordi

nary unanimity and preservation of order, the provisional government established at Madrid has been recognized, and the friendly intercourse which has so long happily existed between the two countries remains unchanged.

I renew the recommendation contained in my communication to Congress dated the 18th July last-a copy of which accompanies this message that the judgment of the people should be taken on the propriety of so amending the federal Constitution that it shall provide

1st. For an election of President and Vice-President by a direct vote of the people, instead of through the agency of electors, and making them ineligible for re-election to a second term.

2d. For a distinct designation of the person who shall discharge the duties of President, in the event of a vacancy in that office by the death, resignation, or removal of both the President and Vice-President.

3d. For the election of senators of the United States directly by the people of the several States, instead of by the legislatures; and 4th. For the limitation to a period of years of the terms of federal judges.

Profoundly impressed with the propriety of making these important modifications in the Constitution, I respectfully submit them for the early and mature consideration of Congress. We should, as far as possible, remove all pretext for violations of the organic law, by remedying such imperfections as time and experience may develop, ever remembering that "the Constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all."

In the performance of a duty imposed upon me by the Constitution, I have thus communicated to Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommended for their consideration such measures as have seemed to me necessary and expedient. If carried into effect, they will hasten the accomplishment of the great and beneficent purposes for which the Constitution was ordained, and which it comprehensively states were "to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." In Congress are vested all legislative powers, and upon them devolves the responsibility as well for framing unwise and excessive laws, as for neglecting to devise and adopt measures absolutely demanded by the wants of the country. Let us earnestly hope that before the expiration of our respective terms of service, now rapidly drawing to a close, an all-wise Providence will so guide our counsels as to strengthen and preserve the federal Union, inspire reverence for the Constitution, restore prosperity and happiness to our whole people, and promote "on earth peace, good will toward men."

WASHINGTON, December 9, 1868.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

[40th Congress, 2d session.-Senate Ex. Doc. No. 78.]

MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, RECOMMENDING CERTAIN AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

Experience has fully demonstrated the wisdom of the framers of the federal Constitution. Under all the circumstances the result of their labors was as near an approximation to perfection as was compatible with the fallibility of man. Such being the estimation in which the Constitution is and has ever been held by our countrymen, it is not surprising that any proposition for its alteration or amendment should be received with reluctance and distrust. Whilst this sentiment deserves commendation and encouragement as a useful preventive of unnecessary attempts to change its provisions, it must be conceded that time has developed imperfections and omissions in the Constitution, the reformation of which has been demanded by the best interests of the country. Some of these have been remedied in the manner provided in the Constitution itself. There are others which, although heretofore brought to the attention of the people, have never been so presented as to enable the popular judgment to determine whether they should be corrected by means of additional amendments. My object, in this communication, is to suggest certain defects in the Constitution, which seem to me to require correction, and to recommend that the judgment of the people be taken on the amendments proposed.

The first of these defects, to which I desire to direct attention, is in that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of President and Vice-President through the intervention of electors, and not by an immediate vote of the people. The importance of so amending this clause as to secure to the people the election of President and Vice-President by their direct votes, was urged with great earnestness and ability by President Jackson in his first annual message, and the recommendation was repeated in five of his subsequent communications to Congress, extending through the eight years of his administration. In his message of 1829, he said: "To the people belong the right of electing their Chief Magistrate; it was never designed that their choice should, in any case, be defeated by the intervention of electoral colleges, or by the agency confided, under certain contingencies, to the House of Representatives." He then proceeded to state the objections to an election of President by the House of Representatives, the most important of which was that the choice of a clear majority of the people might be easily defeated. He closed the argument with the following recommendation:

I would, therefore, recommend such an amendment to the Constitution as may remove all intermediate agency in the election of President and Vice-President. The mode may be so regulated as to preserve to each State its present relative weight in the election, and a failure in the first attempt may be provided for by confining the second to a choice between the two bighest candidates. In connection with such an amendment, it would seem advisable to limit the service of the Chief Magistrate to a single term of either four or six years. If, however, it should not be adopted, it is worthy of consideration whether a provision disqualifying for office the representatives in Congress on whom such an election may have devolved, would not be proper.

Although this recommendation was repeated with undiminished earnestness in several of his succeeding messages, yet the proposed amendment was never adopted and submitted to the people by Congress. The danger of a defeat of the people's choice in an election by the House of Representatives remains unprovided for in the Constitution, and would be greatly increased if the House of Representatives should assume the power arbitrarily to reject the votes of a State which might not be cast in conformity with the wishes of the majority in that body. But if President Jackson failed to secure the amendment to the Constitution which he urged so persistently, his arguments contributed largely to the formation of party organizations which have effectually avoided the contingency of an election by the House of Representatives. These organizations, first by a resort to the caucus system of nominating candidates, and afterwards to State and national conventions, have been successful in so

limiting the number of candidates as to escape the danger of an election by the House of Representatives.

It is clear, however, that in thus limiting the number of candidates the true object and spirit of the Constitution have been evaded and defeated. It is an essential feature in our republican system of government, that every citizen, possessing the constitutional qualifications, has a right to become a candidate for the office of President or Vice-President, and that every qualified elector has a right to cast his vote for any citizen whom he may regard as worthy of those offices. But under the party organizations which have prevailed for years. these essential rights of the people have been as effectually cut off and destroyed as if the Constitution itself had inhibited their exercise. The danger of a defeat of the popular choice in an election by the House of Representatives is no greater than in an election made nominally by the people themselves, when by the laws of party organizations and by the constitutional provision requiring the people to vote for electors instead of for the President or Vice-President, it is made impracticable for any citizen to be a candidate except through the process of a party nomination, and for any voter to cast his suffrage for any other person than one thus brought forward through the manipulations of a nominating convention. It is thus apparent, that by means of party organizations that provision of the Constitution which requires the election of President and Vice-President to be made through the electoral colleges has been made instrumental and potential in defeating the great object of conferring the choice of these officers upon the people. It may be conceded that party organizations are inseparable from republican government, and that, when formed and managed in subordination to the Constitution, they may be valuable safeguards of popular liberty; but when they are perverted to purposes of bad ambition they are liable to become the dangerous instruments of overthrowing the Constitution itself.

Strongly impressed with the truth of these views, I feel called upon by an imperative sense of duty to revive substantially the recommendation so often and so earnestly made by President Jackson, and to urge that the amendment to the Constitution herewith presented, or some similar proposition, may be submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection. Recent events have shown the necessity of an amendment to the Constitution distinctly defining the persons who shall discharge the duties of President of the United States in the event of a vacancy in that office by the death, resignation, or removal of both the President and Vice-President. It is clear that this should be fixed by the Constitution, and not be left to repealable enactments of doubtful constitutionality. It occurs to me that in the event of a vacancy in the office of President by death, resignation, disability, or removal of both the President and Vice-President, the duties of the office should devolve upon an officer of the executive department of the government, rather than upon one connected with either the legislative or judicial departments. The objections to designating either the President pro tempore of the Senate, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, especially in the event of a vacancy produced by removal, are so obvious and so unanswerable that they need not be stated in detail. It is enough to state that they are both interested in producing a vacancy, and, according to the provisions of the Constitution, are members of the tribunal by whose decree a vacancy may be produced. Under such circumstances the impropriety of designating either of these officers to succeed the President so removed is palpable. The framers of the Constitution, when they referred to Congress the settlement of the succession to the office of President in the event of a vacancy in the offices of both President and Vice-President, did not, in my opinion, contemplate the designation of any other than an officer of the executive department on whom in such a contingency the powers and duties of the President should devolve. Until recently the contingency has been remote, and serious attention has not been called to the manifest incongruity between the provision of the Constitution on this subject and the act of Congress of 1792. Having, however, been brought almost face to face with this important question, it seems an eminently proper time for us to make the legislation conform to the language, intent, and theory of the Constitution, and thus place the executive department beyond the reach of usurpation, and remove from the legislative and judicial departments every temptation to combine for the absorption of all the powers of government. It has occurred to me that, in the event of such a vacancy, the duties of President would

devolve most appropriately upon some one of the heads of the several executive departments, and, under this conviction, I present for your consideration an amendment to the Constitution on this subject, with the recommendation that it be submitted to the people for their action. Experience seems to have established the necessity of an amendment of that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of senators to Congress by the legislatures of the several States. It would be more consistent with the genius of our form of government if the senators were chosen directly by the people of the several States. The objections to the election of senators by the legislatures are so palpable that I deem it unnecessary to do more than submit the proposition for such an amendment, with the recommendation that it be referred to the people for their judgment.

It is strongly impressed upon my mind that the tenure of office by the judiciary of the United States, during good behavior or for life, is incompatible with the spirit of republican government, and in this opinion I am fully sustained by the evidences of popular judgment upon this subject in the different States of the Union. I, therefore, deem it my duty to recommend an amendment to the Constitution by which the terms of the judicial officers would be limited to a period of years, and I herewith present it, in the hope that Congress will submit it to the people for their decision.

The foregoing views have long been entertained by me. In 1845, in the House of Representatives, and afterwards, in 1860, in the Senate of the United States, I submitted substantially the same propositions as those to which the attention of Congress is herein invited. Time, observation, and experience have confirmed these convictions, and, as a matter of public duty, and with a deep sense of my constitutional obligation "to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures" as I deem "necessary and expedient," I submit the accompanying propositions, and urge their adoption and submission to the judgment of the people.

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 18, 1868.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

JOINT RESOLUTION proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Whereas the fifth article of the Constitution of the United States provides for amendments thereto in the manner following, viz: “First, Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress: Provided, That no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall, in any manner, affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate:" Therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following amendments to the Constitution of the United States be proposed to the legislatures of the several States, which, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution:

That hereafter the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be chosen for the term of six years, by the people of the respective States, in the manner following: Each State shall be divided by the legislatures thereof in districts, equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives to which such State may be entitled in the Congress of the United States; the said districts to be composed of contiguous territory, and to contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of persons entitled to be represented under the Constitution, and to be laid off, for the first time, immediately after the ratification of this amendment: that on the first Thursday in August, in the year eighteen hundred and

and