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Address by US president James Buchanan
The 1859
State of the Union Address
was written by
James Buchanan
, the 15th president of the United States. It was read to both houses of the
36th United States Congress
on Monday, December 19, 1859, by a clerk. Predicting the
American Civil War
, he stated, "Whilst it is the duty of the President 'from time to time to give to Congress information of the state of the Union,' I shall not refer in detail to the
recent sad and bloody occurrences at Harpers Ferry
. Still, it is proper to observe that these events, however bad and cruel in themselves, derive their chief importance from the apprehension that they are but symptoms of an incurable disease in the public mind, which may break out in still more dangerous outrages and terminate at last in an open war by the North to abolish slavery in the South."
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References
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Wikisource
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- Legend:
Address to Joint Session
- Written message
- Written message with national radio address
* Split into multiple parts
- †
Included a detailed written supplement
- ‡
Not officially a "State of the Union"
Presidents
William Henry Harrison
(1841) and
James Garfield
(1881) died in office before delivering a State of the Union
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