Washington,
_December 5, 1826_.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
The assemblage of the representatives of our Union in both Houses of the
Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed
homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of All Good. With
the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human
existence, we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which
contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the
survey of our extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of
health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations we
have peace without and tranquillity within our borders. We are, as a
people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and
national resources, and whatever differences of opinion exist among us
with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the
beneficence of Heaven to the improvement of our own condition, there is
yet a spirit animating us all which will not suffer the bounties of
Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with
grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands to the advancement
of the general good.
Of the subjects recommended to Congress at their last session, some were
then definitively acted upon. Others, left unfinished, but partly
matured, will recur to your attention without heeding a renewal of
notice from me. The purpose of this communication will be to present to
your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and
the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions
of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted.
In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have still the
happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding, qualified,
however, in several important instances by collisions of interest and by
unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which the
constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become
ultimately indispensable.
By the decease of the Emperor Alexander, of Russia, which occurred
contemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of Congress,
the United States have been deprived of a long-tried, steady, and
faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power and trained
in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however
absolute, is exempt, that monarch from his youth had been taught to feel
the force and value of public opinion and to be sensible that the
interests of his own Government would best be promoted by a frank and
friendly intercourse with this Republic, as those of his people would be
advanced by a liberal commercial intercourse with our country. A candid
and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the
Government of the United States upon the affairs of Southern America
took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to
fix that course of policy which left to the other Governments of Europe
no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence
of our southern neighbors, of which the example had by the United States
already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his
successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States have suffered
some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of
his minister residing here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire
confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that
of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances
that the sentiments of the reigning Emperor toward the United States are
altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly
animated his imperial brother, and we have reason to hope that they will
serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two
nations which, founded in congenial interests, can not but result in the
advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both.
Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by the
operation of the convention of 24th of June, 1822, with that nation, in
a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our
experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal
reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the
nations of the earth as the rule of commercial intercourse which they
would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most
conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States in the
negotiation of that convention earnestly contended for a mutual
renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the
two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this
principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of
discrimination so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at the
expiration of two years from the 1st of October, 1822, when the
convention was to go into effect, unless a notice of six months on
either side should be given to the other that the convention itself must
terminate, those duties should be reduced one-fourth, and that this
reduction should be yearly repeated, until all discrimination should
cease, while the convention itself should continue in force. By the
effect of this stipulation three-fourths of the discriminating duties
which had been levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its
ports have already been removed; and on the 1st of next October, should
the convention be still in force, the remaining fourth will be
discontinued. French vessels laden with French produce will be received
in our ports on the same terms as our own, and ours in return will enjoy
the same advantages in the ports of France.
By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only
has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly
dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will
continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United
States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add
that the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the
property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow-citizens,
and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more
promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their
condition remains unaltered.
With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment of
discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both
sides. The act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, abolished all
discriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce
of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States upon the assurance
given by the Government of the Netherlands that all such duties
operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States in that
Kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued
in force several years when the discriminating principle was resumed by
the Netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of 10 per cent in
the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which
those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act
of Congress of 7th January, 1824, all discriminating duties in the
United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and
produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should
be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the
Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the event of a
restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and
commerce of the United States in any of the foreign countries referred
to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the
navigation of such foreign country should cease and all the provisions
of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in
the United States should revive and be in full force with regard to that
nation.
In the correspondence with the Government of the Netherlands upon this
subject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping
by this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered as a
discriminating duty; but it can not be denied that it produces all the
same effects. Had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, such a
bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been granted
consistently with good faith. Yet as the act of Congress of 7th January,
1824, has not expressly authorized the Executive authority to determine
what shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by a
foreign government to the disadvantage of the United States, and as the
retaliatory measure on our part, however just and necessary, may tend
rather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate than to that
concert to which we invite all commercial nations, as most conducive to
their interest and our own, I have thought it more consistent with the
spirit of our institutions to refer the subject again to the paramount
authority of the Legislature to decide what measure the emergency may
require than abruptly by proclamation to carry into effect the minatory
provisions of the act of 1824.
During the last session of Congress treaties of amity, navigation, and
commerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the Government of
Denmark, in Europe, and with the Federation of Central America, in this
hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutional sanction of
the Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were
accordingly ratified on the part of the United States, and during the
recess of Congress have been also ratified by the other respective
contracting parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they
have been published by proclamations, copies of which are herewith
communicated to Congress.
These treaties have established between the contracting parties the
principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most
liberal extent, each party admitting the vessels of the other into its
ports, laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of
the globe, upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost
that are chargeable upon their own. They have further stipulated that
the parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to
any other nation which shall not upon the same terms be granted to each
other, and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise
the produce or manufacture of the other any other or higher duties than
upon the like articles being the produce or manufacture of any other
country. To these principles there is in the convention with Denmark an
exception with regard to the colonies of that Kingdom in the arctic
seas, but none with regard to her colonies in the West Indies.
In the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercial
treaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is in
the contemplation of the Swedish Government, and is believed to be
desirable on the part of the United States. It has been proposed by the
King of Sweden that pending the negotiation of renewal the expired
treaty should be mutually considered as still in force, a measure which
will require the sanction of Congress to be carried into effect on our
part, and which I therefore recommend to your consideration.
With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and, in general, all the European powers
between whom and the United States relations of friendly intercourse
have existed their condition has not materially varied since the last
session of Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of our
commercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britain in
America. Negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests
have been for several years in discussion between the two Governments,
and on the part of the United States have been invariably pursued in the
spirit of candor and conciliation. Interests of great magnitude and
delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818, while
that of 1822, mediated by the late Emperor Alexander, had promised a
satisfactory compromise of claims which the Government of the United
States, in justice to the rights of a numerous class of their citizens,
was bound to sustain. But with regard to the commercial intercourse
between the United States and the British colonies in America, it has
been hitherto found impracticable to bring the parties to an
understanding satisfactory to both. The relative geographical position
and the respective products of nature cultivated by human industry had
constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse between the United
States and British America, insular and continental, important to the
inhabitants of both countries; but it had been interdicted by Great
Britain upon a principle heretofore practiced upon by the colonizing
nations of Europe, of holding the trade of their colonies each in
exclusive monopoly to herself. After the termination of the late war
this interdiction had been revived, and the British Government declined
including this portion of our intercourse with her possessions in the
negotiation of the convention of 1815. The trade was then carried on
exclusively in British vessels till the act of Congress, concerning
navigation, of 1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict
by a corresponding measure on the part of the United States. These
measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self-defense, were soon
succeeded by an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports to the
vessels of the United States coming directly from them, and to the
importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened with
heavy duties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our
exports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels from
the colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act
of Parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made,
and a negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on our
part that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of
the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the
two countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimately bring
the parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied. With
this view the Government of the United States had determined to
sacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial
arrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and to
acquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather than
to forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of this
interest to the satisfaction of Great Britain herself. The negotiation,
repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances, was, however, by
mutual agreement and express assent, considered as pending and to be
speedily resumed. In the meantime another act of Parliament, so doubtful
and ambiguous in its import as to have been misunderstood by the
officers in the colonies who were to carry it into execution, opens
again certain colonial ports upon new conditions and terms, with a
threat to close them against any nation which may not accept those terms
as prescribed by the British Government. This act, passed in July, 1825,
not communicated to the Government of the United States, not understood
by the British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to
be enforced, was nevertheless submitted to the consideration of Congress
at their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon the
subject had long been in progress and pledges given of its resumption at
an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result of that
negotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import of
which was not clear and which the British authorities themselves in this
hemisphere were not prepared to explain.
Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress one of our
most distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructions
which we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this
long-controverted interest upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon
his arrival, and before he had delivered his letters of credence, he was
met by an order of the British council excluding from and after the 1st
of December now current the vessels of the United States from all the
colonial British ports excepting those immediately bordering on our
territories. In answer to his expostulations upon a measure thus
unexpected he is informed that according to the ancient maxims of policy
of European nations having colonies their trade is an exclusive
possession of the mother country; that all participation in it by other
nations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation, but to
be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony;
that the British Government therefore declines negotiating concerning
it, and that as the United States did not forthwith accept purely and
simply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, Great
Britain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even upon
the terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of other
nations.
We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with
the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as
a mere favor received; that under every circumstance we have given an
ample equivalent. We have seen every other nation holding colonies
negotiate with other nations and grant them freely admission to the
colonies by treaty, and so far are the other colonizing nations of
Europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their colonies that
we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than one of
them by treaty. The refusal, however, of Great Britain to negotiate
leaves to the United States no other alternative than that of regulating
or interdicting altogether the trade on their part, according as either
measure may affect the interests of our own country, and with that
exclusive object I would recommend the whole subject to your calm and
candid deliberations.
It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good
understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect
upon the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments.
Our northeastern and northwestern boundaries are still unadjusted. The
commissioners under the seventh article of the treaty of Ghent have
nearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the
expectation, enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their report
to the satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties. The commission for
liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the
close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success.
Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two
Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove
satisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are
all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong
reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not of
favors, which we neither ask nor desire, but of equal reciprocity and
good will.
With the American Governments of this hemisphere we continue to maintain
an intercourse altogether friendly, and between their nations and ours
that commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is the source and
mutual comfort and harmony the result is in a continual state of
improvement. The war between Spain and them since the total expulsion of
the Spanish military force from their continental territories has been
little more than nominal, and their internal tranquillity, though
occasionally menaced by the agitations which civil wars never fail to
leave behind them, has not been affected by any serious calamity.
The congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembled
at Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at a
more favorable season in the neighbourhood of Mexico. The decease of one
of our ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of the
season, which delayed the departure of the other, deprived us of the
advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress.
There is, however, no reason to believe that any of the transactions of
the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the
United States or to require the interposition of our ministers had they
been present. Their absence has, indeed, deprived us of the opportunity
of possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which
were concluded at Panama; and the whole result has confirmed me in the
conviction of the expediency to the United States of being represented
at the congress. The surviving member of the mission, appointed during
your last session, has accordingly proceeded to his destination, and a
successor to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated
to the Senate. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the
course of the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary
at Mexico with the united states of that Confederacy, which will also be
laid before the Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification.
In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the
prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is
that they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the
corresponding period of the last year. The severe shock so extensively
sustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in Great Britain
has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. A reduced
importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to
the Treasury at home. The net revenue of the present year will not equal
that of the last, and the receipts of that which is to come will fall
short of those in the current year. The diminution, however, is in part
attributable to the flourishing condition of some of our domestic
manufactures, and so far is compensated by an equivalent more profitable
to the nation. It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the
deficiency in the revenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations
of the last year's estimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the
application of more than eleven millions during the present year to the
discharge of the principal and interest of the debt, nor the reduction
of upward of seven millions of the capital of the debt itself. The
balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January last was $5,201,650.43;
the receipts from that time to the 30th of September last were
$19,585,932.50; the receipts of the current quarter, estimated at
$6,000,000. yield, with the sums already received, a revenue of about
twenty-five millions and a half for the year; the expenditures for the
three first quarters of the year have amounted to $18,714,226.66; the
expenditures of the current quarter are expected, including the two
millions of the principal of the debt to be paid, to balance the
receipts; so that the expenses of the year, amounting to upward of a
million less than its income, will leave a proportionally increased
balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January, 1827, over that of the
1st of January last; instead of $5,200,000 there will be $6,400,000.
The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the
commencement of the year till September 30 is estimated at $21,250,000,
and the amount that will probably accrue during the present quarter is
estimated at $4,250,000, making for the whole year $25,500,000, from
which the drawbacks being deducted will leave a clear revenue from the
customs receivable in the year 1827 of about $20,400,000, which, with
the sums to be received from the proceeds of public lands, the bank
dividends, and other incidental receipts, will form an aggregate of
about $23,000,000, a sum falling short of the whole expenses of the
present year little more than the portion of those expenditures applied
to the discharge of the public debt beyond the annual appropriation of
$10,000,000 by the act of the 3d March, 1817. At the passage of that act
the public debt amounted to $123,500,000. On the 1st of January next it
will be short of $74,000,000. In the lapse of these ten years
$50,000,000 of public debt, with the annual charge of upward of
$3,000,000 of interest upon them, have been extinguished. At the passage
of that act, of the annual appropriation of ten millions seven were
absorbed in the payment of interest, and not more than three millions
went to reduce the capital of the debt. Of the same ten millions, at
this time scarcely four are applicable to the interest, and upward of
six are effective in melting down the capital. Yet our experience has
proved that a revenue consisting so largely of imposts and tonnage ebbs
and flows to an extraordinary extent, with all the fluctuations incident
to the general commerce of the world. It is within our recollection that
even in the compass of the same last ten years the receipts of the
Treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year, and that in
two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans to meet
the engagements of the nation. The returning tides of the succeeding
years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun to feel
the vicissitude of a decline. To produce these alternations of fullness
and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful seasons,
the regulations of foreign governments, political revolutions, the
prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures, commercial
speculations, and many other causes, not always to be traced, variously
combine. We have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing
periods of from two to three years. The last period of depression to us
was from 1819 to 1822. The corresponding revival was from 1823 to the
commencement of the present year. Still, we have no cause to apprehend a
depression comparable to that of the former period, or even to
anticipate a deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to apply
the annual ten millions to the reduction of the debt. It is well for us,
however, to be admonished of the necessity of abiding by the maxims of
the most vigilant economy, and of resorting to all honorable and useful
expedients for pursuing with steady and inflexible perseverance the
total discharge of the debt.
Besides the seven millions of the loans of 1813 which will have been
discharged in the course of the present year, there are nine millions
which by the terms of the contracts would have been and are now
redeemable. Thirteen millions more of the loan of 1814 will become
redeemable from and after the expiration of the present month, and nine
other millions from and after the close of the ensuing year. They
constitute a mass of $31,000,000, all bearing an interest of 6 per cent,
more than twenty millions of which will be immediately redeemable, and
the rest within little more than a year. Leaving of this amount fifteen
millions to continue at the interest of 6 per cent, but to be paid off
as far as shall be found practicable in the years 1827 and 1828, there
is scarcely a doubt that the remaining sixteen millions might within a
few months be discharged by a loan at not exceeding 5 per cent,
redeemable in the years 1829 and 1830. By this operation a sum of nearly
half a million of dollars may be saved to the nation, and the discharge
of the whole thirty-one millions within the four years may be greatly
facilitated if not wholly accomplished.
By an act of Congress of 3d March, 1835, a loan for the purpose now
referred to, or a subscription to stock, was authorized, at an interest
not exceeding 4-1/2 per cent. But at that time so large a portion of the
floating capital of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations
and so little was left for investment in the stocks that the measure was
but partially successful. At the last session of Congress the condition
of the funds was still unpropitious to the measure; but the change so
soon afterwards occurred that, had the authority existed to redeem the
nine millions now redeemable by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5 per
cent, it is morally certain that it might have been effected, and with
it a yearly saving of $90,000.
With regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts, certain
occurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two of
our principal ports, which engaged the attention of Congress at their
last session and may hereafter require further consideration. Until
within a very few years the execution of the laws for raising the
revenue, like that of all our other laws, has been insured more by the
moral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution
or by penal sanctions. Confiding in the exemplary punctuality and
unsullied integrity of our importing merchants, a gradual relaxation
from the provisions of the collection laws, a close adherence to which
would have caused inconvenience and expense to them, had long become
habitual, and indulgences had been extended universally because they had
never been abused. It may be worthy of your serious consideration
whether some further legislative provision may not be necessary to come
in aid of this state of unguarded security.
From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and of
the Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will be
discovered the present condition and administration of our military
establishment on the land and on the sea. The organization of the Army
having undergone no change since its reduction to the present peace
establishment in 1821, it remains only to observe that it is yet found
adequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in time
of peace can be heeded or useful. It may be proper to add that, from a
difference of opinion between the late President of the United States
and the Senate with regard to the construction of the act of Congress of
2d March, 1821, to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of
the United States, it remains hitherto so far without execution that no
colonel has been appointed to command one of the regiments of artillery.
A supplementary or explanatory act of the Legislature appears to be the
only expedient practicable for removing the difficulty of this
appointment.
In a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere military
establishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the duties
devolving upon the administration of the Department of War. It will be
seen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army that
every branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, and
discipline; that from the commanding general through all the gradations
of superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens
before they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army must
consist in the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and of
patriotism, by which it is impelled. It may be confidently stated that
the moral character of the Army is in a state of continual improvement,
and that all the arrangements for the disposal of its parts have a
constant reference to that end.
But to the War Department are attributed other duties, having, indeed,
relation to a future possible condition of war, but being purely
defensive, and in their tendency contributing rather to the security and
permanency of peace--the erection of the fortifications provided for by
Congress, and adapted to secure our shores from hostile invasion; the
distribution of the fund of public gratitude and justice to the
pensioners of the Revolutionary war; the maintenance of our relations of
peace and of protection with the Indian tribes, and the internal
improvements and surveys for the location of roads and canals, which
during the last three sessions of Congress have engaged so much of their
attention, and may engross so large a share of their future benefactions
to our country.
By the act of the 30th of April, 1824, suggested and approved by my
predecessor, the sum of $30,000 was appropriated for the purpose of
causing to be made the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates of the
routes of such roads and canals as the President of the United States
might deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of
view, or necessary for the transportation of the public mail. The
surveys, plans, and estimates for each, when completed, will be laid
before Congress.
In execution of this act a board of engineers was immediately
instituted, and have been since most assiduously and constantly occupied
in carrying it into effect. The first object to which their labors were
directed, by order of the late President, was the examination of the
country between the tide waters of the Potomac, the Ohio, and Lake Erie,
to ascertain the practicability of a communication between them, to
designate the most suitable route for the same, and to form plans and
estimates in detail of the expense of execution.
On the 3d of February, 1825, they made their first report, which was
immediately communicated to Congress, and in which they declared that
having maturely considered the circumstances observed by them
personally, and carefully studied the results of such of the preliminary
surveys as were then completed, they were decidedly of opinion that the
communication was practicable.
At the last session of Congress, before the board of engineers were
enabled to make up their second report containing a general plan and
preparatory estimate for the work, the Committee of the House of
Representatives upon Roads and Canals closed the session with a report
expressing the hope that the plan and estimate of the board of engineers
might at this time be prepared, and that the subject be referred to the
early and favorable consideration of Congress at their present session.
That expected report of the board of engineers is prepared, and will
forthwith be laid before you.
Under the resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to
have prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system of
exercise and instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militia
of the United States, to be reported to Congress at the present session,
a board of distinguished officers of the Army and of the militia has
been convened, whose report will be submitted to you with that of the
Secretary of War. The occasion was thought favorable for consulting the
same board, aided by the results of a correspondence with the governors
of the several States and Territories and other citizens of intelligence
and experience, upon the acknowledged defective condition of our militia
system, and of the improvements of which it is susceptible. The report
of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration.
In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of
$5,000,000 will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the
Department of War. Less than two-fifths of this will be applicable to
the maintenance and support of the Army. A million and a half, in the
form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services
and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested in
fortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement,
provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the ages
to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of
another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the
presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a magnitude
burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their equivalents
in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from engagements
more burdensome than debt.
In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department
will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000. About one-half of
these, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual
service, and one-half constitutes a fund of national property, the
pledge of our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year
after the close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses and
charges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the
act of 29th April, 1816, appropriated $1,000,000 annually for eight
years to the _gradual increase of the Navy_. At a subsequent period this
annual appropriation was reduced to half a million for six years, of
which the present year is the last. A yet more recent appropriation the
last two years, for building ten sloops of war, has nearly restored the
original appropriation of 1816 of a million for every year. The result
is before us all. We have twelve line-of-battle ships, twenty frigates,
and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a few months of
preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications along the
whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to
set foot upon our shores. Combining with a system of fortifications upon
the shores themselves, commenced about the same time under the auspices
of my immediate predecessor, and hitherto systematically pursued, it has
placed in our possession the most effective sinews of war and has left
us at once an example and a lesson from which our own duties may be
inferred. The gradual increase of the Navy was the principle of which
the act of 29th April, 1816, was the first development. It was the
introduction of a system to act upon the character and history of our
country for an indefinite series of ages. It was a declaration of that
Congress to their constituents and to posterity that it was the destiny
and the duty of these confederated States to become in regular process
of time and by no petty advances a great naval power. That which they
proposed to accomplish in eight years is rather to be considered as the
measure of their means than the limitation of their design. They looked
forward for a term of years sufficient for the accomplishment of a
definite portion of their purpose, and they left to their successors to
fill up the canvas of which they had traced the large and prophetic
outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in
contemplation will be shortly completed. The time which they had
allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It
remains for your consideration how their successors may contribute their
portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in
the gradual increase of our Navy. There is perhaps no part of the
exercise of the constitutional powers of the Federal Government which
has given more general satisfaction to the people of the Union than
this. The system has not been thus vigorously introduced and hitherto
sustained to be now departed from or abandoned. In continuing to provide
for the gradual increase of the Navy it may not be necessary or
expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our ships;
but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly appropriation of
half a million to the same objects, it may be profitably expended in
providing a supply of timber to be seasoned and other materials for
future use in the construction of docks or in laying the foundations of
a school for naval education, as to the wisdom of Congress either of
those measures may appear to claim the preference.
Of the small portions of this Navy engaged in actual service during the
peace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean,
in the West India seas, and in the Mediterranean, to which has been
added a small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of South America.
In all they have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributed
to make our country advantageously known to foreign nations, have
honorably employed multitudes of our seamen in the service of their
country, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to
lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The
piracies with which the West India seas were for several years infested
have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean they have
increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the
continued presence of our squadron would probably have been distressing
to our own. The war which has unfortunately broken out between the
Republic of Buenos Ayres and the Brazilian Government has given rise to
very great irregularities among the naval officers of the latter, by
whom principles in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have
been brought forward to which we can not subscribe and which our own
commanders have found it necessary to resist. From the friendly
disposition toward the United States constantly manifested by the
Emperor of Brazil, and the very useful and friendly commercial
intercourse between the United States and his dominions, we have reason
to believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustained
by several of our citizens from some of his officers will not be
withheld. Abstracts from the recent dispatches of the commanders of our
several squadrons are communicated with the report of the Secretary of
the Navy to Congress.
A report from the Postmaster-General is likewise communicated,
presenting in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous,
efficient, and economical administration of that Department. The revenue
of the office, even of the year including the latter half of 1824 and
the first half of 1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more
than $45,000. That of the succeeding year has been still more
productive. The increase of the receipts in the year preceding the 1st
of July last over that of the year before exceeds $136,000, and the
excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year has swollen
from $45,000 to nearly $80,000. During the same period contracts for
additional transportation of the mail in stages for about 260,000 miles
have been made, and for 70,000 miles annually on horseback. Seven
hundred and fourteen new post-offices have been established within the
year, and the increase of revenue within the last three years, as well
as the augmentation of the transportation by mail, is more than equal to
the whole amount of receipts and of mail conveyance at the commencement
of the present century, when the seat of the General Government was
removed to this place. When we reflect that the objects effected by the
transportation of the mail are among the choicest comforts and
enjoyments of social life, it is pleasing to observe that the
dissemination of them to every corner of our country has outstripped in
their increase even the rapid march of our population.
By the treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Louisiana and
the Floridas to the United States, provision was made for the security
of land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some
progress has been made under the authority of various acts of Congress
in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles, but claims to a
very large extent remain unadjusted. The public faith no less than the
just rights of individuals and the interest of the community itself
appears to require further provision for the speedy settlement of those
claims, which I therefore recommend to the care and attention of the
Legislature.
In conformity with the provisions of the act of 20th May last, to
provide for erecting a penitentiary in the district of Columbia, and for
other purposes, three commissioners were appointed to select a site for
the erection of a penitentiary for the district, and also a site in the
county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been
effected. The building of the penitentiary has been commenced, and is in
such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed
before the meeting of the next Congress. This consideration points to
the expediency of maturing at the present session a system for the
regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining the class
of offenses which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice.
In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed
inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here
assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single
glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of
our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from
each other. Since your last meeting at this place the fiftieth
anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been
celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was
bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the
blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age
had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that
solemn scene--the hand that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and
the voice that sustained it in debate--were by one summons, at the
distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to
account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the
benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of
their fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our
thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first
and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the
transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of
time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked
with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of
mankind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense
and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing
upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a
pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal
vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated
spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!
John Quincy Adams.
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