Washington,
_December 2, 1828_.
_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
If the enjoyment in profusion of the bounties of Providence forms a
suitable subject of mutual gratulation and grateful acknowledgment, we
are admonished at this return of the season when the representatives of
the nation are assembled to deliberate upon their concerns to offer up
the tribute of fervent and grateful hearts for the never-failing mercies
of Him who ruleth over all. He has again favored us with healthful
seasons and abundant harvests; He has sustained us in peace with foreign
countries and in tranquillity within our borders; He has preserved us in
the quiet and undisturbed possession of civil and religious liberty; He
has crowned the year with His goodness, imposing on us no other
conditions than of improving for our own happiness the blessings
bestowed by His hands, and, in the fruition of all His favors, of
devoting the faculties with which we have been endowed by Him to His
glory and to our own temporal and eternal welfare.
In the relations of our Federal Union with our brethren of the human
race the changes which have occurred since the close of your last
session have generally tended to the preservation of peace and to the
cultivation of harmony. Before your last separation a war had unhappily
been kindled between the Empire of Russia, one of those with which our
intercourse has been no other than a constant exchange of good offices,
and that of the Ottoman Porte, a nation from which geographical
distance, religious opinions and maxims of government on their part
little suited to the formation of those bonds of mutual benevolence
which result from the benefits of commerce had kept us in a state,
perhaps too much prolonged, of coldness and alienation. The extensive,
fertile, and populous dominions of the Sultan belong rather to the
Asiatic than the European division of the human family. They enter but
partially into the system of Europe, nor have their wars with Russia and
Austria, the European States upon which they border, for more than a
century past disturbed the pacific relations of those States with the
other great powers of Europe. Neither France nor Prussia nor Great
Britain has ever taken part in them, nor is it to be expected that they
will at this time. The declaration of war by Russia has received the
approbation or acquiescence of her allies, and we may indulge the hope
that its progress and termination will be signalized by the moderation
and forbearance no less than by the energy of the Emperor Nicholas, and
that it will afford the opportunity for such collateral agency in behalf
of the suffering Greeks as will secure to them ultimately the triumph of
humanity and of freedom.
The state of our particular relations with France has scarcely varied in
the course of the present year. The commercial intercourse between the
two countries has continued to increase for the mutual benefit of both.
The claims of indemnity to numbers of our fellow-citizens for
depredations upon their property, heretofore committed during the
revolutionary governments, remain unadjusted, and still form the subject
of earnest representation and remonstrance. Recent advices from the
minister of the United States at Paris encourage the expectation that
the appeal to the justice of the French Government will ere long receive
a favorable consideration.
The last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision of the
controversy with Great Britain relating to the northeastern boundary of
the United States. By an agreement with the British Government, carrying
into effect the provisions of the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent,
and the convention of 29th September, 1827, His Majesty the King of the
Netherlands has by common consent been selected as the umpire between
the parties. The proposal to him to accept the designation for the
performance of this friendly office will be made at an early day, and
the United States, relying upon the justice of their cause, will
cheerfully commit the arbitrament of it to a prince equally
distinguished for the independence of his spirit, his indefatigable
assiduity to the duties of his station, and his inflexible personal
probity.
Our commercial relations with Great Britain will deserve the serious
consideration of Congress and the exercise of a conciliatory and
forbearing spirit in the policy of both Governments. The state of them
has been materially changed by the act of Congress, passed at their last
session, in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on imports,
and by acts of more recent date of the British Parliament. The effect of
the interdiction of direct trade, commenced by Great Britain and
reciprocated by the United States, has been, as was to be foreseen, only
to substitute different channels for an exchange of commodities
indispensable to the colonies and profitable to a numerous class of our
fellow-citizens. The exports, the revenue, the navigation of the United
States have suffered no diminution by our exclusion from direct access
to the British colonies. The colonies pay more dearly for the
necessaries of life which their Government burdens with the charges of
double voyages, freight, insurance, and commission, and the profits of
our exports are somewhat impaired and more injuriously transferred from
one portion of our citizens to another. The resumption of this old and
otherwise exploded system of colonial exclusion has not secured to the
shipping interest of Great Britain the relief which, at the expense of
the distant colonies and of the United States, it was expected to
afford. Other measures have been resorted to more pointedly bearing upon
the navigation of the United States, and which, unless modified by the
construction given to the recent acts of Parliament, will be manifestly
incompatible with the positive stipulations of the commercial convention
existing between the two countries. That convention, however, may be
terminated with twelve months' notice, at the option of either party.
A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce between the United States
and His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, has
been prepared for signature by the Secretary of State and by the Baron
de Lederer, intrusted with full powers of the Austrian Government.
Independently of the new and friendly relations which may be thus
commenced with one of the most eminent and powerful nations of the
earth, the occasion has been taken in it, as in other recent treaties
concluded by the United States, to extend those principles of liberal
intercourse and of fair reciprocity which intertwine with the exchanges
of commerce the principles of justice and the feelings of mutual
benevolence. This system, first proclaimed to the world in the first
commercial treaty ever concluded by the United States--that of 6th
February, 1778, with France--has been invariably the cherished policy of
our Union. It is by treaties of commerce alone that it can be made
ultimately to prevail as the established system of all civilized
nations. With this principle our fathers extended the hand of friendship
to every nation of the globe, and to this policy our country has ever
since adhered. Whatever of regulation in our laws has ever been adopted
unfavorable to the interest of any foreign nation has been essentially
defensive and counteracting to similar regulations of theirs operating
against us.
Immediately after the close of the War of Independence commissioners
were appointed by the Congress of the Confederation authorized to
conclude treaties with every nation of Europe disposed to adopt them.
Before the wars of the French Revolution such treaties had been
consummated with the United Netherlands, Sweden, and Prussia. During
those wars treaties with Great Britain and Spain had been effected, and
those with Prussia and France renewed. In all these some concessions to
the liberal principles of intercourse proposed by the United States had
been obtained; but as in all the negotiations they came occasionally in
collision with previous internal regulations or exclusive and excluding
compacts of monopoly with which the other parties had been trammeled,
the advances made in them toward the freedom of trade were partial and
imperfect. Colonial establishments, chartered companies, and
shipbuilding influence pervaded and encumbered the legislation of all
the great commercial states; and the United States, in offering free
trade and equal privilege to all, were compelled to acquiesce in many
exceptions with each of the parties to their treaties, accommodated to
their existing laws and anterior engagements.
The colonial system by which this whole hemisphere was bound has fallen
into ruins, totally abolished by revolutions converting colonies into
independent nations throughout the two American continents, excepting a
portion of territory chiefly at the northern extremity of our own, and
confined to the remnants of dominion retained by Great Britain over the
insular archipelago, geographically the appendages of our part of the
globe. With all the rest we have free trade, even with the insular
colonies of all the European nations, except Great Britain. Her
Government also had manifested approaches to the adoption of a free and
liberal intercourse between her colonies and other nations, though by a
sudden and scarcely explained revulsion the spirit of exclusion has been
revived for operation upon the United States alone.
The conclusion of our last treaty of peace with Great Britain was
shortly afterwards followed by a commercial convention, placing the
direct intercourse between the two countries upon a footing of more
equal reciprocity than had ever before been admitted. The same principle
has since been much further extended by treaties with France, Sweden,
Denmark, the Hanseatic cities, Prussia, in Europe, and with the
Republics of Colombia and of Central America, in this hemisphere. The
mutual abolition of discriminating duties and charges upon the
navigation and commercial intercourse between the parties is the general
maxim which characterizes them all. There is reason to expect that it
will at no distant period be adopted by other nations, both of Europe
and America, and to hope that by its universal prevalence one of the
fruitful sources of wars of commercial competition will be extinguished.
Among the nations upon whose Governments many of our fellow-citizens
have had long-pending claims of indemnity for depredations upon their
property during a period when the rights of neutral commerce were
disregarded was that of Denmark. They were soon after the events
occurred the subject of a special mission from the United States, at the
close of which the assurance was given by His Danish Majesty that at a
period of more tranquillity and of less distress they would be
considered, examined, and decided upon in a spirit of determined purpose
for the dispensation of justice. I have much pleasure in informing
Congress that the fulfillment of this honorable promise is now in
progress; that a small portion of the claims has already been settled to
the satisfaction of the claimants, and that we have reason to hope that
the remainder will shortly be placed in a train of equitable adjustment.
This result has always been confidently expected, from the character of
personal integrity and of benevolence which the Sovereign of the Danish
dominions has through every vicissitude of fortune maintained.
The general aspect of the affairs of our highborn American nations of
the south has been rather of approaching than of settled tranquillity.
Internal disturbances have been more frequent among them than their
common friends would have desired. Our intercourse with all has
continued to be that of friendship and of mutual good will. Treaties of
commerce and of boundaries with the United Mexican States have been
negotiated, but, from various successive obstacles, not yet brought to a
final conclusion.
The civil war which unfortunately still prevails in the Republics of
Central America has been unpropitious to the cultivation of our
commercial relations with them; and the dissensions and revolutionary
changes in the Republics of Colombia and of Peru have been seen with
cordial regret by us, who would gladly contribute to the happiness of
both. It is with great satisfaction, however, that we have witnessed the
recent conclusion of a peace between the Governments of Buenos Ayres and
of Brazil, and it is equally gratifying to observe that indemnity has
been obtained for some of the injuries which our fellow-citizens had
sustained in the latter of those countries. The rest are in a train of
negotiation, which we hope may terminate to mutual satisfaction, and
that it may be succeeded by a treaty of commerce and navigation, upon
liberal principles, propitious to a great and growing commerce, already
important to the interests of our country.
The condition and prospects of the revenue are more favorable than our
most sanguine expectations had anticipated. The balance in the Treasury
on the 1st of January last, exclusive of the moneys received under the
convention of 13th of November, 1826, with Great Britain, was
$5,861,972.83. The receipts into the Treasury from the 1st of January to
the 30th of September last, so far as they have been ascertained to form
the basis of an estimate, amount to $18,633,580.27, which, with the
receipts of the present quarter, estimated at $5,461,283.40, form an
aggregate of receipts during the year of $24,094,863.67. The
expenditures of the year may probably amount to $25,637,111.63, and
leave in the Treasury on the 1st of January next the sum of
$5,125,638.14.
The receipts of the present year have amounted to near two millions more
than was anticipated at the commencement of the last session of
Congress.
The amount of duties secured on importations from the 1st of January to
the 30th of September was about $22,997,000, and that of the estimated
accruing revenue is five millions, forming an aggregate for the year of
near twenty-eight millions. This is one million more than the estimate
made last December for the accruing revenue of the present year, which,
with allowances for drawbacks and contingent deficiencies, was expected
to produce an actual revenue of $22,300,000. Had these only been
realized the expenditures of the year would have been also
proportionally reduced, for of these twenty-four millions received
upward of nine millions have been applied to the extinction of public
debt, bearing an interest of 6 per cent a year, and of course reducing
the burden of interest annually payable in future by the amount of more
than half a million. The payments on account of interest during the
current year exceed $3,000,000, presenting an aggregate of more than
twelve millions applied during the year to the discharge of the public
debt, the whole of which remaining due on the 1st of January next will
amount only to $58,362,135.78.
That the revenue of the ensuing year will not fall short of that
received in the one now expiring there are indications which can
scarcely prove deceptive. In our country an uniform experience of forty
years has shown that whatever the tariff of duties upon articles
imported from abroad has been, the amount of importations has always
borne an average value nearly approaching to that of the exports, though
occasionally differing in the balance, sometimes being more and
sometimes less. It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce that
the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance
exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the
wealth of the nation. The extent of the prosperous commerce of the
nation must be regulated by the amount of its exports, and an important
addition to the value of these will draw after it a corresponding
increase of importations. It has happened in the vicissitudes of the
seasons that the harvests of all Europe have in the late summer and
autumn fallen short of their usual average. A relaxation of the
interdict upon the importation of grain and flour from abroad has
ensued, a propitious market has been opened to the granaries of our
country, and a new prospect of reward presented to the labors of the
husbandman, which for several years has been denied. This accession to
the profits of agriculture in the middle and western portions of our
Union is accidental and temporary. It may continue only for a single
year. It may be, as has been often experienced in the revolutions of
time, but the first of several scanty harvests in succession. We may
consider it certain that for the approaching year it has added an item
of large amount to the value of our exports and that it will produce a
corresponding increase of importations. It may therefore confidently be
foreseen that the revenue of 1829 will equal and probably exceed that of
1828, and will afford the means of extinguishing ten millions more of
the principal of the public debt.
This new element of prosperity to that part of our agricultural industry
which is occupied in producing the first article of human subsistence is
of the most cheering character to the feelings of patriotism. Proceeding
from a cause which humanity will view with concern, the sufferings of
scarcity in distant lands, it yields a consolatory reflection that this
scarcity is in no respect attributable to us; that it comes from the
dispensation of Him who ordains all in wisdom and goodness, and who
permits evil itself only as an instrument of good; that, far from
contributing to this scarcity, our agency will be applied only to the
alleviation of its severity, and that in pouring forth from the
abundance of our own garners the supplies which will partially restore
plenty to those who are in heed we shall ourselves reduce our stores and
add to the price of our own bread, so as in some degree to participate
in the wants which it will be the good fortune of our country to
relieve.
The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing
nation are so linked in union together that no permanent cause of
prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to
the others. All these interests are alike under the protecting power of
the legislative authority, and the duties of the representative bodies
are to conciliate them in harmony together. So far as the object of
taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts and defraying
the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted as much
as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion
with their ability of bearing it without oppression. But the legislation
of one nation is sometimes intentionally made to bear heavily upon the
interests of another. That legislation, adapted, as it is meant to be,
to the special interests of its own people, will often press most
unequally upon the several component interests of its neighbors. Thus
the legislation of Great Britain, when, as has recently been avowed,
adapted to the depression of a rival nation, will naturally abound with
regulations of interdict upon the productions of the soil or industry of
the other which come in competition with its own, and will present
encouragement, perhaps even bounty, to the raw material of the other
State which it can not produce itself, and which is essential for the
use of its manufactures, competitors in the markets of the world with
those of its commercial rival. Such is the state of the commercial
legislation of Great Britain as it bears upon our interests. It excludes
with interdicting duties all importation (except in time of approaching
famine) of the great staple of productions of our Middle and Western
States; it proscribes with equal rigor the bulkier lumber and live stock
of the same portion and also of the Northern and Eastern part of our
Union. It refuses even the rice of the South unless aggravated with a
charge of duty upon the Northern carrier who brings it to them. But the
cotton, indispensable for their looms, they will receive almost duty
free to weave it into a fabric for our own wear, to the destruction of
our own manufactures, which they are enabled thus to undersell.
Is the self-protecting energy of this nation so helpless that there
exists in the political institutions of our country no power to
counteract the bias of this foreign legislation; that the growers of
grain must submit to this exclusion from the foreign markets of their
produce; that the shippers must dismantle their ships, the trade of the
North stagnate at the wharves, and the manufacturers starve at their
looms, while the whole people shall pay tribute to foreign industry to
be clad in a foreign garb; that the Congress of the Union are impotent
to restore the balance in favor of native industry destroyed by the
statutes of another realm? More just and more generous sentiments will,
I trust, prevail. If the tariff adopted at the last session of Congress
shall be found by experience to bear oppressively upon the interests of
any one section of the Union, it ought to be, and I can not doubt will
be, so modified as to alleviate its burden. To the voice of just
complaint from any portion of their constituents the representatives of
the States and of the people will never turn away their ears. But so
long as the duty of the foreign shall operate only as a bounty upon the
domestic article; while the planter and the merchant and the shepherd
and the husbandman shall be found thriving in their occupations under
the duties imposed for the protection of domestic manufactures, they
will not repine at the prosperity shared with themselves by their
fellow-citizens of other professions, nor denounce as violations of the
Constitution the deliberate acts of Congress to shield from the wrongs
of foreign laws the native industry of the Union. While the tariff of
the last session of Congress was a subject of legislative deliberation
it was foretold by some of its opposers that one of its necessary
consequences would be to impair the revenue. It is yet too soon to
pronounce with confidence that this prediction was erroneous. The
obstruction of one avenue of trade not unfrequently opens an issue to
another. The consequence of the tariff will be to increase the
exportation and to diminish the importation of some specific articles;
but by the general law of trade the increase of exportation of one
article will be followed by an increased importation of others, the
duties upon which will supply the deficiencies which the diminished
importation would otherwise occasion. The effect of taxation upon
revenue can seldom be foreseen with certainty. It must abide the test of
experience. As yet no symptom? of diminution are perceptible in the
receipts of the Treasury. As yet little addition of cost has even been
experienced upon the articles burdened with heavier duties by the last
tariff. The domestic manufacturer supplies the same or a kindred article
at a diminished price, and the consumer pays the same tribute to the
labor of his own countryman which he must otherwise have paid to foreign
industry and toil.
The tariff of the last session was in its details not acceptable to the
great interests of any portion of the Union, not even to the interest
which it was specially intended to subserve. Its object was to balance
the burdens upon native industry imposed by the operation of foreign
laws, but not to aggravate the burdens of one section of the Union by
the relief afforded to another. To the great principle sanctioned by
that act--one of those upon which the Constitution itself was formed--I
hope and trust the authorities of the Union will adhere. But if any of
the duties imposed by the act only relieve the manufacturer by
aggravating the burden of the planter, let a careful revisal of its
provisions, enlightened by the practical experience of its effects, be
directed to retain those which impart protection to native industry and
remove or supply the place of those which only alleviate one great
national interest by the depression of another.
The United States of America and the people of every State of which they
are composed are each of them sovereign powers. The legislative
authority of the whole is exercised by Congress under authority granted
them in the common Constitution. The legislative power of each State is
exercised by assemblies deriving their authority from the constitution
of the State. Each is sovereign within its own province. The
distribution of power between them presupposes that these authorities
will move in harmony with each other. The members of the State and
General Governments are all under oath to support both, and allegiance
is due to the one and to the other. The case of a conflict between these
two powers has not been supposed, nor has any provision been made for it
in our institutions; as a virtuous nation of ancient times existed more
than five centuries without a law for the punishment of parricide.
More than once, however, in the progress of our history have the people
and the legislatures of one or more States, in moments of excitement,
been instigated to this conflict; and the means of effecting this
impulse have been allegations that the acts of Congress to be resisted
were _unconstitutional_. The people of no one State have ever delegated
to their legislature the power of pronouncing an act of Congress
unconstitutional, but they have delegated to them powers by the exercise
of which the execution of the laws of Congress within the State may be
resisted. If we suppose the case of such conflicting legislation
sustained by the corresponding executive and judicial authorities,
patriotism and philanthropy turn their eyes from the condition in which
the parties would be placed, and from that of the people of both, which
must be its victims.
The reports from the Secretary of War and the various subordinate
offices of the resort of that Department present an exposition of the
public administration of affairs connected with them through the course
of the current year. The present state of the Army and the distribution
of the force of which it is composed will be seen from the report of the
Major-General. Several alterations in the disposal of the troops have
been found expedient in the course of the year, and the discipline of
the Army, though not entirely free from exception, has been generally
good.
The attention of Congress is particularly invited to that part of the
report of the Secretary of War which concerns the existing system of our
relations with the Indian tribes. At the establishment of the Federal
Government under the present Constitution of the United States the
principle was adopted of considering them as foreign and independent
powers and also as proprietors of lands. They were, moreover, considered
as savages, whom it was our policy and our duty to use our influence in
converting to Christianity and in bringing within the pale of
civilization.
As independent powers, we negotiated with them by treaties; as
proprietors, we purchased of them all the lands which we could prevail
upon them to sell; as brethren of the human race, rude and ignorant, we
endeavored to bring them to the knowledge of religion and of letters.
The ultimate design was to incorporate in our own institutions that
portion of them which could be converted to the state of civilization.
In the practice of European States, before our Revolution, they had been
considered _as children_ to be governed; as tenants at discretion, to be
dispossessed as occasion might require; as hunters to be indemnified by
trifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their game
was extirpated. In changing the system it would seem as if a full
contemplation of the consequences of the change had not been taken. We
have been far more successful in the acquisition of their lands than in
imparting to them the principles or inspiring them with the spirit of
civilization. But in appropriating to ourselves their hunting grounds we
have brought upon ourselves the obligation of providing them with
subsistence; and when we have had the rare good fortune of teaching them
the arts of civilization and the doctrines of Christianity we have
unexpectedly found them forming in the midst of ourselves communities
claiming to be independent of ours and rivals of sovereignty within the
territories of the members of our Union. This state of things requires
that a remedy should be provided--a remedy which, while it shall do
justice to those unfortunate children of nature, may secure to the
members of our confederation their rights of sovereignty and of soil. As
the outline of a project to that effect, the views presented in the
report of the Secretary of War are recommended to the consideration of
Congress.
The report from the Engineer Department presents a comprehensive view of
the progress which has been made in the great systems promotive of the
public interest, commenced and organized under authority of Congress,
and the effects of which have already contributed to the security, as
they will hereafter largely contribute to the honor and dignity, of the
nation.
The first of these great systems is that of fortifications, commenced
immediately after the close of our last war, under the salutary
experience which the events of that war had impressed upon our
countrymen of its necessity. Introduced under the auspices of my
immediate predecessor, it has been continued with the persevering and
liberal encouragement of the Legislature, and, combined with
corresponding exertions for the gradual increase and improvement of the
Navy, prepares for our extensive country a condition of defense adapted
to any critical emergency which the varying course of events may bring
forth. Our advances in these concerted systems have for the last ten
years been steady and progressive, and in a few years more will be so
completed as to leave no cause for apprehension that our seacoast will
ever again offer a theater of hostile invasion.
The next of these cardinal measures of policy is the preliminary to
great and lasting works of public improvement in the surveys of roads,
examination for the course of canals, and labors for the removal of the
obstructions of rivers and harbors, first commenced by the act of
Congress of 30th of April, 1824.
The report exhibits in one table the funds appropriated at the last and
preceding sessions of Congress for all these fortifications, surveys,
and works of public improvement, the manner in which these funds have
been applied, the amount expended upon the several works under
construction, and the further sums which may be necessary to complete
them; in a second, the works projected by the Board of Engineers which
have not been commenced, and the estimate of their cost; in a third, the
report of the annual Board of Visitors at the Military Academy at West
Point.
For thirteen fortifications erecting on various points of our Atlantic
coast, from Rhode Island to Louisiana, the aggregate expenditure of the
year has fallen little short of $1,000,000. For the preparation of five
additional reports of reconnaissances and surveys since the last session
of Congress, for the civil constructions upon thirty-seven different
public works commenced, eight others for which specific appropriations
have been made by acts of Congress, and twenty other incipient surveys
under the authority given by the act of 30th April, 1824, about one
million more of dollars has been drawn from the Treasury.
To these $2,000,000 is to be added the appropriation of $250,000 to
commence the erection of a breakwater near the mouth of the Delaware
River, the subscriptions to the Delaware and Chesapeake, the Louisville
and Portland, the Dismal Swamp, and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, the
large donations of lands to the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Alabama for objects of improvements within those States, and the sums
appropriated for light-houses, buoys, and piers on the coast; and a full
view will be taken of the munificence of the nation in the application
of its resources to the improvement of its own condition.
Of these great national undertakings the Academy at West Point is among
the most important in itself and the most comprehensive in its
consequences. In that institution a part of the revenue of the nation is
applied to defray the expense of educating a competent portion of her
youth chiefly to the knowledge and the duties of military life. It is
the living armory of the nation. While the other works of improvement
enumerated in the reports now presented to the attention of Congress are
destined to ameliorate the face of nature, to multiply the facilities of
communication between the different parts of the Union, to assist the
labors, increase the comforts, and enhance the enjoyments of
individuals, the instruction acquired at West Point enlarges the
dominion and expands the capacities of the mind. Its beneficial results
are already experienced in the composition of the Army, and their
influence is felt in the intellectual progress of society. The
institution is susceptible still of great improvement from benefactions
proposed by several successive Boards of Visitors, to whose earnest and
repeated recommendations I cheerfully add my own.
With the usual annual reports from the Secretary of the Navy and the
Board of Commissioners will be exhibited to the view of Congress the
execution of the laws relating to that department of the public service.
The repression of piracy in the West Indian and in the Grecian seas has
been effectually maintained, with scarcely any exception. During the war
between the Governments of Buenos Ayres and of Brazil frequent
collisions between the belligerent acts of power and the rights of
neutral commerce occurred. Licentious blockades, irregularly enlisted or
impressed seamen, and the property of honest commerce seized with
violence, and even plundered under legal pretenses, are disorders never
separable from the conflicts of war upon the ocean. With a portion of
them the correspondence of our commanders on the eastern aspect of the
South American coast and among the islands of Greece discover how far we
have been involved. In these the honor of our country and the rights of
our citizens have been asserted and vindicated. The appearance of new
squadrons in the Mediterranean and the blockade of the Dardanelles
indicate the danger of other obstacles to the freedom of commerce and
the necessity of keeping our naval force in those seas. To the
suggestions repeated in the report of the Secretary of the Navy, and
tending to the permanent improvement of this institution, I invite the
favorable consideration of Congress.
A resolution of the House of Representatives requesting that one of our
small public vessels should be sent to the Pacific Ocean and South Sea
to examine the coasts, islands, harbors, shoals, and reefs in those
seas, and to ascertain their true situation and description, has been
put in a train of execution. The vessel is nearly ready to depart. The
successful accomplishment of the expedition may be greatly facilitated
by suitable legislative provisions, and particularly by an appropriation
to defray its necessary expense. The addition of a second, and perhaps a
third, vessel, with a slight aggravation of the cost, would contribute
much to the safety of the citizens embarked on this undertaking, the
results of which may be of the deepest interest to our country.
With the report of the Secretary of the Navy will be submitted, in
conformity to the act of Congress of 3d March, 1827, for the gradual
improvement of the Navy of the United States, statements of the
expenditures under that act and of the measures taken for carrying the
same into effect. Every section of that statute contains a distinct
provision looking to the great object of the whole--the gradual
improvement of the Navy. Under its salutary sanction stores of ship
timber have been procured and are in process of seasoning and
preservation for the future uses of the Navy. Arrangements have been
made for the preservation of the live-oak timber growing on the lands of
the United States, and for its reproduction, to supply at future and
distant days the waste of that most valuable material for shipbuilding
by the great consumption of it yearly for the commercial as well as for
the military marine of our country. The construction of the two dry
docks at Charlestown and at Norfolk is making satisfactory progress
toward a durable establishment. The examinations and inquiries to
ascertain the practicability and expediency of a marine railway at
Pensacola, though not yet accomplished, have been postponed but to be
more effectually made. The navy-yards of the United States have been
examined, and plans for their improvement and the preservation of the
public property therein at Portsmouth, Charlestown, Philadelphia,
Washington, and Gosport, and to which two others are to be added, have
been prepared and received my sanction; and no other portion of my
public duties has been performed with a more intimate conviction of its
importance to the future welfare and security of the Union.
With the report from the Postmaster-General is exhibited a comparative
view of the gradual increase of that establishment, from five to five
years, since 1792 till this time in the number of post-offices, which
has grown from less than 200 to nearly 8,000; in the revenue yielded by
them, which from $67,000 has swollen to upward of a million and a half,
and in the number of miles of post-roads, which from 5,642 have
multiplied to 114,536. While in the same period of time the population
of the Union has about thrice doubled, the rate of increase of these
offices is nearly 40, and of the revenue and of traveled miles from 20
to 25 for 1. The increase of revenue within the last five years has been
nearly equal to the whole revenue of the Department in 1812.
The expenditures of the Department during the year which ended on the
1st of July last have exceeded the receipts by a sum of about $25,000.
The excess has been occasioned by the increase of mail conveyances and
facilities to the extent of near 800,000 miles. It has been supplied by
collections from the postmasters of the arrearages of preceding years.
While the correct principle seems to be that the income levied by the
Department should defray all its expenses, it has never been the policy
of this Government to raise from this establishment any revenue to be
applied to any other purposes. The suggestion of the Postmaster-General
that the insurance of the safe transmission of moneys by the mail might
be assumed by the Department for a moderate and competent remuneration
will deserve the consideration of Congress.
A report from the commissioner of the public buildings in this city
exhibits the expenditures upon them in the course of the current year.
It will be seen that the humane and benevolent intentions of Congress in
providing, by the act of 20th May, 1826, for the erection of a
penitentiary in this district have been accomplished. The authority of
further legislation is now required for the removal to this tenement of
the offenders against the laws sentenced to atone by personal
confinement for their crimes, and to provide a code for their employment
and government while thus confined.
The commissioners appointed, conformably to the act of 2d March, 1827,
to provide for the adjustment of claims of persons entitled to
indemnification under the first article of the treaty of Ghent, and for
the distribution among such claimants of the sum paid by the Government
of Great Britain under the convention of 13th of November, 1826, closed
their labors on the 30th of August last by awarding to the claimants the
sum of $1,197,422.18, leaving a balance of $7,537.82, which was
distributed ratably amongst all the claimants to whom awards had been
made, according to the directions of the act.
The exhibits appended to the report from the Commissioner of the General
Land Office present the actual condition of that common property of the
Union. The amount paid into the Treasury from the proceeds of lands
during the year 1827 and the first half of 1828 falls little short of
$2,000,000. The propriety of further extending the time for the
extinguishment of the debt due to the United States by the purchasers of
the public lands, limited by the act of 21st March last to the 4th of
July next, will claim the consideration of Congress, to whose vigilance
and careful attention the regulation, disposal, and preservation of this
great national inheritance has by the people of the United States been
intrusted.
Among the important subjects to which the attention of the present
Congress has already been invited, and which may occupy their further
and deliberate discussion, will be the provision to be made for taking
the fifth census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States.
The Constitution of the United States requires that this enumeration
should be made within every term of ten years, and the date from which
the last enumeration commenced was the first Monday of August of the
year 1820. The laws under which the former enumerations were taken were
enacted at the session of Congress immediately preceding the operation;
but considerable inconveniences were experienced from the delay of
legislation to so late a period. That law, like those of the preceding
enumerations, directed that the census should be taken by the marshals
of the several districts and Territories of the Union under instructions
from the Secretary of State. The preparation and transmission to the
marshals of those instructions required more time than was then allowed
between the passage of the law and the day when the enumeration was to
commence. The term of six months limited for the returns of the marshals
was also found even then too short, and must be more so now, when an
additional population of at least 3,000,000 must be presented upon the
returns. As they are to be made at the short session of Congress, it
would, as well as from other considerations, be more convenient to
commence the enumeration from an earlier period of the year than the 1st
of August. The most favorable season would be the spring. On a review of
the former enumerations it will be found that the plan for taking every
census has contained many improvements upon that of its predecessor. The
last is still susceptible of much improvement. The Third Census was the
first at which any account was taken of the manufactures of the country.
It was repeated at the last enumeration, but the returns in both cases
were necessarily very imperfect. They must always be so, resting, of
course, only upon the communications voluntarily made by individuals
interested in some of the manufacturing establishments. Yet they
contained much valuable information, and may by some supplementary
provision of the law be rendered more effective. The columns of age,
commencing from infancy, have hitherto been confined to a few periods,
all under the number of 45 years. Important knowledge would be obtained
by extending these columns, in intervals of ten years, to the utmost
boundaries of human life. The labor of taking them would be a trifling
addition to that already prescribed, and the result would exhibit
comparative tables of longevity highly interesting to the country. I
deem it my duty further to observe that much of the imperfections in the
returns of the last and perhaps of preceding enumerations proceeded from
the inadequateness of the compensations allowed to the marshals and
their assistants in taking them.
In closing this communication it only remains for me to assure the
Legislature of my continued earnest wish for the adoption of measures
recommended by me heretofore and yet to be acted on by them, and of the
cordial concurrence on my part in every constitutional provision which
may receive their sanction during the session tending to the general
welfare.
John Quincy Adams.
* * * * *