ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO JOHN ADAMS, PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
SIR: While the House of Representatives contemplate the flattering
prospects of abundance from the labors of the people by land and by
sea, the prosperity of our extended commerce notwithstanding the
interruptions occasioned by the belligerent state of a great part of the
world, the return of health, industry, and trade to those cities which
have lately been afflicted with disease, and the various and inestimable
advantages, civil and religious, which, secured under our happy frame of
Government, are continued to us unimpaired, we can not fail to offer
up to a benevolent Deity our sincere thanks for these the merciful
dispensations of His protecting providence.
That any portion of the people of America should permit themselves,
amid such numerous blessings, to be seduced by the arts and
misrepresentations of designing men into an open resistance of a law
of the United States can not be heard without deep and serious regret.
Under a Constitution where the public burthens can only be imposed by
the people themselves for their own benefit and to promote their own
objects, a hope might well have been indulged that the general interest
would have been too well understood and the general welfare too highly
prized to have produced in any of our citizens a disposition to hazard
so much felicity by the criminal effort of a part to oppose with lawless
violence the will of the whole. While we lament that depravity which
could produce a defiance of the civil authority and render indispensable
the aid of the military force of the nation, real consolation is to
be derived from the promptness and fidelity with which that aid was
afforded. That zealous and active cooperation with the judicial power of
the volunteers and militia called into service, which has restored order
and submission to the laws, is a pleasing evidence of the attachment of
our fellow-citizens to their own free Government, and of the truly
patriotic alacrity with which they will support it.
To give due effect to the civil administration of Government and to
insure a just execution of the laws are objects of such real magnitude
as to secure a proper attention to your recommendation of a revision and
amendment of the judiciary system.
Highly approving as we do the pacific and humane policy which has been
invariably professed and sincerely pursued by the Executive authority
of the United States, a policy which our best interests enjoined, and
of which honor has permitted the observance, we consider as the most
unequivocal proof of your inflexible perseverance in the same well-chosen
system your preparation to meet the first indications on the part of
the French Republic of a disposition to accommodate the existing
differences between the two countries by a nomination of ministers,
on certain conditions which the honor of our country unquestionably
dictated, and which its moderation had certainly given it a right to
prescribe. When the assurances thus required of the French Government,
previous to the departure of our envoys, had been given through their
minister of foreign relations, the direction that they should proceed
on their mission was on your part a completion of the measure, and
manifests the sincerity with which it was commenced. We offer up our
fervent prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the success of
their embassy, and that it may be productive of peace and happiness to
our common country. The uniform tenor of your conduct through a life
useful to your fellow-citizens and honorable to yourself gives a sure
pledge of the sincerity with which the avowed objects of the negotiation
will be pursued on your part, and we earnestly pray that similar
dispositions may be displayed on the part of France. The differences
which unfortunately subsist between the two nations can not fail in
that event to be happily terminated. To produce this end, to all so
desirable, firmness, moderation, and union at home constitute, we are
persuaded, the surest means. The character of the gentlemen you have
deputed, and still more the character of the Government which deputes
them, are safe pledges to their country that nothing incompatible with
its honor or interest, nothing inconsistent with our obligations of good
faith or friendship to any other nation, will be stipulated.
We learn with pleasure that our citizens, with their property, trading
to those ports of St. Domingo with which commercial intercourse has been
renewed have been duly respected, and that privateering from those ports
has ceased.
With you we sincerely regret that the execution of the sixth article of
the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with Great Britain, an
article produced by a mutual spirit of amity and justice, should have
been unavoidably interrupted. We doubt not that the same spirit of amity
and the same sense of justice in which it originated will lead to
satisfactory explanations, and we hear with approbation that our
minister at London will be immediately instructed to obtain them. While
the engagements which America has contracted by her treaty with Great
Britain ought to be fulfilled with that scrupulous punctuality and good
faith to which our Government has ever so tenaciously adhered, yet no
motive exists to induce, and every principle forbids us to adopt, a
construction which might extend them beyond the instrument by which they
are created. We cherish the hope that the Government of Great Britain
will disclaim such extension, and by cordially uniting with that of the
United States for the removal of all difficulties will soon enable the
boards appointed under the sixth and seventh articles of our treaty
with that nation to proceed and bring the business committed to them
respectively to a satisfactory conclusion.
The buildings for the accommodation of Congress and of the President and
for the public offices of the Government at its permanent seat being
in such a state as to admit of a removal to that District by the time
prescribed by the act of Congress, no obstacle, it is presumed, will
exist to a compliance with the law.
With you, sir, we deem the present period critical and momentous. The
important changes which are occurring, the new and great events which
are every hour preparing in the political world, the spirit of war which
is prevalent in almost every nation with whose affairs the interests
of the United States have any connection, demonstrate how unsafe and
precarious would be our situation should we neglect the means of
maintaining our just rights. Respecting, as we have ever done, the
rights of others, America estimates too correctly the value of her
own and has received evidence too complete that they are only to be
preserved by her own vigilance ever to permit herself to be seduced by
a love of ease or by other considerations into that deadly disregard of
the means of self-defense which could only result from a carelessness
as criminal as it would be fatal concerning the future destinies of our
growing Republic. The result of the mission to France is indeed, sir,
uncertain. It depends not on America alone. The most pacific temper will
not always insure peace. We should therefore exhibit a system of conduct
as indiscreet as it would be new in the history of the world if we
considered the negotiation happily terminated because we have attempted
to commence it, and peace restored because we wish its restoration. But,
sir, however this mission may terminate, a steady perseverance in a
system of national defense commensurate with our resources and the
situation of our country is an obvious dictate of duty. Experience, the
parent of wisdom and the great instructor of nations, has established
the truth of your position, that, remotely as we are placed from the
belligerent nations and desirous as we are, by doing justice to all,
to avoid offense to any, yet nothing short of the power of repelling
aggressions will secure to our country a rational prospect of escaping
the calamities of war or national degradation.
In the progress of the session we shall take into our serious
consideration the various and important matters recommended to our
attention.
A life devoted to the service of your country, talents and integrity
which have so justly acquired and so long retained the confidence
and affection of your fellow-citizens, attest the sincerity of your
declaration that it is your anxious desire so to execute the trust
reposed in you as to render the people of the United States prosperous
and happy.