condition of the branch of the public service committed to its charge. It
presents to your consideration many topics and suggestions of which I ask
your approval. It exhibits an unusual degree of activity in the operations
of the Department during the past year. The preparations for the Japan
expedition, to which I have already alluded; the arrangements made for the
exploration and survey of the China Seas, the Northern Pacific, and
Behrings Straits; the incipient measures taken toward a reconnoissance of
the continent of Africa eastward of Liberia; the preparation for an early
examination of the tributaries of the river La Plata, which a recent decree
of the provisional chief of the Argentine Confederation has opened to
navigation--all these enterprises and the means by which they are proposed
to be accomplished have commanded my full approbation, and I have no doubt
will be productive of most useful results.
Two officers of the Navy were heretofore instructed to explore the whole
extent of the Amazon River from the confines of Peru to its mouth. The
return of one of them has placed in the possession of the Government an
interesting and valuable account of the character and resources of a
country abounding in the materials of commerce, and which if opened to the
industry of the world will prove an inexhaustible fund of wealth. The
report of this exploration will be communicated to you as soon as it is
completed.
Among other subjects offered to your notice by the Secretary of the Navy, I
select for special commendation, in view of its connection with the
interests of the Navy, the plan submitted by him for the establishment of a
permanent corps of seamen and the suggestions he has presented for the
reorganization of the Naval Academy.
In reference to the first of these, I take occasion to say that I think it
will greatly improve the efficiency of the service, and that I regard it as
still more entitled to favor for the salutary influence it must exert upon
the naval discipline, now greatly disturbed by the increasing spirit of
insubordination resulting from our present system. The plan proposed for
the organization of the seamen furnishes a judicious substitute for the law
of September, 1850, abolishing corporal punishment, and satisfactorily
sustains the policy of that act under conditions well adapted to maintain
the authority of command and the order and security of our ships. It is
believed that any change which proposes permanently to dispense with this
mode of punishment should be preceded by a system of enlistment which shall
supply the Navy with seamen of the most meritorious class, whose good
deportment and pride of character may preclude all occasion for a resort to
penalties of a harsh or degrading nature. The safety of a ship and her crew
is often dependent upon immediate obedience to a command, and the authority
to enforce it must be equally ready. The arrest of a refractory seaman in
such moments not only deprives the ship of indispensable aid, but imposes a
necessity for double service on others, whose fidelity to their duties may
be relied upon in such an emergency. The exposure to this increased and
arduous labor since the passage of the act of 1850 has already had, to a
most observable and injurious extent, the effect of preventing the
enlistment of the best seamen in the Navy. The plan now suggested is
designed to promote a condition of service in which this objection will no
longer exist. The details of this plan may be established in great part, if
not altogether, by the Executive under the authority of existing laws, but
I have thought it proper, in accordance with the suggestion of the
Secretary of the Navy, to submit it to your approval.
The establishment of a corps of apprentices for the Navy, or boys to be
enlisted until they become of age, and to be employed under such
regulations as the Navy Department may devise, as proposed in the report, I
cordially approve and commend to your consideration; and I also concur in
the suggestion that this system for the early training of seamen may be
most usefully ingrafted upon the service of our merchant marine. The other
proposition of the report to which I have referred--the reorganization of
the Naval Academy--I recommend to your attention as a project worthy of
your encouragement and support. The valuable services already rendered by
this institution entitle it to the continuance of your fostering care.
Your attention is respectfully called to the report of the Postmaster
General for the detailed operation of his Department during the last fiscal
year, from which it will be seen that the receipts from postages for that
time were less by $1,431,696 than for the preceding fiscal year, being a
decrease of about 23 per cent.
This diminution is attributable to the reduction in the rates of postage
made by the act of March 3, 1851, which reduction took effect at the
commencement of the last fiscal year.
Although in its operation during the last year the act referred to has not
fulfilled the predictions of its friends by increasing the correspondence
of the country in proportion to the reduction of postage, I should,
nevertheless, question the policy of returning to higher rates. Experience
warrants the expectation that as the community becomes accustomed to cheap
postage correspondence will increase. It is believed that from this cause
and from the rapid growth of the country in population and business the
receipts of the Department must ultimately exceed its expenses, and that
the country may safely rely upon the continuance of the present cheap rate
of postage.
In former messages I have, among other things, respectfully recommended to
the consideration of Congress the propriety and necessity of further
legislation for the protection and punishment of foreign consuls residing
in the United States; to revive, with certain modifications, the act of
10th March, 1838, to restrain unlawful military expeditions against the
inhabitants of conterminous states or territories; for the preservation and
protection from mutilation or theft of the papers, records, and archives of
the nation; for authorizing the surplus revenue to be applied to the
payment of the public debt in advance of the time when it will become due;
for the establishment of land offices for the sale of the public lands in
California and the Territory of Oregon; for the construction of a road from
the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific Ocean; for the establishment of a
bureau of agriculture for the promotion of that interest, perhaps the most
important in the country; for the prevention of frauds upon the Government
in applications for pensions and bounty lands; for the establishment of a
uniform fee bill, prescribing a specific compensation for every service
required of clerks, district attorneys, and marshals; for authorizing an
additional regiment of mounted men for the defense of our frontiers against
the Indians and for fulfilling our treaty stipulations with Mexico to
defend her citizens against the Indians "with equal diligence and energy as
our own;" for determining the relative rank between the naval and civil
officers in our public ships and between the officers of the Army and Navy
in the various grades of each; for reorganizing the naval establishment by
fixing the number of officers in each grade, and providing for a retired
list upon reduced pay of those unfit for active duty; for prescribing and
regulating punishments in the Navy; for the appointment of a commission to
revise the public statutes of the United States by arranging them in order,
supplying deficiencies, correcting incongruities, simplifying their
language, and reporting them to Congress for its final action; and for the
establishment of a commission to adjudicate and settle private claims
against the United States. I am not aware, however, that any of these
subjects have been finally acted upon by Congress. Without repeating the
reasons for legislation on these subjects which have been assigned in
former messages, I respectfully recommend them again to your favorable
consideration.
I think it due to the several Executive Departments of this Government to
bear testimony to the efficiency and integrity with which they are
conducted. With all the careful superintendence which it is possible for
the heads of those Departments to exercise, still the due administration
and guardianship of the public money must very much depend on the
vigilance, intelligence, and fidelity of the subordinate officers and
clerks, and especially on those intrusted with the settlement and
adjustment of claims and accounts. I am gratified to believe that they have
generally performed their duties faithfully and well. They are appointed to
guard the approaches to the public Treasury, and they occupy positions that
expose them to all the temptations and seductions which the cupidity of
peculators and fraudulent claimants can prompt them to employ. It will be
but a wise precaution to protect the Government against that source of
mischief and corruption, as far as it can be done, by the enactment of all
proper legal penalties. The laws in this respect are supposed to be
defective, and I therefore deem it my duty to call your attention to the
subject and to recommend that provision be made by law for the punishment
not only of those who shall accept bribes, but also of those who shall
either promise, give, or offer to give to any of those officers or clerks a
bribe or reward touching or relating to any matter of their official action
or duty.
It has been the uniform policy of this Government, from its foundation to
the present day, to abstain from all interference in the domestic affairs
of other nations. The consequence has been that while the nations of Europe
have been engaged in desolating wars our country has pursued its peaceful
course to unexampled prosperity and happiness. The wars in which we have
been compelled to engage in defense of the rights and honor of the country
have been, fortunately, of short duration. During the terrific contest of
nation against nation which succeeded the French Revolution we were enabled
by the wisdom and firmness of President Washington to maintain our
neutrality. While other nations were drawn into this wide-sweeping
whirlpool, we sat quiet and unmoved upon our own shores. While the flower
of their numerous armies was wasted by disease or perished by hundreds of
thousands upon the battlefield, the youth of this favored land were
permitted to enjoy the blessings of peace beneath the paternal roof. While
the States of Europe incurred enormous debts, under the burden of which
their subjects still groan, and which must absorb no small part of the
product of the honest industry of those countries for generations to come,
the United States have once been enabled to exhibit the proud spectacle of
a nation free from public debt, and if permitted to pursue our prosperous
way for a few years longer in peace we may do the same again.
But it is now said by some that this policy must be changed. Europe is no
longer separated from us by a voyage of months, but steam navigation has
brought her within a few days' sail of our shores. We see more of her
movements and take a deeper interest in her controversies. Although no one
proposes that we should join the fraternity of potentates who have for ages
lavished the blood and treasure of their subjects in maintaining "the
balance of power," yet it is said that we ought to interfere between
contending sovereigns and their subjects for the purpose of overthrowing
the monarchies of Europe and establishing in their place republican
institutions. It is alleged that we have heretofore pursued a different
course from a sense of our weakness, but that now our conscious strength
dictates a change of policy, and that it is consequently our duty to mingle
in these contests and aid those who are struggling for liberty.
This is a most seductive but dangerous appeal to the generous sympathies of
freemen. Enjoying, as we do, the blessings of a free Government, there is
no man who has an American heart that would not rejoice to see these
blessings extended to all other nations. We can not witness the struggle
between the oppressed and his oppressor anywhere without the deepest
sympathy for the former and the most anxious desire for his triumph.
Nevertheless, is it prudent or is it wise to involve ourselves in these
foreign wars? Is it indeed true that we have heretofore refrained from
doing so merely from the degrading motive of a conscious weakness? For the
honor of the patriots who have gone before us, I can not admit it. Men of
the Revolution, who drew the sword against the oppressions of the mother
country and pledged to Heaven "their lives, their fortunes, and their
sacred honor" to maintain their freedom, could never have been actuated by
so unworthy a motive. They knew no weakness or fear where right or duty
pointed the way, and it is a libel upon their fair fame for us, while we
enjoy the blessings for which they so nobly fought and bled, to insinuate
it. The truth is that the course which they pursued was dictated by a stern
sense of international justice, by a statesmanlike prudence and a
far-seeing wisdom, looking not merely to the present necessities but to the
permanent safety and interest of the country. They knew that the world is
governed less by sympathy than by reason and force; that it was not
possible for this nation to become a "propagandist" of free principles
without arraying against it the combined powers of Europe, and that the
result was more likely to be the overthrow of republican liberty here than
its establishment there. History has been written in vain for those who can
doubt this. France had no sooner established a republican form of
government than she manifested a desire to force its blessings on all the
world. Her own historian informs us that, hearing of some petty acts of
tyranny in a neighboring principality, "the National Convention declared
that she would afford succor and fraternity to all nations who wished to
recover their liberty, and she gave it in charge to the executive power to
give orders to the generals of the French armies to aid all citizens who
might have been or should be oppressed in the cause of liberty." Here was
the false step which led to her subsequent misfortunes. She soon found
herself involved in war with all the rest of Europe. In less than ten years
her Government was changed from a republic to an empire, and finally, after
shedding rivers of blood, foreign powers restored her exiled dynasty and
exhausted Europe sought peace and repose in the unquestioned ascendency of
monarchical principles. Let us learn wisdom from her example. Let us
remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free
institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before.
They were planted in the free charters of self-government under which the
English colonies grew up, and our Revolution only freed us from the
dominion of a foreign power whose government was at variance with those
institutions. But European nations have had no such training for
self-government, and every effort to establish it by bloody revolutions has
been, and must without that preparation continue to be, a failure. Liberty
unregulated by law degenerates into anarchy, which soon becomes the most
horrid of all despotisms. Our policy is wisely to govern ourselves, and
thereby to set such an example of national justice, prosperity, and true
glory as shall teach to all nations the blessings of self-government and
the unparalleled enterprise and success of a free people.
We live in an age of progress, and ours is emphatically a country of
progress. Within the last half century the number of States in this Union
has nearly doubled, the population has almost quadrupled, and our
boundaries have been extended from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Our
territory is checkered over with railroads and furrowed with canals. The
inventive talent of our country is excited to the highest pitch, and the
numerous applications for patents for valuable improvements distinguish
this age and this people from all others. The genius of one American has
enabled our commerce to move against wind and tide and that of another has
annihilated distance in the transmission of intelligence. The whole country
is full of enterprise. Our common schools are diffusing intelligence among
the people and our industry is fast accumulating the comforts and luxuries
of life. This is in part owing to our peculiar position, to our fertile
soil and comparatively sparse population; but much of it is also owing to
the popular institutions under which we live, to the freedom which every
man feels to engage in any useful pursuit according to his taste or
inclination, and to the entire confidence that his person and property will
be protected by the laws. But whatever may be the cause of this
unparalleled growth in population, intelligence, and wealth, one tiring is
clear--that the Government must keep pace with the progress of the people.
It must participate in their spirit of enterprise, and while it exacts
obedience to the laws and restrains all unauthorized invasions of the
rights of neighboring states, it should foster and protect home industry
and lend its powerful strength to the improvement of such means of
intercommunication as are necessary to promote our internal commerce and
strengthen the ties which bind us together as a people.
It is not strange, however much it may be regretted, that such an
exuberance of enterprise should cause some individuals to mistake change
for progress and the invasion of the rights of others for national prowess
and glory. The former are constantly agitating for some change in the
organic law, or urging new and untried theories of human rights. The latter
are ever ready to engage in any wild crusade against a neighboring people,
regardless of the justice of the enterprise and without looking at the
fatal consequences to ourselves and to the cause of popular government.
Such expeditions, however, are often stimulated by mercenary individuals,
who expect to share the plunder or profit of the enterprise without
exposing themselves to danger, and are led on by some irresponsible
foreigner, who abuses the hospitality of our own Government by seducing the
young and ignorant to join in his scheme of personal ambition or revenge
under the false and delusive pretense of extending the area of freedom.
These reprehensible aggressions but retard the true progress of our nation
and tarnish its fair fame. They should therefore receive the indignant
frowns of every good citizen who sincerely loves his country and takes a
pride in its prosperity and honor. Our Constitution, though not perfect, is
doubtless the best that ever was formed. Therefore let every proposition to
change it be well weighed and, if found beneficial, cautiously adopted.
Every patriot will rejoice to see its authority so exerted as to advance
the prosperity and honor of the nation, whilst he will watch with jealousy
any attempt to mutilate this charter of our liberties or pervert its powers
to acts of aggression or injustice. Thus shall conservatism and progress
blend their harmonious action in preserving the form and spirit of the
Constitution and at the same time carry forward the great improvements of
the country with a rapidity and energy which freemen only can display.
In closing this my last annual communication, permit me, fellow-citizens,
to congratulate you on the prosperous condition of our beloved country.
Abroad its relations with all foreign powers are friendly, its rights are
respected, and its high place in the family of nations cheerfully
recognized. At home we enjoy an amount of happiness, public and private,
which has probably never fallen to the lot of any other people. Besides
affording to our own citizens a degree of prosperity of which on so large a
scale I know of no other instance, our country is annually affording a
refuge and a home to multitudes, altogether without example, from the Old
World.
We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the happy Constitution and
Government which were bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our
sacred duty to transmit in all their integrity to our children. We must all
consider it a great distinction and privilege to have been chosen by the
people to bear a part in the administration of such a Government. Called by
an unexpected dispensation to its highest trust at a season of
embarrassment and alarm, I entered upon its arduous duties with extreme
diffidence. I claim only to have discharged them to the best of an humble
ability, with a single eye to the public good, and it is with devout
gratitude in retiring from office that I leave the country in a state of
peace and prosperity.
End of Project Gutenberg's State of the Union Addresses, by Millard Fillmore