circumstances inseparable from its early stages could promise. Our
public ships and private cruisers, by their activity, and, where there
was occasion, by their intrepidity, have made the enemy sensible of the
difference between a reciprocity of captures and the long confinement of
them to their side. Our trade, with little exception, has safely reached
our ports, having been much favored in it by the course pursued by a
squadron of our frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers, and in
the instance in which skill and bravery were more particularly tried
with those of the enemy the American flag had an auspicious triumph.
The frigate _Constitution_, commanded by Captain Hull, after a close
and short engagement completely disabled and captured a British frigate,
gaining for that officer and all on board a praise which can not be too
liberally bestowed, not merely for the victory actually achieved, but
for that prompt and cool exertion of commanding talents which, giving to
courage its highest character, and to the force applied its full effect,
proved that more could have been done in a contest requiring more.
Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war can not be
exempt, I lost no time after it was declared in conveying to the British
Government the terms on which its progress might be arrested, without
awaiting the delays of a formal and final pacification, and our chargé
d'affaires at London was at the same time authorized to agree to an
armistice founded upon them. These terms required that the orders in
council should be repealed as they affected the United States, without a
revival of blockades violating acknowledged rules, and that there should
be an immediate discharge of American seamen from British ships, and a
stop to impressment from American ships, with an understanding that
an exclusion of the seamen of each nation from the ships of the other
should be stipulated, and that the armistice should be improved into
a definitive and comprehensive adjustment of depending controversies.
Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations meeting the
views of this Government had taken place before this pacific advance was
communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance was declined from an
avowed repugnance to a suspension of the practice of impressments during
the armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement proposed
with respect to seamen would be accepted. Whether the subsequent
communications from this Government, affording an occasion for
reconsidering the subject on the part of Great Britain, will be viewed
in a more favorable light or received in a more accommodating spirit
remains to be known. It would be unwise to relax our measures in any
respect on a presumption of such a result.
The documents from the Department of State which relate to this subject
will give a view also of the propositions for an armistice which have
been received here, one of them from the authorities at Halifax and in
Canada, the other from the British Government itself through Admiral
Warren, and of the grounds on which neither of them could be accepted.
Our affairs with France retain the posture which they held at my last
communications to you. Notwithstanding the authorized expectations of an
early as well as favorable issue to the discussions on foot, these have
been procrastinated to the latest date. The only intervening occurrence
meriting attention is the promulgation of a French decree purporting to
be a definitive repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This proceeding,
although made the ground of the repeal of the British orders in council,
is rendered by the time and manner of it liable to many objections.
The final communications from our special minister to Denmark afford
further proofs of the good effects of his mission, and of the amicable
disposition of the Danish Government. From Russia we have the
satisfaction to receive assurances of continued friendship, and that it
will not be affected by the rupture between the United States and Great
Britain. Sweden also professes sentiments favorable to the subsisting
harmony.
With the Barbary Powers, excepting that of Algiers, our affairs remain
on the ordinary footing. The consul-general residing with that Regency
has suddenly and without cause been banished, together with all the
American citizens found there. Whether this was the transitory effect of
capricious despotism or the first act of predetermined hostility is not
ascertained. Precautions were taken by the consul on the latter
supposition.
The Indian tribes not under foreign instigations remain at peace, and
receive the civilizing attentions which have proved so beneficial to
them.
With a view to that vigorous prosecution of the war to which our
national faculties are adequate, the attention of Congress will be
particularly drawn to the insufficiency of existing provisions for
filling up the military establishment. Such is the happy condition of
our country, arising from the facility of subsistence and the high wages
for every species of occupation, that notwithstanding the augmented
inducements provided at the last session, a partial success only has
attended the recruiting service. The deficiency has been necessarily
supplied during the campaign by other than regular troops, with all
the inconveniences and expense incident to them. The remedy lies in
establishing more favorably for the private soldier the proportion
between his recompense and the term of his enlistment, and it is a
subject which can not too soon or too seriously be taken into
consideration.
The same insufficiency has been experienced in the provisions for
volunteers made by an act of the last session. The recompense for the
service required in this case is still less attractive than in the
other, and although patriotism alone has sent into the field some
valuable corps of that description, those alone who can afford the
sacrifice can be reasonably expected to yield to that impulse.
It will merit consideration also whether as auxiliary to the security
of our frontiers corps may not be advantageously organized with a
restriction of their services to particular districts convenient to
them, and whether the local and occasional services of mariners and
others in the seaport towns under a similar organization would not be
a provident addition to the means of their defense.
I recommend a provision for an increase of the general officers of the
Army, the deficiency of which has been illustrated by the number and
distance of separate commands which the course of the war and the
advantage of the service have required.
And I can not press too strongly on the earliest attention of the
Legislature the importance of the reorganization of the staff
establishment with a view to render more distinct and definite the
relations and responsibilities of its several departments. That there
is room for improvements which will materially promote both economy and
success in what appertains to the Army and the war is equally inculcated
by the examples of other countries and by the experience of our own.
A revision of the militia laws for the purpose of rendering them more
systematic and better adapting them to emergencies of the war is at this
time particularly desirable.
Of the additional ships authorized to be fitted for service, two will
be shortly ready to sail, a third is under repair, and delay will be
avoided in the repair of the residue. Of the appropriations for the
purchase of materials for shipbuilding, the greater part has been
applied to that object and the purchase will be continued with the
balance.
The enterprising spirit which has characterized our naval force and its
success, both in restraining insults and depredations on our coasts and
in reprisals on the enemy, will not fail to recommend an enlargement of
it.
There being reason to believe that the act prohibiting the acceptance
of British licenses is not a sufficient guard against the use of them,
for purposes favorable to the interests and views of the enemy, further
provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so that
penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious
intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced
by any statutory provisions.
A considerable number of American vessels which were in England when the
revocation of the orders in council took place were laden with British
manufactures under an erroneous impression that the nonimportation act
would immediately cease to operate, and have arrived in the United
States. It did not appear proper to exercise on unforeseen cases of such
magnitude the ordinary powers vested in the Treasury Department to
mitigate forfeitures without previously affording to Congress an
opportunity of making on the subject such provision as they may think
proper. In their decision they will doubtless equally consult what is
due to equitable considerations and to the public interest.
The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th of
September last have exceeded $16,500,000, which have been sufficient
to defray all the demands on the Treasury to that day, including a
necessary reimbursement of near three millions of the principal of the
public debt. In these receipts is included a sum of near $5,850,000,
received on account of the loans authorized by the acts of the last
session; the whole sum actually obtained on loan amounts to $11,000,000,
the residue of which, being receivable subsequent to the 30th of
September last, will, together with the current revenue, enable us to
defray all the expenses of this year.
The duties on the late unexpected importations of British manufactures
will render the revenue of the ensuing year more productive than could
have been anticipated.
The situation of our country, fellow-citizens, is not without its
difficulties, though it abounds in animating considerations, of which
the view here presented of our pecuniary resources is an example. With
more than one nation we have serious and unsettled controversies, and
with one, powerful in the means and habits of war, we are at war. The
spirit and strength of the nation are nevertheless equal to the support
of all its rights, and to carry it through all its trials. They can be
met in that confidence. Above all, we have the inestimable consolation
of knowing that the war in which we are actually engaged is a war
neither of ambition nor of vainglory; that it is waged not in violation
of the rights of others, but in the maintenance of our own; that it was
preceded by a patience without example under wrongs accumulating without
end, and that it was finally not declared until every hope of averting
it was extinguished by the transfer of the British scepter into new
hands clinging to former councils, and until declarations were
reiterated to the last hour, through the British envoy here, that
the hostile edicts against our commercial rights and our maritime
independence would not be revoked; nay, that they could not be revoked
without violating the obligations of Great Britain to other powers, as
well as to her own interests. To have shrunk under such circumstances
from manly resistance would have been a degradation blasting our best
and proudest hopes; it would have struck us from the high rank where the
virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and have betrayed the
magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for future generations. It
would have acknowledged that on the element which forms three-fourths of
the globe we inhabit, and where all independent nations have equal and
common rights, the American people were not an independent people,
but colonists and vassals. It was at this moment and with such an
alternative that war was chosen. The nation felt the necessity of it,
and called for it. The appeal was accordingly made, in a just cause,
to the Just and All-powerful Being who holds in His hand the chain of
events and the destiny of nations. It remains only that, faithful to
ourselves, entangled in no connections with the views of other powers,
and ever ready to accept peace from the hand of justice, we prosecute
the war with united counsels and with the ample faculties of the nation
until peace be so obtained and as the only means under the Divine
blessing of speedily obtaining it.
JAMES MADISON.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
NOVEMBER, 12, 1812.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
For the further information of Congress relative to the pacific advances
made on the part of this Government to that of Great Britain, and the
manner in which they have been met by the latter, I transmit the sequel
of the communications on that subject received from the late chargé
d'affaires at London.
JAMES MADISON.
NOVEMBER 17, 1812.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I transmit to Congress copies of a letter from the consul general of
the United States to Algiers, stating the circumstances preceding and
attending his departure from that Regency.
JAMES MADISON
WASHINGTON, _December 11, 1812_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I transmit to Congress copies of a letter to the Secretary of the Navy
from Captain Decatur, of the frigate _United States_, reporting his
combat and capture of the British frigate _Macedonian_. Too much
praise can not be bestowed on that officer and his companions on board
for the consummate skill and conspicuous valor by which this trophy has
been added to the naval arms of the United States.
I transmit also a letter from Captain Jones, who commanded the sloop
of war _Wasp_, reporting his capture of the British sloop of war
_Frolic_, after a close action, in which other brilliant titles will
be seen to the public admiration and praise.
A nation feeling what it owes to itself and to its citizens could never
abandon to arbitrary violence on the ocean a class of them which give
such examples of capacity and courage in defending their rights on that
element, examples which ought to impress on the enemy, however brave and
powerful, preference of justice and peace to hostility against a country
whose prosperous career may be accelerated but can not be prevented by
the assaults made on it.
JAMES MADISON.
JANUARY 22, 1813.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I transmit, for the information of Congress, copies of a correspondence
between John Mitchell, agent for American prisoners of war at Halifax,
and the British admiral commanding at that station.
I transmit, for the like purpose, copies of a letter from Commodore
Rodgers to the Secretary of the Navy,
JAMES MADISON.
FEBRUARY 22, 1813.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I lay before Congress a letter, with accompanying documents, from
Captain Bainbridge, now commanding the United States frigate the
_Constitution_, reporting his capture and destruction of the
British frigate the _Java_. The circumstances and the issue of this
combat afford another example of the professional skill and heroic
spirit which prevail in our naval service. The signal display of both by
Captain Bainbridge, his officers and crew, commands the highest praise.
This being a second instance in which the condition of the captured
ship, by rendering it impossible to get her into port, has barred
a contemplated reward of successful valor, I recommend to the
consideration of Congress the equity and propriety of a general
provision allowing in such cases, both past and future, a fair
proportion of the value which would accrue to the captors on the
safe arrival and sale of the prize.
JAMES MADISON.
FEBRUARY 24, 1813.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I lay before Congress copies of a proclamation of the British
lieutenant-governor of the island of Bermuda, which has appeared under
circumstances leaving no doubt of its authenticity. It recites a British
order in council of the 26th of October last, providing for the supply
of the British West Indies and other colonial possessions by a trade
under special licenses, and is accompanied by a circular instruction to
the colonial governors which confines licensed importations from ports
of the United States to the ports of the Eastern States exclusively.
The Government of Great Britain had already introduced into her commerce
during war a system which, at once violating the rights of other nations
and resting on a mass of forgery and perjury unknown to other times,
was making an unfortunate progress in undermining those principles
of morality and religion which are the best foundation of national
happiness.
The policy now proclaimed to the world introduces into her modes of
warfare a system equally distinguished by the deformity of its features
and the depravity of its character, having for its object to dissolve
the ties of allegiance and the sentiments of loyalty in the adversary
nation, and to seduce and separate its component parts the one from the
other.
The general tendency of these demoralizing and disorganizing
contrivances will be reprobated by the civilized and Christian world,
and the insulting attempt on the virtue, the honor, the patriotism, and
the fidelity of our brethren of the Eastern States will not fail to call
forth all their indignation and resentment, and to attach more and more
all the States to that happy Union and Constitution against which such
insidious and malignant artifices are directed.
The better to guard, nevertheless, against the effect of individual
cupidity and treachery and to turn the corrupt projects of the enemy
against himself, I recommend to the consideration of Congress the
expediency of an effectual prohibition of any trade whatever by citizens
or inhabitants of the United States under special licenses, whether
relating to persons or ports, and in aid thereof a prohibition of all
exportations from the United States in foreign bottoms, few of which are
actually employed, whilst multiplying counterfeits of their flags and
papers are covering and encouraging the navigation of the enemy.
JAMES MADISON.
MARCH 3, 1813.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
Conformably to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
27th of January last, I transmit "rolls of the persons having office or
employment of a public nature under the United States,"
JAMES MADISON.
VETO MESSAGE.
NOVEMBER 5, 1812.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
The bill entitled "An act supplementary to the acts heretofore passed on
the subject of an uniform rule of naturalization," which passed the two
Houses at the last session of Congress, having appeared to me liable to
abuse by aliens having no real purpose of effectuating a naturalization,
and therefore not been signed, and having been presented at an hour
too near the close of the session to be returned with objections for
reconsideration, the bill failed to become a law. I also recommend that
provision be now made in favor of aliens entitled to the contemplated
benefit, under such regulations as will prevent advantage being taken
of it for improper purposes.
JAMES MADISON.
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
About to add the solemnity of an oath to the obligations imposed by a
second call to the station in which my country heretofore placed me,
I find in the presence of this respectable assembly an opportunity of
publicly repeating my profound sense of so distinguished a confidence
and of the responsibility united with it. The impressions on me are
strengthened by such an evidence that my faithful endeavors to discharge
my arduous duties have been favorably estimated, and by a consideration
of the momentous period at which the trust has been renewed. From the
weight and magnitude now belonging to it I should be compelled to shrink
if I had less reliance on the support of an enlightened and generous
people, and felt less deeply a conviction that the war with a powerful
nation, which forms so prominent a feature in our situation, is stamped
with that justice which invites the smiles of Heaven on the means of
conducting it to a successful termination.
May we not cherish this sentiment without presumption when we reflect
on the characters by which this war is distinguished?
It was not declared on the part of the United States until it had been
long made on them, in reality though not in name; until arguments and
expostulations had been exhausted; until a positive declaration had been
received that the wrongs provoking it would not be discontinued; nor
until this last appeal could no longer be delayed without breaking down
the spirit of the nation, destroying all confidence in itself and in its
political institutions, and either perpetuating a state of disgraceful
suffering or regaining by more costly sacrifices and more severe
struggles our lost rank and respect among independent powers.
On the issue of the war are staked our national sovereignty on the
high seas and the security of an important class of citizens, whose
occupations give the proper value to those of every other class. Not to
contend for such a stake is to surrender our equality with other powers
on the element common to all and to violate the sacred title which every
member of the society has to its protection. I need not call into view
the unlawfulness of the practice by which our mariners are forced at the
will of every cruising officer from their own vessels into foreign
ones, nor paint the outrages inseparable from it. The proofs are in the
records of each successive Administration of our Government, and the
cruel sufferings of that portion of the American people have found their
way to every bosom not dead to the sympathies of human nature.
As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its
objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it
on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no
precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed, The war has been
waged on our part with scrupulous regard to all these obligations, and
in a spirit of liberality which was never surpassed.
How little has been the effect of this example on the conduct of the
enemy!
They have retained as prisoners of war citizens of the United States
not liable to be so considered under the usages of war.
They have refused to consider as prisoners of war, and threatened to
punish as traitors and deserters, persons emigrating without restraint
to the United States, incorporated by naturalization into our political
family, and fighting under the authority of their adopted country in
open and honorable war for the maintenance of its rights and safety.
Such is the avowed purpose of a Government which is in the practice of
naturalizing by thousands citizens of other countries, and not only of
permitting but compelling them to fight its battles against their native
country.