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by John Quincy Adams
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Title: State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams
Author: John Quincy Adams
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5015]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 11, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF ADDRESSES BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ***
This eBook was produced by James Linden.
The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***
Dates of addresses by John Quincy Adams in this eBook:
December 6, 1825
December 5, 1826
December 4, 1827
December 2, 1828
***
State of the Union Address
John Quincy Adams
December 6, 1825
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
In taking a general survey of the concerns of our beloved country, with
reference to subjects interesting to the common welfare, the first
sentiment which impresses itself upon the mind is of gratitude to the
Omnipotent Disposer of All Good for the continuance of the signal blessings
of His providence, and especially for that health which to an unusual
extent has prevailed within our borders, and for that abundance which in
the vicissitudes of the seasons has been scattered with profusion over our
land. Nor ought we less to ascribe to Him the glory that we are permitted
to enjoy the bounties of His hand in peace and tranquillity -- in peace
with all the other nations of the earth, in tranquillity among our selves.
There has, indeed, rarely been a period in the history of civilized man in
which the general condition of the Christian nations has been marked so
extensively by peace and prosperity.
Europe, with a few partial and unhappy exceptions, has enjoyed 10 years of
peace, during which all her Governments, what ever the theory of their
constitutions may have been, are successively taught to feel that the end
of their institution is the happiness of the people, and that the exercise
of power among men can be justified only by the blessings it confers upon
those over whom it is extended.
During the same period our intercourse with all those nations has been
pacific and friendly; it so continues. Since the close of your last session
no material variation has occurred in our relations with any one of them.
In the commercial and navigation system of Great Britain important changes
of municipal regulation have recently been sanctioned by acts of
Parliament, the effect of which upon the interests of other nations, and
particularly upon ours, has not yet been fully developed. In the recent
renewal of the diplomatic missions on both sides between the two
Governments assurances have been given and received of the continuance and
increase of the mutual confidence and cordiality by which the adjustment of
many points of difference had already been effected, and which affords the
surest pledge for the ultimate satisfactory adjustment of those which still
remain open or may hereafter arise.
The policy of the United States in their commercial intercourse with other
nations has always been of the most liberal character. In the mutual
exchange of their respective productions they have abstained altogether
from prohibitions; they have interdicted themselves the power of laying
taxes upon exports, and when ever they have favored their own shipping by
special preferences or exclusive privileges in their own ports it has been
only with a view to countervail similar favors and exclusions granted by
the nations with whom we have been engaged in traffic to their own people
or shipping, and to the disadvantage of ours. Immediately after the close
of the last war a proposal was fairly made by the act of Congress of
1815-03-03, to all the maritime nations to lay aside the system of
retaliating restrictions and exclusions, and to place the shipping of both
parties to the common trade on a footing of equality in respect to the
duties of tonnage and impost. This offer was partially and successively
accepted by Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Hanseatic cities,
Prussia, Sardinia, the Duke of Oldenburg, and Russia. It was also adopted,
under certain modifications, in our late commercial convention with France,
and by the act of Congress of 1824-01-08, it has received a new
confirmation with all the nations who had acceded to it, and has been
offered again to all those who are or may here after be willing to abide in
reciprocity by it. But all these regulations, whether established by treaty
or by municipal enactments, are still subject to one important
restriction.
The removal of discriminating duties of tonnage and of impost is limited to
articles of the growth, produce, or manufacture of the country to which the
vessel belongs or to such articles as are most usually first shipped from
her ports. It will deserve the serious consideration of Congress whether
even this remnant of restriction may not be safely abandoned, and whether
the general tender of equal competition made in the act of 1824-01-08, may
not be extended to include all articles of merchandise not prohibited, of
what country so ever they may be the produce or manufacture. Propositions
of this effect have already been made to us by more than one European
Government, and it is probable that if once established by legislation or
compact with any distinguished maritime state it would recommend itself by
the experience of its advantages to the general accession of all.
The convention of commerce and navigation between the United States and
France, concluded on 1822-06-24, was, in the understanding and intent of
both parties, as appears upon its face, only a temporary arrangement of the
points of difference between them of the most immediate and pressing
urgency. It was limited in the first instance to two years from 1822-10-01,
but with a proviso that it should further continue in force 'til the
conclusion of a general and definitive treaty of commerce, unless
terminated by a notice, 6 months in advance, of either of the parties to
the other. Its operation so far as it extended has been mutually
advantageous, and it still continues in force by common consent. But it
left unadjusted several objects of great interest to the citizens and
subjects of both countries, and particularly a mass of claims to
considerable amount of citizens of the United States upon the Government of
France of indemnity for property taken or destroyed under circumstances of
the most aggravated and outrageous character. In the long period during
which continual and earnest appeals have been made to the equity and
magnanimity of France in behalf of these claims their justice has not been,
as it could not be, denied.
It was hoped that the accession of a new Sovereign to the throne would have
afforded a favorable opportunity for presenting them to the consideration
of his Government. They have been presented and urged hither to without
effect. The repeated and earnest representations of our minister at the
Court of France remain as yet even without an answer. Were the demands of
nations upon the justice of each other susceptible of adjudication by the
sentence of an impartial tribunal, those to which I now refer would long
since have been settled and adequate indemnity would have been obtained.
There are large amounts of similar claims upon the Netherlands, Naples, and
Denmark. For those upon Spain prior to 1819 indemnity was, after many years
of patient forbearance, obtained; and those upon Sweden have been lately
compromised by a private settlement, in which the claimants themselves have
acquiesced. The Governments of Denmark and of Naples have been recently
reminded of those yet existing against them, nor will any of them be
forgotten while a hope may be indulged of obtaining justice by the means
within the constitutional power of the Executive, and without resorting to
those means of self-redress which, as well as the time, circumstances, and
occasion which may require them, are within the exclusive competency of the
Legislature.
It is with great satisfaction that I am enabled to bear witness to the
liberal spirit with which the Republic of Colombia has made satisfaction
for well-established claims of a similar character, and among the documents
now communicated to Congress will be distinguished a treaty of commerce and
navigation with that Republic, the ratifications of which have been
exchanged since the last recess of the Legislature. The negotiation of
similar treaties with all of the independent South American States has been
contemplated and may yet be accomplished. The basis of them all, as
proposed by the United States, has been laid in two principles -- the one
of entire and unqualified reciprocity, the other the mutual obligation of
the parties to place each other permanently upon the footing of the most
favored nation. These principles are, indeed, indispensable to the
effectual emancipation of the American hemisphere from the thralldom of
colonizing monopolies and exclusions, an event rapidly realizing in the
progress of human affairs, and which the resistance still opposed in
certain parts of Europe to the acknowledgment of the Southern American
Republics as independent States will, it is believed, contribute more
effectually to accomplish. The time has been, and that not remote, when
some of those States might, in their anxious desire to obtain a nominal
recognition, have accepted of a nominal independence, clogged with
burdensome conditions, and exclusive commercial privileges granted to the
nation from which they have separated to the disadvantage of all others.
They are all now aware that such concessions to any European nation would
be incompatible with that independence which they have declared and
maintained.
Among the measures which have been suggested to them by the new relations
with one another, resulting from the recent changes in their condition, is
that of assembling at the Isthmus of Panama a congress, at which each of
them should be represented, to deliberate upon objects important to the
welfare of all. The Republics of Colombia, of Mexico, and of Central
America have already deputed plenipotentiaries to such a meeting, and they
have invited the United States to be also represented there by their
ministers. The invitation has been accepted, and ministers on the part of
the United States will be commissioned to attend at those deliberations,
and to take part in them so far as may be compatible with that neutrality
from which it is neither our intention nor the desire of the other American
States that we should depart.
The commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of Ghent have so
nearly completed their arduous labors that, by the report recently received
from the agent on the part of the United States, there is reason to expect
that the commission will be closed at their next session, appointed for May
22 of the ensuing year.
The other commission, appointed to ascertain the indemnities due for slaves
carried away from the United States after the close of the late war, have
met with some difficulty, which has delayed their progress in the inquiry.
A reference has been made to the British Government on the subject, which,
it may be hoped, will tend to hasten the decision of the commissioners, or
serve as a substitute for it.
Among the powers specifically granted to Congress by the Constitution are
those of establishing uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies
throughout the United States and of providing for organizing, arming, and
disciplining the militia and for governing such part of them as may be
employed in the services of the United States. The magnitude and complexity
of the interests affected by legislation upon these subjects may account
for the fact that, long and often as both of them have occupied the
attention and animated the debates of Congress, no systems have yet been
devised for fulfilling to the satisfaction of the community the duties
prescribed by these grants of power.
To conciliate the claim of the individual citizen to the enjoyment of
personal liberty, with the effective obligation of private contracts, is
the difficult problem to be solved by a law of bankruptcy. These are
objects of the deepest interest to society, affecting all that is precious
in the existence of multitudes of persons, many of them in the classes
essentially dependent and helpless, of the age requiring nurture, and of
the sex entitled to protection from the free agency of the parent and the
husband. The organization of the militia is yet more indispensable to the
liberties of the country. It is only by an effective militia that we can at
once enjoy the repose of peace and bid defiance to foreign aggression; it
is by the militia that we are constituted an armed nation, standing in
perpetual panoply of defense in the presence of all the other nations of
the earth. To this end it would be necessary, if possible, so to shape its
organization as to give it a more united and active energy. There are laws
establishing an uniform militia throughout the United States and for arming
and equipping its whole body. But it is a body of dislocated members,
without the vigor of unity and having little of uniformity but the name. To
infuse into this most important institution the power of which it is
susceptible and to make it available for the defense of the Union at the
shortest notice and at the smallest expense possible of time, of life, and
of treasure are among the benefits to be expected from the persevering
deliberations of Congress.
Among the unequivocal indications of our national prosperity is the
flourishing state of our finances. The revenues of the present year, from
all their principal sources, will exceed the anticipations of the last. The
balance in the Treasury on the first of January last was a little short of
$2,000,000, exclusive of $2,500,000, being the moiety of the loan of
$5,000,000 authorized by the act of 1824-05-26. The receipts into the
Treasury from the first of January to the 30th of September, exclusive of
the other moiety of the same loan, are estimated at $16,500,000, and it is
expected that those of the current quarter will exceed $5,000,000, forming
an aggregate of receipts of nearly $22,000,000, independent of the loan.
The expenditures of the year will not exceed that sum more than $2,000,000.
By those expenditures nearly $8,000,000 of the principal of the public debt
that have been discharged.
More than $1,500,000 has been devoted to the debt of gratitude to the
warriors of the Revolution; a nearly equal sum to the construction of
fortifications and the acquisition of ordnance and other permanent
preparations of national defense; $500,000 to the gradual increase of the
Navy; an equal sum for purchases of territory from the Indians and payment
of annuities to them; and upward of $1,000,000 for objects of internal
improvement authorized by special acts of the last Congress. If we add to
these $4,000,000 for payment of interest upon the public debt, there
remains a sum of $7,000,000, which have defrayed the whole expense of the
administration of Government in its legislative, executive, and judiciary
departments, including the support of the military and naval establishments
and all the occasional contingencies of a government coextensive with the
Union.
The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported since the commencement
of the year is about $25,500,000, and that which will accrue during the
current quarter is estimated at $5,500,000; from these $31,000,000,
deducting the draw-backs, estimated at less than $7,000,000, a sum
exceeding $24,000,000 will constitute the revenue of the year, and will
exceed the whole expenditures of the year. The entire amount of the public
debt remaining due on the first of January next will be short of
$81,000,000.
By an act of Congress of the 3d of March last a loan of $12,000,000 was
authorized at 4.5%, or an exchange of stock to that amount of 4.5% for a
stock of 6%, to create a fund for extinguishing an equal amount of the
public debt, bearing an interest of 6%, redeemable in 1826. An account of
the measures taken to give effect to this act will be laid before you by
the Secretary of the Treasury. As the object which it had in view has been
but partially accomplished, it will be for the consideration of Congress
whether the power with which it clothed the Executive should not be renewed
at an early day of the present session, and under what modifications.
The act of Congress of the 3d of March last, directing the Secretary of the
Treasury to subscribe, in the name and for the use of the United States,
for 1,500 shares of the capital stock of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal
Company, has been executed by the actual subscription for the amount
specified; and such other measures have been adopted by that officer, under
the act, as the fulfillment of its intentions requires. The latest accounts
received of this important undertaking authorize the belief that it is in
successful progress.
The payments into the Treasury from the proceeds of the sales of the public
lands during the present year were estimated at $1,000,000. The actual
receipts of the first two quarters have fallen very little short of that
sum; it is not expected that the second half of the year will be equally
productive, but the income of the year from that source may now be safely
estimated at $1,500,000. The act of Congress of 1824-05-18, to provide for
the extinguishment of the debt due to the United States by the purchasers
of public lands, was limited in its operation of relief to the purchaser to
the 10th of April last. Its effect at the end of the quarter during which
it expired was to reduce that debt from $10,000,000 to $7,000,000 By the
operation of similar prior laws of relief, from and since that of
1821-03-02, the debt had been reduced from upward of $22,000,000 to
$10,000,000.
It is exceedingly desirable that it should be extinguished altogether; and
to facilitate that consummation I recommend to Congress the revival for one
year more of the act of 1824-05-18, with such provisional modification as
may be necessary to guard the public interests against fraudulent practices
in the resale of the relinquished land.
The purchasers of public lands are among the most useful of our fellow
citizens, and since the system of sales for cash alone has been introduced
great indulgence has been justly extended to those who had previously
purchased upon credit. The debt which had been contracted under the credit
sales had become unwieldy, and its extinction was alike advantageous to the
purchaser and to the public. Under the system of sales, matured as it has
been by experience, and adapted to the exigencies of the times, the lands
will continue as they have become, an abundant source of revenue; and when
the pledge of them to the public creditor shall have been redeemed by the
entire discharge of the national debt, the swelling tide of wealth with
which they replenish the common Treasury may be made to reflow in unfailing
streams of improvement from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
The condition of the various branches of the public service resorting from
the Department of War, and their administration during the current year,
will be exhibited in the report of the Secretary of War and the
accompanying documents herewith communicated. The organization and
discipline of the Army are effective and satisfactory. To counteract the
prevalence of desertion among the troops it has been suggested to withhold
from the men a small portion of their monthly pay until the period of their
discharge; and some expedient appears to be necessary to preserve and
maintain among the officers so much of the art of horsemanship as could
scarcely fail to be found wanting on the possible sudden eruption of a war,
which should take us unprovided with a single corps of cavalry.
The Military Academy at West Point, under the restrictions of a severe but
paternal superintendence, recommends itself more and more to the patronage
of the nation, and the numbers of meritorious officers which it forms and
introduces to the public service furnishes the means of multiplying the
undertakings of the public improvements to which their acquirements at that
institution are peculiarly adapted. The school of artillery practice
established at Fortress Monroe Hampton, VA is well suited to the same
purpose, and may need the aid of further legislative provision to the same
end. The reports of the various officers at the head of the administrative
branches of the military service, connected with the quartering, clothing,
subsistence, health, and pay of the Army, exhibit the assiduous vigilance
of those officers in the performance of their respective duties, and the
faithful accountability which has pervaded every part of the system.
Our relations with the numerous tribes of aboriginal natives of this
country, scattered over its extensive surface and so dependent even for
their existence upon our power, have been during the present year highly
interesting. An act of Congress of 1824-05-25, made an appropriation to
defray the expenses of making treaties of trade and friendship with the
Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi. An act of 1825-03-03, authorized
treaties to be made with the Indians for their consent to the making of a
road from the frontier of Missouri to that of New Mexico, and another act
of the same date provided for defraying the expenses of holding treaties
with the Sioux, Chippeways, Menomenees, Sauks, Foxes, etc., for the purpose
of establishing boundaries and promoting peace between said tribes.
The first and last objects of these acts have been accomplished, and the
second is yet in a process of execution. The treaties which since the last
session of Congress have been concluded with the several tribes will be
laid before the Senate for their consideration conformably to the
Constitution. They comprise large and valuable acquisitions of territory,
and they secure an adjustment of boundaries and give pledges of permanent
peace between several tribes which had been long waging bloody wars against
each other.
On the 12th of February last a treaty was signed at the Indian Springs
between commissioners appointed on the part of the United States and
certain chiefs and individuals of the Creek Nation of Indians, which was
received at the seat of Government only a very few days before the close of
the last session of Congress and of the late Administration. The advice and
consent of the Senate was given to it on the 3d of March, too late for it
to receive the ratification of the then President of the United States; it
was ratified on the 7th of March, under the unsuspecting impression that it
had been negotiated in good faith and in the confidence inspired by the
recommendation of the Senate. The subsequent transactions in relation to
this treaty will form the subject of a separate communication.
The appropriations made by Congress for public works, as well in the
construction of fortifications as for purposes of internal improvement, so
far as they have been expended, have been faithfuly applied. Their progress
has been delayed by the want of suitable officers for superintending them.
An increase of both the corps of engineers, military and topographical, was
recommended by my predecessor at the last session of Congress. The reasons
upon which that recommendation was founded subsist in all their force and
have acquired additional urgency since that time. The Military Academy at
West Point will furnish from the cadets there officers well qualified for
carrying this measure into effect.
The Board of Engineers for Internal Improvement, appointed for carrying
into execution the act of Congress of 1824-04-30, "to procure the necessary
surveys, plans, and estimates on the subject of roads and canals", have
been actively engaged in that service from the close of the last session of
Congress. They have completed the surveys necessary for ascertaining the
practicability of a canal from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River, and
are preparing a full report on that subject, which, when completed, will be
laid before you. The same observation is to be made with regard to the two
other objects of national importance upon which the Board have been
occupied, namely, the accomplishment of a national road from this city to
New Orleans, and the practicability of uniting the waters of Lake
Memphramagog with Connecticut River and the improvement of the navigation
of that river. The surveys have been made and are nearly completed. The
report may be expected at an early period during the present session of
Congress.
The acts of Congress of the last session relative to the surveying,
marking, or laying out roads in the Territories of Florida, Arkansas, and
Michigan, from Missouri to Mexico, and for the continuation of the
Cumberland road, are, some of them, fully executed, and others in the
process of execution. Those for completing or commencing fortifications
have been delayed only so far as the Corps of Engineers has been inadequate
to furnish officers for the necessary superintendence of the works. Under
the act confirming the statutes of Virginia and Maryland incorporating the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, three commissioners on the part of the
United States have been appointed for opening books and receiving
subscriptions, in concert with a like number of commissioners appointed on
the part of each of those States. A meeting of the commissioners has been
post-poned, to await the definitive report of the board of engineers.
The light-houses and monuments for the safety of our commerce and mariners,
the works for the security of Plymouth Beach and for the preservation of
the islands in Boston Harbor, have received the attention required by the
laws relating to those objects respectively. The continuation of the
Cumberland road, the most important of them all, after surmounting no
inconsiderable difficulty in fixing upon the direction of the road, has
commenced under the most promising of auspices, with the improvements of
recent invention in the mode of construction, and with advantage of a great
reduction in the comparative cost of the work.
The operation of the laws relating to the Revolutionary pensioners may
deserve the renewed consideration of Congress. The act of 1818-03-18, while
it made provision for many meritorious and indigent citizens who had served
in the War of Independence, opened a door to numerous abuses and
impositions. To remedy this the act of 1820-05-01, exacted proofs of
absolute indigence, which many really in want were unable and all
susceptible of that delicacy which is allied to many virtues must be deeply
reluctant to give. The result has been that some among the least deserving
have been retained, and some in whom the requisites both of worth and want
were combined have been stricken from the list. As the numbers of these
venerable relics of an age gone by diminish; as the decays of body, mind,
and estate of those that survive must in the common course of nature
increase, should not a more liberal portion of indulgence be dealt out to
them? May not the want in most instances be inferred from the demand when
the service can be proved, and may not the last days of human infirmity be
spared the mortification of purchasing a pittance of relief only by the
exposure of its own necessities? I submit to Congress the expediency of
providing for individual cases of this description by special enactment, or
of revising the act of 1820-05-01, with a view to mitigate the rigor of its
exclusions in favor of persons to whom charity now bestowed can scarcely
discharge the debt of justice.
The portion of the naval force of the Union in actual service has been
chiefly employed on three stations -- the Mediterranean, the coasts of
South America bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and the West Indies. An
occasional cruiser has been sent to range along the African shores most
polluted by the traffic of slaves; one armed vessel has been stationed on
the coast of our eastern boundary, to cruise along the fishing grounds in
Hudsons Bay and on the coast of Labrador, and the first service of a new
frigate has been performed in restoring to his native soil and domestic
enjoyments the veteran hero whose youthful blood and treasure had freely
flowed in the cause of our country's independence, and whose whole life has
been a series of services and sacrifices to the improvement of his fellow
men.
The visit of General Lafayette, alike honorable to himself and to our
country, closed, as it had commenced, with the most affecting testimonials
of devoted attachment on his part, and of unbounded gratitude of this
people to him in return. It will form here-after a pleasing incident in the
annals of our Union, giving to real history the intense interest of romance
and signally marking the unpurchasable tribute of a great nation's social
affections to the disinterested champion of the liberties of human-kind.
The constant maintenance of a small squadron in the Mediterranean is a
necessary substitute for the humiliating alternative of paying tribute for
the security of our commerce in that sea, and for a precarious peace, at
the mercy of every caprice of four Barbary States, by whom it was liable to
be violated. An additional motive for keeping a respectable force stationed
there at this time is found in the maritime war raging between the Greeks
and the Turks, and in which the neutral navigation of this Union is always
in danger of outrage and depredation. A few instances have occurred of such
depredations upon our merchant vessels by privateers or pirates wearing the
Grecian flag, but without real authority from the Greek or any other
Government. The heroic struggles of the Greeks themselves, in which our
warmest sympathies as free men and Christians have been engaged, have
continued to be maintained with vicissitudes of success adverse and
favorable.
Similar motives have rendered expedient the keeping of a like force on the
coasts of Peru and Chile on the Pacific. The irregular and convulsive
character of the war upon the shores has been extended to the conflicts
upon the ocean. An active warfare has been kept up for years with alternate
success, though generally to the advantage of the American patriots. But
their naval forces have not always been under the control of their own
Governments. Blockades, unjustifiable upon any acknowledged principles of
international law, have been proclaimed by officers in command, and though
disavowed by the supreme authorities, the protection of our own commerce
against them has been made cause of complaint and erroneous imputations
against some of the most gallant officers of our Navy. Complaints equally
groundless have been made by the commanders of the Spanish royal forces in
those seas; but the most effective protection to our commerce has been the
flag and the firmness of our own commanding officers.
The cessation of the war by the complete triumph of the patriot cause has
removed, it is hoped, all cause of dissension with one party and all
vestige of force of the other. But an unsettled coast of many degrees of
latitude forming a part of our own territory and a flourishing commerce and
fishery extending to the islands of the Pacific and to China still require
that the protecting power of the Union should be displayed under its flag
as well upon the ocean as upon the land.
The objects of the West India Squadron have been to carry into execution
the laws for the suppression of the African slave trade; for the protection
of our commerce against vessels of piratical character, though bearing
commissions from either of the belligerent parties; for its protection
against open and unequivocal pirates. These objects during the present year
have been accomplished more effectually than at any former period. The
African slave trade has long been excluded from the use of our flag, and if
some few citizens of our country have continued to set the laws of the
Union as well as those of nature and humanity at defiance by persevering in
that abominable traffic, it has been only by sheltering themselves under
the banners of other nations less earnest for the total extinction of the
trade of ours.
The active, persevering, and unremitted energy of Captain Warrington and of
the officers and men under his command on that trying and perilous service
have been crowned with signal success, and are entitled to the approbation
of their country. But experience has shown that not even a temporary
suspension or relaxation from assiduity can be indulged on that station
without reproducing piracy and murder in all their horrors; nor is it
probably that for years to come our immensely valuable commerce in those
seas can navigate in security without the steady continuance of an armed
force devoted to its protection.
It were, indeed, a vain and dangerous illusion to believe that in the
present or probable condition of human society a commerce so extensive and
so rich as ours could exist and be pursued in safety without the continual
support of a military marine -- the only arm by which the power of this
Confederacy can be estimated or felt by foreign nations, and the only
standing military force which can never be dangerous to our own liberties
at home. A permanent naval peace establishment, therefore, adapted to our
present condition, and adaptable to that gigantic growth with which the
nation is advancing in its career, is among the subjects which have already
occupied the foresight of the last Congress, and which will deserve your
serious deliberations. Our Navy, commenced at an early period of our
present political organization upon a scale commensurate with the incipient
energies, the scanty resources, and the comparative indigence of our
infancy, was even then found adequate to cope with all the powers of
Barbary, save the first, and with one of the principle maritime powers of
Europe.
At a period of further advancement, but with little accession of strength,
it not only sustained with honor the most unequal of conflicts, but covered
itself and our country with unfading glory. But it is only since the close
of the late war that by the numbers and force of the ships of which it was
composed it could deserve the name of a navy. Yet it retains nearly the
same organization as when it consisted only of 5 frigates. The rules and
regulations by which it is governed earnestly call for revision, and the
want of a naval school of instruction, corresponding with the Military
Academy at West Point, for the formation of scientific and accomplished
officers, is felt with daily increasing aggravation.
The act of Congress of 1824-05-26, authorizing an examination and survey of
the harbor of Charleston, in South Carolina, of St. Marys, in Georgia, and
of the coast of Florida, and for other purposes, has been executed so far
as the appropriation would admit. Those of the 3d of March last,
authorizing the establishment of a navy yard and depot on the coast of
Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, and authorizing the building of ten sloops
of war, and for other purposes, are in the course of execution, for the
particulars of which and other objects connected with this Department I
refer to the report of the Secretary of the Navy, herewith communicated.
A report from the PostMaster General is also submitted, exhibiting the
present flourishing condition of that Department. For the first time for
many years the receipts for the year ending on the first of July last
exceeded the expenditures during the same period to the amount of more than
$45,000. Other facts equally creditable to the administration of this
Department are that in two years from 1823-07-01, an improvement of more
than $185,000 in its pecuniary affairs has been realized; that in the same
interval the increase of the transportation of the mail has exceeded
1,500,000 miles annually, and that 1,040 new post offices have been
established. It hence appears that under judicious management the income
from this establishment may be relied on as fully adequate to defray its
expenses, and that by the discontinuance of post roads altogether
unproductive, others of more useful character may be opened, 'til the
circulation of the mail shall keep pace with the spread of our population,
and the comforts of friendly correspondence, the exchanges of internal
traffic, and the lights of the periodical press shall be distributed to the
remotest corners of the Union, at a charge scarcely perceptible to any
individual, and without the cost of a dollar to the public Treasury.
Upon this first occasion of addressing the Legislature of the Union, with
which I have been honored, in presenting to their view the execution so far
as it has been effected of the measures sanctioned by them for promoting
the internal improvement of our country, I can not close the communication
without recommending to their calm and persevering consideration the
general principle in a more enlarged extent. The great object of the
institution of civil government is the improvement of the condition of
those who are parties to the social compact, and no government, in what
ever form constituted, can accomplish the lawful ends of its institution
but in proportion as it improves the condition of those over whom it is
established. Roads and canals, by multiplying and facilitating the
communications and intercourse between distant regions and multitudes of
men, are among the most important means of improvement. But moral,
political, intellectual improvement are duties assigned by the Author of
Our Existence to social no less than to individual man.
For the fulfillment of those duties governments are invested with power,
and to the attainment of the end -- the progressive improvement of the
condition of the governed -- the exercise of delegated powers is a duty as
sacred and indispensable as the usurpation of powers not granted is
criminal and odious.
Among the first, perhaps the very first, instrument for the improvement of
the condition of men is knowledge, and to the acquisition of much of the
knowledge adapted to the wants, the comforts, and enjoyments of human life
public institutions and seminaries of learning are essential. So convinced
of this was the first of my predecessors in this office, now first in the
memory, as, living, he was first in the hearts, of our country- men, that
once and again in his addresses to the Congresses with whom he cooperated
in the public service he earnestly recommended the establishment of
seminaries of learning, to prepare for all the emergencies of peace and war
-- a national university and a military academy. With respect to the
latter, had he lived to the present day, in turning his eyes to the
institution at West Point he would have enjoyed the gratification of his
most earnest wishes; but in surveying the city which has been honored with
his name he would have seen the spot of earth which he had destined and
bequeathed to the use and benefit of his country as the site for a
university still bare and barren.
In assuming her station among the civilized nations of the earth it would
seem that our country had contracted the engagement to contribute her share
of mind, of labor, and of expense to the improvement of those parts of
knowledge which lie beyond the reach of individual acquisition, and
particularly to geographical and astronomical science. Looking back to the
history only of the half century since the declaration of our independence,
and observing the generous emulation with which the Governments of France,
Great Britain, and Russia have devoted the genius, the intelligence, the
treasures of their respective nations to the common improvement of the
species in these branches of science, is it not incumbent upon us to
inquire whether we are not bound by obligations of a high and honorable
character to contribute our portion of energy and exertion to the common
stock? The voyages of discovery prosecuted in the course of that time at
the expense of those nations have not only redounded to their glory, but to
the improvement of human knowledge.
We have been partakers of that improvement and owe for it a sacred debt,
not only of gratitude, but of equal or proportional exertion in the same
common cause. Of the cost of these undertakings, if the mere expenditures
of outfit, equipment, and completion of the expeditions were to be
considered the only charges, it would be unworthy of a great and generous
nation to take a second thought. One hundred expeditions of
circumnavigation like those of Cook and La Prouse would not burden the
exchequer of the nation fitting them out so much as the ways and means of
defraying a single campaign in war. but if we take into account the lives
of those benefactors of man-kind of which their services in the cause of
their species were the purchase, how shall the cost of those heroic
enterprises be estimated, and what compensation can be made to them or to
their countries for them? Is it not by bearing them in affectionate
remembrance? Is it not still more by imitating their example -- by enabling
country-men of our own to pursue the same career and to hazard their lives
in the same cause?
In inviting the attention of Congress to the subject of internal
improvements upon a view thus enlarged it is not my desire to recommend the
equipment of an expedition for circumnavigating the globe for purposes of
scientific research and inquiry. We have objects of useful investigation
nearer home, and to which our cares may be more beneficially applied. The
interior of our own territories has yet been very imperfectly explored. our
coasts along many degrees of latitude upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean,
though much frequented by our spirited commercial navigators, have been
barely visited by our public ships. The River of the West, first fully
discovered and navigated by a country-man of our own, still bears the name
of the ship in which he ascended its waters, and claims the protection of
our armed national flag at its mouth. With the establishment of a military
post there or at some other point of that coast, recommended by my
predecessor and already matured in the deliberations of the last Congress,
I would suggest the expediency of connecting the equipment of a public ship
for the exploration of the whole north-west coast of this continent.
The establishment of an uniform standard of weights and measures was one of
the specific objects contemplated in the formation of our Constitution, and
to fix that standard was on of the powers delegated by express terms in
that instrument to Congress. The Governments of Great Britain and France
have scarcely ceased to be occupied with inquiries and speculations on the
same subject since the existence of our Constitution, and with them it has
expanded into profound, laborious, and expensive researches into the figure
of the earth and the comparative length of the pendulum vibrating seconds
in various latitudes from the equator to the pole. These researches have
resulted in the composition and publication of several works highly
interesting to the cause of science. The experiments are yet in the process
of performance. Some of them have recently been made on our own shores,
within the walls of one of our own colleges, and partly by one of our own
fellow citizens. It would be honorable to our country if the sequel of the
same experiments should be countenanced by the patronage of our Government,
as they have hitherto been by those of France and Britain.
Connected with the establishment of an university, or separate from it,
might be undertaken the erection of an astronomical observatory, with
provision for the support of an astronomer, to be in constant attendance of
observation upon the phenomena of the heavens, and for the periodical
publication of his observances. it is with no feeling of pride as an
American that the remark may be made that on the comparatively small
territorial surface of Europe there are existing upward of 130 of these
light-houses of the skies, while throughout the whole American hemisphere
there is not one. If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which in the
last four centuries have been made in the physical constitution of the
universe by the means of these buildings and of observers stationed in
them, shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation? And while
scarcely a year passes over our heads without bringing some new
astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at second hand
from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of returning
light for light while we have neither observatory nor observer upon our
half of the globe and the earth revolves in perpetual darkness to our
unsearching eyes?
When, on 1791-10-25, the first President of the United States announced to
Congress the result of the first enumeration of the inhabitants of this
Union, he informed them that the returns gave the pleasing assurance that
the population of the United States bordered on 4,000,000 persons. At the
distance of 30 years from that time the last enumeration, 5 years since
completed, presented a population bordering on 10,000,000. Perhaps of all
the evidence of a prosperous and happy condition of human society the
rapidity of the increase of population is the most unequivocal. But the
demonstration of our prosperity rests not alone upon this indication.
Our commerce, our wealth, and the extent of our territories have increased
in corresponding proportions, and the number of independent communities
associated in our Federal Union has since that time nearly doubled. The
legislative representation of the States and people in the two Houses of
Congress has grown with the growth of their constituent bodies. The House,
which then consisted of 65 members, now numbers upward of 200. The Senate,
which consisted of 26 members, has now 48. But the executive and, still
more, the judiciary departments are yet in a great measure confined to
their primitive organization, and are now not adequate to the urgent wants
of a still growing community.
The naval armaments, which at an early period forced themselves upon the
necessities of the Union, soon led to the establishment of a Department of
the Navy. But the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior, which
early after the formation of the Government had been united in one,
continue so united to this time, to the unquestionable detriment of the
public service. The multiplication of our relations with the nations and
Governments of the Old World has kept pace with that of our population and
commerce, while within the last 10 years a new family of nations in our own
hemisphere has arisen among the inhabitants of the earth, with whom our
intercourse, commercial and political, would of itself furnish occupation
to an active and industrious department.
The constitution of the judiciary, experimental and imperfect as it was
even in the infancy of our existing Government, is yet more inadequate to
the administration of national justice at our present maturity. Nine years
have elapsed since a predecessor in this office, now not the last, the
citizen who, perhaps, of all others throughout the Union contributed most
to the formation and establishment of our Constitution, in his valedictory
address to Congress, immediately preceding his retirement from public life,
urgently recommended the revision of the judiciary and the establishment of
an additional executive department. The exigencies of the public service
and its unavoidable deficiencies, as now in exercise, have added yearly
cumulative weight to the considerations presented by him as persuasive to
the measure, and in recommending it to your deliberations I am happy to
have the influence of this high authority in aid of the undoubting
convictions of my own experience.
The laws relating to the administration of the Patent Office are deserving
of much consideration and perhaps susceptible of some improvement. The
grant of power to regulate the action of Congress upon this subject has
specified both the end to be obtained and the means by which it is to be
effected, "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
respective writings and discoveries". If an honest pride might be indulged
in the reflection that on the records of that office are already found
inventions the usefulness of which has scarcely been transcended in the
annals of human ingenuity, would not its exultation be allayed by the
inquiry whether the laws have effectively insured to the inventors the
reward destined to them by the Constitution -- even a limited term of
exclusive right to their discoveries?
On 1799-12-24, it was resolved by Congress that a marble monument should be
erected by the United States in the Capitol at the city of Washington; that
the family of General Washington should be requested to permit his body to
be deposited under it, and that the monument be so designed as to
commemorate the great events of his military and political life. In
reminding Congress of this resolution and that the monument contemplated by
it remains yet without execution, I shall indulge only the remarks that the
works at the Capitol are approaching to completion; that the consent of the
family, desired by the resolution, was requested and obtained; that a
monument has been recently erected in this city over the remains of another
distinguished patriot of the Revolution, and that a spot has been reserved
within the walls where you are deliberating for the benefit of this and
future ages, in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him whose
spirit hovers over you and listens with delight to every act of the
representatives of his nation which can tend to exalt and adorn his and
their country.
The Constitution under which you are assembled is a charter of limited
powers. After full and solemn deliberation upon all or any of the objects
which, urged by an irresistible sense of my own duty, I have recommended to
your attention should you come to the conclusion that, however desirable in
themselves, the enactment of laws for effecting them would transcend the
powers committed to you by that venerable instrument which we are all bound
to support, let no consideration induce you to assume the exercise of
powers not granted to you by the people.
But if the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases what so
ever over the District of Columbia; if the power to lay and collect taxes,
duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common
defense and general welfare of the United States; if the power to regulate
commerce with foreign nations and among the several States and with the
Indian tribes, to fix the standard of weights and measures, to establish
post offices and post roads, to declare war, to raise and support armies,
to provide and maintain a navy, to dispose of and make all needful rules
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the
United States, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying these powers into execution -- if these powers and others
enumerated in the Constitution may be effectually brought into action by
laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures,
the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts,
the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental
and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of the people
themselves would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to our charge
-- would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts.
The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates the
hearts and sharpens the faculties not of our fellow citizens alone, but of
the nations of Europe and of their rulers. While dwelling with pleasing
satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions,
let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with
the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the
most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in
the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be
exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and
his fellow men.
While foreign nations less blessed with that freedom which is power than
ourselves are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public
improvement, were we to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and
proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents,
would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves
to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the year now drawing to its
close we have beheld, under the auspices and at the expense of one State of
this Union, a new university unfolding its portals to the sons of science
and holding up the torch of human improvement to eyes that seek the light.
We have seen under the persevering and enlightened enterprise of another
State the waters of our Western lakes mingle with those of the ocean. If
undertakings like these have been accomplished in the compass of a few
years by the authority of single members of our Confederation, can we, the
representative authorities of the whole Union, fall behind our fellow
servants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of
our common sovereign by the accomplishment of works important to the whole
and to which neither the authority nor the resources of any one State can
be adequate?
Finally, fellow citizens, I shall await with cheering hope and faithful
cooperation the result of your deliberations, assured that, without
encroaching upon the powers reserved to the authorities of the respective
States or to the people, you will, with a due sense of your obligations to
your country and of the high responsibilities weighing upon yourselves,
give efficacy to the means committed to you for the common good. And may He
who searches the hearts of the children of men prosper your exertions to
secure the blessings of peace and promote the highest welfare of your
country. JOHN QUNICY ADAMS
***
State of the Union Address
John Quincy Adams
December 5, 1826
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
The assemblage of the representatives of our Union in both Houses of the
Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed
homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of All Good. With the
exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence,
we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to
individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our
extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions
of plenty. In our civil and political relations we have peace without and
tranquillity within our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with
unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources, and
whatever differences of opinion exist among us with regard to the mode and
the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of Heaven to the
improvement of our own condition, there is yet a spirit animating us all
which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in
vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with
unwearied hands to the advancement of the general good.
Of the subjects recommended to Congress at their last session, some were
then definitively acted upon. Others, left unfinished, but partly matured,
will recur to your attention without needing a renewal of notice from me.
The purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the
general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and the measures which
have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as
signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted.
In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have still the
happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding, qualified,
however, in several important instances by collisions of interest and by
unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which the
constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become
ultimately indispensable.
By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurred
contemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of Congress,
the United States have been deprived of a long tried, steady, and faithful
friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power and trained in the school
of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt,
that monarch from his youth had been taught to feel the force and value of
public opinion and to be sensible that the interests of his own Government
would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this
Republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal intercourse
with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments
between him and the Government of the US upon the affairs of Southern
America took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and
contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other
Governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later
recognizing the independence of our southern neighbors, of which the
example had by the United States already been set.
The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, the Emperor
Nicholas, and the United States have suffered some interruption by the
illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister residing here,
who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as
he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the
most satisfactory assurances that the sentiments of the reigning Emperor
toward the United States are altogether conformable to those which had so
long and constantly animated his imperial brother, and we have reason to
hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding
between the two nations which, founded in congenial interests, can not but
result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both.
Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by the operation
of the convention of 1822-06-24, with that nation, in a state of gradual
and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than
by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States
have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth as the rule of
commercial intercourse which they would universally prefer, that fair and
equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the
United States in the negotiation of that convention earnestly contended for
a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of
the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this
principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination
so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at the expiration of two
years from 1822-10-01, when the convention was to go into effect, unless a
notice of 6 months on either side should be given to the other that the
convention itself must terminate, those duties should be reduced 1/4, and
that this reducation should be yearly repeated, until all discrimination
should cease, while the convention itself should continue in force. By the
effect of this stipulation 3/4 of the discriminating duties which had been
levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports have
already been removed; and on the first of next October, should the
convention be still in force, the remaining 1/4 will be discontinued.
French vessels laden with French produce will be received in our ports on
the same terms as our own, and ours in return will enjoy the same
advantages in the ports of France.
By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only
has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly
dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will
continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United States.
It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add that the
claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the property
and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow citizens, and which
have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more promising train of
adjustment than at your last meeting; but their condition remains
unaltered.
With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment of
discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both sides.
The act of Congress of 1818-04-20, abolished all discriminating duties of
impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce of the Netherlands in the
ports of the United States upon the assurance given by the Government of
the Netherlands that all such duties operating against the shipping and
commerce of the United States in that Kingdom had been abolished. These
reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years when the
discriminating principle was resumed by the Netherlands in a new and
indirect form by a bounty of 10% in the shape of a return of duties to
their national vessels, and in which those of the United States are not
permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of 1824-01-07, all
discriminating duties in the United States were again suspended, so far as
related to the vessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the
reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the
United States in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the
event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the
shipping and commerce of the United States in any of the foreign countries
referred to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the
navigation of such foreign country should cease and all the provisions of
the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in the
United States should revive and be in full force with regard to that
nation.
In the correspondence with the Government of the Netherlands upon this
subject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping by
this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered a discriminating
duty; but it can not be denied that it produces all the same effects. Had
the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, such a bounty upon the
national vessels could scarcely have been granted consistent with good
faith. Yet as the act of Congress of 1824-01-07 has not expressly
authorized the Executive authority to determine what shall be considered as
a revival of discriminating duties by a foreign government to the
disadvantage of the United States, and as the retaliatory measure on our
part, however just and necessary, may tend rather to that conflict of
legislation which we deprecate than to that concert to which we invite all
commercial nations, as most conducive to their interest and our own, I have
thought it more consistent with the spirit of our institutions to refer to
the subject again to the paramount authority of the Legislature to decide
what measure the emergency may require than abruptly by proclamation to
carry into effect the minatory provisions of the act of 1824.
During the last session of Congress treaties of amity, navigation, and
commerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the Government of
Denmark, in Europe, and with the Federation of Central America, in this
hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutional sanction of the
Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were
accordingly ratified on the part of the US, and during the recess of
Congress have been also ratified by the other respective contracting
parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they have been
published by proclamations, copies of which are herewith communicated to
Congress.
These treaties have established between the contracting parties the
principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most liberal
extent, each party admitting the vessels of the other into its ports, laden
with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of the globe, upon
the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost that are chargeable
upon their own. They have further stipulated that the parties shall
hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to any other nation
which shall not upon the same terms be granted to each other, and that
neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise the produce or
manufacture of the other any other or higher duties than upon the like
articles being the produce or manufacture of any other country. To these
principles there is in the convention with Denmark an exception with regard
to the colonies of that Kingdom in the arctic seas, but none with regard to
her colonies in the West Indies.
In the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercial
treaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is in the
contemplation of the Swedish Government, and is believed to be desirable on
the part of the United States. It has been proposed by the King of Sweden
that pending the negotiation of renewal the expired treaty should be
mutually considered as still in force, a measure which will require the
sanction of Congress to be carried into effect on our part, and which I
therefore recommend to your consideration.
With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and, in general, all the European powers
between whom and the United States relations of friendly intercourse have
existed their condition has not materially varied since the last session of
Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of our commercial
intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britain in America.
Negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests have been
for several years in discussion between the two Governments, and on the
part of the United States have been invariably pursued in the spirit of
candor and conciliation. Interests of great magnitude and delicacy had been
adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818, while that of 1822, mediated
by the late Emperor Alexander, had promised a satisfactory compromise of
claims which the Government of the US, in justice to the rights of a
numerous class of their citizens, was bound to sustain.
But with regard to the commercial intercourse between the United States and
the British colonies in America, it has been hitherto found impracticable
to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory to both. The relative
geographical position and the respective products of nature cultivated by
human industry had constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse
between the United States and British America, insular and continental,
important to the inhabitants of both countries; but it had been interdicted
by Great Britain upon a principle heretofore practiced upon by the
colonizing nations of Europe, of holding the trade of their colonies each
in exclusive monopoly to herself.
After the termination of the late war this interdiction had been revived,
and the British Government declined including this portion of our
intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of the convention of
1815. The trade was then carried on exclusively in British vessels 'til the
act of Congress, concerning navigation, of 1818 and the supplemental act of
1820 met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the United
States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self defense,
were soon succeeded by an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports
to the vessels of the United States coming directly from them, and to the
importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened with
heavy duties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our
exports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels from the
colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act of
Parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made, and a
negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on our part that
a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of the
importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the two
countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimately bring the
parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied. With this view
the Government of the United States had determined to sacrifice something
of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial arrangements with
foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and to acquiesce in some
inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather than to forego the benefit
of a final and permanent adjustment of this interest to the satisfaction of
Great Britain herself. The negotiation, repeatedly suspended by accidental
circumstances, was, however, by mutual agreement and express assent,
considered as pending and to be speedily resumed.
In the mean time another act of Parliament, so doubtful and ambiguous in
its import as to have been misunderstood by the officers in the colonies
who were to carry it into execution, opens again certain colonial ports
upon new conditions and terms, with a threat to close them against any
nation which may not accept those terms as prescribed by the British
Government. This act, passed 1825-07, not communicated to the Government of
the US, not understood by the British officers of the customs in the
colonies where it was to be enforced, was never the less submitted to the
consideration of Congress at their last session. With the knowledge that a
negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress and pledges given of
its resumption at an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result
of that negotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import
of which was not clear and which the British authorities themselves in this
hemisphere were not prepared to explain.
Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress one of our most
distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructions which we
could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this long controverted
interest upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon his arrival, and
before he had delivered his letters of credence, he was bet by an order of
the British council excluding from and after the first of December now
current the vessels of the United States from all the colonial British
ports excepting those immediately bordering on our territories. In answer
to his expostulations upon a measure thus unexpected he is informed that
according to the ancient maxims of policy of European nations having
colonies their trade is an exclusive possession of the mother country; that
all participation in it by other nations is a boon or favor not forming a
subject of negotiation, but to be regulated by the legislative acts of the
power owning the colony; that the British Government therefore declines
negotiating concerning it, and that as the US did not forthwith accept
purely and simply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of 1825-07,
Great Britain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even
upon the terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of other
nations.
We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with
the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as a
mere favor received; that under every circumstance we have given an ample
equivalent. We have seen every other nation holding colonies negotiate with
other nations and grant them freely admission to the colonies by treaty,
and so far are the other colonizing nations of Europe now from refusing to
negotiate for trade with their colonies that we ourselves have secured
access to the colonies of more than one of them by treaty. The refusal,
however, of Great Britain to negotiate leaves to the United States no other
alternative than that of regulating or interdicting altogether the trade on
their part, according as either measure may effect the interests of our own
country, and with that exclusive object I would recommend the whole subject
to your calm and candid deliberations.
It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good
understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon
the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments. Our
north-eastern and north-western boundaries are still unadjusted. The
commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of Ghent have nearly come
to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the expectation,
enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their report to the
satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties. The commission for
liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the
close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success.
Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two
Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove
unsatisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are
all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong
reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not of
favors, which we neither as nor desire, but of equal reciprocity and good
will.
With the American Governments of this hemisphere we continue to maintain an
intercourse altogether friendly, and between their nations and ours that
commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is the source of mutual
comfort and harmony the result is in a continual state of improvement. The
war between Spain and them since the total expulsion of the Spanish
military force from their continental territories has been little more than
nominal, and their internal tranquillity, though occasionally menaced by
the agitations which civil wars never fail to leave behind them, has not
been affected by any serious calamity.
The congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembled at
Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at a more
favorable season in the neighborhood of Mexico. The decease of one of our
ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of the season,
which delayed the departure of the other, deprived United States of the
advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress. There
is, however, no reason to believe that any transactions of the congress
were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the United States
or to require the interposition of our ministers had they been present.
Their absence has, indeed, deprived United States of the opportunity of
possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which were
concluded at Panama; and the whole result has confirmed me in the
conviction of the expediency to the United States of being represented at
the congress. The surviving member of the mission, appointed during your
last session, has accordingly proceeded to his destination, and a successor
to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated to the
Senate. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the course of
the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary at Mexico
with the united states of that Confederacy, which will also be laid before
the Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification.
In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the
prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is that
they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the corresponding
period of the last year. The severe shock so extensively sustained by the
commercial and manufacturing interests in Great Britain has not been
without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. A reduced importation from
abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to the Treasury at
home. The net revenue of the present year will not equal that of the last,
and the receipts of that which is to come will fall short of those in the
current year. The diminution, however, is in part attributable to the
flourishing condition of some of our domestic manufactures, and so far is
compensated by an equivalent more profitable to the nation.
It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the deficiency in the
revenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations of the last year's
estimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the application of more
than $11M during the present year to the discharge of the principal and
interest of the debt, nor the reduction of upward of $7,000,000 of the
capital of the debt itself. The balance in the Treasury on the first of
January last was $5,201,650.43; the receipts from that time to the 30th of
September last were $19,585,932.50; the receipts of the current quarter,
estimated at $6,000,000, yield, with the sums already received, a revenue
of about $25,500,000 for the year; the expenditures for the first 3
quarters of the year have amounted to $18,714,226.66; the expenditures of
the current quarter are expected, including the $2,000,000 of the principal
of the debt to be paid, to balance the receipts; so that the expense of the
year, amounting to upward of $1,000,000 less than its income, will leave a
proportionally increased balance in the Treasury on 1827-01-01, over that
of the first of January last; instead of $5,200,000 there will be
$6,400,000.
The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commence of
the year 'til September 30 is estimated at $21,250,000, and the amount that
will probably accrue during the present quarter is estimated at $4,250,000,
making for the whole year $25,500,000, from which the draw-backs being
deducted will leave a clear revenue from the customs receivable in the year
1827 of about $20,400,000, which, with the sums to be received from the
proceeds of public lands, the bank dividends, and other incidental
receipts, will form an aggregate of about $23,000,000, a sum falling short
of the whole expenses of the present year little more than the portion of
those expenditures applied to the discharge of the public debt beyond the
annual appropriation of $10,000,000 by the act of 1817-03-03. At the
passage of that act the public debt amounted to $123,500,000. On the first
of January next it will be short of $74,000,000. In the lapse of these 10
years $50,000,000 of public debt, with the annual charge of upward of
$3,000,000 of interest upon them, have been extinguished. At the passage of
tat act, of the annual appropriation of $10,000,000, $7,000,000 were
absorbed in the payment of interest, and not more than $3,000,000 went to
reduce the capital of the debt. Of the same $10,000,000, at this time
scarcely $4,000,000 are applicable to the interest and upward of $6,000,000
are effective in melting down the capital.
Yet our experience has proved that a revenue consisting so largely of
imposts and tonnage ebbs and flows to an extraordinary extent, with all the
fluctuations incident to the general commerce of the world. It is within
our recollection that even in the compass of the same last 10 years the
receipts of the Treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year,
and that in two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans
to meet the engagements of the nation. The returning tides of the
succeeding years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun
to feel the vicissitude of a decline. To produce these alternations of
fullness and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful
seasons, the regulations of foreign governments, political revolutions, the
prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures, commercial speculations,
and many other causes, not always to be traced, variously combine.
We have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing periods of
from two to three years. The last period of depression to United States was
from 1819 to 1822. The corresponding revival was from 1823 to the
commencement of the present year. Still, we have no cause to apprehend a
depression comparable to that of the former period, or even to anticipate a
deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to apply the annual $10M to
the reduction of the debt. It is well for us, however, to be admonished of
the necessity of abiding by the maxims of the most vigilant economy, and of
resorting to all honorable and useful expedients for pursuing with steady
and inflexible perseverance the total discharge of the debt.
Besides the $7,000,000 of the loans of 1813 which will have been discharged
in the course of the present year, there are $9,000,000 which by the terms
of the contracts would have been and are now redeemable. $13,000,000 more
of the loan of 1814 will become redeemable from and after the expiration of
the present month, and $9,000,000 other from and after the close of the
ensuing year. They constitute a mass of $31,000,000, all bearing an
interest of 6%, more than $20,000,000 of which will be immediately
redeemable, and the rest within little more than a year. Leaving of this
amount $15,000,000 to continue at the interest of 6%, but to be paid off as
far as shall be found practicable in the years 1827 and 1828, there is
scarcely a doubt that the remaining $16,000,000 might within a few months
be discharged by a loan at not exceeding 5%, redeemable in the years 1829
and 1830. By this operation a sum of nearly $500,000 may be saved to the
nation, and the discharge of the whole $31,000,000 within the 4 years may
be greatly facilitated if not wholly accomplished.
By an act of Congress of 1835-03-03, a loan for the purpose now referred
to, or a subscription to stock, was authorized, at an interest not
exceeding 4.5%. But at that time so large a portion of the floating capital
of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations and so little was
left for investment in the stocks that the measure was but partially
successful. At the last session of Congress the condition of the funds was
still unpropitious to the measure; but the change so soon afterwards
occurred that, had the authority existed to redeem the $9M now redeemable
by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5%, it is morally certain that it
might have been effected, and with it a yearly saving of $90,000.
With regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts, certain
occurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two of our
principal ports, which engaged the attention of Congress at their last
session and may hereafter require further consideration. Until within a
very few years the execution of the laws for raising the revenue, like that
of all our other laws, has been insured more by the moral sense of the
community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution or by penal sanction.
Confiding in the exemplary punctuality and unsullied integrity of our
importing merchants, a gradual relaxation from the provisions of the
collection laws, a close adherence to which have caused inconvenience and
expense to them, had long become habitual, and indulgences had been
extended universally because they had never been abused. It may be worthy
of your serious consideration whether some further legislative provision
may not be necessary to come in aid of this state of unguarded security.
From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and of the
Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will be discovered the
present condition and administration of our military establishment on the
land and on the sea. The organization of the Army having undergone no
change since its reduction to the present peace establishment in 1821, it
remains only to observe that it is yet found adequate to all the purposes
for which a permanent armed force in time of peace can be needed or useful.
It may be proper to add that, from a difference of opinion between the late
President of the United States and the Senate with regard to the
construction of the act of Congress of 1821-03-02, to reduce and fix the
military peace establishment of the US, it remains hitherto so far without
execution that no colonel has been appointed to command one of the
regiments of artillery. A supplementary or explanatory act of the
Legislature appears to be the only expedient practicable for removing the
difficulty of this appointment.
In a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere military
establishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the duties
devolving upon the administration of the Department of War. It will be seen
by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army that every
branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, and discipline;
that from the commanding general through all the gradations of
superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens before
they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army must consist in
the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and of patriotism, by which
it is impelled. It may be confidently stated that the moral character of
the Army is in a state of continual improvement, and that all the
arrangements for the disposal of its parts have a constant reference to
that end.
But to the War Department are attributed other duties, having, indeed,
relation to a future possible condition of war, but being purely defensive,
and in their tendency contributing rather to the security and permanency of
peace -- the erection of the fortifications provided for by Congress, and
adapted to secure our shores from hostile invasion; the distribution of the
fund of public gratitude and justice to the pensioners of the Revolutionary
war; the maintenance of our relations of peace and protection with the
Indian tribes, and the internal improvements and surveys for the location
of roads and canals, which during the last 3 sessions of Congress have
engaged so much of their attention, and may engross so large a share of
their future benefactions to our country.
By the act of 1824-04-30, suggested and approved by my predecessor, the sum
of $30K was appropriated for the purpose of causing to be made the
necessary surveys, plans, and estimates of the routes of such roads and
canals as the President of the United States might deem of national
importance in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the
transportation of the public mail. The surveys, plans, and estimates for
each, when completed, will be laid before Congress.
In execution of this act a board of engineers was immediately instituted,
and have been since most assiduously and constantly occupied in carrying it
into effect. The first object to which their labors were directed, by order
of the late President, was the examination of the country between the tide
waters of the Potomac, the Ohio, and Lake Erie, to ascertain the
practicability of a communication between them, to designate the most
suitable route for the same, and to form plans and estimates in detail of
the expense of execution.
On 1825-02-03, they made their first report, which was immediately
communicated to Congress, and in which they declared that having maturely
considered the circumstances observed by them personally, and carefully
studied the results of such of the preliminary surveys as were then
completed, they were decidedly of opinion that the communication was
practicable.
At the last session of Congress, before the board of engineers were enabled
to make up their second report containing a general plan and preparatory
estimate for the work, the Committee of the House of Representatives upon
Roads and Canals closed the session with a report expressing the hope that
the plan and estimate of the board of engineers might at this time be
prepared, and that the subject be referred to the early and favorable
consideration of Congress at their present session. That expected report of
the board of engineers is prepared, and will forthwith be laid before you.
Under the resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to have
prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system of exercise and
instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militia of the US, to be
reported to Congress at the present session, a board of distinguished
officers of the Army and of the militia has been convened, whose report
will be submitted to you with that of the Secretary of War. The occasion
was thought favorable for consulting the same board, aided by the results
of a correspondence with the governors of the several States and
Territories and other citizens of intelligence and experience, upon the
acknowledged defective condition of our militia system, and of the
improvements of which it is susceptible. The report of the board upon this
subject is also submitted for your consideration.
In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of $5M will
be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the Department of War.
Less than 2/5 of this will be applicable to the maintenance and support of
the Army. $1,500,000, in the form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate
tribute to the services and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than
equal sum invested in fortifications, or for the preparations of internal
improvement, provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of
the ages to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate
remnants of another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to
exist in the presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a
magnitude burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their
equivalents in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from
engagements more burdensome than debt.
In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department will
present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000M. About half of these,
however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual service, and
half constitutes a fund of national property, the pledge of our future
glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year after the close of the
late war, and when the burden of its expenses and charges was weighing
heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the act of 1816-04-29,
appropriated $1,000,000 annually for 8 years to the *gradual increase of
the Navy*. At a subsequent period this annual appropriation was reduced to
$0,500,000 for 6 years, of which the present year is the last. A yet more
recent appropriation the last two years, for building 10 sloops of war, has
nearly restored the original appropriation of 1816 of $1,000,000 for every
year.
The result is before United States all. We have 12 line-of-battle ships, 20
frigates, and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a few months
preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications along the whole
range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to set foot
upon our shores. Combining with a system of fortifications upon the shores
themselves, commenced about the same time under the auspices of my
immediate predecessor, and hitherto systematically pursued, it has placed
in our possession the most effective sinews of war and has left us at once
an example and a lesson from which our own duties may be inferred.
The gradual increase of the Navy was the principle of which the act of
1816-04-29, was the first development. It was the introduction of a system
to act upon the character and history of our country for an indefinite
series of ages. It was a declaration of that Congress to their constituents
and to posterity that it was the destiny and the duty of these confederated
States to become in regular process of time and by no petty advances a
great naval power. That which they proposed to accomplish in 8 years is
rather to be considered as the measure of their means that the limitation
of their design. They looked forward for a term of years sufficient for the
accomplishment of a definite portion of their purpose, and they left to
their successors to fill up the canvas of which they had traced the large
and prophetic outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in
contemplation will be shortly completed. The time which they had allotted
for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for
your consideration how their successors may contribute their portion of
toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradual
increase of our Navy.
There is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powers of
the Federal Government which has given more general satisfaction to the
people of the Union than this. The system has not been thus vigorously
introduced and hitherto sustained to be now departed from or abandoned. In
continuing to provide for the gradual increase of the Navy it may not be
necessary or expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our
ships; but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly
appropriation of $0.5M to the same objects, it may be profitably expended
in a providing a supply of timber to be seasoned and other materials for
future use in the construction of docks or in laying the foundations of a
school for naval education, as to the wisdom of Congress either of those
measures may appear to claim the preference.
Of the small portions of this Navy engaged in actual service during the
peace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean, in
the West India seas, and in the Mediterranean, to which has been added a
small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of South America. In all they
have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributed to make our
country advantageously known to foreign nations, have honorably employed
multitudes of our sea men in the service of their country, and have inured
numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and
of nautical experience and skill.
The piracies with which the West India seas were for several years infested
have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean they have increased
in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the continued presence
of our squadron would probably have been distressing to our own.
The war which has unfortunately broken out between the Republic of Buenos
Ayres and the Brazilian Government has given rise to very great
irregularities among the naval officers of the latter, by whom principles
in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have been brought
forward to which we can not subscribe and which our own commanders have
found it necessary to resist. From the friendly disposition toward the
United States constantly manifested by the Emperor of Brazil, and the very
useful and friendly commercial intercourse between the United States and
his dominions, we have reason to believe that the just reparation demanded
for the injuries sustained by several of our citizens from some of his
officers will not be withheld. Abstracts from the recent dispatches of the
commanders of our several squadrons are communicated with the report of the
Secretary of the Navy to Congress.
A report from the PostMaster General is likewise communicated, presenting
in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous, efficient, and
economical administration of that Department. The revenue of the office,
even of the year including the latter half of 1824 and the first half of
1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more than $45,000. That of
the succeeding year has been still more productive. The increase of the
receipts in the year preceding the first of July last over that of the year
before exceeds $136,000, and the excess of the receipts over the
expenditures of the year has swollen from $45,000 to yearly $80,000.
During the same period contracts for additional transportation of the mail
in stages for about 260,000 miles have been made, and for 70,000 miles
annually on horse back. 714 new post offices have been established within
the year, and the increase of revenue within the last 3 years, as well as
the augmentation of the transportation by mail, is more than equal to the
whole amount of receipts and of mail conveyance at the commencement of the
present century, when the seat of the General Government was removed to
this place. When we reflect that the objects effected by the transportation
of the mail are among the choicest comforts and enjoyments of social life,
it is pleasing to observe that the dissemination of them to every corner of
our country has out- stripped in their increase even the rapid march of our
population.
By the treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Louisiana and
the Floridas to the United States, provision was made for the security of
land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some progress
has been made under the authority of various acts of Congress in the
ascertainment and establishment of those titles, but claims to a very large
extent remain unadjusted. The public faith no less than the just rights of
individuals and the interest of the community itself appears to require
further provision for the speedy settlement of those claims, which I
therefore recommend to the care and attention of the Legislature.
In conformity with the provisions of the act of 1825-05-20, to provide for
erecting a penitentiary in the District of Columbia, and for other
purposes, 3 commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection
of a penitentiary for the District, and also a site in the county of
Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been effected. The
building of the penitentiary has been commenced, and is in such a degree of
forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of
the next Congress. This consideration points to the expediency of maturing
at the present session a system for the regulation and government of the
penitentiary, and of defining a system for the regulation and government of
the penitentiary, and of defining the class of offenses which shall be
punishable by confinement in this edifice.
In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed
inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled
to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period
of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present
existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since
your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our
independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on
that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned
to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the
sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the
principal actors in that solemn scene -- the hand that penned the ever
memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate -- were by
one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before
the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed
cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the
inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example.
If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast
of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime
is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same
lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day
marked with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of
man-kind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and
sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon
their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of
transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were
sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were
ascending to the bosom of their God! JOHN QUNICY ADAMS
***
State of the Union Address
John Quincy Adams
December 4, 1827
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
A revolution of the seasons has nearly been completed since the
representatives of the people and States of this Union were last assembled
at this place to deliberate and to act upon the common important interests
of their constituents. In that interval the never slumbering eye of a wise
and beneficent Providence has continued its guardian care over the welfare
of our beloved country; the blessing of health has continued generally to
prevail throughout the land; the blessing of peace with our brethren of the
human race has been enjoyed without interruption; internal quiet has left
our fellow citizens in the full enjoyment of all their rights and in the
free exercise of all their faculties, to pursue the impulse of their nature
and the obligation of their duty in the improvement of their own condition;
the productions of the soil, the exchanges of commerce, the vivifying
labors of human industry, have combined to mingle in our cup a portion of
enjoyment as large and liberal as the indulgence of Heaven has perhaps ever
granted to the imperfect state of man upon earth; and as the purest of
human felicity consists in its participation with others, it is no small
addition to the sum of our national happiness at this time that peace and
prosperity prevail to a degree seldom experienced over the whole habitable
globe, presenting, though as yet with painful exceptions, a foretaste of
that blessed period of promise when the lion shall lie down with the lamb
and wars shall be no more.
To preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct in
their most effective channels the streams which contribute to the public
weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted. Objects of deep
importance to the welfare of the Union are constantly recurring to demand
the attention of the Federal Legislature, and they call with accumulated
interest at the first meeting of the two Houses after their periodical
renovation. To present to their consideration from time to time subjects in
which the interests of the nation are most deeply involved, and for the
regulation of which the legislative will is alone competent, is a duty
prescribed by the Constitution, to the performance of which the first
meeting of the new Congress is a period eminently appropriate, and which it
is now my purpose to discharge.
Our relations of friendship with the other nations of the earth, political
and commercial, have been preserved unimpaired, and the opportunities to
improve them have been cultivated with anxious and unremitting attention. A
negotiation upon subjects of high and delicate interest with the Government
of Great Britain has terminated in the adjustment of some of the questions
at issue upon satisfactory terms and the postponement of others for future
discussion and agreement.
The purposes of the convention concluded at St. Petersburg on 1822-07-12,
under the mediation of the late Emperor Alexander, have been carried into
effect by a subsequent convention, concluded at London on 1826-11-13, the
ratifications of which were exchanged at that place on 1827-02-06. A copy
of the proclamations issued on 1827-03-19, publishing this convention, is
herewith communicated to Congress. The sum of $1,204,960, therein
stipulated to be paid to the claimants of indemnity under the first article
of the treaty of Ghent, has been duly received, and the commission
instituted, comformably to the act of Congress of 1827-03-02, for the
distribution of the indemnity of the persons entitled to receive it are now
in session and approaching the consummation of their labors. This final
disposal of one of the most painful topics of collision between the United
States and Great Britain not only affords an occasion of gratulation to
ourselves, but has had the happiest effect in promoting a friendly
disposition and in softening asperities upon other objects of discussion;
nor ought it to pass without the tribute of a frank and cordial
acknowledgment of the magnanimity with which an honorable nation, by the
reparation of their own wrongs, achieves a triumph more glorious than any
field of blood can ever bestow.
The conventions of 1815-07-03, and of 1818-10-20, will expire by their own
limitation on 1828-10-20. These have regulated the direct commercial
intercourse between the United States and Great Britain upon terms of the
most perfect reciprocity; and they effected a temporary compromise of the
respective rights and claims to territory westward of the Rocky Mountains.
These arrangements have been continued for an indefinite period of time
after the expiration of the above mentioned conventions, leaving each party
the liberty of terminating them by giving twelve months' notice to the
other.
The radical principle of all commercial intercourse between independent
nations is the mutual interest of both parties. It is the vital spirit of
trade itself; nor can it be reconciled to the nature of man or to the
primary laws of human society that any traffic should long be willingly
pursued of which all the advantages are on one side and all the burdens on
the other. Treaties of commerce have been found by experience to be among
the most effective instruments for promoting peace and harmony between
nations whose interests, exclusively considered on either side, are brought
into frequent collisions by competition. In framing such treaties it is the
duty of each party not simply to urge with unyielding pertinacity that
which suits its own interest, but to concede liberally to that which is
adapted to the interest of the other.
To accomplish this, little more is generally required than a simple
observance of the rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for the states-
men of 1 nation by stratagem and management to obtain from the weakness or
ignorance of another an over-reaching treaty, such a compact would prove an
incentive to war rather than a bond of peace.
Our conventions with Great Britain are founded upon the principles of
reciprocity. The commercial intercourse between the two countries is
greater in magnitude and amount than between any two other nations on the
globe. It is for all purposes of benefit or advantage to both as precious,
and in all probability far more extensive, than if the parties were still
constituent parts of one and the same nation. Treaties between such States,
regulating the intercourse of peace between them and adjusting interests of
such transcendent importance to both, which have been found in a long
experience of years mutually advantageous, should not be lightly cancelled
or discontinued. Two conventions for continuing in force those above
mentioned have been concluded between the plenipotentiaries of the two
Governments on 1827-08-06, and will be forthwith laid before the Senate for
the exercise of their constitutional authority concerning them.
In the execution of the treaties of peace of 1782-11 and 1783-09, between
the United States and Great Britain, and which terminated the war of our
independence, a line of boundary was drawn as the demarcation of territory
between the two countries, extending over nearly 20 degrees of latitude,
and ranging over seas, lakes, and mountains, then very imperfectly explored
and scarcely opened to the geographical knowledge of the age. In the
progress of discovery and settlement by both parties since that time
several questions of boundary between their respective territories have
arisen, which have been found of exceedingly difficult adjustment.
At the close of the last war with Great Britain four of these questions
pressed themselves upon the consideration of the negotiators of the treaty
of Ghent, but without the means of concluding a definitive arrangement
concerning them. They were referred to three separate commissions
consisting, of two commissioners, one appointed by each party, to examine
and decide upon their respective claims. In the event of a disagreement
between the commissioners, one appointed by each party, to examine and
decide upon their respective claims. In the event of a disagreement between
the commissioners it was provided that they should make reports to their
several Governments, and that the reports should finally be referred to the
decision of a sovereign the common friend of both.
Of these commissions two have already terminated their sessions and
investigations, one by entire and the other by partial agreement. The
commissioners of the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent have finally
disagreed, and made their conflicting reports to their own Governments. But
from these reports a great difficulty has occurred in making up a question
to be decided by the arbitrator. This purpose has, however, been effected
by a 4th convention, concluded at London by the plenipotentiaries of the
two Governments on 1827-09-29. It will be submitted, together with the
others, to the consideration of the Senate.
While these questions have been pending incidents have occurred of
conflicting pretensions and of dangerous character upon the territory
itself in dispute between the two nations. By a common understanding
between the Governments it was agreed that no exercise of exclusive
jurisdiction by either party while the negotiation was pending should
change the state of the question of right to be definitively settled. Such
collision has, never the less, recently taken place by occurrences the
precise character of which has not yet been ascertained. A communication
from the governor of the State of Maine, with accompanying documents, and a
correspondence between the Secretary of State and the minister of Great
Britain on this subject are now communicated. Measures have been taken to
ascertain the state of the facts more correctly by the employment of a
special agent to visit the spot where the alleged outrages have occurred,
the result of those inquiries, when received, will be transmitted to
Congress.
While so many of the subjects of high interest to the friendly relations
between the two countries have been so far adjusted, it is a matter of
regret that their views respecting the commercial intercourse between the
United States and the British colonial possessions have not equally
approximated to a friendly agreement.
At the commencement of the last session of Congress they were informed of
the sudden and unexpected exclusion by the British Government of access in
vessels of the United States to all their colonial ports except those
immediately bordering upon our own territories. In the amicable discussions
which have succeeded the adoption of this measure which, as it affected
harshly the interests of the United States, became subject of expostulation
on our part, the principles upon which its justification has been placed
have been of a diversified character. It has been at once ascribed to a
mere recurrence to the old, long established principle of colonial monopoly
and at the same time to a feeling of resentment because the offers of an
act of Parliament opening the colonial ports upon certain conditions had
not been grasped at with sufficient eagerness by an instantaneous
conformity to them.
At a subsequent period it has been intimated that the new exclusion was in
resentment because a prior act of Parliament, of 1822, opening certain
colonial ports, under heavy and burdensome restrictions, to vessels of the
United States, had not been reciprocated by an admission of British vessels
from the colonies, and their cargoes, without any restriction or
discrimination what ever. But be the motive for the interdiction what it
may, the British Government have manifested no disposition, either by
negotiation or by corresponding legislative enactments, to recede from it,
and we have been given distinctly to understand that neither of the bills
which were under the consideration of Congress at their last session would
have been deemed sufficient in their concessions to have been rewarded by
any relaxation from the British interdict. It is one of the inconveniences
inseparably connected with the attempt to adjust by reciprocal legislation
interests of this nature that neither party can know what would be
satisfactory to the other, and that after enacting a statute for the avowed
and sincere purpose of conciliation it will generally be found utterly
inadequate to the expectation of the other party, and will terminate in
mutual disappointment.
The session of Congress having terminated without any act upon the subject,
a proclamation was issued on 1827-03-17, conformably to the provisions of
the 6th section of the act of 1823-03-01 declaring the fact that the trade
and intercourse authorized by the British act of Parliament of 1822-06-24,
between the United States and the British enumerated colonial ports had
been by the subsequent acts of Parliament of 1825-07-05, and the order of
council of 1826-07-27 prohibited. The effect of this proclamation, by the
terms of the act under which it was issued, has been that each and every
provision of the act concerning navigation of 1818-04-18, and of the act
supplementary thereto of 1820-05-15, revived and is in full force.
Such, then is the present condition of the trade that, useful as it is to
both parties it can, with a single momentary exception, be carried on
directly by the vessels of neither. That exception itself is found in a
proclamation of the governor of the island of St. Christopher and of the
Virgin Islands, inviting for 3 months from 1827-08-28 the importation of
the articles of the produce of the United States which constitute their
export portion of this trade in the vessels of all nations.
That period having already expired, the state of mutual interdiction has
again taken place. The British Government have not only declined
negotiation upon this subject, but by the principle they have assumed with
reference to it have precluded even the means of negotiation. It becomes
not the self respect of the United States either to solicit gratuitous
favors or to accept as the grant of a favor that for which an ample
equivalent is exacted. It remains to be determined by the respective
Governments whether the trade shall be opened by acts of reciprocal
legislation. It is, in the mean time, satisfactory to know that apart from
the inconvenience resulting from a disturbance of the usual channels of
trade no loss has been sustained by the commerce, the navigation, or the
revenue of the United States, and none of magnitude is to be apprehended
from this existing state of mutual interdict.
With the other maritime and commercial nations of Europe our intercourse
continues with little variation. Since the cessation by the convention of
1822-06-24, of all discriminating duties upon the vessels of the United
States and of France in either country our trade with that nation has
increased and is increasing. A disposition on the part of France has been
manifested to renew that negotiation, and in acceding to the proposal we
have expressed the wish that it might be extended to other subjects upon
which a good understanding between the parties would be beneficial to the
interests of both.
The origin of the political relations between the United States and France
is coeval with the first years of our independence. The memory of it is
interwoven with that of our arduous struggle for national existence.
Weakened as it has occasionally been since that time, it can by us never be
forgotten, and we should hail with exultation the moment which should
indicate a recollection equally friendly in spirit on the part of France.
A fresh effort has recently been made by the minister of the United States
residing at Paris to obtain a consideration of the just claims of citizens
of the United States to the reparation of wrongs long since committed, many
of them frankly acknowledged and all of them entitled upon every principle
of justice to a candid examination. The proposal last made to the French
Government has been to refer the subject which has formed an obstacle to
this consideration to the determination of a sovereign the common friend of
both. To this offer no definitive answer has yet been received, but the
gallant and honorable spirit which has at all times been the pride and
glory of France will not ultimately permit the demands of innocent
sufferers to be extinguished in the mere consciousness of the power to
reject them.
A new treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has been concluded with the
Kingdom of Sweden, which will be submitted to the Senate for their advice
with regard to its ratification. At a more recent date a minister
plenipotentiary from the Hanseatic Republics of Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen
has been received, charged with a special mission for the negotiation of a
treaty of amity and commerce between that ancient and renowned league and
the United States. This negotiation has accordingly been commenced, and is
now in progress, the result of which will, if successful, be also submitted
to the Senate for their consideration.
Since the accession of the Emperor Nicholas to the imperial throne of all
the Russias the friendly dispositions toward the United States so
constantly manifested by his predecessor have continued unabated, and have
been recently testified by the appointment of a minister plenipotentiary to
reside at this place. From the interest taken by this Sovereign in behalf
of the suffering Greeks and from the spirit with which others of the great
European powers are cooperating with him the friends of freedom and of
humanity may indulge the hope that they will obtain relief from that most
unequal of conflicts which they have so long and so gallantly sustained;
that they will enjoy the blessing of self government, which by their
sufferings in the cause of liberty they have richly earned, and that their
independence will be secured by those liberal institutions of which their
country furnished the earliest examples in the history of man-kind, and
which have consecrated to immortal remembrance the very soil for which they
are now again profusely pouring forth their blood. The sympathies which the
people and Government of the United States have so warmly indulged with
their cause have been acknowledged by their Government in a letter of
thanks, which I have received from their illustrious President, a
translation of which is now communicated to Congress, the representatives
of that nation to whom this tribute of gratitude was intended to be paid,
and to whom it was justly due.
In the American hemisphere the cause of freedom and independence has
continued to prevail, and if signalized by none of those splendid triumphs
which had crowned with glory some of the preceding years it has only been
from the banishment of all external force against which the struggle had
been maintained. The shout of victory has been superseded by the expulsion
of the enemy over whom it could have been achieved.
Our friendly wishes and cordial good will, which have constantly followed
the southern nations of America in all the vicissitudes of their war of
independence, are succeeded by a solicitude equally ardent and cordial that
by the wisdom and purity of their institutions they may secure to
themselves the choicest blessings of social order and the best rewards of
virtuous liberty. Disclaiming alike all right and all intention of
interfering in those concerns which it is the prerogative of their
independence to regulate as to them shall seem fit, we hail with joy every
indication of their prosperity, of their harmony, of their persevering and
inflexible homage to those principles of freedom and of equal rights which
are alone suited to the genius and temper of the American nations.
It has been, therefore, with some concern that we have observed indications
of intestine divisions in some of the Republics of the south, and
appearances of less union with one another than we believe to be the
interest of all. Among the results of this state of things has been that
the treaties concluded at Panama do not appear to have been ratified by the
contracting parties, and that the meeting of the congress at Tacubaya has
been indefinitely postponed. In accepting the invitations to be represented
at this congress, while a manifestation was intended on the part of the
United States of the most friendly disposition toward the southern
Republics by whom it had been proposed, it was hoped that it would furnish
an opportunity for bringing all the nations of this hemisphere to the
common acknowledgment and adoption of the principles in the regulation of
their internal relations which would have secured a lasting peace and
harmony between them and have promoted the cause of mutual benevolence
throughout the globe. But as obstacles appear to have arisen to the
reassembling of the congress, one of the 2 ministers commissioned on the
part of the United States has returned to the bosom of his country, while
the minister charged with the ordinary mission to Mexico remains authorized
to attend the conferences of the congress when ever they may be resumed.
A hope was for a short time entertained that a treaty of peace actually
signed between the Government of Buenos Ayres and of Brazil would supersede
all further occasion for those collisions between belligerent pretensions
and neutral rights which are so commonly the result of maritime war, and
which have unfortunately disturbed the harmony of the relations between the
United States and the Brazilian Governments. At their last session Congress
were informed that some of the naval officers of that Empire had advanced
and practiced upon principles in relation to blockades and to neutral
navigation which we could not sanction, and which our commanders found it
necessary to resist. It appears that they have not been sustained by the
Government of Brazil itself. Some of the vessels captured under the assumed
authority of these erroneous principles have been restored, and we trust
that our just expectations will be realized that adequate indemnity will be
made to all the citizens of the United States who have suffered by the
unwarranted captures which the Brazilian tribunals themselves have
pronounced unlawful.
In the diplomatic discussions at Rio de Janeiro of these wrongs sustained
by citizens of the United States and of others which seemed as if emanating
immediately from that Government itself the charge' d'affaires of the
United States, under an impression that his representations in behalf of
the rights and interests of his country-men were totally disregarded and
useless, deemed it his duty, without waiting for instructions, to terminate
his official functions, to demand his pass- ports, and return to the United
States. This movement, dictated by an honest zeal for the honor and
interests of his country -- motives which operated exclusively on the mind
of the officer who resorted to it -- has not been disapproved by me.
The Brazilian Government, however, complained of it as a measure for which
no adequate intentional cause had been given by them, and upon an explicit
assurance through their charge' d'affaires residing here that a successor
to the late representative of the United States near that Government, the
appointment of whom they desired, should be received and treated with the
respect due to his character, and that indemnity should be promptly made
for all injuries inflicted on citizens of the United States or their
property contrary to the laws of nations, a temporary commission as charge'
d'affaires to that country has been issued, which it is hopes will entirely
restore the ordinary diplomatic intercourse between the 2 Governments and
the friendly relations between their respective nations.
Turning from the momentous concerns of our Union in its intercourse with
foreign nations to those of the deepest interest in the administration of
our internal affairs, we find the revenues of the present year
corresponding as nearly as might be expected with the anticipations of the
last, and presenting an aspect still more favorable in the promise of the
next.
The balance in the Treasury on 1827-01-01 was $6,358,686.18. The receipts
from that day to 1827-09-30, as near as the returns of them yet received
can show, amount to $16,886,581.32. The receipts of the present quarter,
estimated at $4,515,000, added to the above form an aggregate of
$21,400,000 of receipts.
The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to $22,300,000 presenting a
small excess over the receipts. But of these $22,000,000, upward of
$6,000,000 have been applied to the discharge of the principal of the
public debt, the whole amount of which, approaching $74,000,000 on
1827-01-01, will on 1828-01-01 fall short of $67,500,000. The balance in
the Treasury on 1828-01-01 it is expected will exceed $5,450,000, a sum
exceeding that of 1825-01-01, though falling short of that exhibited on
1827-01-01.
It was foreseen that the revenue of the present year 1827 would not equal
that of the last, which had itself been less than that of the next
preceding year. But the hope has been realized which was entertained, that
these deficiencies would in no wise interrupt the steady operation of the
discharge of the public debt by the annual $10,000,000 devoted to that
object by the act of 1817-03-03.
The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commencement
of the year until 1827-09-30 is $21,226,000, and the probably amount of
that which will be secured during the remainder of the year is $5,774,000,
forming a sum total of $27,000,000. With the allowances for draw-backs and
contingent deficiencies which may occur, though not specifically foreseen,
we may safely estimate the receipts of the ensuing year at $22,300,000 -- a
revenue for the next equal to the expenditure of the present year.
The deep solicitude felt by our citizens of all classes throughout the
Union for the total discharge of the public debt will apologize for the
earnestness with which I deem it my duty to urge this topic upon the
consideration of Congress -- of recommending to them again the observance
of the strictest economy in the application of the public funds. The
depression upon the receipts of the revenue which had commenced with the
year 1826 continued with increased severity during the two first quarters
of the present year.
The returning tide began to flow with the third quarter, and, so far as we
can judge from experience, may be expected to continue through the course
of the ensuing year. In the mean time an alleviation from the burden of the
public debt will in the three years have been effected to the amount of
nearly $16,000,000, and the charge of annual interest will have been
reduced upward of $1,000,000. But among the maxims of political economy
which the stewards of the public moneys should never suffer without urgent
necessity to be transcended is that of keeping the expenditures of the year
within the limits of its receipts.
The appropriations of the two last years, including the yearly $10,000,000
of the sinking fund, have each equaled the promised revenue of the ensuing
year. While we foresee with confidence that the public coffers will be
replenished from the receipts as fast as they will be drained by the
expenditures, equal in amount to those of the current year, it should not
be forgotten that they could ill suffer the exhaustion of larger
disbursements.
The condition of the Army and of all the branches of the public service
under the superintendence of the Secretary of War will be seen by the
report from that officer and the documents with which it is accompanied.
During the last summer a detachment of the Army has been usefully and
successfully called to perform their appropriate duties. At the moment when
the commissioners appointed for carrying into execution certain provisions
of the treaty of 1825-08-19, with various tribes of the NorthWestern
Indians were about to arrive at the appointed place of meeting the
unprovoked murder of several citizens and other acts of unequivocal
hostility committed by a party of the Winnebago tribe, one of those
associated in the treaty, followed by indications of a menacing character
among other tribes of the same region, rendered necessary an immediate
display of the defensive and protective force of the Union in that
quarter.
It was accordingly exhibited by the immediate and concerted movements of
the governors of the State of Illinois and of the Territory of Michigan,
and competent levies of militia, under their authority, with a corps of 700
men of United States troops, under the command of General Atkinson, who, at
the call of Governor Cass, immediately repaired to the scene of danger from
their station at St. Louis. Their presence dispelled the alarms of our
fellow citizens on those disorders, and overawed the hostile purposes of
the Indians. The perpetrators of the murders were surrendered to the
authority and operation of our laws, and every appearance of purposed
hostility from those Indian tribes has subsided.
Although the present organization of the Army and the administration of its
various branches of service are, upon the whole, satisfactory, they are yet
susceptible of much improvement in particulars, some of which have been
heretofore submitted to the consideration of Congress, and others are now
first presented in the report of the Secretary of War.
The expediency of providing for additional numbers of officers in the two
corps of engineers will in some degree depend upon the number and extent of
the objects of national importance upon which Congress may think it proper
that surveys should be made conformably to the act of 1824-04-30. Of the
surveys which before the last session of Congress had been made under the
authority of that act, reports were made -- Of the Board of Internal
Improvement, on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. On the continuation of the
national road from Cumberland to the tide waters within the District of
Columbia. On the continuation of the national road from Canton to
Zanesville. On the location of the national road from Zanesville to
Columbus. On the continuation of the same to the seat of government in
Missouri. On a post road from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Of a survey of
Kennebec River (in part). On a national road from Washington to Buffalo. On
the survey of Saugatuck Harbor and River. On a canal from Lake
PontChartrain to the Mississippi River. On surveys at Edgartown,
Newburyport, and Hyannis Harbor. On survey of La Plaisance Bay, in the
Territory of Michigan. And reports are now prepared and will be submitted
to Congress -- On surveys of the peninsula of Florida, to ascertain the
practicability of a canal to connect the waters of the Atlantic with the
Gulf of Mexico across that peninsula; and also of the country between the
bays of Mobile and of Pensacola, with the view of connecting them together
by a canal. On surveys of a route for a canal to connect the waters of
James and Great Kenhawa rivers. On the survey of the Swash, in Pamlico
Sound, and that of Cape Fear, below the town of Wilmington, in North
Carolina. On the survey of the Muscle Shoals, in the Tennessee River, and
for a route for a contemplated communication between the Hiwassee and Coosa
rivers, in the State of Alabama. Other reports of surveys upon objects
pointed out by the several acts of Congress of the last and preceding
sessions are in the progress of preparation, and most of them may be
completed before the close of this session. All the officers of both corps
of engineers, with several other persons duly qualified, have been
constantly employed upon these services from the passage of the act of
1824-04-30, to this time.
Were no other advantage to accrue to the country from their labors than the
fund of topographical knowledge which they have collected and communicated,
that alone would have been a profit to the Union more than adequate to all
the expenditures which have been devoted to the object; but the
appropriations for the repair and continuation of the Cumberland road, for
the construction of various other roads, for the removal of obstructions
from the rivers and harbors, for the erection of light houses, beacons,
piers, and buoys, and for the completion of canals undertaken by individual
associations, but needing the assistance of means and resources more
comprehensive than individual enterprise can command, may be considered
rather as treasures laid up from the contributions of the present age for
the benefit of posterity than as unrequited applications of the accruing
revenues of the nation.
To such objects of permanent improvement to the condition of the country,
of real addition to the wealth as well as to the comfort of the people by
whose authority and resources they have been effected, from $3,000,000 to
$4,000,000 of the annual income of the nation have, by laws enacted at the
three most recent sessions of Congress, been applied, without intrenching
upon the necessities of the Treasury, without adding a dollar to the taxes
or debts of the community, without suspending even the steady and regular
discharge of the debts contracted in former days, which within the same
three years have been diminished by the amount of nearly $16,000,000.
The same observations are in a great degree applicable to the
appropriations made for fortifications upon the coasts and harbors of the
United States, for the maintenance of the Military Academy at West Point,
and for the various objects under the superintendence of the Department of
the Navy. The report from the Secretary of the Navy and those from the
subordinate branches of both the military departments exhibit to Congress
in minute detail the present condition of the public establishments
dependent upon them, the execution of the acts of Congress relating to
them, and the views of the officers engaged in the several branches of the
service concerning the improvements which may tend to their perfection.
The fortification of the coasts and the gradual increase and improvement of
the Navy are parts of a great system of national defense which has been
upward of 10 years in progress, and which for a series of years to come
will continue to claim the constant and persevering protection and
superintendence of the legislative authority. Among the measures which have
emanated from these principles the act of the last session of Congress for
the gradual improvement of the Navy holds a conspicuous place. The
collection of timber for the future construction of vessels of war, the
preservation and reproduction of the species of timber peculiarly adapted
to that purpose, the construction of dry docks for the use of the Navy, the
erection of a marine railway for the repair of the public ships, and the
improvement of the navy yards for the preservation of the public property
deposited in them have all received from the Executive the attention
required by that act, and will continue to receive it, steadily proceeding
toward the execution of all its purposes.
The establishment of a naval academy, furnishing the means of theoretic
instruction to the youths who devote their lives to the service of their
country upon the ocean, still solicits the sanction of the Legislature.
Practical seamanship and the art of navigation may be acquired on the
cruises of the squadrons which from time to time are dispatched to distant
seas, but a competent knowledge even of the art of ship building, the
higher mathematics, and astronomy; the literature which can place our
officers on a level of polished education with the officers of other
maritime nations; the knowledge of the laws, municipal and national, which
in their intercourse with foreign states and their governments are
continually called into operation, and, above all, that acquaintance with
the principles of honor and justice, with the higher obligations of morals
and of general laws, human and divine, which constitutes the great
distinction between the warrior-patriot and the licensed robber and pirate
-- these can be systematically taught and eminently acquired only in a
permanent school, stationed upon the shore and provided with the teachers,
the instruments, and the books conversant with and adapted to the
communication of the principles of these respective sciences to the
youthful and inquiring mind.
The report from the PostMaster General exhibits the condition of that
Department as highly satisfactory for the present and still more promising
for the future. Its receipts for the year ending 1827-07-01 amounted to
$1,473,551, and exceeded its expenditures by upward of $100,000. It can not
be an over sanguine estimate to predict that in less than 10 years, of
which half have elapsed, the receipts will have been more than doubled.
In the mean time a reduced expenditure upon established routes has kept
pace with increased facilities of public accommodation and additional
services have been obtained at reduced rates of compensation. Within the
last year the transportation of the mail in stages has been greatly
augmented. The number of post offices has been increased to 7,000, and it
may be anticipated that while the facilities of intercourse between fellow
citizens in person or by correspondence will soon be carried to the door of
every villager in the Union, a yearly surplus of revenue will accrue which
may be applied as the wisdom of Congress under the exercise of their
constitutional powers may devise for the further establishment and
improvement of the public roads, or by adding still further to the
facilities in the transportation of the mails. Of the indications of the
prosperous condition of our country, none can be more pleasing than those
presented by the multiplying relations of personal and intimate intercourse
between the citizens of the Union dwelling at the remotest distances from
each other.
Among the subjects which have heretofore occupied the earnest solicitude
and attention of Congress is the management and disposal of that portion of
the property of the nation which consists of the public lands. The
acquisition of them, made at the expense of the whole Union, not only in
treasury but in blood, marks a right of property in them equally extensive.
By the report and statements from the General Land Office now communicated
it appears that under the present Government of the United States a sum
little short of $33,000,000 has been paid from the common Treasury for that
portion of this property which has been purchased from France and Spain,
and for the extinction of the aboriginal titles. The amount of lands
acquired is near 260,000,000 acres, of which on 1826-01-01, about
139,000,000 acres had been surveyed, and little more than 19,000,000 acres
had been sold. The amount paid into the Treasury by the purchasers of the
public lands sold is not yet equal to the sums paid for the whole, but
leaves a small balance to be refunded. The proceeds of the sales of the
lands have long been pledged to the creditors of the nation, a pledge from
which we have reason to hope that they will in a very few years be
redeemed.
The system upon which this great national interest has been managed was the
result of long, anxious, and persevering deliberation. Matured and modified
by the progress of our population and the lessons of experience, it has
been hitherto eminently successful. More than 9/10 of the lands still
remain the common property of the Union, the appropriation and disposal of
which are sacred trusts in the hands of Congress.
Of the lands sold, a considerable part were conveyed under extended
credits, which in the vicissitudes and fluctuations in the value of lands
and of their produce became oppressively burdensome to the purchasers. It
can never be the interest or the policy of the nation to wring from its own
citizens the reasonable profits of their industry and enterprise by holding
them to the rigorous import of disastrous engagements. In 1821-03, a debt
of $22,000,000, due by purchasers of the public lands, had accumulated,
which they were unable to pay. An act of Congress of 1821-03-02, came to
their relief, and has been succeeded by others, the latest being the act of
1826-05-04, the indulgent provisions of which expired on 1827-07-04. The
effect of these laws has been to reduce the debt from the purchasers to a
remaining balance of about $4,300,000 due, more than 3/5 of which are for
lands within the State of Alabama. I recommend to Congress the revival and
continuance for a further term of the beneficent accommodations to the
public debtors of that statute, and submit to their consideration, in the
same spirit of equity, the remission, under proper discriminations, of the
forfeitures of partial payments on account of purchases of the public
lands, so far as to allow of their application to other payments.
There are various other subjects of deep interest to the whole Union which
have heretofore been recommended to the consideration of Congress, as well
by my predecessors as, under the impression of the duties devolving upon
me, by myself. Among these are the debt, rather of justice than gratitude,
to the surviving warriors of the Revolutionary war; the extension of the
judicial administration of the Federal Government to those extensive since
the organization of the present judiciary establishment, now constitute at
least 1/3 of its territory, power, and population; the formation of a more
effective and uniform system for the government of the militia, and the
amelioration in some form or modification of the diversified and often
oppressive codes relating to insolvency. Amidst the multiplicity of topics
of great national concernment which may recommend themselves to the calm
and patriotic deliberations of the Legislature, it may suffice to say that
on these and all other measures which may receive their sanction my hearty
cooperation will be given, conformably to the duties enjoined upon me and
under the sense of all the obligations prescribed by the Constitution. JOHN
QUNICY ADAMS
***
State of the Union Address
John Quincy Adams
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 condition than of improving
for our own happiness the blessings bestowed by His hands, and, in the
fruition of all His favors, of devoting his 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 department 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 north-eastern boundary of
the United States. By an agreement with the British Government, carrying
into effect the provisions of the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent, and
the convention of 1827-09-29, 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 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 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 12 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 1778-02-06, 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. What ever 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 ship building 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 agreements.
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 neighboring 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
1828-01-01, exclusive of the moneys received under the convention of
1826-11-13, with Great Britain, was $5,861,972.83. The receipts into the
Treasury from 1828-01-01 to 1828-09-30, 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 1829-01-01 the sum of
$5,125,638.14.
The receipts of the present year have amounted to near $2,000,000 more than
was anticipated at the commencement of the last session of Congress.
The amount of duties secured on importations from the first of January to
the 30th of September was about $22,997,000, and that of the estimated
accruing revenue is $5,000,000, forming an aggregate for the year of near
$28,000,000. This is $1,000,000 more than the estimate last December for
the accruing revenue of the present year, which, with allowances for
draw-backs 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
$24,000,000 received upward of $9,000,000 have been applied to the
extinction of public debt, bearing an interest of 6% a year, and of course
reducing the burden of interest annually payable in future by the amount of
more than $500,000. The payments on account of interest during the current
year exceed $3,000,000, presenting an aggregate of more than $12,000,000
applied during the year to the discharge of the public debt, the whole of
which remaining due on 1829-01-01 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 40 years has shown that
what ever 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, some times being more and some times 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
husband-man, 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 $10,000,000 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 need
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 some times 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 to 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 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 production 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
under-sell.
Is the self-protecting energy of this nation so helpless that there exists
in the political institutions of our country no power to counter-act 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 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 foreigns 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 symptoms 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 country-man
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 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 country-men 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 10 years been steady and progressive, and in a few years
more will be so completed as to leave no cause for apprehension that our
sea coast 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 1824-04-30.
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 13 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 5 additional
reports of reconnoissances and surveys since the last session of Congress,
for the civil construction upon 37 different public works commenced, 8
others for which specific appropriations have been made by acts of
Congress, and 20 other incipient surveys under the authority given by the
act of 1824-04-30, about $1,000,000 more 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 break-water 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 under-takings 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 sea men, 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 2nd, and perhaps a 3rd, vessel, with a
slight aggravation of the cost, would contribute much to the safety of the
citizens embarked on this under-taking, 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 1827-03-03, for the gradual
improvement of the Navy of the United States, statements of the
expenditures under that act and of the measures 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 ship building 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
post-poned 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 2 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 5 to 5 years, since
1792 'til 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 $1,500,000, 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 one. The increase of revenue within the
last 5 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
1828-07-01 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 post masters 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 1826-05-20, 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 1827-03-02, 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 1826-11-13, closed their labors on 1828-08-30 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 for 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 1828-03-21 to 1829-07-04, 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 5th census of
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 10 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 6 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 first 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 3rd
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 10 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 QUNICY ADAMS
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