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 kept   us in a state, perhaps too much prolonged, of coldness and alienation. The extensive, fertile, and populous dominions of the Sultan belong rather to the Asiatic than the European division of the human family. They enter but partially into the system of Europe, nor have their wars with Russia and Austria, the European States upon which they border, for more than a century past disturbed the pacific relations of those States with the other great powers of Europe. Neither France nor Prussia nor Great Britain has ever taken part in them, nor is it to be expected that they will at this time. The declaration of war by Russia has received the approbation or acquiescence of her allies, and we may indulge the hope that its progress and termination will be signalized by the moderation and forbearance no less than by the energy of the Emperor Nicholas, and that it will afford the opportunity for such collateral agency in behalf of the suffering Greeks as will secure to them ultimately the triumph of humanity and of freedom. The state of our particular relations with France has scarcely varied in the course of the present year. The commercial intercourse between the two countries has continued to increase for the mutual benefit of both. The claims of indemnity to numbers of our fellow citizens for depredations upon their property, heretofore committed during the revolutionary governments, remain unadjusted, and still form the subject of earnest representation and remonstrance. Recent advices from the minister of the United States at Paris encourage the expectation that the appeal to the justice of the French Government will ere long receive a favorable consideration. The last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision of the controversy with Great Britain relating to the 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.
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 kept us in a state, perhaps too much prolonged, of coldness and alienation. The extensive, fertile, and populous dominions of the Sultan belong rather to the Asiatic than the European division of the human family. They enter but partially into the system of Europe, nor have their wars with Russia and Austria, the European States upon which they border, for more than a century past disturbed the pacific relations of those States with the other great powers of Europe. Neither France nor Prussia nor Great Britain has ever taken part in them, nor is it to be expected that they will at this time. The declaration of war by Russia has received the approbation or acquiescence of her allies, and we may indulge the hope that its progress and termination will be signalized by the moderation and forbearance no less than by the energy of the Emperor Nicholas, and that it will afford the opportunity for such collateral agency in behalf of the suffering Greeks as will secure to them ultimately the triumph of humanity and of freedom. The state of our particular relations with France has scarcely varied in the course of the present year. The commercial intercourse between the two countries has continued to increase for the mutual benefit of both. The claims of indemnity to numbers of our fellow citizens for depredations upon their property, heretofore committed during the revolutionary governments, remain unadjusted, and still form the subject of earnest representation and remonstrance. Recent advices from the minister of the United States at Paris encourage the expectation that the appeal to the justice of the French Government will ere long receive a favorable consideration. The last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision of the controversy with Great Britain relating to the 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 because, 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 because 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 because 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 because 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.
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 kept us in a state perhaps too much prolonged of coldness and alienation the extensive fertile and populous dominions of the sultan belong rather to the asiatic than the european division of the human family they enter but partially into the system of europe nor have their wars with russia and austria the european states upon which they border for more than a century past disturbed the pacific relations of those states with the other great powers of europe neither france nor prussia nor great britain has ever taken part in them nor is it to be expected that they will at this time the declaration of war by russia has received the approbation or acquiescence of her allies and we may indulge the hope that its progress and termination will be signalized by the moderation and forbearance no less than by the energy of the emperor nicholas and that it will afford the opportunity for such collateral agency in behalf of the suffering greeks as will secure to them ultimately the triumph of humanity and of freedom the state of our particular relations with france has scarcely varied in the course of the present year the commercial intercourse between the two countries has continued to increase for the mutual benefit of both the claims of indemnity to numbers of our fellow citizens for depredations upon their property heretofore committed during the revolutionary governments remain unadjusted and still form the subject of earnest representation and remonstrance recent advices from the minister of the united states at paris encourage the expectation that the appeal to the justice of the french government will ere long receive a favorable consideration the last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision of the controversy with great britain relating to the 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 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 because 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 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 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 exclusive of the moneys received under the convention of with great britain was the receipts into the treasury from to so far as they have been ascertained to form the basis of an estimate amount to which with the receipts of the present quarter estimated at form an aggregate of receipts during the year of the expenditures of the year may probably amount to and leave in the treasury on the sum of the receipts of the present year have amounted to near 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 and that of the estimated accruing revenue is forming an aggregate for the year of near this is more than the estimate last december for the accruing revenue of the present year which with allowances for and contingent deficiencies was expected to produce an actual revenue of had these only been realized the expenditures of the year would have been also proportionally reduced for of these received upward of 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 the payments on account of interest during the current year exceed presenting an aggregate of more than applied during the year to the discharge of the public debt the whole of which remaining due on will amount only to 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 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 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 because 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 because 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 is the energy of this nation so helpless that there exists in the political institutions of our country no power to 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 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 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 because 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 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 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 about more has been drawn from the treasury to these is to be added the appropriation of to commence the erection of a 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 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 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 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 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 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 this time in the number of post offices which has grown from less than 200 to nearly in the revenue yielded by them which from has swollen to upward of and in the number of miles of post roads which from have multiplied to 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 have exceeded the receipts by a sum of about the excess has been occasioned by the increase of mail conveyances and facilities to the extent of near 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 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 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 closed their labors on last by awarding to the claimants the sum of leaving a balance of 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 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 to 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 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
enjoyment profusion bounties providence forms suitable subject mutual gratulation grateful acknowledgment admonished return season representatives nation assembled deliberate upon concerns offer tribute fervent grateful hearts never failing mercies ruleth favored us healthful seasons abundant harvests sustained us peace foreign countries tranquillity within borders preserved us quiet undisturbed possession civil religious liberty crowned year goodness imposing us condition improving happiness blessings bestowed hands fruition favors devoting faculties endowed glory temporal eternal welfare relations federal union brethren human race changes occurred since close last session generally tended preservation peace cultivation harmony last separation war unhappily kindled empire russia one intercourse constant exchange good offices ottoman porte nation geographical distance religious opinions maxims government part little suited formation bonds mutual benevolence result benefits commerce kept us state perhaps much prolonged coldness alienation extensive fertile populous dominions sultan belong rather asiatic european division human family enter partially system europe wars russia austria european states upon border century past disturbed pacific relations states great powers europe neither france prussia great britain ever taken part expected time declaration war russia received approbation acquiescence allies may indulge hope progress termination signalized moderation forbearance less energy emperor nicholas afford opportunity collateral agency behalf suffering greeks secure ultimately triumph humanity freedom state particular relations france scarcely varied course present year commercial intercourse two countries continued increase mutual benefit claims indemnity numbers fellow citizens depredations upon property heretofore committed revolutionary governments remain unadjusted still form subject earnest representation remonstrance recent advices minister united states paris encourage expectation appeal justice french government ere long receive favorable consideration last friendly expedient resorted decision controversy great britain relating boundary united states agreement british government carrying effect provisions 5th article treaty ghent convention majesty king netherlands common consent selected umpire parties proposal accept designation performance friendly office made early day united states relying upon justice cheerfully commit arbitrament prince equally distinguished independence spirit indefatigable assiduity duties station inflexible personal probity commercial relations great britain deserve serious consideration congress exercise conciliatory forbearing spirit policy governments state materially changed act congress passed last session alteration several acts imposing duties imports acts recent date british parliament effect interdiction direct trade commenced great britain reciprocated united states foreseen substitute different channels exchange commodities indispensable colonies profitable numerous class fellow citizens exports revenue navigation united states suffered diminution exclusion direct access british colonies colonies pay dearly necessaries life government burdens charges double voyages freight insurance commission profits exports somewhat impaired injuriously transferred one portion citizens another resumption old otherwise exploded system colonial exclusion secured shipping interest great britain relief expense distant colonies united states expected afford measures resorted pointedly bearing upon navigation united states pointedly bearing upon navigation united states unless modified construction given recent acts parliament manifestly incompatible positive stipulations commercial convention existing two countries convention however may terminated 12 months notice option either party treaty amity navigation commerce united states majesty emperor austria king hungary bohemia prepared signature secretary state baron de lederer intrusted full powers austrian government independently new friendly relations may thus commenced one eminent powerful nations earth occasion taken recent treaties concluded united states extend principles liberal intercourse fair reciprocity intertwine exchanges commerce principles justice feelings mutual benevolence system first proclaimed world first commercial treaty ever concluded united states france invariably cherished policy union treaties commerce alone made ultimately prevail established system civilized nations principle fathers extended hand friendship every nation globe policy country ever since adhered ever regulation laws ever adopted unfavorable interest foreign nation essentially defensive counteracting similar regulations operating us immediately close war independence commissioners appointed congress confederation authorized conclude treaties every nation europe disposed adopt wars french revolution treaties consummated united netherlands sweden prussia wars treaties great britain spain effected prussia france renewed concessions liberal principles intercourse proposed united states obtained negotiations came occasionally collision previous internal regulations exclusive excluding compacts monopoly parties trammeled advances made toward freedom trade partial imperfect colonial establishments chartered companies ship building influence pervaded encumbered legislation great commercial states united states offering free trade equal privilege compelled acquiesce many exceptions parties treaties accommodated existing laws anterior agreements colonial system whole hemisphere bound fallen ruins totally abolished revolutions converting colonies independent nations throughout two american continents excepting portion territory chiefly northern extremity confined remnants dominion retained great britain insular archipelago geographically appendages part globe rest free trade even insular colonies european nations except great britain government also manifested approaches adoption free liberal intercourse colonies nations though sudden scarcely explained revulsion spirit exclusion revived operation upon united states alone conclusion last treaty peace great britain shortly afterwards followed commercial convention placing direct intercourse two countries upon footing equal reciprocity ever admitted principle since much extended treaties france sweden denmark hanseatic cities prussia europe republics colombia central america hemisphere mutual abolition discriminating duties charges upon navigation commercial intercourse parties general maxim characterizes reason expect distant period adopted nations europe america hope universal prevalence one fruitful sources wars commercial competition extinguished among nations upon whose governments many fellow citizens claims indemnity depredations upon property period rights neutral commerce disregarded denmark soon events occurred subject special mission united states close assurance given danish majesty period tranquillity less distress would considered examined decided upon spirit determined purpose dispensation justice much pleasure informing congress fulfillment honorable promise progress small portion claims already settled satisfaction claimants reason hope remainder shortly placed train equitable adjustment result always confidently expected character personal integrity benevolence sovereign danish dominions every vicissitude fortune maintained general aspect affairs neighboring american nations south rather approaching settled tranquillity internal disturbances frequent among common friends would desired intercourse continued friendship mutual good treaties commerce boundaries united mexican states negotiated various successive obstacles yet brought final conclusion civil war unfortunately still prevails republics central america unpropitious cultivation commercial relations dissensions revolutionary changes republics colombia peru seen cordial regret us would gladly contribute happiness great satisfaction however witnessed recent conclusion peace governments buenos ayres brazil equally gratifying observe indemnity obtained injuries fellow citizens sustained latter countries rest train negotiation hope may terminate mutual satisfaction may succeeded treaty commerce navigation upon liberal principles propitious great growing commerce already important interests country condition prospects revenue favorable sanguine expectations anticipated balance treasury exclusive moneys received convention great britain receipts treasury far ascertained form basis estimate amount receipts present quarter estimated form aggregate receipts year expenditures year may probably amount leave treasury sum receipts present year amounted near anticipated commencement last session congress amount duties secured importations first january 30th september estimated accruing revenue forming aggregate year near estimate last december accruing revenue present year allowances contingent deficiencies expected produce actual revenue realized expenditures year would also proportionally reduced received upward applied extinction public debt bearing interest 6 year course reducing burden interest annually payable future amount payments account interest current year exceed presenting aggregate applied year discharge public debt whole remaining due amount revenue ensuing year fall short received one expiring indications scarcely prove deceptive country uniform experience 40 years shown ever tariff duties upon articles imported abroad amount importations always borne average value nearly approaching exports though occasionally differing balance times times less indeed general law prosperous commerce real value exports small small balance exceed imports balance permanent addition wealth nation extent prosperous commerce nation must regulated amount exports important addition value draw corresponding increase importations happened vicissitudes seasons harvests europe late summer autumn fallen short usual average relaxation interdict upon importation grain flour abroad ensued propitious market opened granaries country new prospect reward presented labors several years denied accession profits agriculture middle western portions union accidental temporary may continue single year may often experienced revolutions time first several scanty harvests succession may consider certain approaching year added item large amount value exports produce corresponding increase importations may therefore confidently foreseen revenue 1829 equal probably exceed 1828 afford means extinguishing principal public debt new element prosperity part agricultural industry occupied producing first article human subsistence cheering character feelings patriotism proceeding humanity view concern sufferings scarcity distant lands yields consolatory reflection scarcity respect attributable us comes dispensation ordains wisdom goodness permits evil instrument good far contributing scarcity agency applied alleviation severity pouring forth abundance garners supplies partially restore plenty need shall reduce stores add price bread degree participate wants good fortune country relieve great interests agricultural commercial manufacturing nation linked union together permanent prosperity one operate without extending influence others interests alike protecting power legislative authority duties representative bodies conciliate harmony together far object taxation raise revenue discharging debts defraying expenses community operation adapted much possible suit burden equal hand upon proportion ability bearing without oppression legislation one nation times intentionally made bear heavily upon interests another legislation adapted meant special interests people often press unequally upon several component interests neighbors thus legislation great britain recently avowed adapted depression rival nation naturally abound regulations interdict upon productions soil industry come competition present encouragement perhaps even bounty raw material state produce essential use manufactures competitors markets world commercial rival state commercial legislation great britain bears upon interests excludes interdicting duties importation except time approaching famine great staple production middle western states proscribes equal rigor bulkier lumber live stock portion also northern eastern part union refuses even rice south unless aggravated charge duty upon northern carrier brings cotton indispensable looms receive almost duty free weave fabric wear destruction manufactures enabled thus energy nation helpless exists political institutions country power bias foreign legislation growers grain must submit exclusion foreign markets produce shippers must dismantle ships trade north stagnate wharves manufacturers starve looms whole people shall pay tribute foreign industry clad foreign garb congress union impotent restore balance favor native industry destroyed statutes another realm generous sentiments trust prevail tariff adopted last session congress shall found experience bear oppressively upon interests one section union ought doubt modified alleviate burden voice complaint portion constituents representatives states people never turn away ears long duty foreign shall operate bounty upon domestic article planter merchant shepherd husbandman shall found thriving occupations duties imposed protection domestic manufactures repine prosperity shared fellow citizens professions denounce violations constitution deliberate acts congress shield wrongs foreigns native industry union tariff last session congress subject legislative deliberation foretold opposers one necessary consequences would impair revenue yet soon pronounce confidence prediction erroneous obstruction one avenue trade unfrequently opens issue another consequence tariff increase exportation diminish importation specific articles general law trade increase exportation one article followed increased importation others duties upon supply deficiencies diminished importation would otherwise occasion effect taxation upon revenue seldom foreseen certainty must abide test experience yet symptoms diminution perceptible receipts treasury yet little addition cost even experienced upon articles burdened heavier duties last tariff domestic manufacturer supplies kindred article diminished price consumer pays tribute labor must otherwise paid foreign industry toil tariff last session details acceptable great interests portion union even interest specially intended subserve object balance burdens upon native industry imposed operation foreign laws aggravate burdens one section union relief afforded another great principle sanctioned act one upon constitution formed hope trust authorities union adhere duties imposed act relieve manufacturer aggravating burden planter let careful revisal provisions enlightened practical experience effects directed retain impart protection native industry remove supply place alleviate one great national interest depression another united states america people every state composed sovereign powers legislative authority whole exercised congress authority granted common constitution legislative power state exercised assemblies deriving authority constitution state sovereign within province distribution power presupposes authorities move harmony members state general governments oath support allegiance due one case conflict two powers supposed provision made institutions virtuous nation ancient times existed five centuries without law punishment parricide however progress history people legislatures one states moments excitement instigated conflict means effecting impulse allegations acts congress resisted unconstitutional people one state ever delegated legislature power pronouncing act congress unconstitutional delegated powers exercise execution laws congress within state may resisted suppose case conflicting legislation sustained corresponding executive judicial authorities patriotism philanthropy turn eyes condition parties would placed people must victims reports secretary war various subordinate offices resort department present exposition public administration affairs connected course current year present state army distribution force composed seen report major general several alterations disposal troops found expedient course year discipline army though entirely free exception generally good attention congress particularly invited part report secretary war concerns existing system relations indian tribes establishment federal government present constitution united states principle adopted considering foreign independent powers also proprietors lands moreover considered savages policy duty use influence converting christianity bringing within pale civilization independent powers negotiated treaties proprietors purchased lands could prevail upon sell brethren human race rude ignorant endeavored bring knowledge religion letters ultimate design incorporate institutions portion could converted state civilization practice european states revolution considered children governed tenants discretion dispossessed occasion might require hunters indemnified trifling concessions removal grounds game extirpated changing system would seem full contemplation consequences change taken far successful acquisition lands imparting principles inspiring spirit civilization appropriating hunting grounds brought upon obligation providing subsistence rare good fortune teaching arts civilization doctrines christianity unexpectedly found forming midst communities claiming independent rivals sovereignty within territories members union state things requires remedy provided remedy shall justice unfortunate children nature may secure members confederation rights sovereignty soil outline project effect views presented report secretary war recommended consideration congress report engineer department presents comprehensive view progress made great systems promotive public interest commenced organized authority congress effects already contributed security hereafter largely contribute honor dignity nation first great systems fortifications commenced immediately close last war salutary experience events war impressed upon necessity introduced auspices immediate predecessor continued persevering liberal encouragement legislature combined corresponding exertions gradual increase improvement navy prepares extensive country condition defense adapted critical emergency varying course events may bring forth advances concerted systems last 10 years steady progressive years completed leave apprehension sea coast ever offer theater hostile invasion next cardinal measures policy preliminary great lasting works public improvement surveys roads examination course canals labors removal obstructions rivers harbors first commenced act congress report exhibits one table funds appropriated last preceding sessions congress fortifications surveys works public improvement manner funds applied amount expended upon several works construction sums may necessary complete second works projected board engineers commenced estimate cost third report annual board visitors military academy west point 13 fortifications erecting various points atlantic coast rhode island louisiana aggregate expenditure year fallen little short preparation 5 additional reports reconnoissances surveys since last session congress civil construction upon 37 different public works commenced 8 others specific appropriations made acts congress 20 incipient surveys authority given act drawn treasury added appropriation commence erection near mouth delaware river subscriptions delaware chesapeake louisville portland dismal swamp chesapeake ohio canals large donations lands states ohio indiana illinois alabama objects improvements within states sums appropriated buoys piers coast full view taken munificence nation application resources improvement condition great national academy west point among important comprehensive consequences institution part revenue nation applied defray expense educating competent portion youth chiefly knowledge duties military life living armory nation works improvement enumerated reports presented attention congress destined ameliorate face nature multiply facilities communication different parts union assist labors increase comforts enhance enjoyments individuals instruction acquired west point enlarges dominion expands capacities mind beneficial results already experienced composition army influence felt intellectual progress society institution susceptible still great improvement benefactions proposed several successive boards visitors whose earnest repeated recommendations cheerfully add usual annual reports secretary navy board commissioners exhibited view congress execution laws relating department public service repression piracy west indian grecian seas effectually maintained scarcely exception war governments buenos ayres brazil frequent collisions belligerent acts power rights neutral commerce occurred licentious blockades irregularly enlisted impressed sea men property honest commerce seized violence even plundered legal pretenses disorders never separable conflicts war upon ocean portion correspondence commanders eastern aspect south american coast among islands greece discover far involved honor country rights citizens asserted vindicated appearance new squadrons mediterranean blockade dardanelles indicate danger obstacles freedom commerce necessity keeping naval force seas suggestions repeated report secretary navy tending permanent improvement institution invite favorable consideration congress resolution house representatives requesting one small public vessels sent pacific ocean south sea examine coasts islands harbors shoals reefs seas ascertain true situation description put train execution vessel nearly ready depart successful accomplishment expedition may greatly facilitated suitable legislative provisions particularly appropriation defray necessary expense addition 2nd perhaps 3rd vessel slight aggravation cost would contribute much safety citizens embarked results may deepest interest country report secretary navy submitted conformity act congress gradual improvement navy united states statements expenditures act measures carrying effect every section statute contains distinct provision looking great object whole gradual improvement navy salutary sanction stores ship timber procured process seasoning preservation future uses navy arrangements made preservation live oak timber growing lands united states reproduction supply future distant days waste valuable material ship building great consumption yearly commercial well military marine country construction two dry docks charlestown norfolk making satisfactory progress toward durable establishment examinations inquiries ascertain practicability expediency marine railway pensacola though yet accomplished effectually made navy yards united states examined plans improvement preservation public property therein portsmouth charlestown philadelphia washington gosport 2 others added prepared received sanction portion public duties performed intimate conviction importance future welfare security union report postmaster general exhibited comparative view gradual increase establishment 5 5 years since 1792 time number post offices grown less 200 nearly revenue yielded swollen upward number miles post roads multiplied period time population union thrice doubled rate increase offices nearly 40 revenue traveled miles 20 25 one increase revenue within last 5 years nearly equal whole revenue department 1812 expenditures department year ended exceeded receipts sum excess occasioned increase mail conveyances facilities extent near miles supplied collections post masters arrearages preceding years correct principle seems income levied department defray expenses never policy government raise establishment revenue applied purposes suggestion postmaster general insurance safe transmission moneys mail might assumed department moderate competent remuneration deserve consideration congress report commissioner public buildings city exhibits expenditures upon course current year seen humane benevolent intentions congress providing act erection penitentiary district accomplished authority legislation required removal tenement offenders laws sentenced atone personal confinement crimes provide code employment government thus confined commissioners appointed conformably act provide adjustment claims persons entitled indemnification first article treaty ghent distribution among claimants sum paid government great britain convention closed labors last awarding claimants sum leaving balance distributed ratably amongst claimants awards made according directions act exhibits appended report commissioner general land office present actual condition common property union amount paid treasury proceeds lands year 1827 first half 1828 falls little short propriety extending time extinguishment debt due united states purchasers public lands limited act claim consideration congress whose vigilance careful attention regulation disposal preservation great national inheritance people united states intrusted among important subjects attention present congress already invited may occupy deliberate discussion provision made taking 5th census enumeration inhabitants united states constitution united states requires enumeration made within every term 10 years date last enumeration commenced first monday august year 1820 laws former enumerations taken enacted session congress immediately preceding operation considerable inconveniences experienced delay legislation late period law like preceding enumerations directed census taken marshals several districts territories union instructions secretary state preparation transmission marshals instructions required time allowed passage law day enumeration commence term 6 months limited returns marshals also found even short must additional population least must presented upon returns made short session congress would well considerations convenient commence enumeration earlier period year first august favorable season would spring review former enumerations found plan taking every census contained many improvements upon predecessor last still susceptible much improvement 3rd census first account taken manufactures country repeated last enumeration returns cases necessarily imperfect must always resting course upon communications voluntarily made individuals interested manufacturing establishments yet contained much valuable information may supplementary provision law rendered effective columns age commencing infancy hitherto confined periods number 45 years important knowledge would obtained extending columns intervals 10 years utmost boundaries human life labor taking would trifling addition already prescribed result would exhibit comparative tables longevity highly interesting country deem duty observe much imperfections returns last perhaps preceding enumerations proceeded inadequateness compensations allowed marshals assistants taking closing communication remains assure legislature continued earnest wish adoption measures recommended heretofore yet acted cordial concurrence part every constitutional provision may receive sanction session tending general welfare
enjoyment profusion bounty providence form suitable subject mutual gratulation grateful acknowledgment admonish return season representative nation assemble deliberate upon concern offer tribute fervent grateful heart never fail mercy ruleth favor u healthful season abundant harvest sustain u peace foreign country tranquillity within border preserve u quiet undisturbed possession civil religious liberty crown year goodness impose u condition improve happiness blessing bestow hand fruition favor devote faculty endow glory temporal eternal welfare relation federal union brother human race change occur since close last session generally tend preservation peace cultivation harmony last separation war unhappily kindle empire russia one intercourse constant exchange good office ottoman porte nation geographical distance religious opinion maxim government part little suited formation bond mutual benevolence result benefit commerce keep u state perhaps much prolonged coldness alienation extensive fertile populous dominion sultan belong rather asiatic european division human family enter partially system europe war russia austria european state upon border century past disturbed pacific relation state great power europe neither france prussia great britain ever take part expect time declaration war russia receive approbation acquiescence ally may indulge hope progress termination signalize moderation forbearance less energy emperor nicholas afford opportunity collateral agency behalf suffer greeks secure ultimately triumph humanity freedom state particular relation france scarcely varied course present year commercial intercourse two country continue increase mutual benefit claim indemnity number fellow citizen depredation upon property heretofore commit revolutionary government remain unadjusted still form subject earnest representation remonstrance recent advice minister united state paris encourage expectation appeal justice french government ere long receive favorable consideration last friendly expedient resort decision controversy great britain relate boundary united state agreement british government carry effect provision 5th article treaty ghent convention majesty king netherlands common consent select umpire party proposal accept designation performance friendly office make early day unite state rely upon justice cheerfully commit arbitrament prince equally distinguish independence spirit indefatigable assiduity duty station inflexible personal probity commercial relation great britain deserve serious consideration congress exercise conciliatory forbear spirit policy government state materially change act congress pass last session alteration several act impose duty import act recent date british parliament effect interdiction direct trade commence great britain reciprocate united state foresee substitute different channel exchange commodity indispensable colony profitable numerous class fellow citizen export revenue navigation united state suffer diminution exclusion direct access british colony colony pay dearly necessary life government burden charge double voyage freight insurance commission profit export somewhat impair injuriously transfer one portion citizens another resumption old otherwise exploded system colonial exclusion secure shipping interest great britain relief expense distant colony unite state expect afford measure resort pointedly bear upon navigation united state pointedly bear upon navigation united state unless modify construction give recent act parliament manifestly incompatible positive stipulation commercial convention exist two country convention however may terminate 12 month notice option either party treaty amity navigation commerce united state majesty emperor austria king hungary bohemia prepared signature secretary state baron de lederer intrust full power austrian government independently new friendly relation may thus commence one eminent powerful nation earth occasion take recent treaty conclude united state extend principle liberal intercourse fair reciprocity intertwine exchange commerce principle justice feeling mutual benevolence system first proclaim world first commercial treaty ever conclude united state france invariably cherish policy union treaty commerce alone make ultimately prevail establish system civilize nation principle father extend hand friendship every nation globe policy country ever since adhere ever regulation law ever adopt unfavorable interest foreign nation essentially defensive counteract similar regulation operate u immediately close war independence commissioner appoint congress confederation authorize conclude treaty every nation europe dispose adopt war french revolution treaty consummate united netherlands sweden prussia war treaties great britain spain effect prussia france renew concession liberal principle intercourse propose united state obtain negotiation come occasionally collision previous internal regulation exclusive exclude compact monopoly party trammel advance make toward freedom trade partial imperfect colonial establishment charter company ship build influence pervade encumbered legislation great commercial state united state offer free trade equal privilege compel acquiesce many exception party treaty accommodate exist law anterior agreement colonial system whole hemisphere bind fall ruin totally abolished revolution convert colony independent nation throughout two american continent except portion territory chiefly northern extremity confine remnant dominion retain great britain insular archipelago geographically appendages part globe rest free trade even insular colony european nation except great britain government also manifest approach adoption free liberal intercourse colony nation though sudden scarcely explain revulsion spirit exclusion revive operation upon united state alone conclusion last treaty peace great britain shortly afterwards follow commercial convention place direct intercourse two country upon foot equal reciprocity ever admit principle since much extend treaty france sweden denmark hanseatic city prussia europe republic colombia central america hemisphere mutual abolition discriminate duty charge upon navigation commercial intercourse party general maxim characterize reason expect distant period adopt nation europe america hope universal prevalence one fruitful source war commercial competition extinguish among nation upon whose government many fellow citizen claim indemnity depredation upon property period right neutral commerce disregard denmark soon event occur subject special mission unite state close assurance give danish majesty period tranquillity less distress would consider examine decided upon spirit determine purpose dispensation justice much pleasure inform congress fulfillment honorable promise progress small portion claim already settle satisfaction claimant reason hope remainder shortly place train equitable adjustment result always confidently expect character personal integrity benevolence sovereign danish dominion every vicissitude fortune maintain general aspect affair neighbor american nation south rather approach settle tranquillity internal disturbance frequent among common friend would desire intercourse continue friendship mutual good treaty commerce boundary united mexican state negotiate various successive obstacle yet bring final conclusion civil war unfortunately still prevail republic central america unpropitious cultivation commercial relation dissension revolutionary change republic colombia peru see cordial regret u would gladly contribute happiness great satisfaction however witness recent conclusion peace government buenos ayres brazil equally gratify observe indemnity obtain injury fellow citizen sustain latter country rest train negotiation hope may terminate mutual satisfaction may succeed treaty commerce navigation upon liberal principle propitious great grow commerce already important interest country condition prospect revenue favorable sanguine expectation anticipate balance treasury exclusive money receive convention great britain receipt treasury far ascertained form basis estimate amount receipt present quarter estimate form aggregate receipt year expenditure year may probably amount leave treasury sum receipt present year amount near anticipate commencement last session congress amount duty secure importation first january 30th september estimate accrue revenue form aggregate year near estimate last december accrue revenue present year allowance contingent deficiency expect produce actual revenue realize expenditure year would also proportionally reduce receive upward apply extinction public debt bearing interest 6 year course reduce burden interest annually payable future amount payment account interest current year exceed present aggregate apply year discharge public debt whole remain due amount revenue ensue year fall short receive one expire indication scarcely prove deceptive country uniform experience 40 year show ever tariff duty upon article import abroad amount importation always bear average value nearly approach export though occasionally differ balance time times less indeed general law prosperous commerce real value export small small balance exceed import balance permanent addition wealth nation extent prosperous commerce nation must regulate amount export important addition value draw correspond increase importation happen vicissitude season harvest europe late summer autumn fall short usual average relaxation interdict upon importation grain flour abroad ensue propitious market open granary country new prospect reward present labor several year deny accession profit agriculture middle western portion union accidental temporary may continue single year may often experience revolution time first several scanty harvest succession may consider certain approach year add item large amount value export produce correspond increase importation may therefore confidently foreseen revenue 1829 equal probably exceed 1828 afford mean extinguish principal public debt new element prosperity part agricultural industry occupy produce first article human subsistence cheer character feeling patriotism proceed humanity view concern suffering scarcity distant land yield consolatory reflection scarcity respect attributable u come dispensation ordains wisdom goodness permit evil instrument good far contribute scarcity agency apply alleviation severity pour forth abundance garner supply partially restore plenty need shall reduce store add price bread degree participate want good fortune country relieve great interest agricultural commercial manufacturing nation link union together permanent prosperity one operate without extend influence others interest alike protect power legislative authority duty representative body conciliate harmony together far object taxation raise revenue discharge debt defray expense community operation adapt much possible suit burden equal hand upon proportion ability bear without oppression legislation one nation time intentionally make bear heavily upon interest another legislation adapt meant special interest people often press unequally upon several component interest neighbor thus legislation great britain recently avow adapted depression rival nation naturally abound regulation interdict upon production soil industry come competition present encouragement perhaps even bounty raw material state produce essential use manufacture competitor market world commercial rival state commercial legislation great britain bear upon interest exclude interdict duty importation except time approach famine great staple production middle western state proscribe equal rigor bulkier lumber live stock portion also northern eastern part union refuse even rice south unless aggravate charge duty upon northern carrier bring cotton indispensable loom receive almost duty free weave fabric wear destruction manufacture enable thus energy nation helpless exist political institution country power bias foreign legislation grower grain must submit exclusion foreign market produce shipper must dismantle ship trade north stagnate wharf manufacturer starve looms whole people shall pay tribute foreign industry clothe foreign garb congress union impotent restore balance favor native industry destroy statutes another realm generous sentiment trust prevail tariff adopt last session congress shall find experience bear oppressively upon interest one section union ought doubt modified alleviate burden voice complaint portion constituent representative state people never turn away ear long duty foreign shall operate bounty upon domestic article planter merchant shepherd husbandman shall find thrive occupation duty impose protection domestic manufacture repine prosperity share fellow citizen profession denounce violation constitution deliberate act congress shield wrong foreigns native industry union tariff last session congress subject legislative deliberation foretell opposer one necessary consequence would impair revenue yet soon pronounce confidence prediction erroneous obstruction one avenue trade unfrequently open issue another consequence tariff increase exportation diminish importation specific article general law trade increase exportation one article follow increase importation others duty upon supply deficiency diminish importation would otherwise occasion effect taxation upon revenue seldom foreseen certainty must abide test experience yet symptoms diminution perceptible receipt treasury yet little addition cost even experience upon article burden heavy duty last tariff domestic manufacturer supply kindred article diminish price consumer pay tribute labor must otherwise pay foreign industry toil tariff last session detail acceptable great interest portion union even interest specially intend subserve object balance burden upon native industry impose operation foreign law aggravate burden one section union relief afford another great principle sanction act one upon constitution form hope trust authority union adhere duty impose act relieve manufacturer aggravate burden planter let careful revisal provision enlighten practical experience effect direct retain impart protection native industry remove supply place alleviate one great national interest depression another united state america people every state compose sovereign power legislative authority whole exercise congress authority grant common constitution legislative power state exercise assembly derive authority constitution state sovereign within province distribution power presuppose authority move harmony member state general government oath support allegiance due one case conflict two power suppose provision make institution virtuous nation ancient time exist five century without law punishment parricide however progress history people legislatures one state moment excitement instigate conflict mean effect impulse allegation act congress resist unconstitutional people one state ever delegate legislature power pronounce act congress unconstitutional delegate power exercise execution law congress within state may resist suppose case conflict legislation sustain correspond executive judicial authority patriotism philanthropy turn eyes condition party would place people must victim report secretary war various subordinate office resort department present exposition public administration affair connect course current year present state army distribution force compose see report major general several alteration disposal troop find expedient course year discipline army though entirely free exception generally good attention congress particularly invite part report secretary war concern exist system relation indian tribes establishment federal government present constitution unite state principle adopt consider foreign independent power also proprietors land moreover consider savage policy duty use influence convert christianity bring within pale civilization independent power negotiate treaty proprietor purchase land could prevail upon sell brother human race rude ignorant endeavor bring knowledge religion letter ultimate design incorporate institution portion could convert state civilization practice european state revolution consider child govern tenant discretion dispossess occasion might require hunter indemnified trifle concession removal ground game extirpate change system would seem full contemplation consequence change take far successful acquisition land impart principle inspire spirit civilization appropriate hunt ground bring upon obligation provide subsistence rare good fortune teach art civilization doctrine christianity unexpectedly find form midst community claim independent rival sovereignty within territory member union state thing require remedy provide remedy shall justice unfortunate child nature may secure member confederation right sovereignty soil outline project effect view present report secretary war recommend consideration congress report engineer department present comprehensive view progress make great system promotive public interest commence organize authority congress effect already contribute security hereafter largely contribute honor dignity nation first great system fortification commence immediately close last war salutary experience event war impress upon necessity introduce auspex immediate predecessor continue persevere liberal encouragement legislature combine corresponding exertion gradual increase improvement navy prepares extensive country condition defense adapt critical emergency vary course event may bring forth advance concert system last 10 year steady progressive year complete leave apprehension sea coast ever offer theater hostile invasion next cardinal measure policy preliminary great last work public improvement survey roads examination course canal labor removal obstruction river harbor first commence act congress report exhibit one table fund appropriate last preceding session congress fortification survey work public improvement manner fund applied amount expend upon several work construction sum may necessary complete second work project board engineer commence estimate cost third report annual board visitor military academy west point 13 fortification erect various point atlantic coast rhode island louisiana aggregate expenditure year fall little short preparation 5 additional report reconnoissances survey since last session congress civil construction upon 37 different public work commence 8 others specific appropriation make act congress 20 incipient survey authority give act drawn treasury add appropriation commence erection near mouth delaware river subscription delaware chesapeake louisville portland dismal swamp chesapeake ohio canal large donation land state ohio indiana illinois alabama object improvement within state sum appropriate buoys pier coast full view take munificence nation application resource improvement condition great national academy west point among important comprehensive consequence institution part revenue nation apply defray expense educate competent portion youth chiefly knowledge duty military life live armory nation work improvement enumerate report present attention congress destine ameliorate face nature multiply facility communication different part union assist labor increase comfort enhance enjoyment individual instruction acquire west point enlarges dominion expand capacity mind beneficial result already experienced composition army influence felt intellectual progress society institution susceptible still great improvement benefaction propose several successive board visitor whose earnest repeat recommendation cheerfully add usual annual report secretary navy board commissioner exhibit view congress execution law relate department public service repression piracy west indian grecian sea effectually maintain scarcely exception war government buenos ayres brazil frequent collision belligerent act power right neutral commerce occur licentious blockade irregularly enlist impressed sea men property honest commerce seize violence even plunder legal pretense disorder never separable conflict war upon ocean portion correspondence commander eastern aspect south american coast among island greece discover far involved honor country right citizen assert vindicated appearance new squadron mediterranean blockade dardanelles indicate danger obstacle freedom commerce necessity keep naval force sea suggestion repeat report secretary navy tend permanent improvement institution invite favorable consideration congress resolution house representative request one small public vessel send pacific ocean south sea examine coast islands harbor shoal reef seas ascertain true situation description put train execution vessel nearly ready depart successful accomplishment expedition may greatly facilitate suitable legislative provision particularly appropriation defray necessary expense addition 2nd perhaps 3rd vessel slight aggravation cost would contribute much safety citizen embark result may deepest interest country report secretary navy submit conformity act congress gradual improvement navy united state statement expenditures act measure carry effect every section statute contain distinct provision look great object whole gradual improvement navy salutary sanction store ship timber procured process season preservation future use navy arrangement make preservation live oak timber grow land united state reproduction supply future distant day waste valuable material ship building great consumption yearly commercial well military marine country construction two dry dock charlestown norfolk make satisfactory progress toward durable establishment examination inquiry ascertain practicability expediency marine railway pensacola though yet accomplish effectually make navy yard united state examine plan improvement preservation public property therein portsmouth charlestown philadelphia washington gosport 2 others add prepared received sanction portion public duty perform intimate conviction importance future welfare security union report postmaster general exhibit comparative view gradual increase establishment 5 5 year since 1792 time number post office grow less 200 nearly revenue yield swollen upward number mile post road multiply period time population union thrice double rate increase office nearly 40 revenue travel mile 20 25 one increase revenue within last 5 year nearly equal whole revenue department 1812 expenditures department year end exceed receipt sum excess occasion increase mail conveyance facility extent near mile supply collection post master arrearages precede year correct principle seem income levy department defray expense never policy government raise establishment revenue apply purpose suggestion postmaster general insurance safe transmission money mail might assume department moderate competent remuneration deserve consideration congress report commissioner public building city exhibit expenditures upon course current year see humane benevolent intention congress provide act erection penitentiary district accomplish authority legislation require removal tenement offender law sentence atone personal confinement crime provide code employment government thus confine commissioner appoint conformably act provide adjustment claim person entitle indemnification first article treaty ghent distribution among claimant sum paid government great britain convention close labor last awarding claimant sum leave balance distribute ratably amongst claimant award make accord direction act exhibit append report commissioner general land office present actual condition common property union amount pay treasury proceeds land year 1827 first half 1828 fall little short propriety extend time extinguishment debt due united state purchaser public land limited act claim consideration congress whose vigilance careful attention regulation disposal preservation great national inheritance people united state intrust among important subject attention present congress already invite may occupy deliberate discussion provision make take 5th census enumeration inhabitant united state constitution unite state require enumeration make within every term 10 year date last enumeration commence first monday august year 1820 law former enumeration take enacted session congress immediately precede operation considerable inconvenience experience delay legislation late period law like precede enumeration direct census take marshal several district territory union instruction secretary state preparation transmission marshal instruction require time allow passage law day enumeration commence term 6 month limit return marshal also find even short must additional population least must present upon return make short session congress would well consideration convenient commence enumeration earlier period year first august favorable season would spring review former enumeration find plan take every census contain many improvement upon predecessor last still susceptible much improvement 3rd census first account take manufacture country repeat last enumeration return case necessarily imperfect must always rest course upon communication voluntarily make individual interested manufacturing establishment yet contain much valuable information may supplementary provision law render effective column age commence infancy hitherto confine period number 45 year important knowledge would obtain extend columns interval 10 year utmost boundary human life labor take would trifle addition already prescribe result would exhibit comparative table longevity highly interesting country deem duty observe much imperfection return last perhaps precede enumeration proceed inadequateness compensation allow marshal assistant take closing communication remain assure legislature continue earnest wish adoption measure recommend heretofore yet act cordial concurrence part every constitutional provision may receive sanction session tend general welfare