The assemblage of the representatives of our Union in both Houses of the Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of All Good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations we have peace without and tranquillity within our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources, and whatever differences of opinion exist among us with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of Heaven to the improvement of our own condition, there is yet a spirit animating us all which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands to the advancement of the general good. Of the subjects recommended to Congress at their last session, some were then definitively acted upon. Others, left unfinished, but partly matured, will recur to your attention without needing a renewal of notice from me. The purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted. In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding, qualified, however, in several important instances by collisions of interest and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable. By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurred contemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of Congress, the United States have been deprived of a long tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power and trained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch from his youth had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion and to be sensible that the interests of his own Government would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this Republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal intercourse with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the Government of the US upon the affairs of Southern America took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other Governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence of our southern neighbors, of which the example had by the United States already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States have suffered some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister residing here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances that the sentiments of the reigning Emperor toward the United States are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother, and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations which, founded in congenial interests, can not but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both. Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by the operation of the convention of 1822-06-24, with that nation, in a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth as the rule of commercial intercourse which they would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States in the negotiation of that convention earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at the expiration of two years from 1822-10-01, when the convention was to go into effect, unless a notice of 6 months on either side should be given to the other that the convention itself must terminate, those duties should be reduced 1/4, and that this reducation should be yearly repeated, until all discrimination should cease, while the convention itself should continue in force. By the effect of this stipulation 3/4 of the discriminating duties which had been levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports have already been removed; and on the first of next October, should the convention be still in force, the remaining 1/4 will be discontinued. French vessels laden with French produce will be received in our ports on the same terms as our own, and ours in return will enjoy the same advantages in the ports of France. By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add that the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow citizens, and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their condition remains unaltered. With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment of discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both sides. The act of Congress of 1818-04-20, abolished all discriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States upon the assurance given by the Government of the Netherlands that all such duties operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States in that Kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years when the discriminating principle was resumed by the Netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of 10% in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of 1824-01-07, all discriminating duties in the United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and commerce of the United States in any of the foreign countries referred to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the navigation of such foreign country should cease and all the provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in the United States should revive and be in full force with regard to that nation. In the correspondence with the Government of the Netherlands upon this subject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping by this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered a discriminating duty; but it can not be denied that it produces all the same effects. Had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, such a bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been granted consistent with good faith. Yet as the act of Congress of 1824-01-07 has not expressly authorized the Executive authority to determine what shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by a foreign government to the disadvantage of the United States, and as the retaliatory measure on our part, however just and necessary, may tend rather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate than to that concert to which we invite all commercial nations, as most conducive to their interest and our own, I have thought it more consistent with the spirit of our institutions to refer to the subject again to the paramount authority of the Legislature to decide what measure the emergency may require than abruptly by proclamation to carry into effect the minatory provisions of the act of 1824. During the last session of Congress treaties of amity, navigation, and commerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the Government of Denmark, in Europe, and with the Federation of Central America, in this hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutional sanction of the Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were accordingly ratified on the part of the US, and during the recess of Congress have been also ratified by the other respective contracting parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they have been published by proclamations, copies of which are herewith communicated to Congress. These treaties have established between the contracting parties the principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most liberal extent, each party admitting the vessels of the other into its ports, laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of the globe, upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost that are chargeable upon their own. They have further stipulated that the parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to any other nation which shall not upon the same terms be granted to each other, and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise the produce or manufacture of the other any other or higher duties than upon the like articles being the produce or manufacture of any other country. To these principles there is in the convention with Denmark an exception with regard to the colonies of that Kingdom in the arctic seas, but none with regard to her colonies in the West Indies. In the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercial treaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is in the contemplation of the Swedish Government, and is believed to be desirable on the part of the United States. It has been proposed by the King of Sweden that pending the negotiation of renewal the expired treaty should be mutually considered as still in force, a measure which will require the sanction of Congress to be carried into effect on our part, and which I therefore recommend to your consideration. With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and, in general, all the European powers between whom and the United States relations of friendly intercourse have existed their condition has not materially varied since the last session of Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of our commercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britain in America. Negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests have been for several years in discussion between the two Governments, and on the part of the United States have been invariably pursued in the spirit of candor and conciliation. Interests of great magnitude and delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818, while that of 1822, mediated by the late Emperor Alexander, had promised a satisfactory compromise of claims which the Government of the US, in justice to the rights of a numerous class of their citizens, was bound to sustain. But with regard to the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British colonies in America, it has been hitherto found impracticable to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory to both. The relative geographical position and the respective products of nature cultivated by human industry had constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse between the United States and British America, insular and continental, important to the inhabitants of both countries; but it had been interdicted by Great Britain upon a principle heretofore practiced upon by the colonizing nations of Europe, of holding the trade of their colonies each in exclusive monopoly to herself. After the termination of the late war this interdiction had been revived, and the British Government declined including this portion of our intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of the convention of 1815. The trade was then carried on exclusively in British vessels 'til the act of Congress, concerning navigation, of 1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the United States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self defense, were soon succeeded by an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports to the vessels of the United States coming directly from them, and to the importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened with heavy duties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our exports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels from the colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act of Parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made, and a negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on our part that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the two countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimately bring the parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied. With this view the Government of the United States had determined to sacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial arrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and to acquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather than to forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of this interest to the satisfaction of Great Britain herself. The negotiation, repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances, was, however, by mutual agreement and express assent, considered as pending and to be speedily resumed. In the mean time another act of Parliament, so doubtful and ambiguous in its import as to have been misunderstood by the officers in the colonies who were to carry it into execution, opens again certain colonial ports upon new conditions and terms, with a threat to close them against any nation which may not accept those terms as prescribed by the British Government. This act, passed 1825-07, not communicated to the Government of the US, not understood by the British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to be enforced, was never the less submitted to the consideration of Congress at their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress and pledges given of its resumption at an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result of that negotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import of which was not clear and which the British authorities themselves in this hemisphere were not prepared to explain. Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress one of our most distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructions which we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this long controverted interest upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon his arrival, and before he had delivered his letters of credence, he was met by an order of the British council excluding from and after the first of December now current the vessels of the United States from all the colonial British ports excepting those immediately bordering on our territories. In answer to his expostulations upon a measure thus unexpected he is informed that according to the ancient maxims of policy of European nations having colonies their trade is an exclusive possession of the mother country; that all participation in it by other nations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation, but to be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony; that the British Government therefore declines negotiating concerning it, and that as the US did not forthwith accept purely and simply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of 1825-07, Great Britain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even upon the terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of other nations. We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as a mere favor received; that under every circumstance we have given an ample equivalent. We have seen every other nation holding colonies negotiate with other nations and grant them freely admission to the colonies by treaty, and so far are the other colonizing nations of Europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their colonies that we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than one of them by treaty. The refusal, however, of Great Britain to negotiate leaves to the United States no other alternative than that of regulating or interdicting altogether the trade on their part, according as either measure may effect the interests of our own country, and with that exclusive object I would recommend the whole subject to your calm and candid deliberations. It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments. Our north-eastern and north-western boundaries are still unadjusted. The commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of Ghent have nearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the expectation, enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their report to the satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties. The commission for liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success. Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove unsatisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not of favors, which we neither as nor desire, but of equal reciprocity and good will. With the American Governments of this hemisphere we continue to maintain an intercourse altogether friendly, and between their nations and ours that commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is the source of mutual comfort and harmony the result is in a continual state of improvement. The war between Spain and them since the total expulsion of the Spanish military force from their continental territories has been little more than nominal, and their internal tranquillity, though occasionally menaced by the agitations which civil wars never fail to leave behind them, has not been affected by any serious calamity. The congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembled at Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at a more favorable season in the neighborhood of Mexico. The decease of one of our ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of the season, which delayed the departure of the other, deprived United States of the advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress. There is, however, no reason to believe that any transactions of the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the United States or to require the interposition of our ministers had they been present. Their absence has, indeed, deprived United States of the opportunity of possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which were concluded at Panama; and the whole result has confirmed me in the conviction of the expediency to the United States of being represented at the congress. The surviving member of the mission, appointed during your last session, has accordingly proceeded to his destination, and a successor to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated to the Senate. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the course of the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary at Mexico with the united states of that Confederacy, which will also be laid before the Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification. In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is that they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the corresponding period of the last year. The severe shock so extensively sustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in Great Britain has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. A reduced importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to the Treasury at home. The net revenue of the present year will not equal that of the last, and the receipts of that which is to come will fall short of those in the current year. The diminution, however, is in part attributable to the flourishing condition of some of our domestic manufactures, and so far is compensated by an equivalent more profitable to the nation. It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the deficiency in the revenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations of the last year's estimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the application of more than $11M during the present year to the discharge of the principal and interest of the debt, nor the reduction of upward of $7,000,000 of the capital of the debt itself. The balance in the Treasury on the first of January last was $5,201,650.43; the receipts from that time to the 30th of September last were $19,585,932.50; the receipts of the current quarter, estimated at $6,000,000, yield, with the sums already received, a revenue of about $25,500,000 for the year; the expenditures for the first 3 quarters of the year have amounted to $18,714,226.66; the expenditures of the current quarter are expected, including the $2,000,000 of the principal of the debt to be paid, to balance the receipts; so that the expense of the year, amounting to upward of $1,000,000 less than its income, will leave a proportionally increased balance in the Treasury on 1827-01-01, over that of the first of January last; instead of $5,200,000 there will be $6,400,000. The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commence of the year 'til September 30 is estimated at $21,250,000, and the amount that will probably accrue during the present quarter is estimated at $4,250,000, making for the whole year $25,500,000, from which the draw-backs being deducted will leave a clear revenue from the customs receivable in the year 1827 of about $20,400,000, which, with the sums to be received from the proceeds of public lands, the bank dividends, and other incidental receipts, will form an aggregate of about $23,000,000, a sum falling short of the whole expenses of the present year little more than the portion of those expenditures applied to the discharge of the public debt beyond the annual appropriation of $10,000,000 by the act of 1817-03-03. At the passage of that act the public debt amounted to $123,500,000. On the first of January next it will be short of $74,000,000. In the lapse of these 10 years $50,000,000 of public debt, with the annual charge of upward of $3,000,000 of interest upon them, have been extinguished. At the passage of tat act, of the annual appropriation of $10,000,000, $7,000,000 were absorbed in the payment of interest, and not more than $3,000,000 went to reduce the capital of the debt. Of the same $10,000,000, at this time scarcely $4,000,000 are applicable to the interest and upward of $6,000,000 are effective in melting down the capital. Yet our experience has proved that a revenue consisting so largely of imposts and tonnage ebbs and flows to an extraordinary extent, with all the fluctuations incident to the general commerce of the world. It is within our recollection that even in the compass of the same last 10 years the receipts of the Treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year, and that in two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans to meet the engagements of the nation. The returning tides of the succeeding years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun to feel the vicissitude of a decline. To produce these alternations of fullness and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful seasons, the regulations of foreign governments, political revolutions, the prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures, commercial speculations, and many other causes, not always to be traced, variously combine. We have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing periods of from two to three years. The last period of depression to United States was from 1819 to 1822. The corresponding revival was from 1823 to the commencement of the present year. Still, we have no cause to apprehend a depression comparable to that of the former period, or even to anticipate a deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to apply the annual $10M to the reduction of the debt. It is well for us, however, to be admonished of the necessity of abiding by the maxims of the most vigilant economy, and of resorting to all honorable and useful expedients for pursuing with steady and inflexible perseverance the total discharge of the debt. Besides the $7,000,000 of the loans of 1813 which will have been discharged in the course of the present year, there are $9,000,000 which by the terms of the contracts would have been and are now redeemable. $13,000,000 more of the loan of 1814 will become redeemable from and after the expiration of the present month, and $9,000,000 other from and after the close of the ensuing year. They constitute a mass of $31,000,000, all bearing an interest of 6%, more than $20,000,000 of which will be immediately redeemable, and the rest within little more than a year. Leaving of this amount $15,000,000 to continue at the interest of 6%, but to be paid off as far as shall be found practicable in the years 1827 and 1828, there is scarcely a doubt that the remaining $16,000,000 might within a few months be discharged by a loan at not exceeding 5%, redeemable in the years 1829 and 1830. By this operation a sum of nearly $500,000 may be saved to the nation, and the discharge of the whole $31,000,000 within the 4 years may be greatly facilitated if not wholly accomplished. By an act of Congress of 1835-03-03, a loan for the purpose now referred to, or a subscription to stock, was authorized, at an interest not exceeding 4.5%. But at that time so large a portion of the floating capital of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations and so little was left for investment in the stocks that the measure was but partially successful. At the last session of Congress the condition of the funds was still unpropitious to the measure; but the change so soon afterwards occurred that, had the authority existed to redeem the $9M now redeemable by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5%, it is morally certain that it might have been effected, and with it a yearly saving of $90,000. With regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts, certain occurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two of our principal ports, which engaged the attention of Congress at their last session and may hereafter require further consideration. Until within a very few years the execution of the laws for raising the revenue, like that of all our other laws, has been insured more by the moral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution or by penal sanction. Confiding in the exemplary punctuality and unsullied integrity of our importing merchants, a gradual relaxation from the provisions of the collection laws, a close adherence to which have caused inconvenience and expense to them, had long become habitual, and indulgences had been extended universally because they had never been abused. It may be worthy of your serious consideration whether some further legislative provision may not be necessary to come in aid of this state of unguarded security. From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will be discovered the present condition and administration of our military establishment on the land and on the sea. The organization of the Army having undergone no change since its reduction to the present peace establishment in 1821, it remains only to observe that it is yet found adequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in time of peace can be needed or useful. It may be proper to add that, from a difference of opinion between the late President of the United States and the Senate with regard to the construction of the act of Congress of 1821-03-02, to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of the US, it remains hitherto so far without execution that no colonel has been appointed to command one of the regiments of artillery. A supplementary or explanatory act of the Legislature appears to be the only expedient practicable for removing the difficulty of this appointment. In a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere military establishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the duties devolving upon the administration of the Department of War. It will be seen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army that every branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, and discipline; that from the commanding general through all the gradations of superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens before they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army must consist in the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and of patriotism, by which it is impelled. It may be confidently stated that the moral character of the Army is in a state of continual improvement, and that all the arrangements for the disposal of its parts have a constant reference to that end. But to the War Department are attributed other duties, having, indeed, relation to a future possible condition of war, but being purely defensive, and in their tendency contributing rather to the security and permanency of peace -- the erection of the fortifications provided for by Congress, and adapted to secure our shores from hostile invasion; the distribution of the fund of public gratitude and justice to the pensioners of the Revolutionary war; the maintenance of our relations of peace and protection with the Indian tribes, and the internal improvements and surveys for the location of roads and canals, which during the last 3 sessions of Congress have engaged so much of their attention, and may engross so large a share of their future benefactions to our country. By the act of 1824-04-30, suggested and approved by my predecessor, the sum of $30K was appropriated for the purpose of causing to be made the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates of the routes of such roads and canals as the President of the United States might deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of the public mail. The surveys, plans, and estimates for each, when completed, will be laid before Congress. In execution of this act a board of engineers was immediately instituted, and have been since most assiduously and constantly occupied in carrying it into effect. The first object to which their labors were directed, by order of the late President, was the examination of the country between the tide waters of the Potomac, the Ohio, and Lake Erie, to ascertain the practicability of a communication between them, to designate the most suitable route for the same, and to form plans and estimates in detail of the expense of execution. On 1825-02-03, they made their first report, which was immediately communicated to Congress, and in which they declared that having maturely considered the circumstances observed by them personally, and carefully studied the results of such of the preliminary surveys as were then completed, they were decidedly of opinion that the communication was practicable. At the last session of Congress, before the board of engineers were enabled to make up their second report containing a general plan and preparatory estimate for the work, the Committee of the House of Representatives upon Roads and Canals closed the session with a report expressing the hope that the plan and estimate of the board of engineers might at this time be prepared, and that the subject be referred to the early and favorable consideration of Congress at their present session. That expected report of the board of engineers is prepared, and will forthwith be laid before you. Under the resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to have prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system of exercise and instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militia of the US, to be reported to Congress at the present session, a board of distinguished officers of the Army and of the militia has been convened, whose report will be submitted to you with that of the Secretary of War. The occasion was thought favorable for consulting the same board, aided by the results of a correspondence with the governors of the several States and Territories and other citizens of intelligence and experience, upon the acknowledged defective condition of our militia system, and of the improvements of which it is susceptible. The report of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration. In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of $5M will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the Department of War. Less than 2/5 of this will be applicable to the maintenance and support of the Army. $1,500,000, in the form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested in fortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement, provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the ages to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a magnitude burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their equivalents in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from engagements more burdensome than debt. In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000M. About half of these, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual service, and half constitutes a fund of national property, the pledge of our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year after the close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses and charges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the act of 1816-04-29, appropriated $1,000,000 annually for 8 years to the *gradual increase of the Navy*. At a subsequent period this annual appropriation was reduced to $0,500,000 for 6 years, of which the present year is the last. A yet more recent appropriation the last two years, for building 10 sloops of war, has nearly restored the original appropriation of 1816 of $1,000,000 for every year. The result is before United States all. We have 12 line-of-battle ships, 20 frigates, and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a few months preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications along the whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to set foot upon our shores. Combining with a system of fortifications upon the shores themselves, commenced about the same time under the auspices of my immediate predecessor, and hitherto systematically pursued, it has placed in our possession the most effective sinews of war and has left us at once an example and a lesson from which our own duties may be inferred. The gradual increase of the Navy was the principle of which the act of 1816-04-29, was the first development. It was the introduction of a system to act upon the character and history of our country for an indefinite series of ages. It was a declaration of that Congress to their constituents and to posterity that it was the destiny and the duty of these confederated States to become in regular process of time and by no petty advances a great naval power. That which they proposed to accomplish in 8 years is rather to be considered as the measure of their means that the limitation of their design. They looked forward for a term of years sufficient for the accomplishment of a definite portion of their purpose, and they left to their successors to fill up the canvas of which they had traced the large and prophetic outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in contemplation will be shortly completed. The time which they had allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for your consideration how their successors may contribute their portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradual increase of our Navy. There is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powers of the Federal Government which has given more general satisfaction to the people of the Union than this. The system has not been thus vigorously introduced and hitherto sustained to be now departed from or abandoned. In continuing to provide for the gradual increase of the Navy it may not be necessary or expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our ships; but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly appropriation of $0.5M to the same objects, it may be profitably expended in a providing a supply of timber to be seasoned and other materials for future use in the construction of docks or in laying the foundations of a school for naval education, as to the wisdom of Congress either of those measures may appear to claim the preference. Of the small portions of this Navy engaged in actual service during the peace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean, in the West India seas, and in the Mediterranean, to which has been added a small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of South America. In all they have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributed to make our country advantageously known to foreign nations, have honorably employed multitudes of our sea men in the service of their country, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The piracies with which the West India seas were for several years infested have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean they have increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the continued presence of our squadron would probably have been distressing to our own. The war which has unfortunately broken out between the Republic of Buenos Ayres and the Brazilian Government has given rise to very great irregularities among the naval officers of the latter, by whom principles in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have been brought forward to which we can not subscribe and which our own commanders have found it necessary to resist. From the friendly disposition toward the United States constantly manifested by the Emperor of Brazil, and the very useful and friendly commercial intercourse between the United States and his dominions, we have reason to believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustained by several of our citizens from some of his officers will not be withheld. Abstracts from the recent dispatches of the commanders of our several squadrons are communicated with the report of the Secretary of the Navy to Congress. A report from the PostMaster General is likewise communicated, presenting in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous, efficient, and economical administration of that Department. The revenue of the office, even of the year including the latter half of 1824 and the first half of 1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more than $45,000. That of the succeeding year has been still more productive. The increase of the receipts in the year preceding the first of July last over that of the year before exceeds $136,000, and the excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year has swollen from $45,000 to yearly $80,000. During the same period contracts for additional transportation of the mail in stages for about 260,000 miles have been made, and for 70,000 miles annually on horse back. 714 new post offices have been established within the year, and the increase of revenue within the last 3 years, as well as the augmentation of the transportation by mail, is more than equal to the whole amount of receipts and of mail conveyance at the commencement of the present century, when the seat of the General Government was removed to this place. When we reflect that the objects effected by the transportation of the mail are among the choicest comforts and enjoyments of social life, it is pleasing to observe that the dissemination of them to every corner of our country has out- stripped in their increase even the rapid march of our population. By the treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Louisiana and the Floridas to the United States, provision was made for the security of land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some progress has been made under the authority of various acts of Congress in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles, but claims to a very large extent remain unadjusted. The public faith no less than the just rights of individuals and the interest of the community itself appears to require further provision for the speedy settlement of those claims, which I therefore recommend to the care and attention of the Legislature. In conformity with the provisions of the act of 1825-05-20, to provide for erecting a penitentiary in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes, 3 commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a penitentiary for the District, and also a site in the county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been effected. The building of the penitentiary has been commenced, and is in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of the next Congress. This consideration points to the expediency of maturing at the present session a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining the class of offenses which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice. In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that solemn scene -- the hand that penned the ever memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate -- were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of man-kind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!
The assemblage of the representatives of our Union in both Houses of the Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of All Good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations we have peace without and tranquillity within our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources, and whatever differences of opinion exist among us with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of Heaven to the improvement of our own condition, there is yet a spirit animating us all which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands to the advancement of the general good. Of the subjects recommended to Congress at their last session, some were then definitively acted upon. Others, left unfinished, but partly matured, will recur to your attention without needing a renewal of notice from me. The purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted. In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding, qualified, however, in several important instances by collisions of interest and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable. By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurred contemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of Congress, the United States have been deprived of a long tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power and trained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch from his youth had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion and to be sensible that the interests of his own Government would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this Republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal intercourse with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the Government of the US upon the affairs of Southern America took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other Governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence of our southern neighbors, of which the example had by the United States already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States have suffered some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister residing here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances that the sentiments of the reigning Emperor toward the United States are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother, and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations which, founded in congenial interests, can not but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both. Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by the operation of the convention of 1822-06-24, with that nation, in a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth as the rule of commercial intercourse which they would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States in the negotiation of that convention earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at the expiration of two years from 1822-10-01, when the convention was to go into effect, unless a notice of 6 months on either side should be given to the other that the convention itself must terminate, those duties should be reduced 1/4, and that this reducation should be yearly repeated, until all discrimination should cease, while the convention itself should continue in force. By the effect of this stipulation 3/4 of the discriminating duties which had been levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports have already been removed; and on the first of next October, should the convention be still in force, the remaining 1/4 will be discontinued. French vessels laden with French produce will be received in our ports on the same terms as our own, and ours in return will enjoy the same advantages in the ports of France. By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add that the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow citizens, and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their condition remains unaltered. With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment of discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both sides. The act of Congress of 1818-04-20, abolished all discriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States upon the assurance given by the Government of the Netherlands that all such duties operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States in that Kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years when the discriminating principle was resumed by the Netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of 10% in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of 1824-01-07, all discriminating duties in the United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and commerce of the United States in any of the foreign countries referred to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the navigation of such foreign country should cease and all the provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in the United States should revive and be in full force with regard to that nation. In the correspondence with the Government of the Netherlands upon this subject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping by this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered a discriminating duty; but it can not be denied that it produces all the same effects. Had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, such a bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been granted consistent with good faith. Yet as the act of Congress of 1824-01-07 has not expressly authorized the Executive authority to determine what shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by a foreign government to the disadvantage of the United States, and as the retaliatory measure on our part, however just and necessary, may tend rather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate than to that concert to which we invite all commercial nations, as most conducive to their interest and our own, I have thought it more consistent with the spirit of our institutions to refer to the subject again to the paramount authority of the Legislature to decide what measure the emergency may require than abruptly by proclamation to carry into effect the minatory provisions of the act of 1824. During the last session of Congress treaties of amity, navigation, and commerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the Government of Denmark, in Europe, and with the Federation of Central America, in this hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutional sanction of the Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were accordingly ratified on the part of the US, and during the recess of Congress have been also ratified by the other respective contracting parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they have been published by proclamations, copies of which are herewith communicated to Congress. These treaties have established between the contracting parties the principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most liberal extent, each party admitting the vessels of the other into its ports, laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of the globe, upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost that are chargeable upon their own. They have further stipulated that the parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to any other nation which shall not upon the same terms be granted to each other, and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise the produce or manufacture of the other any other or higher duties than upon the like articles being the produce or manufacture of any other country. To these principles there is in the convention with Denmark an exception with regard to the colonies of that Kingdom in the arctic seas, but none with regard to her colonies in the West Indies. In the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercial treaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is in the contemplation of the Swedish Government, and is believed to be desirable on the part of the United States. It has been proposed by the King of Sweden that pending the negotiation of renewal the expired treaty should be mutually considered as still in force, a measure which will require the sanction of Congress to be carried into effect on our part, and which I therefore recommend to your consideration. With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and, in general, all the European powers between whom and the United States relations of friendly intercourse have existed their condition has not materially varied since the last session of Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of our commercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britain in America. Negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests have been for several years in discussion between the two Governments, and on the part of the United States have been invariably pursued in the spirit of candor and conciliation. Interests of great magnitude and delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818, while that of 1822, mediated by the late Emperor Alexander, had promised a satisfactory compromise of claims which the Government of the US, in justice to the rights of a numerous class of their citizens, was bound to sustain. But with regard to the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British colonies in America, it has been hitherto found impracticable to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory to both. The relative geographical position and the respective products of nature cultivated by human industry had constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse between the United States and British America, insular and continental, important to the inhabitants of both countries; but it had been interdicted by Great Britain upon a principle heretofore practiced upon by the colonizing nations of Europe, of holding the trade of their colonies each in exclusive monopoly to herself. After the termination of the late war this interdiction had been revived, and the British Government declined including this portion of our intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of the convention of 1815. The trade was then carried on exclusively in British vessels 'til the act of Congress, concerning navigation, of 1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the United States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self defense, were soon succeeded by an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports to the vessels of the United States coming directly from them, and to the importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened with heavy duties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our exports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels from the colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act of Parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made, and a negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on our part that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the two countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimately bring the parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied. With this view the Government of the United States had determined to sacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial arrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and to acquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather than to forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of this interest to the satisfaction of Great Britain herself. The negotiation, repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances, was, however, by mutual agreement and express assent, considered as pending and to be speedily resumed. In the mean time another act of Parliament, so doubtful and ambiguous in its import as to have been misunderstood by the officers in the colonies who were to carry it into execution, opens again certain colonial ports upon new conditions and terms, with a threat to close them against any nation which may not accept those terms as prescribed by the British Government. This act, passed 1825-07, not communicated to the Government of the US, not understood by the British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to be enforced, was never the less submitted to the consideration of Congress at their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress and pledges given of its resumption at an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result of that negotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import of which was not clear and which the British authorities themselves in this hemisphere were not prepared to explain. Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress one of our most distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructions which we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this long controverted interest upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon his arrival, and before he had delivered his letters of credence, he was met by an order of the British council excluding from and after the first of December now current the vessels of the United States from all the colonial British ports excepting those immediately bordering on our territories. In answer to his expostulations upon a measure thus unexpected he is informed that according to the ancient maxims of policy of European nations having colonies their trade is an exclusive possession of the mother country; that all participation in it by other nations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation, but to be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony; that the British Government therefore declines negotiating concerning it, and that as the US did not forthwith accept purely and simply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of 1825-07, Great Britain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even upon the terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of other nations. We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as a mere favor received; that under every circumstance we have given an ample equivalent. We have seen every other nation holding colonies negotiate with other nations and grant them freely admission to the colonies by treaty, and so far are the other colonizing nations of Europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their colonies that we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than one of them by treaty. The refusal, however, of Great Britain to negotiate leaves to the United States no other alternative than that of regulating or interdicting altogether the trade on their part, according as either measure may effect the interests of our own country, and with that exclusive object I would recommend the whole subject to your calm and candid deliberations. It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments. Our north-eastern and north-western boundaries are still unadjusted. The commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of Ghent have nearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the expectation, enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their report to the satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties. The commission for liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success. Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove unsatisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not of favors, which we neither as nor desire, but of equal reciprocity and good will. With the American Governments of this hemisphere we continue to maintain an intercourse altogether friendly, and between their nations and ours that commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is the source of mutual comfort and harmony the result is in a continual state of improvement. The war between Spain and them since the total expulsion of the Spanish military force from their continental territories has been little more than nominal, and their internal tranquillity, though occasionally menaced by the agitations which civil wars never fail to leave behind them, has not been affected by any serious calamity. The congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembled at Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at a more favorable season in the neighborhood of Mexico. The decease of one of our ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of the season, which delayed the departure of the other, deprived United States of the advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress. There is, however, no reason to believe that any transactions of the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the United States or to require the interposition of our ministers had they been present. Their absence has, indeed, deprived United States of the opportunity of possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which were concluded at Panama; and the whole result has confirmed me in the conviction of the expediency to the United States of being represented at the congress. The surviving member of the mission, appointed during your last session, has accordingly proceeded to his destination, and a successor to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated to the Senate. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the course of the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary at Mexico with the united states of that Confederacy, which will also be laid before the Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification. In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is that they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the corresponding period of the last year. The severe shock so extensively sustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in Great Britain has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. A reduced importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to the Treasury at home. The net revenue of the present year will not equal that of the last, and the receipts of that which is to come will fall short of those in the current year. The diminution, however, is in part attributable to the flourishing condition of some of our domestic manufactures, and so far is compensated by an equivalent more profitable to the nation. It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the deficiency in the revenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations of the last year's estimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the application of more than $11M during the present year to the discharge of the principal and interest of the debt, nor the reduction of upward of $7,000,000 of the capital of the debt itself. The balance in the Treasury on the first of January last was $5,201,650.43; the receipts from that time to the 30th of September last were $19,585,932.50; the receipts of the current quarter, estimated at $6,000,000, yield, with the sums already received, a revenue of about $25,500,000 for the year; the expenditures for the first 3 quarters of the year have amounted to $18,714,226.66; the expenditures of the current quarter are expected, including the $2,000,000 of the principal of the debt to be paid, to balance the receipts; so that the expense of the year, amounting to upward of $1,000,000 less than its income, will leave a proportionally increased balance in the Treasury on 1827-01-01, over that of the first of January last; instead of $5,200,000 there will be $6,400,000. The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commence of the year 'til September 30 is estimated at $21,250,000, and the amount that will probably accrue during the present quarter is estimated at $4,250,000, making for the whole year $25,500,000, from which the draw-backs being deducted will leave a clear revenue from the customs receivable in the year 1827 of about $20,400,000, which, with the sums to be received from the proceeds of public lands, the bank dividends, and other incidental receipts, will form an aggregate of about $23,000,000, a sum falling short of the whole expenses of the present year little more than the portion of those expenditures applied to the discharge of the public debt beyond the annual appropriation of $10,000,000 by the act of 1817-03-03. At the passage of that act the public debt amounted to $123,500,000. On the first of January next it will be short of $74,000,000. In the lapse of these 10 years $50,000,000 of public debt, with the annual charge of upward of $3,000,000 of interest upon them, have been extinguished. At the passage of tat act, of the annual appropriation of $10,000,000, $7,000,000 were absorbed in the payment of interest, and not more than $3,000,000 went to reduce the capital of the debt. Of the same $10,000,000, at this time scarcely $4,000,000 are applicable to the interest and upward of $6,000,000 are effective in melting down the capital. Yet our experience has proved that a revenue consisting so largely of imposts and tonnage ebbs and flows to an extraordinary extent, with all the fluctuations incident to the general commerce of the world. It is within our recollection that even in the compass of the same last 10 years the receipts of the Treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year, and that in two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans to meet the engagements of the nation. The returning tides of the succeeding years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun to feel the vicissitude of a decline. To produce these alternations of fullness and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful seasons, the regulations of foreign governments, political revolutions, the prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures, commercial speculations, and many other causes, not always to be traced, variously combine. We have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing periods of from two to three years. The last period of depression to United States was from 1819 to 1822. The corresponding revival was from 1823 to the commencement of the present year. Still, we have no because to apprehend a depression comparable to that of the former period, or even to anticipate a deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to apply the annual $10M to the reduction of the debt. It is well for us, however, to be admonished of the necessity of abiding by the maxims of the most vigilant economy, and of resorting to all honorable and useful expedients for pursuing with steady and inflexible perseverance the total discharge of the debt. Besides the $7,000,000 of the loans of 1813 which will have been discharged in the course of the present year, there are $9,000,000 which by the terms of the contracts would have been and are now redeemable. $13,000,000 more of the loan of 1814 will become redeemable from and after the expiration of the present month, and $9,000,000 other from and after the close of the ensuing year. They constitute a mass of $31,000,000, all bearing an interest of 6%, more than $20,000,000 of which will be immediately redeemable, and the rest within little more than a year. Leaving of this amount $15,000,000 to continue at the interest of 6%, but to be paid off as far as shall be found practicable in the years 1827 and 1828, there is scarcely a doubt that the remaining $16,000,000 might within a few months be discharged by a loan at not exceeding 5%, redeemable in the years 1829 and 1830. By this operation a sum of nearly $500,000 may be saved to the nation, and the discharge of the whole $31,000,000 within the 4 years may be greatly facilitated if not wholly accomplished. By an act of Congress of 1835-03-03, a loan for the purpose now referred to, or a subscription to stock, was authorized, at an interest not exceeding 4.5%. But at that time so large a portion of the floating capital of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations and so little was left for investment in the stocks that the measure was but partially successful. At the last session of Congress the condition of the funds was still unpropitious to the measure; but the change so soon afterwards occurred that, had the authority existed to redeem the $9M now redeemable by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5%, it is morally certain that it might have been effected, and with it a yearly saving of $90,000. With regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts, certain occurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two of our principal ports, which engaged the attention of Congress at their last session and may hereafter require further consideration. Until within a very few years the execution of the laws for raising the revenue, like that of all our other laws, has been insured more by the moral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution or by penal sanction. Confiding in the exemplary punctuality and unsullied integrity of our importing merchants, a gradual relaxation from the provisions of the collection laws, a close adherence to which have caused inconvenience and expense to them, had long become habitual, and indulgences had been extended universally because they had never been abused. It may be worthy of your serious consideration whether some further legislative provision may not be necessary to come in aid of this state of unguarded security. From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will be discovered the present condition and administration of our military establishment on the land and on the sea. The organization of the Army having undergone no change since its reduction to the present peace establishment in 1821, it remains only to observe that it is yet found adequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in time of peace can be needed or useful. It may be proper to add that, from a difference of opinion between the late President of the United States and the Senate with regard to the construction of the act of Congress of 1821-03-02, to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of the US, it remains hitherto so far without execution that no colonel has been appointed to command one of the regiments of artillery. A supplementary or explanatory act of the Legislature appears to be the only expedient practicable for removing the difficulty of this appointment. In a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere military establishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the duties devolving upon the administration of the Department of War. It will be seen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army that every branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, and discipline; that from the commanding general through all the gradations of superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens before they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army must consist in the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and of patriotism, by which it is impelled. It may be confidently stated that the moral character of the Army is in a state of continual improvement, and that all the arrangements for the disposal of its parts have a constant reference to that end. But to the War Department are attributed other duties, having, indeed, relation to a future possible condition of war, but being purely defensive, and in their tendency contributing rather to the security and permanency of peace -- the erection of the fortifications provided for by Congress, and adapted to secure our shores from hostile invasion; the distribution of the fund of public gratitude and justice to the pensioners of the Revolutionary war; the maintenance of our relations of peace and protection with the Indian tribes, and the internal improvements and surveys for the location of roads and canals, which during the last 3 sessions of Congress have engaged so much of their attention, and may engross so large a share of their future benefactions to our country. By the act of 1824-04-30, suggested and approved by my predecessor, the sum of $30K was appropriated for the purpose of causing to be made the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates of the routes of such roads and canals as the President of the United States might deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of the public mail. The surveys, plans, and estimates for each, when completed, will be laid before Congress. In execution of this act a board of engineers was immediately instituted, and have been since most assiduously and constantly occupied in carrying it into effect. The first object to which their labors were directed, by order of the late President, was the examination of the country between the tide waters of the Potomac, the Ohio, and Lake Erie, to ascertain the practicability of a communication between them, to designate the most suitable route for the same, and to form plans and estimates in detail of the expense of execution. On 1825-02-03, they made their first report, which was immediately communicated to Congress, and in which they declared that having maturely considered the circumstances observed by them personally, and carefully studied the results of such of the preliminary surveys as were then completed, they were decidedly of opinion that the communication was practicable. At the last session of Congress, before the board of engineers were enabled to make up their second report containing a general plan and preparatory estimate for the work, the Committee of the House of Representatives upon Roads and Canals closed the session with a report expressing the hope that the plan and estimate of the board of engineers might at this time be prepared, and that the subject be referred to the early and favorable consideration of Congress at their present session. That expected report of the board of engineers is prepared, and will forthwith be laid before you. Under the resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to have prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system of exercise and instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militia of the US, to be reported to Congress at the present session, a board of distinguished officers of the Army and of the militia has been convened, whose report will be submitted to you with that of the Secretary of War. The occasion was thought favorable for consulting the same board, aided by the results of a correspondence with the governors of the several States and Territories and other citizens of intelligence and experience, upon the acknowledged defective condition of our militia system, and of the improvements of which it is susceptible. The report of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration. In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of $5M will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the Department of War. Less than 2/5 of this will be applicable to the maintenance and support of the Army. $1,500,000, in the form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested in fortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement, provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the ages to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a magnitude burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their equivalents in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from engagements more burdensome than debt. In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000M. About half of these, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual service, and half constitutes a fund of national property, the pledge of our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year after the close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses and charges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the act of 1816-04-29, appropriated $1,000,000 annually for 8 years to the *gradual increase of the Navy*. At a subsequent period this annual appropriation was reduced to $0,500,000 for 6 years, of which the present year is the last. A yet more recent appropriation the last two years, for building 10 sloops of war, has nearly restored the original appropriation of 1816 of $1,000,000 for every year. The result is before United States all. We have 12 line-of-battle ships, 20 frigates, and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a few months preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications along the whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to set foot upon our shores. Combining with a system of fortifications upon the shores themselves, commenced about the same time under the auspices of my immediate predecessor, and hitherto systematically pursued, it has placed in our possession the most effective sinews of war and has left us at once an example and a lesson from which our own duties may be inferred. The gradual increase of the Navy was the principle of which the act of 1816-04-29, was the first development. It was the introduction of a system to act upon the character and history of our country for an indefinite series of ages. It was a declaration of that Congress to their constituents and to posterity that it was the destiny and the duty of these confederated States to become in regular process of time and by no petty advances a great naval power. That which they proposed to accomplish in 8 years is rather to be considered as the measure of their means that the limitation of their design. They looked forward for a term of years sufficient for the accomplishment of a definite portion of their purpose, and they left to their successors to fill up the canvas of which they had traced the large and prophetic outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in contemplation will be shortly completed. The time which they had allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for your consideration how their successors may contribute their portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradual increase of our Navy. There is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powers of the Federal Government which has given more general satisfaction to the people of the Union than this. The system has not been thus vigorously introduced and hitherto sustained to be now departed from or abandoned. In continuing to provide for the gradual increase of the Navy it may not be necessary or expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our ships; but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly appropriation of $0.5M to the same objects, it may be profitably expended in a providing a supply of timber to be seasoned and other materials for future use in the construction of docks or in laying the foundations of a school for naval education, as to the wisdom of Congress either of those measures may appear to claim the preference. Of the small portions of this Navy engaged in actual service during the peace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean, in the West India seas, and in the Mediterranean, to which has been added a small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of South America. In all they have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributed to make our country advantageously known to foreign nations, have honorably employed multitudes of our sea men in the service of their country, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The piracies with which the West India seas were for several years infested have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean they have increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the continued presence of our squadron would probably have been distressing to our own. The war which has unfortunately broken out between the Republic of Buenos Ayres and the Brazilian Government has given rise to very great irregularities among the naval officers of the latter, by whom principles in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have been brought forward to which we can not subscribe and which our own commanders have found it necessary to resist. From the friendly disposition toward the United States constantly manifested by the Emperor of Brazil, and the very useful and friendly commercial intercourse between the United States and his dominions, we have reason to believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustained by several of our citizens from some of his officers will not be withheld. Abstracts from the recent dispatches of the commanders of our several squadrons are communicated with the report of the Secretary of the Navy to Congress. A report from the PostMaster General is likewise communicated, presenting in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous, efficient, and economical administration of that Department. The revenue of the office, even of the year including the latter half of 1824 and the first half of 1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more than $45,000. That of the succeeding year has been still more productive. The increase of the receipts in the year preceding the first of July last over that of the year before exceeds $136,000, and the excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year has swollen from $45,000 to yearly $80,000. During the same period contracts for additional transportation of the mail in stages for about 260,000 miles have been made, and for 70,000 miles annually on horse back. 714 new post offices have been established within the year, and the increase of revenue within the last 3 years, as well as the augmentation of the transportation by mail, is more than equal to the whole amount of receipts and of mail conveyance at the commencement of the present century, when the seat of the General Government was removed to this place. When we reflect that the objects effected by the transportation of the mail are among the choicest comforts and enjoyments of social life, it is pleasing to observe that the dissemination of them to every corner of our country has out- stripped in their increase even the rapid march of our population. By the treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Louisiana and the Floridas to the United States, provision was made for the security of land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some progress has been made under the authority of various acts of Congress in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles, but claims to a very large extent remain unadjusted. The public faith no less than the just rights of individuals and the interest of the community itself appears to require further provision for the speedy settlement of those claims, which I therefore recommend to the care and attention of the Legislature. In conformity with the provisions of the act of 1825-05-20, to provide for erecting a penitentiary in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes, 3 commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a penitentiary for the District, and also a site in the county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been effected. The building of the penitentiary has been commenced, and is in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of the next Congress. This consideration points to the expediency of maturing at the present session a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining the class of offenses which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice. In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that solemn scene -- the hand that penned the ever memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate -- were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the because of freedom and of man-kind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!
the assemblage of the representatives of our union in both houses of the congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the giver of all good with the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity in the survey of our extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty in our civil and political relations we have peace without and tranquillity within our borders we are as a people increasing with unabated rapidity in population wealth and national resources and whatever differences of opinion exist among us with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of heaven to the improvement of our own condition there is yet a spirit animating us all which will not suffer the bounties of providence to be showered upon us in vain but will receive them with grateful hearts and apply them with unwearied hands to the advancement of the general good of the subjects recommended to congress at their last session some were then definitively acted upon others left unfinished but partly matured will recur to your attention without needing a renewal of notice from me the purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted in our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding qualified however in several important instances by collisions of interest and by unsatisfied claims of justice to the settlement of which the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable by the decease of the emperor alexander of russia which occurred contemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of congress the united states have been deprived of a long tried steady and faithful friend born to the inheritance of absolute power and trained in the school of adversity from which no power on earth however absolute is exempt that monarch from his youth had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion and to be sensible that the interests of his own government would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this republic as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal intercourse with our country a candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the government of the us upon the affairs of southern america took place at a period not long preceding his demise and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other governments of europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence of our southern neighbors of which the example had by the united states already been set the ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor the emperor nicholas and the united states have suffered some interruption by the illness departure and subsequent decease of his minister residing here who enjoyed as he merited the entire confidence of his new sovereign as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor but we have had the most satisfactory assurances that the sentiments of the reigning emperor toward the united states are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations which founded in congenial interests can not but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both our relations of commerce and navigation with france are by the operation of the convention of with that nation in a state of gradual and progressive improvement convinced by all our experience no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the united states have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth as the rule of commercial intercourse which they would universally prefer that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties the united states in the negotiation of that convention earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent after reducing the duties of discrimination so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at the expiration of two years from when the convention was to go into effect unless a notice of 6 months on either side should be given to the other that the convention itself must terminate those duties should be reduced and that this reducation should be yearly repeated until all discrimination should cease while the convention itself should continue in force by the effect of this stipulation of the discriminating duties which had been levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports have already been removed and on the first of next october should the convention be still in force the remaining will be discontinued french vessels laden with french produce will be received in our ports on the same terms as our own and ours in return will enjoy the same advantages in the ports of france by these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only has the commerce between the two countries prospered but friendly dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted they will continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the united states it would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add that the claims upon the justice of the french government involving the property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow citizens and which have been so long and so earnestly urged were in a more promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting but their condition remains unaltered with the government of the netherlands the mutual abandonment of discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both sides the act of congress of abolished all discriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce of the netherlands in the ports of the united states upon the assurance given by the government of the netherlands that all such duties operating against the shipping and commerce of the united states in that kingdom had been abolished these reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years when the discriminating principle was resumed by the netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of 10 in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels and in which those of the united states are not permitted to participate by the act of congress of all discriminating duties in the united states were again suspended so far as related to the vessels and produce of the netherlands so long as the reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the united states in the netherlands but the same act provides that in the event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and commerce of the united states in any of the foreign countries referred to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the navigation of such foreign country should cease and all the provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in the united states should revive and be in full force with regard to that nation in the correspondence with the government of the netherlands upon this subject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping by this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered a discriminating duty but it can not be denied that it produces all the same effects had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty such a bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been granted consistent with good faith yet as the act of congress of has not expressly authorized the executive authority to determine what shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by a foreign government to the disadvantage of the united states and as the retaliatory measure on our part however just and necessary may tend rather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate than to that concert to which we invite all commercial nations as most conducive to their interest and our own i have thought it more consistent with the spirit of our institutions to refer to the subject again to the paramount authority of the legislature to decide what measure the emergency may require than abruptly by proclamation to carry into effect the minatory provisions of the act of 1824 during the last session of congress treaties of amity navigation and commerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the government of denmark in europe and with the federation of central america in this hemisphere these treaties then received the constitutional sanction of the senate by the advice and consent to their ratification they were accordingly ratified on the part of the us and during the recess of congress have been also ratified by the other respective contracting parties the ratifications have been exchanged and they have been published by proclamations copies of which are herewith communicated to congress these treaties have established between the contracting parties the principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most liberal extent each party admitting the vessels of the other into its ports laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of the globe upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost that are chargeable upon their own they have further stipulated that the parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to any other nation which shall not upon the same terms be granted to each other and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise the produce or manufacture of the other any other or higher duties than upon the like articles being the produce or manufacture of any other country to these principles there is in the convention with denmark an exception with regard to the colonies of that kingdom in the arctic seas but none with regard to her colonies in the west indies in the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercial treaty with sweden was limited has expired a continuation of it is in the contemplation of the swedish government and is believed to be desirable on the part of the united states it has been proposed by the king of sweden that pending the negotiation of renewal the expired treaty should be mutually considered as still in force a measure which will require the sanction of congress to be carried into effect on our part and which i therefore recommend to your consideration with prussia spain portugal and in general all the european powers between whom and the united states relations of friendly intercourse have existed their condition has not materially varied since the last session of congress i regret not to be able to say the same of our commercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of great britain in america negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests have been for several years in discussion between the two governments and on the part of the united states have been invariably pursued in the spirit of candor and conciliation interests of great magnitude and delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818 while that of 1822 mediated by the late emperor alexander had promised a satisfactory compromise of claims which the government of the us in justice to the rights of a numerous class of their citizens was bound to sustain but with regard to the commercial intercourse between the united states and the british colonies in america it has been hitherto found impracticable to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory to both the relative geographical position and the respective products of nature cultivated by human industry had constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse between the united states and british america insular and continental important to the inhabitants of both countries but it had been interdicted by great britain upon a principle heretofore practiced upon by the colonizing nations of europe of holding the trade of their colonies each in exclusive monopoly to herself after the termination of the late war this interdiction had been revived and the british government declined including this portion of our intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of the convention of 1815 the trade was then carried on exclusively in british vessels the act of congress concerning navigation of 1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the united states these measures not of retaliation but of necessary self defense were soon succeeded by an act of parliament opening certain colonial ports to the vessels of the united states coming directly from them and to the importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened with heavy duties and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our exports the united states opened their ports to british vessels from the colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act of parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made and a negotiation was commenced by mutual consent with the hope on our part that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the two countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimately bring the parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied with this view the government of the united states had determined to sacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial arrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand and to acquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather than to forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of this interest to the satisfaction of great britain herself the negotiation repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances was however by mutual agreement and express assent considered as pending and to be speedily resumed in the mean time another act of parliament so doubtful and ambiguous in its import as to have been misunderstood by the officers in the colonies who were to carry it into execution opens again certain colonial ports upon new conditions and terms with a threat to close them against any nation which may not accept those terms as prescribed by the british government this act passed not communicated to the government of the us not understood by the british officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to be enforced was never the less submitted to the consideration of congress at their last session with the knowledge that a negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress and pledges given of its resumption at an early day it was deemed expedient to await the result of that negotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import of which was not clear and which the british authorities themselves in this hemisphere were not prepared to explain immediately after the close of the last session of congress one of our most distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to great britain furnished with instructions which we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this long controverted interest upon terms acceptable to great britain upon his arrival and before he had delivered his letters of credence he was met by an order of the british council excluding from and after the first of december now current the vessels of the united states from all the colonial british ports excepting those immediately bordering on our territories in answer to his expostulations upon a measure thus unexpected he is informed that according to the ancient maxims of policy of european nations having colonies their trade is an exclusive possession of the mother country that all participation in it by other nations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation but to be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony that the british government therefore declines negotiating concerning it and that as the us did not forthwith accept purely and simply the terms offered by the act of parliament of great britain would not now admit the vessels of the united states even upon the terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of other nations we have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with the british colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as a mere favor received that under every circumstance we have given an ample equivalent we have seen every other nation holding colonies negotiate with other nations and grant them freely admission to the colonies by treaty and so far are the other colonizing nations of europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their colonies that we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than one of them by treaty the refusal however of great britain to negotiate leaves to the united states no other alternative than that of regulating or interdicting altogether the trade on their part according as either measure may effect the interests of our own country and with that exclusive object i would recommend the whole subject to your calm and candid deliberations it is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon the other great topics of discussion between the two governments our and boundaries are still unadjusted the commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of ghent have nearly come to the close of their labors nor can we renounce the expectation enfeebled as it is that they may agree upon their report to the satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties the commission for liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the close of the war has been sitting with doubtful prospects of success propositions of compromise have however passed between the two governments the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove unsatisfactory our own dispositions and purposes toward great britain are all friendly and conciliatory nor can we abandon but with strong reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return not of favors which we neither as nor desire but of equal reciprocity and good will with the american governments of this hemisphere we continue to maintain an intercourse altogether friendly and between their nations and ours that commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is the source of mutual comfort and harmony the result is in a continual state of improvement the war between spain and them since the total expulsion of the spanish military force from their continental territories has been little more than nominal and their internal tranquillity though occasionally menaced by the agitations which civil wars never fail to leave behind them has not been affected by any serious calamity the congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembled at panama after a short session there adjourned to meet again at a more favorable season in the neighborhood of mexico the decease of one of our ministers on his way to the isthmus and the impediments of the season which delayed the departure of the other deprived united states of the advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress there is however no reason to believe that any transactions of the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the united states or to require the interposition of our ministers had they been present their absence has indeed deprived united states of the opportunity of possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which were concluded at panama and the whole result has confirmed me in the conviction of the expediency to the united states of being represented at the congress the surviving member of the mission appointed during your last session has accordingly proceeded to his destination and a successor to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated to the senate a treaty of amity navigation and commerce has in the course of the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary at mexico with the united states of that confederacy which will also be laid before the senate for their advice with regard to its ratification in adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is that they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the corresponding period of the last year the severe shock so extensively sustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in great britain has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves a reduced importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to the treasury at home the net revenue of the present year will not equal that of the last and the receipts of that which is to come will fall short of those in the current year the diminution however is in part attributable to the flourishing condition of some of our domestic manufactures and so far is compensated by an equivalent more profitable to the nation it is also highly gratifying to perceive that the deficiency in the revenue while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations of the last year estimate from the treasury has not interrupted the application of more than 11m during the present year to the discharge of the principal and interest of the debt nor the reduction of upward of of the capital of the debt itself the balance in the treasury on the first of january last was the receipts from that time to the 30th of september last were the receipts of the current quarter estimated at yield with the sums already received a revenue of about for the year the expenditures for the first 3 quarters of the year have amounted to the expenditures of the current quarter are expected including the of the principal of the debt to be paid to balance the receipts so that the expense of the year amounting to upward of less than its income will leave a proportionally increased balance in the treasury on over that of the first of january last instead of there will be the amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commence of the year september 30 is estimated at and the amount that will probably accrue during the present quarter is estimated at making for the whole year from which the being deducted will leave a clear revenue from the customs receivable in the year 1827 of about which with the sums to be received from the proceeds of public lands the bank dividends and other incidental receipts will form an aggregate of about a sum falling short of the whole expenses of the present year little more than the portion of those expenditures applied to the discharge of the public debt beyond the annual appropriation of by the act of at the passage of that act the public debt amounted to on the first of january next it will be short of in the lapse of these 10 years of public debt with the annual charge of upward of of interest upon them have been extinguished at the passage of tat act of the annual appropriation of were absorbed in the payment of interest and not more than went to reduce the capital of the debt of the same at this time scarcely are applicable to the interest and upward of are effective in melting down the capital yet our experience has proved that a revenue consisting so largely of imposts and tonnage ebbs and flows to an extraordinary extent with all the fluctuations incident to the general commerce of the world it is within our recollection that even in the compass of the same last 10 years the receipts of the treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year and that in two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans to meet the engagements of the nation the returning tides of the succeeding years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun to feel the vicissitude of a decline to produce these alternations of fullness and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful seasons the regulations of foreign governments political revolutions the prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures commercial speculations and many other causes not always to be traced variously combine we have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing periods of from two to three years the last period of depression to united states was from 1819 to 1822 the corresponding revival was from 1823 to the commencement of the present year still we have no because to apprehend a depression comparable to that of the former period or even to anticipate a deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to apply the annual 10m to the reduction of the debt it is well for us however to be admonished of the necessity of abiding by the maxims of the most vigilant economy and of resorting to all honorable and useful expedients for pursuing with steady and inflexible perseverance the total discharge of the debt besides the of the loans of 1813 which will have been discharged in the course of the present year there are which by the terms of the contracts would have been and are now redeemable more of the loan of 1814 will become redeemable from and after the expiration of the present month and other from and after the close of the ensuing year they constitute a mass of all bearing an interest of 6 more than of which will be immediately redeemable and the rest within little more than a year leaving of this amount to continue at the interest of 6 but to be paid off as far as shall be found practicable in the years 1827 and 1828 there is scarcely a doubt that the remaining might within a few months be discharged by a loan at not exceeding 5 redeemable in the years 1829 and 1830 by this operation a sum of nearly may be saved to the nation and the discharge of the whole within the 4 years may be greatly facilitated if not wholly accomplished by an act of congress of a loan for the purpose now referred to or a subscription to stock was authorized at an interest not exceeding but at that time so large a portion of the floating capital of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations and so little was left for investment in the stocks that the measure was but partially successful at the last session of congress the condition of the funds was still unpropitious to the measure but the change so soon afterwards occurred that had the authority existed to redeem the 9m now redeemable by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5 it is morally certain that it might have been effected and with it a yearly saving of with regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts certain occurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two of our principal ports which engaged the attention of congress at their last session and may hereafter require further consideration until within a very few years the execution of the laws for raising the revenue like that of all our other laws has been insured more by the moral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution or by penal sanction confiding in the exemplary punctuality and unsullied integrity of our importing merchants a gradual relaxation from the provisions of the collection laws a close adherence to which have caused inconvenience and expense to them had long become habitual and indulgences had been extended universally because they had never been abused it may be worthy of your serious consideration whether some further legislative provision may not be necessary to come in aid of this state of unguarded security from the reports herewith communicated of the secretaries of war and of the navy with the subsidiary documents annexed to them will be discovered the present condition and administration of our military establishment on the land and on the sea the organization of the army having undergone no change since its reduction to the present peace establishment in 1821 it remains only to observe that it is yet found adequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in time of peace can be needed or useful it may be proper to add that from a difference of opinion between the late president of the united states and the senate with regard to the construction of the act of congress of to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of the us it remains hitherto so far without execution that no colonel has been appointed to command one of the regiments of artillery a supplementary or explanatory act of the legislature appears to be the only expedient practicable for removing the difficulty of this appointment in a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere military establishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the duties devolving upon the administration of the department of war it will be seen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the army that every branch of the service is marked with order regularity and discipline that from the commanding general through all the gradations of superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens before they were soldiers and that the glory of a republican army must consist in the spirit of freedom by which it is animated and of patriotism by which it is impelled it may be confidently stated that the moral character of the army is in a state of continual improvement and that all the arrangements for the disposal of its parts have a constant reference to that end but to the war department are attributed other duties having indeed relation to a future possible condition of war but being purely defensive and in their tendency contributing rather to the security and permanency of peace the erection of the fortifications provided for by congress and adapted to secure our shores from hostile invasion the distribution of the fund of public gratitude and justice to the pensioners of the revolutionary war the maintenance of our relations of peace and protection with the indian tribes and the internal improvements and surveys for the location of roads and canals which during the last 3 sessions of congress have engaged so much of their attention and may engross so large a share of their future benefactions to our country by the act of suggested and approved by my predecessor the sum of 30k was appropriated for the purpose of causing to be made the necessary surveys plans and estimates of the routes of such roads and canals as the president of the united states might deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view or necessary for the transportation of the public mail the surveys plans and estimates for each when completed will be laid before congress in execution of this act a board of engineers was immediately instituted and have been since most assiduously and constantly occupied in carrying it into effect the first object to which their labors were directed by order of the late president was the examination of the country between the tide waters of the potomac the ohio and lake erie to ascertain the practicability of a communication between them to designate the most suitable route for the same and to form plans and estimates in detail of the expense of execution on they made their first report which was immediately communicated to congress and in which they declared that having maturely considered the circumstances observed by them personally and carefully studied the results of such of the preliminary surveys as were then completed they were decidedly of opinion that the communication was practicable at the last session of congress before the board of engineers were enabled to make up their second report containing a general plan and preparatory estimate for the work the committee of the house of representatives upon roads and canals closed the session with a report expressing the hope that the plan and estimate of the board of engineers might at this time be prepared and that the subject be referred to the early and favorable consideration of congress at their present session that expected report of the board of engineers is prepared and will forthwith be laid before you under the resolution of congress authorizing the secretary of war to have prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics and a system of exercise and instruction of field artillery for the use of the militia of the us to be reported to congress at the present session a board of distinguished officers of the army and of the militia has been convened whose report will be submitted to you with that of the secretary of war the occasion was thought favorable for consulting the same board aided by the results of a correspondence with the governors of the several states and territories and other citizens of intelligence and experience upon the acknowledged defective condition of our militia system and of the improvements of which it is susceptible the report of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration in the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of 5m will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the department of war less than of this will be applicable to the maintenance and support of the army in the form of pensions goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services and sacrifices of a former age and a more than equal sum invested in fortifications or for the preparations of internal improvement provides for the quiet the comfort and happier existence of the ages to come the appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the presence of civilization though swelling in recent years to a magnitude burdensome to the treasury are generally not without their equivalents in profitable value or serve to discharge the union from engagements more burdensome than debt in like manner the estimate of appropriations for the navy department will present an aggregate sum of upward of about half of these however covers the current expenditures of the navy in actual service and half constitutes a fund of national property the pledge of our future glory and defense it was scarcely one short year after the close of the late war and when the burden of its expenses and charges was weighing heaviest upon the country that congress by the act of appropriated annually for 8 years to the gradual increase of the navy at a subsequent period this annual appropriation was reduced to for 6 years of which the present year is the last a yet more recent appropriation the last two years for building 10 sloops of war has nearly restored the original appropriation of 1816 of for every year the result is before united states all we have 12 ships 20 frigates and sloops of war in proportion which with a few months preparation may present a line of floating fortifications along the whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to set foot upon our shores combining with a system of fortifications upon the shores themselves commenced about the same time under the auspices of my immediate predecessor and hitherto systematically pursued it has placed in our possession the most effective sinews of war and has left us at once an example and a lesson from which our own duties may be inferred the gradual increase of the navy was the principle of which the act of was the first development it was the introduction of a system to act upon the character and history of our country for an indefinite series of ages it was a declaration of that congress to their constituents and to posterity that it was the destiny and the duty of these confederated states to become in regular process of time and by no petty advances a great naval power that which they proposed to accomplish in 8 years is rather to be considered as the measure of their means that the limitation of their design they looked forward for a term of years sufficient for the accomplishment of a definite portion of their purpose and they left to their successors to fill up the canvas of which they had traced the large and prophetic outline the ships of the line and frigates which they had in contemplation will be shortly completed the time which they had allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed it remains for your consideration how their successors may contribute their portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradual increase of our navy there is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powers of the federal government which has given more general satisfaction to the people of the union than this the system has not been thus vigorously introduced and hitherto sustained to be now departed from or abandoned in continuing to provide for the gradual increase of the navy it may not be necessary or expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our ships but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly appropriation of to the same objects it may be profitably expended in a providing a supply of timber to be seasoned and other materials for future use in the construction of docks or in laying the foundations of a school for naval education as to the wisdom of congress either of those measures may appear to claim the preference of the small portions of this navy engaged in actual service during the peace squadrons have continued to be maintained in the pacific ocean in the west india seas and in the mediterranean to which has been added a small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of south america in all they have afforded protection to our commerce have contributed to make our country advantageously known to foreign nations have honorably employed multitudes of our sea men in the service of their country and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill the piracies with which the west india seas were for several years infested have been totally suppressed but in the mediterranean they have increased in a manner afflictive to other nations and but for the continued presence of our squadron would probably have been distressing to our own the war which has unfortunately broken out between the republic of buenos ayres and the brazilian government has given rise to very great irregularities among the naval officers of the latter by whom principles in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have been brought forward to which we can not subscribe and which our own commanders have found it necessary to resist from the friendly disposition toward the united states constantly manifested by the emperor of brazil and the very useful and friendly commercial intercourse between the united states and his dominions we have reason to believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustained by several of our citizens from some of his officers will not be withheld abstracts from the recent dispatches of the commanders of our several squadrons are communicated with the report of the secretary of the navy to congress a report from the postmaster general is likewise communicated presenting in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous efficient and economical administration of that department the revenue of the office even of the year including the latter half of 1824 and the first half of 1825 had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more than that of the succeeding year has been still more productive the increase of the receipts in the year preceding the first of july last over that of the year before exceeds and the excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year has swollen from to yearly during the same period contracts for additional transportation of the mail in stages for about miles have been made and for miles annually on horse back 714 new post offices have been established within the year and the increase of revenue within the last 3 years as well as the augmentation of the transportation by mail is more than equal to the whole amount of receipts and of mail conveyance at the commencement of the present century when the seat of the general government was removed to this place when we reflect that the objects effected by the transportation of the mail are among the choicest comforts and enjoyments of social life it is pleasing to observe that the dissemination of them to every corner of our country has stripped in their increase even the rapid march of our population by the treaties with france and spain respectively ceding louisiana and the floridas to the united states provision was made for the security of land titles derived from the governments of those nations some progress has been made under the authority of various acts of congress in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles but claims to a very large extent remain unadjusted the public faith no less than the just rights of individuals and the interest of the community itself appears to require further provision for the speedy settlement of those claims which i therefore recommend to the care and attention of the legislature in conformity with the provisions of the act of to provide for erecting a penitentiary in the district of columbia and for other purposes 3 commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a penitentiary for the district and also a site in the county of alexandria for a county jail both of which objects have been effected the building of the penitentiary has been commenced and is in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of the next congress this consideration points to the expediency of maturing at the present session a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary and of defining a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary and of defining the class of offenses which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice in closing this communication i trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence at the precise interval of half a century from each other since your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land and on that day while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children two of the principal actors in that solemn scene the hand that penned the ever memorable declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate were by one summons at the distance of 700 miles from each other called before the judge of all to account for their deeds done upon earth they departed cheered by the benedictions of their country to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example if we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century how resplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory then glancing through the same lapse of time in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor of youth in the pledge of their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor to the because of freedom and of and on the last extended on the bed of death with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to heaven of blessing upon their country may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory and that while their mortal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their god
assemblage representatives union houses congress time occurs circumstances calling renewed homage grateful acknowledgments giver good exceptions incidental felicitous condition human existence continue highly favored elements contribute individual comfort national prosperity survey extensive country generally observe abodes health regions plenty civil political relations peace without tranquillity within borders people increasing unabated rapidity population wealth national resources whatever differences opinion exist among us regard mode means shall turn beneficence heaven improvement condition yet spirit animating us suffer bounties providence showered upon us vain receive grateful hearts apply unwearied hands advancement general good subjects recommended congress last session definitively acted upon others left unfinished partly matured recur attention without needing renewal notice purpose communication present view general aspect public affairs moment measures taken carry effect intentions legislature signified laws heretofore enacted intercourse nations earth still happiness enjoying peace general good understanding qualified however several important instances collisions interest unsatisfied claims justice settlement constitutional interposition legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable decease emperor alexander russia occurred contemporaneously commencement last session congress united states deprived long tried steady faithful friend born inheritance absolute power trained school adversity power earth however absolute exempt monarch youth taught feel force value public opinion sensible interests government would best promoted frank friendly intercourse republic people would advanced liberal intercourse country candid confidential interchange sentiments government us upon affairs southern america took place period long preceding demise contributed fix course policy left governments europe alternative sooner later recognizing independence southern neighbors example united states already set ordinary diplomatic communications successor emperor nicholas united states suffered interruption illness departure subsequent decease minister residing enjoyed merited entire confidence new sovereign eminently responded predecessor satisfactory assurances sentiments reigning emperor toward united states altogether conformable long constantly animated imperial brother reason hope serve cement harmony good understanding two nations founded congenial interests result advancement welfare prosperity relations commerce navigation france operation convention nation state gradual progressive improvement convinced experience less principles fair liberal reciprocity united states constantly tendered nations earth rule commercial intercourse would universally prefer fair equal competition conducive interests parties united states negotiation convention earnestly contended mutual renunciation discriminating duties charges ports two countries unable obtain immediate recognition principle full extent reducing duties discrimination far found attainable agreed expiration two years convention go effect unless notice 6 months either side given convention must terminate duties reduced reducation yearly repeated discrimination cease convention continue force effect stipulation discriminating duties levied party upon vessels ports already removed first next october convention still force remaining discontinued french vessels laden french produce received ports terms return enjoy advantages ports france approximations equality duties charges commerce two countries prospered friendly dispositions sides encouraged promoted continue cherished cultivated part united states would gratifying power add claims upon justice french government involving property comfortable subsistence many fellow citizens long earnestly urged promising train adjustment last meeting condition remains unaltered government netherlands mutual abandonment discriminating duties regulated legislative acts sides act congress abolished discriminating duties impost tonnage upon vessels produce netherlands ports united states upon assurance given government netherlands duties operating shipping commerce united states kingdom abolished reciprocal regulations continued force several years discriminating principle resumed netherlands new indirect form bounty 10 shape return duties national vessels united states permitted participate act congress discriminating duties united states suspended far related vessels produce netherlands long reciprocal exemption extended vessels produce united states netherlands act provides event restoration discriminating duties operate shipping commerce united states foreign countries referred therein suspension discriminating duties favor navigation foreign country cease provisions acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage impost duties united states revive full force regard nation correspondence government netherlands upon subject contended favor shown shipping bounty upon tonnage considered discriminating duty denied produces effects mutual abolition stipulated treaty bounty upon national vessels could scarcely granted consistent good faith yet act congress expressly authorized executive authority determine shall considered revival discriminating duties foreign government disadvantage united states retaliatory measure part however necessary may tend rather conflict legislation deprecate concert invite commercial nations conducive interest thought consistent spirit institutions refer subject paramount authority legislature decide measure emergency may require abruptly proclamation carry effect minatory provisions act 1824 last session congress treaties amity navigation commerce negotiated signed place government denmark europe federation central america hemisphere treaties received constitutional sanction senate advice consent ratification accordingly ratified part us recess congress also ratified respective contracting parties ratifications exchanged published proclamations copies herewith communicated congress treaties established contracting parties principles equality reciprocity broadest liberal extent party admitting vessels ports laden cargoes produce manufacture quarter globe upon payment duties tonnage impost chargeable upon stipulated parties shall hereafter grant favor navigation commerce nation shall upon terms granted neither party impose upon articles merchandise produce manufacture higher duties upon like articles produce manufacture country principles convention denmark exception regard colonies kingdom arctic seas none regard colonies west indies course last summer term last commercial treaty sweden limited expired continuation contemplation swedish government believed desirable part united states proposed king sweden pending negotiation renewal expired treaty mutually considered still force measure require sanction congress carried effect part therefore recommend consideration prussia spain portugal general european powers united states relations friendly intercourse existed condition materially varied since last session congress regret able say commercial intercourse colonial possessions great britain america negotiations highest importance common interests several years discussion two governments part united states invariably pursued spirit candor conciliation interests great magnitude delicacy adjusted conventions 1815 1818 1822 mediated late emperor alexander promised satisfactory compromise claims government us justice rights numerous class citizens bound sustain regard commercial intercourse united states british colonies america hitherto found impracticable bring parties understanding satisfactory relative geographical position respective products nature cultivated human industry constituted elements commercial intercourse united states british america insular continental important inhabitants countries interdicted great britain upon principle heretofore practiced upon colonizing nations europe holding trade colonies exclusive monopoly termination late war interdiction revived british government declined including portion intercourse possessions negotiation convention 1815 trade carried exclusively british vessels act congress concerning navigation 1818 supplemental act 1820 met interdict corresponding measure part united states measures retaliation necessary self defense soon succeeded act parliament opening certain colonial ports vessels united states coming directly importation certain articles produce burdened heavy duties excluding valuable articles exports united states opened ports british vessels colonies upon terms exactly corresponding act parliament relative position parties could made negotiation commenced mutual consent hope part reciprocal spirit accommodation common sentiment importance trade interests inhabitants two countries must carried would ultimately bring parties compromise might satisfied view government united states determined sacrifice something entire reciprocity commercial arrangements foreign powers entitled demand acquiesce inequalities disadvantageous rather forego benefit final permanent adjustment interest satisfaction great britain negotiation repeatedly suspended accidental circumstances however mutual agreement express assent considered pending speedily resumed mean time another act parliament doubtful ambiguous import misunderstood officers colonies carry execution opens certain colonial ports upon new conditions terms threat close nation may accept terms prescribed british government act passed communicated government us understood british officers customs colonies enforced never less submitted consideration congress last session knowledge negotiation upon subject long progress pledges given resumption early day deemed expedient await result negotiation rather subscribe implicitly terms import clear british authorities hemisphere prepared explain immediately close last session congress one distinguished citizens dispatched envoy extraordinary minister plenipotentiary great britain furnished instructions could doubt would lead conclusion long controverted interest upon terms acceptable great britain upon arrival delivered letters credence met order british council excluding first december current vessels united states colonial british ports excepting immediately bordering territories answer expostulations upon measure thus unexpected informed according ancient maxims policy european nations colonies trade exclusive possession mother country participation nations boon favor forming subject negotiation regulated legislative acts power owning colony british government therefore declines negotiating concerning us forthwith accept purely simply terms offered act parliament great britain would admit vessels united states even upon terms opened navigation nations accustomed consider trade enjoyed british colonies rather interchange mutual benefits mere favor received every circumstance given ample equivalent seen every nation holding colonies negotiate nations grant freely admission colonies treaty far colonizing nations europe refusing negotiate trade colonies secured access colonies one treaty refusal however great britain negotiate leaves united states alternative regulating interdicting altogether trade part according either measure may effect interests country exclusive object would recommend whole subject calm candid deliberations hoped unavailing exertions accomplish cordial good understanding interest unpropitious effect upon great topics discussion two governments boundaries still unadjusted commissioners 7th article treaty ghent nearly come close labors renounce expectation enfeebled may agree upon report satisfaction acquiescence parties commission liquidating claims indemnity slaves carried away close war sitting doubtful prospects success propositions compromise however passed two governments result flatter may yet prove unsatisfactory dispositions purposes toward great britain friendly conciliatory abandon strong reluctance belief ultimately meet return favors neither desire equal reciprocity good american governments hemisphere continue maintain intercourse altogether friendly nations commercial interchange mutual benefit source mutual comfort harmony result continual state improvement war spain since total expulsion spanish military force continental territories little nominal internal tranquillity though occasionally menaced agitations civil wars never fail leave behind affected serious calamity congress ministers several nations assembled panama short session adjourned meet favorable season neighborhood mexico decease one ministers way isthmus impediments season delayed departure deprived united states advantage represented first meeting congress however reason believe transactions congress nature affect injuriously interests united states require interposition ministers present absence indeed deprived united states opportunity possessing precise authentic information treaties concluded panama whole result confirmed conviction expediency united states represented congress surviving member mission appointed last session accordingly proceeded destination successor distinguished lamented associate nominated senate treaty amity navigation commerce course last summer concluded minister plenipotentiary mexico united states confederacy also laid senate advice regard ratification adverting present condition fiscal concerns prospects revenue first remark calls attention less exuberantly prosperous corresponding period last year severe shock extensively sustained commercial manufacturing interests great britain without perceptible recoil upon reduced importation abroad necessarily succeeded reduced return treasury home net revenue present year equal last receipts come fall short current year diminution however part attributable flourishing condition domestic manufactures far compensated equivalent profitable nation also highly gratifying perceive deficiency revenue scarcely exceeds anticipations last year estimate treasury interrupted application 11m present year discharge principal interest debt reduction upward capital debt balance treasury first january last receipts time 30th september last receipts current quarter estimated yield sums already received revenue year expenditures first 3 quarters year amounted expenditures current quarter expected including principal debt paid balance receipts expense year amounting upward less income leave proportionally increased balance treasury first january last instead amount duties secured merchandise imported commence year september 30 estimated amount probably accrue present quarter estimated making whole year deducted leave clear revenue customs receivable year 1827 sums received proceeds public lands bank dividends incidental receipts form aggregate sum falling short whole expenses present year little portion expenditures applied discharge public debt beyond annual appropriation act passage act public debt amounted first january next short lapse 10 years public debt annual charge upward interest upon extinguished passage tat act annual appropriation absorbed payment interest went reduce capital debt time scarcely applicable interest upward effective melting capital yet experience proved revenue consisting largely imposts tonnage ebbs flows extraordinary extent fluctuations incident general commerce world within recollection even compass last 10 years receipts treasury adequate expenditures year two successive years found necessary resort loans meet engagements nation returning tides succeeding years replenished public coffers begun feel vicissitude decline produce alternations fullness exhaustion relative operation abundant unfruitful seasons regulations foreign governments political revolutions prosperous decaying condition manufactures commercial speculations many causes always traced variously combine found alternate swells diminutions embracing periods two three years last period depression united states 1819 1822 corresponding revival 1823 commencement present year still apprehend depression comparable former period even anticipate deficiency intrench upon ability apply annual 10m reduction debt well us however admonished necessity abiding maxims vigilant economy resorting honorable useful expedients pursuing steady inflexible perseverance total discharge debt besides loans 1813 discharged course present year terms contracts would redeemable loan 1814 become redeemable expiration present month close ensuing year constitute mass bearing interest 6 immediately redeemable rest within little year leaving amount continue interest 6 paid far shall found practicable years 1827 1828 scarcely doubt remaining might within months discharged loan exceeding 5 redeemable years 1829 1830 operation sum nearly may saved nation discharge whole within 4 years may greatly facilitated wholly accomplished act congress loan purpose referred subscription stock authorized interest exceeding time large portion floating capital country absorbed commercial speculations little left investment stocks measure partially successful last session congress condition funds still unpropitious measure change soon afterwards occurred authority existed redeem 9m redeemable exchange stocks loan 5 morally certain might effected yearly saving regard collection revenue imposts certain occurrences within last year disclosed one two principal ports engaged attention congress last session may hereafter require consideration within years execution laws raising revenue like laws insured moral sense community rigors jealous precaution penal sanction confiding exemplary punctuality unsullied integrity importing merchants gradual relaxation provisions collection laws close adherence caused inconvenience expense long become habitual indulgences extended universally never abused may worthy serious consideration whether legislative provision may necessary come aid state unguarded security reports herewith communicated secretaries war navy subsidiary documents annexed discovered present condition administration military establishment land sea organization army undergone change since reduction present peace establishment 1821 remains observe yet found adequate purposes permanent armed force time peace needed useful may proper add difference opinion late president united states senate regard construction act congress reduce fix military peace establishment us remains hitherto far without execution colonel appointed command one regiments artillery supplementary explanatory act legislature appears expedient practicable removing difficulty appointment period profound peace conduct mere military establishment forms inconsiderable portion duties devolving upon administration department war seen returns subordinate departments army every branch service marked order regularity discipline commanding general gradations superintendence officers feel citizens soldiers glory republican army must consist spirit freedom animated patriotism impelled may confidently stated moral character army state continual improvement arrangements disposal parts constant reference end war department attributed duties indeed relation future possible condition war purely defensive tendency contributing rather security permanency peace erection fortifications provided congress adapted secure shores hostile invasion distribution fund public gratitude justice pensioners revolutionary war maintenance relations peace protection indian tribes internal improvements surveys location roads canals last 3 sessions congress engaged much attention may engross large share future benefactions country act suggested approved predecessor sum 30k appropriated purpose causing made necessary surveys plans estimates routes roads canals president united states might deem national importance commercial military point view necessary transportation public mail surveys plans estimates completed laid congress execution act board engineers immediately instituted since assiduously constantly occupied carrying effect first object labors directed order late president examination country tide waters potomac ohio lake erie ascertain practicability communication designate suitable route form plans estimates detail expense execution made first report immediately communicated congress declared maturely considered circumstances observed personally carefully studied results preliminary surveys completed decidedly opinion communication practicable last session congress board engineers enabled make second report containing general plan preparatory estimate work committee house representatives upon roads canals closed session report expressing hope plan estimate board engineers might time prepared subject referred early favorable consideration congress present session expected report board engineers prepared forthwith laid resolution congress authorizing secretary war prepared complete system cavalry tactics system exercise instruction field artillery use militia us reported congress present session board distinguished officers army militia convened whose report submitted secretary war occasion thought favorable consulting board aided results correspondence governors several states territories citizens intelligence experience upon acknowledged defective condition militia system improvements susceptible report board upon subject also submitted consideration estimates appropriations ensuing year upward 5m submitted expenditures paid department war less applicable maintenance support army form pensions goes scarcely adequate tribute services sacrifices former age equal sum invested fortifications preparations internal improvement provides quiet comfort happier existence ages come appropriations indemnify unfortunate remnants another race unable alike share enjoyments exist presence civilization though swelling recent years magnitude burdensome treasury generally without equivalents profitable value serve discharge union engagements burdensome debt like manner estimate appropriations navy department present aggregate sum upward half however covers current expenditures navy actual service half constitutes fund national property pledge future glory defense scarcely one short year close late war burden expenses charges weighing heaviest upon country congress act appropriated annually 8 years gradual increase navy subsequent period annual appropriation reduced 6 years present year last yet recent appropriation last two years building 10 sloops war nearly restored original appropriation 1816 every year result united states 12 ships 20 frigates sloops war proportion months preparation may present line floating fortifications along whole range coast ready meet invader might attempt set foot upon shores combining system fortifications upon shores commenced time auspices immediate predecessor hitherto systematically pursued placed possession effective sinews war left us example lesson duties may inferred gradual increase navy principle act first development introduction system act upon character history country indefinite series ages declaration congress constituents posterity destiny duty confederated states become regular process time petty advances great naval power proposed accomplish 8 years rather considered measure means limitation design looked forward term years sufficient accomplishment definite portion purpose left successors fill canvas traced large prophetic outline ships line frigates contemplation shortly completed time allotted accomplishment work elapsed remains consideration successors may contribute portion toil treasure benefit succeeding age gradual increase navy perhaps part exercise constitutional powers federal government given general satisfaction people union system thus vigorously introduced hitherto sustained departed abandoned continuing provide gradual increase navy may necessary expedient add present number ships deem advisable continue yearly appropriation objects may profitably expended providing supply timber seasoned materials future use construction docks laying foundations school naval education wisdom congress either measures may appear claim preference small portions navy engaged actual service peace squadrons continued maintained pacific ocean west india seas mediterranean added small armament cruise eastern coast south america afforded protection commerce contributed make country advantageously known foreign nations honorably employed multitudes sea men service country inured numbers youths rising generation lives manly hardihood nautical experience skill piracies west india seas several years infested totally suppressed mediterranean increased manner afflictive nations continued presence squadron would probably distressing war unfortunately broken republic buenos ayres brazilian government given rise great irregularities among naval officers latter principles relation blockades neutral navigation brought forward subscribe commanders found necessary resist friendly disposition toward united states constantly manifested emperor brazil useful friendly commercial intercourse united states dominions reason believe reparation demanded injuries sustained several citizens officers withheld abstracts recent dispatches commanders several squadrons communicated report secretary navy congress report postmaster general likewise communicated presenting highly satisfactory manner result vigorous efficient economical administration department revenue office even year including latter half 1824 first half 1825 exceeded expenditures sum succeeding year still productive increase receipts year preceding first july last year exceeds excess receipts expenditures year swollen yearly period contracts additional transportation mail stages miles made miles annually horse back 714 new post offices established within year increase revenue within last 3 years well augmentation transportation mail equal whole amount receipts mail conveyance commencement present century seat general government removed place reflect objects effected transportation mail among choicest comforts enjoyments social life pleasing observe dissemination every corner country stripped increase even rapid march population treaties france spain respectively ceding louisiana floridas united states provision made security land titles derived governments nations progress made authority various acts congress ascertainment establishment titles claims large extent remain unadjusted public faith less rights individuals interest community appears require provision speedy settlement claims therefore recommend care attention legislature conformity provisions act provide erecting penitentiary district columbia purposes 3 commissioners appointed select site erection penitentiary district also site county alexandria county jail objects effected building penitentiary commenced degree forwardness promise completed meeting next congress consideration points expediency maturing present session system regulation government penitentiary defining system regulation government penitentiary defining class offenses shall punishable confinement edifice closing communication trust deemed inappropriate occasion purposes upon assembled indulge momentary retrospect combining single glance period origin national confederation present existence precise interval half century since last meeting place 50th anniversary day independence declared celebrated throughout land day every heart bounding joy every voice tuned gratulation amid blessings freedom independence sires former age handed children two principal actors solemn scene hand penned ever memorable declaration voice sustained debate one summons distance 700 miles called judge account deeds done upon earth departed cheered benedictions country left inheritance fame memory bright example turn thoughts condition country contrast first last day half century resplendent sublime transition gloom glory glancing lapse time condition individuals see first day marked fullness vigor youth pledge lives fortunes sacred honor freedom last extended bed death sense sensibility left breathe last aspiration heaven blessing upon country may humbly hope pledge transition gloom glory mortal vestments sinking clod valley emancipated spirits ascending bosom god
assemblage representative union house congress time occurs circumstance call renew homage grateful acknowledgment giver good exception incidental felicitous condition human existence continue highly favored element contribute individual comfort national prosperity survey extensive country generally observe abode health region plenty civil political relation peace without tranquillity within border people increase unabated rapidity population wealth national resource whatever difference opinion exist among u regard mode mean shall turn beneficence heaven improvement condition yet spirit animate u suffer bounty providence shower upon u vain receive grateful heart apply unwearied hand advancement general good subject recommend congress last session definitively act upon others leave unfinished partly mature recur attention without need renewal notice purpose communication present view general aspect public affair moment measure take carry effect intention legislature signify law heretofore enacted intercourse nation earth still happiness enjoy peace general good understanding qualify however several important instance collision interest unsatisfied claim justice settlement constitutional interposition legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable decease emperor alexander russia occur contemporaneously commencement last session congress united state deprive long tried steady faithful friend bear inheritance absolute power train school adversity power earth however absolute exempt monarch youth teach feel force value public opinion sensible interest government would best promoted frank friendly intercourse republic people would advance liberal intercourse country candid confidential interchange sentiment government u upon affair southern america take place period long precede demise contribute fix course policy leave government europe alternative sooner later recognize independence southern neighbor example united state already set ordinary diplomatic communication successor emperor nicholas united state suffer interruption illness departure subsequent decease minister reside enjoy merit entire confidence new sovereign eminently respond predecessor satisfactory assurance sentiment reign emperor toward united state altogether conformable long constantly animate imperial brother reason hope serve cement harmony good understanding two nation found congenial interest result advancement welfare prosperity relation commerce navigation france operation convention nation state gradual progressive improvement convince experience less principle fair liberal reciprocity united state constantly tender nation earth rule commercial intercourse would universally prefer fair equal competition conducive interest party united state negotiation convention earnestly contend mutual renunciation discriminate duty charge port two country unable obtain immediate recognition principle full extent reduce duty discrimination far find attainable agreed expiration two year convention go effect unless notice 6 month either side give convention must terminate duty reduce reducation yearly repeat discrimination cease convention continue force effect stipulation discriminate duty levy party upon vessel port already remove first next october convention still force remain discontinue french vessel laden french produce receive port term return enjoy advantage port france approximation equality duty charge commerce two country prosper friendly disposition side encourage promoted continue cherish cultivated part united state would gratify power add claim upon justice french government involve property comfortable subsistence many fellow citizen long earnestly urge promise train adjustment last meeting condition remain unaltered government netherlands mutual abandonment discriminate duty regulate legislative act side act congress abolish discriminate duty impost tonnage upon vessel produce netherlands port united state upon assurance give government netherlands duty operate shipping commerce united state kingdom abolish reciprocal regulation continue force several year discriminate principle resume netherlands new indirect form bounty 10 shape return duty national vessel unite state permit participate act congress discriminate duty united state suspend far related vessel produce netherlands long reciprocal exemption extend vessel produce united state netherlands act provide event restoration discriminate duty operate ship commerce united state foreign country refer therein suspension discriminate duty favor navigation foreign country cease provision act impose discriminate foreign tonnage impost duty unite state revive full force regard nation correspondence government netherlands upon subject contend favor show ship bounty upon tonnage consider discriminate duty deny produce effect mutual abolition stipulate treaty bounty upon national vessel could scarcely grant consistent good faith yet act congress expressly authorize executive authority determine shall consider revival discriminate duty foreign government disadvantage unite state retaliatory measure part however necessary may tend rather conflict legislation deprecate concert invite commercial nation conducive interest think consistent spirit institution refer subject paramount authority legislature decide measure emergency may require abruptly proclamation carry effect minatory provision act 1824 last session congress treaty amity navigation commerce negotiate sign place government denmark europe federation central america hemisphere treaty receive constitutional sanction senate advice consent ratification accordingly ratify part u recess congress also ratify respective contracting party ratification exchange publish proclamation copy herewith communicated congress treaty establish contract party principle equality reciprocity broad liberal extent party admit vessel port lade cargo produce manufacture quarter globe upon payment duty tonnage impost chargeable upon stipulated party shall hereafter grant favor navigation commerce nation shall upon term grant neither party impose upon article merchandise produce manufacture high duty upon like article produce manufacture country principle convention denmark exception regard colony kingdom arctic sea none regard colony west indie course last summer term last commercial treaty sweden limit expired continuation contemplation swedish government believe desirable part unite state propose king sweden pending negotiation renewal expire treaty mutually consider still force measure require sanction congress carry effect part therefore recommend consideration prussia spain portugal general european power united state relation friendly intercourse existed condition materially vary since last session congress regret able say commercial intercourse colonial possession great britain america negotiation high importance common interest several year discussion two government part united state invariably pursue spirit candor conciliation interest great magnitude delicacy adjust convention 1815 1818 1822 mediate late emperor alexander promise satisfactory compromise claim government u justice right numerous class citizen bind sustain regard commercial intercourse united state british colony america hitherto find impracticable bring party understand satisfactory relative geographical position respective product nature cultivate human industry constitute element commercial intercourse united state british america insular continental important inhabitant country interdict great britain upon principle heretofore practice upon colonize nation europe hold trade colony exclusive monopoly termination late war interdiction revive british government decline include portion intercourse possession negotiation convention 1815 trade carry exclusively british vessel act congress concern navigation 1818 supplemental act 1820 meet interdict correspond measure part united state measure retaliation necessary self defense soon succeed act parliament open certain colonial port vessel united state come directly importation certain article produce burden heavy duty exclude valuable article export unite state open port british vessel colony upon term exactly correspond act parliament relative position party could make negotiation commenced mutual consent hope part reciprocal spirit accommodation common sentiment importance trade interest inhabitants two country must carry would ultimately bring party compromise might satisfy view government unite state determine sacrifice something entire reciprocity commercial arrangement foreign power entitle demand acquiesce inequality disadvantageous rather forego benefit final permanent adjustment interest satisfaction great britain negotiation repeatedly suspend accidental circumstance however mutual agreement express assent consider pending speedily resume mean time another act parliament doubtful ambiguous import misunderstood officer colony carry execution open certain colonial port upon new condition term threat close nation may accept term prescribe british government act pass communicated government u understand british officer custom colony enforce never less submitted consideration congress last session knowledge negotiation upon subject long progress pledge give resumption early day deem expedient await result negotiation rather subscribe implicitly term import clear british authority hemisphere prepared explain immediately close last session congress one distinguish citizen dispatch envoy extraordinary minister plenipotentiary great britain furnished instruction could doubt would lead conclusion long controverted interest upon term acceptable great britain upon arrival deliver letter credence meet order british council exclude first december current vessel united state colonial british port except immediately border territory answer expostulation upon measure thus unexpected informed accord ancient maxim policy european nation colony trade exclusive possession mother country participation nation boon favor forming subject negotiation regulate legislative act power own colony british government therefore decline negotiate concern u forthwith accept purely simply term offer act parliament great britain would admit vessel unite state even upon term open navigation nation accustom consider trade enjoy british colony rather interchange mutual benefit mere favor receive every circumstance give ample equivalent see every nation hold colony negotiate nation grant freely admission colony treaty far colonize nation europe refuse negotiate trade colony secure access colony one treaty refusal however great britain negotiate leaf united state alternative regulate interdict altogether trade part accord either measure may effect interest country exclusive object would recommend whole subject calm candid deliberation hop unavailing exertion accomplish cordial good understanding interest unpropitious effect upon great topic discussion two government boundary still unadjusted commissioner 7th article treaty ghent nearly come close labor renounce expectation enfeeble may agree upon report satisfaction acquiescence party commission liquidate claim indemnity slave carry away close war sit doubtful prospect success proposition compromise however pass two government result flatter may yet prove unsatisfactory disposition purpose toward great britain friendly conciliatory abandon strong reluctance belief ultimately meet return favor neither desire equal reciprocity good american government hemisphere continue maintain intercourse altogether friendly nation commercial interchange mutual benefit source mutual comfort harmony result continual state improvement war spain since total expulsion spanish military force continental territory little nominal internal tranquillity though occasionally menace agitation civil war never fail leave behind affected serious calamity congress minister several nation assemble panama short session adjourn meet favorable season neighborhood mexico decease one minister way isthmus impediment season delay departure deprive united state advantage represent first meet congress however reason believe transaction congress nature affect injuriously interest unite state require interposition minister present absence indeed deprive united state opportunity possess precise authentic information treaty conclude panama whole result confirm conviction expediency united state represent congress survive member mission appoint last session accordingly proceed destination successor distinguish lamented associate nominate senate treaty amity navigation commerce course last summer conclude minister plenipotentiary mexico united state confederacy also lay senate advice regard ratification advert present condition fiscal concern prospect revenue first remark call attention less exuberantly prosperous correspond period last year severe shock extensively sustain commercial manufacturing interest great britain without perceptible recoil upon reduce importation abroad necessarily succeed reduced return treasury home net revenue present year equal last receipt come fall short current year diminution however part attributable flourish condition domestic manufacture far compensate equivalent profitable nation also highly gratify perceive deficiency revenue scarcely exceed anticipation last year estimate treasury interrupt application 11m present year discharge principal interest debt reduction upward capital debt balance treasury first january last receipt time 30th september last receipts current quarter estimate yield sum already receive revenue year expenditures first 3 quarter year amount expenditure current quarter expect include principal debt pay balance receipt expense year amount upward less income leave proportionally increase balance treasury first january last instead amount duty secure merchandise import commence year september 30 estimated amount probably accrue present quarter estimate make whole year deduct leave clear revenue custom receivable year 1827 sum receive proceeds public land bank dividend incidental receipt form aggregate sum fall short whole expense present year little portion expenditure apply discharge public debt beyond annual appropriation act passage act public debt amount first january next short lapse 10 year public debt annual charge upward interest upon extinguish passage tat act annual appropriation absorb payment interest go reduce capital debt time scarcely applicable interest upward effective melt capital yet experience proved revenue consist largely imposts tonnage ebb flow extraordinary extent fluctuation incident general commerce world within recollection even compass last 10 year receipts treasury adequate expenditure year two successive year find necessary resort loan meet engagement nation return tide succeed year replenish public coffer begin feel vicissitude decline produce alternation fullness exhaustion relative operation abundant unfruitful season regulation foreign government political revolution prosperous decay condition manufacture commercial speculation many cause always trace variously combine find alternate swell diminution embrace period two three year last period depression unite state 1819 1822 correspond revival 1823 commencement present year still apprehend depression comparable former period even anticipate deficiency intrench upon ability apply annual 10m reduction debt well u however admonish necessity abide maxim vigilant economy resort honorable useful expedient pursue steady inflexible perseverance total discharge debt besides loan 1813 discharge course present year term contract would redeemable loan 1814 become redeemable expiration present month close ensue year constitute mass bearing interest 6 immediately redeemable rest within little year leave amount continue interest 6 pay far shall find practicable year 1827 1828 scarcely doubt remain might within month discharge loan exceed 5 redeemable year 1829 1830 operation sum nearly may save nation discharge whole within 4 year may greatly facilitate wholly accomplish act congress loan purpose refer subscription stock authorize interest exceed time large portion float capital country absorb commercial speculation little left investment stock measure partially successful last session congress condition fund still unpropitious measure change soon afterwards occur authority exist redeem 9m redeemable exchange stock loan 5 morally certain might effect yearly save regard collection revenue imposts certain occurrence within last year disclose one two principal port engage attention congress last session may hereafter require consideration within year execution law raise revenue like law insured moral sense community rigor jealous precaution penal sanction confide exemplary punctuality unsullied integrity import merchant gradual relaxation provision collection law close adherence cause inconvenience expense long become habitual indulgence extend universally never abuse may worthy serious consideration whether legislative provision may necessary come aid state unguarded security report herewith communicated secretary war navy subsidiary document annexed discover present condition administration military establishment land sea organization army undergone change since reduction present peace establishment 1821 remain observe yet find adequate purpose permanent arm force time peace need useful may proper add difference opinion late president united state senate regard construction act congress reduce fix military peace establishment u remain hitherto far without execution colonel appoint command one regiment artillery supplementary explanatory act legislature appear expedient practicable remove difficulty appointment period profound peace conduct mere military establishment form inconsiderable portion duty devolve upon administration department war see return subordinate department army every branch service mark order regularity discipline command general gradation superintendence officer feel citizen soldier glory republican army must consist spirit freedom animate patriotism impel may confidently state moral character army state continual improvement arrangement disposal part constant reference end war department attribute duty indeed relation future possible condition war purely defensive tendency contribute rather security permanency peace erection fortification provide congress adapt secure shore hostile invasion distribution fund public gratitude justice pensioner revolutionary war maintenance relation peace protection indian tribes internal improvement survey location road canal last 3 session congress engage much attention may engross large share future benefaction country act suggest approved predecessor sum 30k appropriate purpose cause make necessary survey plan estimate route roads canal president united state might deem national importance commercial military point view necessary transportation public mail survey plan estimate complete laid congress execution act board engineer immediately institute since assiduously constantly occupy carry effect first object labor direct order late president examination country tide water potomac ohio lake erie ascertain practicability communication designate suitable route form plan estimate detail expense execution make first report immediately communicate congress declare maturely consider circumstance observe personally carefully study result preliminary survey complete decidedly opinion communication practicable last session congress board engineer enable make second report contain general plan preparatory estimate work committee house representative upon road canal close session report express hope plan estimate board engineer might time prepared subject refer early favorable consideration congress present session expect report board engineer prepare forthwith laid resolution congress authorize secretary war prepare complete system cavalry tactic system exercise instruction field artillery use militia u report congress present session board distinguish officer army militia convene whose report submit secretary war occasion think favorable consult board aid result correspondence governor several state territory citizen intelligence experience upon acknowledge defective condition militia system improvement susceptible report board upon subject also submit consideration estimate appropriation ensue year upward 5m submit expenditure pay department war less applicable maintenance support army form pension go scarcely adequate tribute service sacrifice former age equal sum invest fortification preparation internal improvement provide quiet comfort happier existence age come appropriation indemnify unfortunate remnant another race unable alike share enjoyment exist presence civilization though swell recent year magnitude burdensome treasury generally without equivalent profitable value serve discharge union engagements burdensome debt like manner estimate appropriation navy department present aggregate sum upward half however cover current expenditure navy actual service half constitute fund national property pledge future glory defense scarcely one short year close late war burden expense charge weigh heavy upon country congress act appropriate annually 8 year gradual increase navy subsequent period annual appropriation reduce 6 year present year last yet recent appropriation last two year build 10 sloop war nearly restore original appropriation 1816 every year result unite state 12 ship 20 frigate sloops war proportion month preparation may present line float fortification along whole range coast ready meet invader might attempt set foot upon shore combine system fortification upon shore commence time auspex immediate predecessor hitherto systematically pursue place possession effective sinew war leave u example lesson duty may infer gradual increase navy principle act first development introduction system act upon character history country indefinite series age declaration congress constituent posterity destiny duty confederate state become regular process time petty advance great naval power propose accomplish 8 year rather consider measure mean limitation design look forward term year sufficient accomplishment definite portion purpose leave successor fill canvas trace large prophetic outline ship line frigates contemplation shortly complete time allotted accomplishment work elapse remains consideration successor may contribute portion toil treasure benefit succeed age gradual increase navy perhaps part exercise constitutional power federal government give general satisfaction people union system thus vigorously introduce hitherto sustain depart abandon continue provide gradual increase navy may necessary expedient add present number ship deem advisable continue yearly appropriation object may profitably expend provide supply timber season material future use construction dock lay foundation school naval education wisdom congress either measure may appear claim preference small portion navy engage actual service peace squadron continue maintain pacific ocean west india seas mediterranean add small armament cruise eastern coast south america afford protection commerce contribute make country advantageously know foreign nation honorably employ multitude sea men service country inure number youth rise generation live manly hardihood nautical experience skill piracies west india seas several year infest totally suppressed mediterranean increase manner afflictive nation continue presence squadron would probably distress war unfortunately break republic buenos ayres brazilian government give rise great irregularity among naval officer latter principle relation blockade neutral navigation bring forward subscribe commander find necessary resist friendly disposition toward united state constantly manifest emperor brazil useful friendly commercial intercourse united state dominion reason believe reparation demand injury sustain several citizen officer withhold abstract recent dispatch commander several squadron communicate report secretary navy congress report postmaster general likewise communicate present highly satisfactory manner result vigorous efficient economical administration department revenue office even year include latter half 1824 first half 1825 exceed expenditure sum succeed year still productive increase receipt year precede first july last year exceed excess receipt expenditures year swell yearly period contract additional transportation mail stage mile make mile annually horse back 714 new post office establish within year increase revenue within last 3 year well augmentation transportation mail equal whole amount receipt mail conveyance commencement present century seat general government remove place reflect object effect transportation mail among choice comfort enjoyment social life please observe dissemination every corner country strip increase even rapid march population treaty france spain respectively cede louisiana florida united state provision make security land title derive government nation progress make authority various act congress ascertainment establishment title claim large extent remain unadjusted public faith less right individual interest community appear require provision speedy settlement claim therefore recommend care attention legislature conformity provision act provide erect penitentiary district columbia purpose 3 commissioner appoint select site erection penitentiary district also site county alexandria county jail object effect build penitentiary commence degree forwardness promise complete meet next congress consideration point expediency mature present session system regulation government penitentiary defining system regulation government penitentiary define class offenses shall punishable confinement edifice closing communication trust deem inappropriate occasion purpose upon assembled indulge momentary retrospect combine single glance period origin national confederation present existence precise interval half century since last meeting place 50th anniversary day independence declare celebrate throughout land day every heart bound joy every voice tune gratulation amid blessing freedom independence sire former age hand child two principal actor solemn scene hand pen ever memorable declaration voice sustain debate one summons distance 700 mile call judge account deeds do upon earth depart cheered benediction country leave inheritance fame memory bright example turn thought condition country contrast first last day half century resplendent sublime transition gloom glory glance lapse time condition individual see first day mark fullness vigor youth pledge live fortune sacred honor freedom last extended bed death sense sensibility leave breathe last aspiration heaven bless upon country may humbly hope pledge transition gloom glory mortal vestment sink clod valley emancipate spirit ascend bosom god