The addresses are separated by three asterisks: *** Dates of addresses by John Quincy Adams in this eBook: December 6, 1825 December 5, 1826 December 4, 1827 December 2, 1828 *** State of the Union AddressJohn Quincy AdamsDecember 6, 1825 Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: In taking a general survey of the concerns of our beloved country, withreference to subjects interesting to the common welfare, the firstsentiment which impresses itself upon the mind is of gratitude to theOmnipotent Disposer of All Good for the continuance of the signalblessings of His providence, and especially for that health which to anunusual extent has prevailed within our borders, and for that abundancewhich in the vicissitudes of the seasons has been scattered withprofusion over our land. Nor ought we less to ascribe to Him the glorythat we are permitted to enjoy the bounties of His hand in peace andtranquillity--in peace with all the other nations of the earth, intranquillity among our selves. There has, indeed, rarely been a periodin the history of civilized man in which the general condition of theChristian nations has been marked so extensively by peace andprosperity. Europe, with a few partial and unhappy exceptions, has enjoyed tenyears of peace, during which all her Governments, what ever the theoryof their constitutions may have been, are successively taught to feelthat the end of their institution is the happiness of the people, andthat the exercise of power among men can be justified only by theblessings it confers upon those over whom it is extended. During the same period our intercourse with all those nations has beenpacific and friendly; it so continues. Since the close of your lastsession no material variation has occurred in our relations with anyone of them. In the commercial and navigation system of Great Britainimportant changes of municipal regulation have recently been sanctionedby acts of Parliament, the effect of which upon the interests of othernations, and particularly upon ours, has not yet been fully developed. In the recent renewal of the diplomatic missions on both sides betweenthe two Governments assurances have been given and received of thecontinuance and increase of the mutual confidence and cordiality bywhich the adjustment of many points of difference had already beeneffected, and which affords the surest pledge for the ultimatesatisfactory adjustment of those which still remain open or mayhereafter arise. The policy of the United States in their commercial intercourse withother nations has always been of the most liberal character. In themutual exchange of their respective productions they have abstainedaltogether from prohibitions; they have interdicted themselves thepower of laying taxes upon exports, and when ever they have favoredtheir own shipping by special preferences or exclusive privileges intheir own ports it has been only with a view to countervail similarfavors and exclusions granted by the nations with whom we have beenengaged in traffic to their own people or shipping, and to thedisadvantage of ours. Immediately after the close of the last war aproposal was fairly made by the act of Congress of March 3rd, 1815, toall the maritime nations to lay aside the system of retaliatingrestrictions and exclusions, and to place the shipping of both partiesto the common trade on a footing of equality in respect to the dutiesof tonnage and impost. This offer was partially and successivelyaccepted by Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Hanseaticcities, Prussia, Sardinia, the Duke of Oldenburg, and Russia. It wasalso adopted, under certain modifications, in our late commercialconvention with France, and by the act of Congress of January 1st, 1824, it has received a new confirmation with all the nations who hadacceded to it, and has been offered again to all those who are or mayhere after be willing to abide in reciprocity by it. But all theseregulations, whether established by treaty or by municipal enactments, are still subject to one important restriction. The removal of discriminating duties of tonnage and of impost islimited to articles of the growth, produce, or manufacture of thecountry to which the vessel belongs or to such articles as are mostusually first shipped from her ports. It will deserve the seriousconsideration of Congress whether even this remnant of restriction maynot be safely abandoned, and whether the general tender of equalcompetition made in the act of January 8th, 1824, maynot be extended toinclude all articles of merchandise not prohibited, of what country soever they may be the produce or manufacture. Propositions of thiseffect have already been made to us by more than one EuropeanGovernment, and it is probable that if once established by legislationor compact with any distinguished maritime state it would recommenditself by the experience of its advantages to the general accession ofall. The convention of commerce and navigation between the United States andFrance, concluded on June 24th, 1822, was, in the understanding andintent of both parties, as appears upon its face, only a temporaryarrangement of the points of difference between them of the mostimmediate and pressing urgency. It was limited in the first instance totwo years from January 10th, 1822, but with a proviso that it shouldfurther continue in force 'til the conclusion of a general anddefinitive treaty of commerce, unless terminated by a notice, sixmonths in advance, of either of the parties to the other. Its operationso far as it extended has been mutually advantageous, and it stillcontinues in force by common consent. But it left unadjusted severalobjects of great interest to the citizens and subjects of bothcountries, and particularly a mass of claims to considerable amount ofcitizens of the United States upon the Government of France ofindemnity for property taken or destroyed under circumstances of themost aggravated and outrageous character. In the long period duringwhich continual and earnest appeals have been made to the equity andmagnanimity of France in behalf of these claims their justice has notbeen, as it could not be, denied. It was hoped that the accession of a new Sovereign to the throne wouldhave afforded a favorable opportunity for presenting them to theconsideration of his Government. They have been presented and urgedhither to without effect. The repeated and earnest representations ofour minister at the Court of France remain as yet even without ananswer. Were the demands of nations upon the justice of each othersusceptible of adjudication by the sentence of an impartial tribunal, those to which I now refer would long since have been settled andadequate indemnity would have been obtained. There are large amounts of similar claims upon the Netherlands, Naples, and Denmark. For those upon Spain prior to 1819 indemnity was, aftermany years of patient forbearance, obtained; and those upon Sweden havebeen lately compromised by a private settlement, in which the claimantsthemselves have acquiesced. The Governments of Denmark and of Napleshave been recently reminded of those yet existing against them, norwill any of them be forgotten while a hope may be indulged of obtainingjustice by the means within the constitutional power of the Executive, and without resorting to those means of self-redress which, as well asthe time, circumstances, and occasion which may require them, arewithin the exclusive competency of the Legislature. It is with great satisfaction that I am enabled to bear witness to theliberal spirit with which the Republic of Colombia has madesatisfaction for well-established claims of a similar character, andamong the documents now communicated to Congress will be distinguisheda treaty of commerce and navigation with that Republic, theratifications of which have been exchanged since the last recess of theLegislature. The negotiation of similar treaties with all of theindependent South American States has been contemplated and may yet beaccomplished. The basis of them all, as proposed by the United States, has been laid in two principles--the one of entire and unqualifiedreciprocity, the other the mutual obligation of the parties to placeeach other permanently upon the footing of the most favored nation. These principles are, indeed, indispensable to the effectualemancipation of the American hemisphere from the thralldom ofcolonizing monopolies and exclusions, an event rapidly realizing in theprogress of human affairs, and which the resistance still opposed incertain parts of Europe to the acknowledgment of the Southern AmericanRepublics as independent States will, it is believed, contribute moreeffectually to accomplish. The time has been, and that not remote, whensome of those States might, in their anxious desire to obtain a nominalrecognition, have accepted of a nominal independence, clogged withburdensome conditions, and exclusive commercial privileges granted tothe nation from which they have separated to the disadvantage of allothers. They are all now aware that such concessions to any Europeannation would be incompatible with that independence which they havedeclared and maintained. Among the measures which have been suggested to them by the newrelations with one another, resulting from the recent changes in theircondition, is that of assembling at the Isthmus of Panama a congress, at which each of them should be represented, to deliberate upon objectsimportant to the welfare of all. The Republics of Colombia, of Mexico, and of Central America have already deputed plenipotentiaries to such ameeting, and they have invited the United States to be also representedthere by their ministers. The invitation has been accepted, andministers on the part of the United States will be commissioned toattend at those deliberations, and to take part in them so far as maybe compatible with that neutrality from which it is neither ourintention nor the desire of the other American States that we shoulddepart. The commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of Ghent have sonearly completed their arduous labors that, by the report recentlyreceived from the agent on the part of the United States, there isreason to expect that the commission will be closed at their nextsession, appointed for May 22 of the ensuing year. The other commission, appointed to ascertain the indemnities due forslaves carried away from the United States after the close of the latewar, have met with some difficulty, which has delayed their progress inthe inquiry. A reference has been made to the British Government on thesubject, which, it may be hoped, will tend to hasten the decision ofthe commissioners, or serve as a substitute for it. Among the powers specifically granted to Congress by the Constitutionare those of establishing uniform laws on the subject of bankruptciesthroughout the United States and of providing for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia and for governing such part of them as maybe employed in the services of the United States. The magnitude andcomplexity of the interests affected by legislation upon these subjectsmay account for the fact that, long and often as both of them haveoccupied the attention and animated the debates of Congress, no systemshave yet been devised for fulfilling to the satisfaction of thecommunity the duties prescribed by these grants of power. To conciliate the claim of the individual citizen to the enjoyment ofpersonal liberty, with the effective obligation of private contracts, is the difficult problem to be solved by a law of bankruptcy. These areobjects of the deepest interest to society, affecting all that isprecious in the existence of multitudes of persons, many of them in theclasses essentially dependent and helpless, of the age requiringnurture, and of the sex entitled to protection from the free agency ofthe parent and the husband. The organization of the militia is yet moreindispensable to the liberties of the country. It is only by aneffective militia that we can at once enjoy the repose of peace and biddefiance to foreign aggression; it is by the militia that we areconstituted an armed nation, standing in perpetual panoply of defensein the presence of all the other nations of the earth. To this end itwould be necessary, if possible, so to shape its organization as togive it a more united and active energy. There are laws establishing anuniform militia throughout the United States and for arming andequipping its whole body. But it is a body of dislocated members, without the vigor of unity and having little of uniformity but thename. To infuse into this most important institution the power of whichit is susceptible and to make it available for the defense of the Unionat the shortest notice and at the smallest expense possible of time, oflife, and of treasure are among the benefits to be expected from thepersevering deliberations of Congress. Among the unequivocal indications of our national prosperity is theflourishing state of our finances. The revenues of the present year, from all their principal sources, will exceed the anticipations of thelast. The balance in the Treasury on the first of January last was alittle short of $2, 000, 000, exclusive of $2, 500, 000, being the moietyof the loan of $5, 000, 000 authorized by the act of May 26th, 1824. Thereceipts into the Treasury from the first of January to the 30th ofSeptember, exclusive of the other moiety of the same loan, areestimated at $16, 500, 000, and it is expected that those of the currentquarter will exceed $5, 000, 000, forming an aggregate of receipts ofnearly $22, 000, 000, independent of the loan. The expenditures of theyear will not exceed that sum more than $2, 000, 000. By thoseexpenditures nearly $8, 000, 000 of the principal of the public debt thathave been discharged. More than $1, 500, 000 has been devoted to the debt of gratitude to thewarriors of the Revolution; a nearly equal sum to the construction offortifications and the acquisition of ordnance and other permanentpreparations of national defense; $500, 000 to the gradual increase ofthe Navy; an equal sum for purchases of territory from the Indians andpayment of annuities to them; and upward of $1, 000, 000 for objects ofinternal improvement authorized by special acts of the last Congress. If we add to these $4, 000, 000 for payment of interest upon the publicdebt, there remains a sum of $7, 000, 000, which have defrayed the wholeexpense of the administration of Government in its legislative, executive, and judiciary departments, including the support of themilitary and naval establishments and all the occasional contingenciesof a government coextensive with the Union. The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported since thecommencement of the year is about $25, 500, 000, and that which willaccrue during the current quarter is estimated at $5, 500, 000; fromthese $31, 000, 000, deducting the draw-backs, estimated at less than$7, 000, 000, a sum exceeding $24, 000, 000 will constitute the revenue ofthe year, and will exceed the whole expenditures of the year. Theentire amount of the public debt remaining due on the first of Januarynext will be short of $81, 000, 000. By an act of Congress of the 3d of March last a loan of $12, 000, 000 wasauthorized at 4. 5%, or an exchange of stock to that amount of 4. 5% fora stock of 6%, to create a fund for extinguishing an equal amount ofthe public debt, bearing an interest of 6%, redeemable in 1826. Anaccount of the measures taken to give effect to this act will be laidbefore you by the Secretary of the Treasury. As the object which it hadin view has been but partially accomplished, it will be for theconsideration of Congress whether the power with which it clothed theExecutive should not be renewed at an early day of the present session, and under what modifications. The act of Congress of the 3d of March last, directing the Secretary ofthe Treasury to subscribe, in the name and for the use of the UnitedStates, for 1, 500 shares of the capital stock of the Chesapeake andDelaware Canal Company, has been executed by the actual subscriptionfor the amount specified; and such other measures have been adopted bythat officer, under the act, as the fulfillment of its intentionsrequires. The latest accounts received of this important undertakingauthorize the belief that it is in successful progress. The payments into the Treasury from the proceeds of the sales of thepublic lands during the present year were estimated at $1, 000, 000. Theactual receipts of the first two quarters have fallen very little shortof that sum; it is not expected that the second half of the year willbe equally productive, but the income of the year from that source maynow be safely estimated at $1, 500, 000. The act of Congress of May 18th, 1824, to provide for the extinguishment of the debt due to the UnitedStates by the purchasers of public lands, was limited in its operationof relief to the purchaser to the 10th of April last. Its effect at theend of the quarter during which it expired was to reduce that debt from$10, 000, 000 to $7, 000, 000 By the operation of similar prior laws ofrelief, from and since that of March 2d, 1821, the debt had beenreduced from upward of $22, 000, 000 to $10, 000, 000. It is exceedingly desirable that it should be extinguished altogether;and to facilitate that consummation I recommend to Congress the revivalfor one year more of the act of May 18th, 1824, with such provisionalmodification as may be necessary to guard the public interests againstfraudulent practices in the resale of the relinquished land. The purchasers of public lands are among the most useful of our fellowcitizens, and since the system of sales for cash alone has beenintroduced great indulgence has been justly extended to those who hadpreviously purchased upon credit. The debt which had been contractedunder the credit sales had become unwieldy, and its extinction wasalike advantageous to the purchaser and to the public. Under the systemof sales, matured as it has been by experience, and adapted to theexigencies of the times, the lands will continue as they have become, an abundant source of revenue; and when the pledge of them to thepublic creditor shall have been redeemed by the entire discharge of thenational debt, the swelling tide of wealth with which they replenishthe common Treasury may be made to reflow in unfailing streams ofimprovement from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The condition of the various branches of the public service resortingfrom the Department of War, and their administration during the currentyear, will be exhibited in the report of the Secretary of War and theaccompanying documents herewith communicated. The organization anddiscipline of the Army are effective and satisfactory. To counteractthe prevalence of desertion among the troops it has been suggested towithhold from the men a small portion of their monthly pay until theperiod of their discharge; and some expedient appears to be necessaryto preserve and maintain among the officers so much of the art ofhorsemanship as could scarcely fail to be found wanting on the possiblesudden eruption of a war, which should take us unprovided with a singlecorps of cavalry. The Military Academy at West Point, under the restrictions of a severebut paternal superintendence, recommends itself more and more to thepatronage of the nation, and the numbers of meritorious officers whichit forms and introduces to the public service furnishes the means ofmultiplying the undertakings of the public improvements to which theiracquirements at that institution are peculiarly adapted. The school ofartillery practice established at Fortress Monroe Hampton, Virginia iswell suited to the same purpose, and may need the aid of furtherlegislative provision to the same end. The reports of the variousofficers at the head of the administrative branches of the militaryservice, connected with the quartering, clothing, subsistence, health, and pay of the Army, exhibit the assiduous vigilance of those officersin the performance of their respective duties, and the faithfulaccountability which has pervaded every part of the system. Our relations with the numerous tribes of aboriginal natives of thiscountry, scattered over its extensive surface and so dependent even fortheir existence upon our power, have been during the present yearhighly interesting. An act of Congress of May 25th, 1824, made anappropriation to defray the expenses of making treaties of trade andfriendship with the Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi. An act ofMarch 3d, 1825, authorized treaties to be made with the Indians fortheir consent to the making of a road from the frontier of Missouri tothat of New Mexico, and another act of the same date provided fordefraying the expenses of holding treaties with the Sioux, Chippeways, Menomenees, Sauks, Foxes, etc. , for the purpose of establishingboundaries and promoting peace between said tribes. The first and last objects of these acts have been accomplished, andthe second is yet in a process of execution. The treaties which sincethe last session of Congress have been concluded with the severaltribes will be laid before the Senate for their considerationconformably to the Constitution. They comprise large and valuableacquisitions of territory, and they secure an adjustment of boundariesand give pledges of permanent peace between several tribes which hadbeen long waging bloody wars against each other. On the 12th of February last a treaty was signed at the Indian Springsbetween commissioners appointed on the part of the United States andcertain chiefs and individuals of the Creek Nation of Indians, whichwas received at the seat of Government only a very few days before theclose of the last session of Congress and of the late Administration. The advice and consent of the Senate was given to it on the 3d ofMarch, too late for it to receive the ratification of the thenPresident of the United States; it was ratified on the 7th of March, under the unsuspecting impression that it had been negotiated in goodfaith and in the confidence inspired by the recommendation of theSenate. The subsequent transactions in relation to this treaty willform the subject of a separate communication. The appropriations made by Congress for public works, as well in theconstruction of fortifications as for purposes of internal improvement, so far as they have been expended, have been faithfully applied. Theirprogress has been delayed by the want of suitable officers forsuperintending them. An increase of both the corps of engineers, military and topographical, was recommended by my predecessor at thelast session of Congress. The reasons upon which that recommendationwas founded subsist in all their force and have acquired additionalurgency since that time. The Military Academy at West Point willfurnish from the cadets there officers well qualified for carrying thismeasure into effect. The Board of Engineers for Internal Improvement, appointed for carryinginto execution the act of Congress of April 30th, 1824, "to procure thenecessary surveys, plans, and estimates on the subject of roads andcanals", have been actively engaged in that service from the close ofthe last session of Congress. They have completed the surveys necessaryfor ascertaining the practicability of a canal from the Chesapeake Bayto the Ohio River, and are preparing a full report on that subject, which, when completed, will be laid before you. The same observation isto be made with regard to the two other objects of national importanceupon which the Board have been occupied, namely, the accomplishment ofa national road from this city to New Orleans, and the practicabilityof uniting the waters of Lake Memphramagog with Connecticut River andthe improvement of the navigation of that river. The surveys have beenmade and are nearly completed. The report may be expected at an earlyperiod during the present session of Congress. The acts of Congress of the last session relative to the surveying, marking, or laying out roads in the Territories of Florida, Arkansas, and Michigan, from Missouri to Mexico, and for the continuation of theCumberland road, are, some of them, fully executed, and others in theprocess of execution. Those for completing or commencing fortificationshave been delayed only so far as the Corps of Engineers has beeninadequate to furnish officers for the necessary superintendence of theworks. Under the act confirming the statutes of Virginia and Marylandincorporating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, threecommissioners on the part of the United States have been appointed foropening books and receiving subscriptions, in concert with a likenumber of commissioners appointed on the part of each of those States. A meeting of the commissioners has been postponed, to await thedefinitive report of the board of engineers. The light-houses and monuments for the safety of our commerce andmariners, the works for the security of Plymouth Beach and for thepreservation of the islands in Boston Harbor, have received theattention required by the laws relating to those objects respectively. The continuation of the Cumberland road, the most important of themall, after surmounting no inconsiderable difficulty in fixing upon thedirection of the road, has commenced under the most promising ofauspices, with the improvements of recent invention in the mode ofconstruction, and with advantage of a great reduction in thecomparative cost of the work. The operation of the laws relating to the Revolutionary pensioners maydeserve the renewed consideration of Congress. The act of March 18th, 1818, while it made provision for many meritorious and indigentcitizens who had served in the War of Independence, opened a door tonumerous abuses and impositions. To remedy this the act of May 1st, 1820, exacted proofs of absolute indigence, which many really in want wereunable and all susceptible of that delicacy which is allied to manyvirtues must be deeply reluctant to give. The result has been that someamong the least deserving have been retained, and some in whom therequisites both of worth and want were combined have been stricken fromthe list. As the numbers of these venerable relics of an age gone bydiminish; as the decays of body, mind, and estate of those that survivemust in the common course of nature increase, should not a more liberalportion of indulgence be dealt out to them? May not the want in mostinstances be inferred from the demand when the service can be proved, and may not the last days of human infirmity be spared themortification of purchasing a pittance of relief only by the exposureof its own necessities? I submit to Congress the expediency ofproviding for individual cases of this description by specialenactment, or of revising the act of May 1st, 1820, with a view tomitigate the rigor of its exclusions in favor of persons to whomcharity now bestowed can scarcely discharge the debt of justice. The portion of the naval force of the Union in actual service has beenchiefly employed on three stations--the Mediterranean, the coasts ofSouth America bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and the West Indies. Anoccasional cruiser has been sent to range along the African shores mostpolluted by the traffic of slaves; one armed vessel has been stationedon the coast of our eastern boundary, to cruise along the fishinggrounds in Hudsons Bay and on the coast of Labrador, and the firstservice of a new frigate has been performed in restoring to his nativesoil and domestic enjoyments the veteran hero whose youthful blood andtreasure had freely flowed in the cause of our country's independence, and whose whole life has been a series of services and sacrifices tothe improvement of his fellow men. The visit of General Lafayette, alike honorable to himself and to ourcountry, closed, as it had commenced, with the most affectingtestimonials of devoted attachment on his part, and of unboundedgratitude of this people to him in return. It will form here-after apleasing incident in the annals of our Union, giving to real historythe intense interest of romance and signally marking the unpurchasabletribute of a great nation's social affections to the disinterestedchampion of the liberties of human-kind. The constant maintenance of a small squadron in the Mediterranean is anecessary substitute for the humiliating alternative of paying tributefor the security of our commerce in that sea, and for a precariouspeace, at the mercy of every caprice of four Barbary States, by whom itwas liable to be violated. An additional motive for keeping arespectable force stationed there at this time is found in the maritimewar raging between the Greeks and the Turks, and in which the neutralnavigation of this Union is always in danger of outrage anddepredation. A few instances have occurred of such depredations uponour merchant vessels by privateers or pirates wearing the Grecian flag, but without real authority from the Greek or any other Government. Theheroic struggles of the Greeks themselves, in which our warmestsympathies as free men and Christians have been engaged, have continuedto be maintained with vicissitudes of success adverse and favorable. Similar motives have rendered expedient the keeping of a like force onthe coasts of Peru and Chile on the Pacific. The irregular andconvulsive character of the war upon the shores has been extended tothe conflicts upon the ocean. An active warfare has been kept up foryears with alternate success, though generally to the advantage of theAmerican patriots. But their naval forces have not always been underthe control of their own Governments. Blockades, unjustifiable upon anyacknowledged principles of international law, have been proclaimed byofficers in command, and though disavowed by the supreme authorities, the protection of our own commerce against them has been made cause ofcomplaint and erroneous imputations against some of the most gallantofficers of our Navy. Complaints equally groundless have been made bythe commanders of the Spanish royal forces in those seas; but the mosteffective protection to our commerce has been the flag and the firmnessof our own commanding officers. The cessation of the war by the complete triumph of the patriot causehas removed, it is hoped, all cause of dissension with one party andall vestige of force of the other. But an unsettled coast of manydegrees of latitude forming a part of our own territory and aflourishing commerce and fishery extending to the islands of thePacific and to China still require that the protecting power of theUnion should be displayed under its flag as well upon the ocean as uponthe land. The objects of the West India Squadron have been to carry intoexecution the laws for the suppression of the African slave trade; forthe protection of our commerce against vessels of piratical character, though bearing commissions from either of the belligerent parties; forits protection against open and unequivocal pirates. These objectsduring the present year have been accomplished more effectually than atany former period. The African slave trade has long been excluded fromthe use of our flag, and if some few citizens of our country havecontinued to set the laws of the Union as well as those of nature andhumanity at defiance by persevering in that abominable traffic, it hasbeen only by sheltering themselves under the banners of other nationsless earnest for the total extinction of the trade of ours. The active, persevering, and unremitted energy of Captain Warringtonand of the officers and men under his command on that trying andperilous service have been crowned with signal success, and areentitled to the approbation of their country. But experience has shownthat not even a temporary suspension or relaxation from assiduity canbe indulged on that station without reproducing piracy and murder inall their horrors; nor is it probably that for years to come ourimmensely valuable commerce in those seas can navigate in securitywithout the steady continuance of an armed force devoted to itsprotection. It were, indeed, a vain and dangerous illusion to believe that in thepresent or probable condition of human society a commerce so extensiveand so rich as ours could exist and be pursued in safety without thecontinual support of a military marine--the only arm by which the powerof this Confederacy can be estimated or felt by foreign nations, andthe only standing military force which can never be dangerous to ourown liberties at home. A permanent naval peace establishment, therefore, adapted to our present condition, and adaptable to thatgigantic growth with which the nation is advancing in its career, isamong the subjects which have already occupied the foresight of thelast Congress, and which will deserve your serious deliberations. OurNavy, commenced at an early period of our present politicalorganization upon a scale commensurate with the incipient energies, thescanty resources, and the comparative indigence of our infancy, waseven then found adequate to cope with all the powers of Barbary, savethe first, and with one of the principle maritime powers of Europe. At a period of further advancement, but with little accession ofstrength, it not only sustained with honor the most unequal ofconflicts, but covered itself and our country with unfading glory. Butit is only since the close of the late war that by the numbers andforce of the ships of which it was composed it could deserve the nameof a navy. Yet it retains nearly the same organization as when itconsisted only of five frigates. The rules and regulations by which itis governed earnestly call for revision, and the want of a naval schoolof instruction, corresponding with the Military Academy at West Point, for the formation of scientific and accomplished officers, is felt withdaily increasing aggravation. The act of Congress of May 26th, 1824, authorizing an examination andsurvey of the harbor of Charleston, in South Carolina, of St. Marys, inGeorgia, and of the coast of Florida, and for other purposes, has beenexecuted so far as the appropriation would admit. Those of the 3d ofMarch last, authorizing the establishment of a navy yard and depot onthe coast of Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, and authorizing thebuilding of ten sloops of war, and for other purposes, are in thecourse of execution, for the particulars of which and other objectsconnected with this Department I refer to the report of the Secretaryof the Navy, herewith communicated. A report from the Post Master General is also submitted, exhibiting thepresent flourishing condition of that Department. For the first timefor many years the receipts for the year ending on the first of Julylast exceeded the expenditures during the same period to the amount ofmore than $45, 000. Other facts equally creditable to the administrationof this Department are that in two years from July 1st, 1823, animprovement of more than $185, 000 in its pecuniary affairs has beenrealized; that in the same interval the increase of the transportationof the mail has exceeded 1, 500, 000 miles annually, and that 1, 040 newpost offices have been established. It hence appears that underjudicious management the income from this establishment may be reliedon as fully adequate to defray its expenses, and that by thediscontinuance of post roads altogether unproductive, others of moreuseful character may be opened, 'til the circulation of the mail shallkeep pace with the spread of our population, and the comforts offriendly correspondence, the exchanges of internal traffic, and thelights of the periodical press shall be distributed to the remotestcorners of the Union, at a charge scarcely perceptible to anyindividual, and without the cost of a dollar to the public Treasury. Upon this first occasion of addressing the Legislature of the Union, with which I have been honored, in presenting to their view theexecution so far as it has been effected of the measures sanctioned bythem for promoting the internal improvement of our country, I can notclose the communication without recommending to their calm andpersevering consideration the general principle in a more enlargedextent. The great object of the institution of civil government is theimprovement of the condition of those who are parties to the socialcompact, and no government, in what ever form constituted, canaccomplish the lawful ends of its institution but in proportion as itimproves the condition of those over whom it is established. Roads andcanals, by multiplying and facilitating the communications andintercourse between distant regions and multitudes of men, are amongthe most important means of improvement. But moral, political, intellectual improvement are duties assigned by the Author of OurExistence to social no less than to individual man. For the fulfillment of those duties governments are invested withpower, and to the attainment of the end--the progressive improvement ofthe condition of the governed--the exercise of delegated powers is aduty as sacred and indispensable as the usurpation of powers notgranted is criminal and odious. Among the first, perhaps the very first, instrument for the improvementof the condition of men is knowledge, and to the acquisition of much ofthe knowledge adapted to the wants, the comforts, and enjoyments ofhuman life public institutions and seminaries of learning areessential. So convinced of this was the first of my predecessors inthis office, now first in the memory, as, living, he was first in thehearts, of our country-men, that once and again in his addresses to theCongresses with whom he cooperated in the public service he earnestlyrecommended the establishment of seminaries of learning, to prepare forall the emergencies of peace and war--a national university and amilitary academy. With respect to the latter, had he lived to thepresent day, in turning his eyes to the institution at West Point hewould have enjoyed the gratification of his most earnest wishes; but insurveying the city which has been honored with his name he would haveseen the spot of earth which he had destined and bequeathed to the useand benefit of his country as the site for a university still bare andbarren. In assuming her station among the civilized nations of the earth itwould seem that our country had contracted the engagement to contributeher share of mind, of labor, and of expense to the improvement of thoseparts of knowledge which lie beyond the reach of individualacquisition, and particularly to geographical and astronomical science. Looking back to the history only of the half century since thedeclaration of our independence, and observing the generous emulationwith which the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia havedevoted the genius, the intelligence, the treasures of their respectivenations to the common improvement of the species in these branches ofscience, is it not incumbent upon us to inquire whether we are notbound by obligations of a high and honorable character to contributeour portion of energy and exertion to the common stock? The voyages ofdiscovery prosecuted in the course of that time at the expense of thosenations have not only redounded to their glory, but to the improvementof human knowledge. We have been partakers of that improvement and owe for it a sacreddebt, not only of gratitude, but of equal or proportional exertion inthe same common cause. Of the cost of these undertakings, if the mereexpenditures of outfit, equipment, and completion of the expeditionswere to be considered the only charges, it would be unworthy of a greatand generous nation to take a second thought. One hundred expeditionsof circumnavigation like those of Cook and La Prouse would not burdenthe exchequer of the nation fitting them out so much as the ways andmeans of defraying a single campaign in war. But if we take intoaccount the lives of those benefactors of man-kind of which theirservices in the cause of their species were the purchase, how shall thecost of those heroic enterprises be estimated, and what compensationcan be made to them or to their countries for them? Is it not bybearing them in affectionate remembrance? Is it not still more byimitating their example--by enabling country-men of our own to pursuethe same career and to hazard their lives in the same cause? In inviting the attention of Congress to the subject of internalimprovements upon a view thus enlarged it is not my desire to recommendthe equipment of an expedition for circumnavigating the globe forpurposes of scientific research and inquiry. We have objects of usefulinvestigation nearer home, and to which our cares may be morebeneficially applied. The interior of our own territories has yet beenvery imperfectly explored. Our coasts along many degrees of latitudeupon the shores of the Pacific Ocean, though much frequented by ourspirited commercial navigators, have been barely visited by our publicships. The River of the West, first fully discovered and navigated by acountry-man of our own, still bears the name of the ship in which heascended its waters, and claims the protection of our armed nationalflag at its mouth. With the establishment of a military post there orat some other point of that coast, recommended by my predecessor andalready matured in the deliberations of the last Congress, I wouldsuggest the expediency of connecting the equipment of a public ship forthe exploration of the whole north-west coast of this continent. The establishment of an uniform standard of weights and measures wasone of the specific objects contemplated in the formation of ourConstitution, and to fix that standard was on of the powers delegatedby express terms in that instrument to Congress. The Governments ofGreat Britain and France have scarcely ceased to be occupied withinquiries and speculations on the same subject since the existence ofour Constitution, and with them it has expanded into profound, laborious, and expensive researches into the figure of the earth andthe comparative length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in variouslatitudes from the equator to the pole. These researches have resultedin the composition and publication of several works highly interestingto the cause of science. The experiments are yet in the process ofperformance. Some of them have recently been made on our own shores, within the walls of one of our own colleges, and partly by one of ourown fellow citizens. It would be honorable to our country if the sequelof the same experiments should be countenanced by the patronage of ourGovernment, as they have hitherto been by those of France and Britain. Connected with the establishment of an university, or separate from it, might be undertaken the erection of an astronomical observatory, withprovision for the support of an astronomer, to be in constantattendance of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens, and forthe periodical publication of his observances. It is with no feeling ofpride as an American that the remark may be made that on thecomparatively small territorial surface of Europe there are existingupward of 130 of these light-houses of the skies, while throughout thewhole American hemisphere there is not one. If we reflect a moment uponthe discoveries which in the last four centuries have been made in thephysical constitution of the universe by the means of these buildingsand of observers stationed in them, shall we doubt of their usefulnessto every nation? And while scarcely a year passes over our headswithout bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which wemust fain receive at second hand from Europe, are we not cuttingourselves off from the means of returning light for light while we haveneither observatory nor observer upon our half of the globe and theearth revolves in perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes? When, on October 25th, 1791, the first President of the United Statesannounced to Congress the result of the first enumeration of theinhabitants of this Union, he informed them that the returns gave thepleasing assurance that the population of the United States bordered on4, 000, 000 persons. At the distance of 30 years from that time the lastenumeration, five years since completed, presented a populationbordering on 10, 000, 000. Perhaps of all the evidence of a prosperousand happy condition of human society the rapidity of the increase ofpopulation is the most unequivocal. But the demonstration of ourprosperity rests not alone upon this indication. Our commerce, our wealth, and the extent of our territories haveincreased in corresponding proportions, and the number of independentcommunities associated in our Federal Union has since that time nearlydoubled. The legislative representation of the States and people in thetwo Houses of Congress has grown with the growth of their constituentbodies. The House, which then consisted of 65 members, now numbersupward of 200. The Senate, which consisted of 26 members, has now 48. But the executive and, still more, the judiciary departments are yet ina great measure confined to their primitive organization, and are nownot adequate to the urgent wants of a still growing community. The naval armaments, which at an early period forced themselves uponthe necessities of the Union, soon led to the establishment of aDepartment of the Navy. But the Departments of Foreign Affairs and ofthe Interior, which early after the formation of the Government hadbeen united in one, continue so united to this time, to theunquestionable detriment of the public service. The multiplication ofour relations with the nations and Governments of the Old World haskept pace with that of our population and commerce, while within thelast ten years a new family of nations in our own hemisphere has arisenamong the inhabitants of the earth, with whom our intercourse, commercial and political, would of itself furnish occupation to anactive and industrious department. The constitution of the judiciary, experimental and imperfect as it waseven in the infancy of our existing Government, is yet more inadequateto the administration of national justice at our present maturity. Nineyears have elapsed since a predecessor in this office, now not thelast, the citizen who, perhaps, of all others throughout the Unioncontributed most to the formation and establishment of ourConstitution, in his valedictory address to Congress, immediatelypreceding his retirement from public life, urgently recommended therevision of the judiciary and the establishment of an additionalexecutive department. The exigencies of the public service and itsunavoidable deficiencies, as now in exercise, have added yearlycumulative weight to the considerations presented by him as persuasiveto the measure, and in recommending it to your deliberations I am happyto have the influence of this high authority in aid of the undoubtingconvictions of my own experience. The laws relating to the administration of the Patent Office aredeserving of much consideration and perhaps susceptible of someimprovement. The grant of power to regulate the action of Congress uponthis subject has specified both the end to be obtained and the means bywhich it is to be effected, "to promote the progress of science anduseful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors theexclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". If anhonest pride might be indulged in the reflection that on the records ofthat office are already found inventions the usefulness of which hasscarcely been transcended in the annals of human ingenuity, would notits exultation be allayed by the inquiry whether the laws haveeffectively insured to the inventors the reward destined to them by theConstitution--even a limited term of exclusive right to theirdiscoveries? On December 24th, 1799, it was resolved by Congress that a marblemonument should be erected by the United States in the Capitol at thecity of Washington; that the family of General Washington should berequested to permit his body to be deposited under it, and that themonument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of hismilitary and political life. In reminding Congress of this resolutionand that the monument contemplated by it remains yet without execution, I shall indulge only the remarks that the works at the Capitol areapproaching to completion; that the consent of the family, desired bythe resolution, was requested and obtained; that a monument has beenrecently erected in this city over the remains of another distinguishedpatriot of the Revolution, and that a spot has been reserved within thewalls where you are deliberating for the benefit of this and futureages, in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him whose spirithovers over you and listens with delight to every act of therepresentatives of his nation which can tend to exalt and adorn his andtheir country. The Constitution under which you are assembled is a charter of limitedpowers. After full and solemn deliberation upon all or any of theobjects which, urged by an irresistible sense of my own duty, I haverecommended to your attention should you come to the conclusion that, however desirable in themselves, the enactment of laws for effectingthem would transcend the powers committed to you by that venerableinstrument which we are all bound to support, let no considerationinduce you to assume the exercise of powers not granted to you by thepeople. But if the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases what soever over the District of Columbia; if the power to lay and collecttaxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide forthe common defense and general welfare of the United States; if thepower to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the severalStates and with the Indian tribes, to fix the standard of weights andmeasures, to establish post offices and post roads, to declare war, toraise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to dispose ofand make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory orother property belonging to the United States, and to make all lawswhich shall be necessary and proper for carrying these powers intoexecution--if these powers and others enumerated in the Constitutionmay be effectually brought into action by laws promoting theimprovement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the cultivationand encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts, theadvancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamentaland profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of thepeople themselves would be to hide in the earth the talent committed toour charge--would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts. The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates thehearts and sharpens the faculties not of our fellow citizens alone, butof the nations of Europe and of their rulers. While dwelling withpleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our politicalinstitutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that thenation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportionto its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that thetenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, uponcondition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improvethe condition of himself and his fellow men. While foreign nations less blessed with that freedom which is powerthan ourselves are advancing with gigantic strides in the career ofpublic improvement, were we to slumber in indolence or fold up our armsand proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of ourconstituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providenceand doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the yearnow drawing to its close we have beheld, under the auspices and at theexpense of one State of this Union, a new university unfolding itsportals to the sons of science and holding up the torch of humanimprovement to eyes that seek the light. We have seen under thepersevering and enlightened enterprise of another State the waters ofour Western lakes mingle with those of the ocean. If undertakings likethese have been accomplished in the compass of a few years by theauthority of single members of our Confederation, can we, therepresentative authorities of the whole Union, fall behind our fellowservants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefitof our common sovereign by the accomplishment of works important to thewhole and to which neither the authority nor the resources of any oneState can be adequate? Finally, fellow citizens, I shall await with cheering hope and faithfulcooperation the result of your deliberations, assured that, withoutencroaching upon the powers reserved to the authorities of therespective States or to the people, you will, with a due sense of yourobligations to your country and of the high responsibilities weighingupon yourselves, give efficacy to the means committed to you for thecommon good. And may He who searches the hearts of the children of menprosper your exertions to secure the blessings of peace and promote thehighest welfare of your country. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS *** State of the Union AddressJohn Quincy AdamsDecember 5, 1826 Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: The assemblage of the representatives of our Union in both Houses ofthe Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for therenewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of AllGood. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous conditionof human existence, we continue to be highly favored in all theelements which contribute to individual comfort and to nationalprosperity. In the survey of our extensive country we have generally toobserve abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil andpolitical relations we have peace without and tranquillity within ourborders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity inpopulation, wealth, and national resources, and whatever differences ofopinion exist among us with regard to the mode and the means by whichwe shall turn the beneficence of Heaven to the improvement of our owncondition, there is yet a spirit animating us all which will not sufferthe bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but willreceive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied handsto the advancement of the general good. Of the subjects recommended to Congress at their last session, somewere then definitively acted upon. Others, left unfinished, but partlymatured, will recur to your attention without needing a renewal ofnotice from me. The purpose of this communication will be to present toyour view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment andthe measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentionsof the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretoforeenacted. In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have stillthe happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding, qualified, however, in several important instances by collisions ofinterest and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement ofwhich the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority maybecome ultimately indispensable. By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurredcontemporaneously with the commencement of the last session ofCongress, the United States have been deprived of a long tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power andtrained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch from his youth had beentaught to feel the force and value of public opinion and to be sensiblethat the interests of his own Government would best be promoted by afrank and friendly intercourse with this Republic, as those of hispeople would be advanced by a liberal intercourse with our country. Acandid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and theGovernment of the United States upon the affairs of Southern Americatook place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributedto fix that course of policy which left to the other Governments ofEurope no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing theindependence of our southern neighbors, of which the example had by theUnited States already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, theEmperor Nicholas, and the United States have suffered some interruptionby the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his ministerresiding here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of hisnew sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of hispredecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances that thesentiments of the reigning Emperor toward the United States arealtogether conformable to those which had so long and constantlyanimated his imperial brother, and we have reason to hope that theywill serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between thetwo nations which, founded in congenial interests, can not but resultin the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both. Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by theoperation of the convention of June 24th, 1822, with that nation, in astate of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all ourexperience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberalreciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all thenations of the earth as the rule of commercial intercourse which theywould universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is mostconducive to the interests of both parties, the United States in thenegotiation of that convention earnestly contended for a mutualrenunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of thetwo countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of thisprinciple in its full extent, after reducing the duties ofdiscrimination so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at theexpiration of two years from October 1st, 1822, when the convention wasto go into effect, unless a notice of six months on either side shouldbe given to the other that the convention itself must terminate, thoseduties should be reduced one quarter, and that this reduction should beyearly repeated, until all discrimination should cease, while theconvention itself should continue in force. By the effect of thisstipulation three quarters of the discriminating duties which had beenlevied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports havealready been removed; and on the first of next October, should theconvention be still in force, the remaining one quarter will bediscontinued. French vessels laden with French produce will be receivedin our ports on the same terms as our own, and ours in return willenjoy the same advantages in the ports of France. By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges notonly has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendlydispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They willcontinue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the UnitedStates. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to addthat the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involvingthe property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellowcitizens, and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in amore promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but theircondition remains unaltered. With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment ofdiscriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on bothsides. The act of Congress of April 20th, 1818, abolished alldiscriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels andproduce of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States upon theassurance given by the Government of the Netherlands that all suchduties operating against the shipping and commerce of the United Statesin that Kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations hadcontinued in force several years when the discriminating principle wasresumed by the Netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of10% in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, andin which those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of January 7th, 1824, all discriminating dutiesin the United States were again suspended, so far as related to thevessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocalexemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the UnitedStates in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the eventof a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against theshipping and commerce of the United States in any of the foreigncountries referred to therein the suspension of discriminating dutiesin favor of the navigation of such foreign country should cease and allthe provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage andimpost duties in the United States should revive and be in full forcewith regard to that nation. In the correspondence with the Government of the Netherlands upon thissubject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shippingby this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered adiscriminating duty; but it can not be denied that it produces all thesame effects. Had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, sucha bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been grantedconsistent with good faith. Yet as the act of Congress of January 7th, 1824 has not expressly authorized the Executive authority to determinewhat shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by aforeign government to the disadvantage of the United States, and as theretaliatory measure on our part, however just and necessary, may tendrather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate than to thatconcert to which we invite all commercial nations, as most conducive totheir interest and our own, I have thought it more consistent with thespirit of our institutions to refer to the subject again to theparamount authority of the Legislature to decide what measure theemergency may require than abruptly by proclamation to carry intoeffect the minatory provisions of the act of 1824. During the last session of Congress treaties of amity, navigation, andcommerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the Governmentof Denmark, in Europe, and with the Federation of Central America, inthis hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutionalsanction of the Senate, by the advice and consent to theirratification. They were accordingly ratified on the part of the UnitedStates, and during the recess of Congress have been also ratified bythe other respective contracting parties. The ratifications have beenexchanged, and they have been published by proclamations, copies ofwhich are herewith communicated to Congress. These treaties have established between the contracting parties theprinciples of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and mostliberal extent, each party admitting the vessels of the other into itsports, laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter ofthe globe, upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impostthat are chargeable upon their own. They have further stipulated thatthe parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce toany other nation which shall not upon the same terms be granted to eachother, and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandisethe produce or manufacture of the other any other or higher duties thanupon the like articles being the produce or manufacture of any othercountry. To these principles there is in the convention with Denmark anexception with regard to the colonies of that Kingdom in the arcticseas, but none with regard to her colonies in the West Indies. In the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercialtreaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is inthe contemplation of the Swedish Government, and is believed to bedesirable on the part of the United States. It has been proposed by theKing of Sweden that pending the negotiation of renewal the expiredtreaty should be mutually considered as still in force, a measure whichwill require the sanction of Congress to be carried into effect on ourpart, and which I therefore recommend to your consideration. With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and, in general, all the European powersbetween whom and the United States relations of friendly intercoursehave existed their condition has not materially varied since the lastsession of Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of ourcommercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britainin America. Negotiations of the highest importance to our commoninterests have been for several years in discussion between the twoGovernments, and on the part of the United States have been invariablypursued in the spirit of candor and conciliation. Interests of greatmagnitude and delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and1818, while that of 1822, mediated by the late Emperor Alexander, hadpromised a satisfactory compromise of claims which the Government ofthe United States, in justice to the rights of a numerous class oftheir citizens, was bound to sustain. But with regard to the commercial intercourse between the United Statesand the British colonies in America, it has been hitherto foundimpracticable to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory toboth. The relative geographical position and the respective products ofnature cultivated by human industry had constituted the elements of acommercial intercourse between the United States and British America, insular and continental, important to the inhabitants of bothcountries; but it had been interdicted by Great Britain upon aprinciple heretofore practiced upon by the colonizing nations ofEurope, of holding the trade of their colonies each in exclusivemonopoly to herself. After the termination of the late war this interdiction had beenrevived, and the British Government declined including this portion ofour intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of theconvention of 1815. The trade was then carried on exclusively inBritish vessels 'til the act of Congress, concerning navigation, of1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict by acorresponding measure on the part of the United States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self defense, were soon succeededby an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports to the vesselsof the United States coming directly from them, and to the importationfrom them of certain articles of our produce burdened with heavyduties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of ourexports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels fromthe colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the actof Parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made, and a negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on ourpart that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentimentof the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants ofthe two countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimatelybring the parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied. With this view the Government of the United States had determined tosacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercialarrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and toacquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather thanto forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of thisinterest to the satisfaction of Great Britain herself. The negotiation, repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances, was, however, bymutual agreement and express assent, considered as pending and to bespeedily resumed. In the mean time another act of Parliament, so doubtful and ambiguousin its import as to have been misunderstood by the officers in thecolonies who were to carry it into execution, opens again certaincolonial ports upon new conditions and terms, with a threat to closethem against any nation which may not accept those terms as prescribedby the British Government. This act, passed July, 1825, notcommunicated to the Government of the United States, not understood bythe British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to beenforced, was never the less submitted to the consideration of Congressat their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon thesubject had long been in progress and pledges given of its resumptionat an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result of thatnegotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import ofwhich was not clear and which the British authorities themselves inthis hemisphere were not prepared to explain. Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress one of ourmost distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary andminister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructionswhich we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this longcontroverted interest upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon hisarrival, and before he had delivered his letters of credence, he wasbet by an order of the British council excluding from and after thefirst of December now current the vessels of the United States from allthe colonial British ports excepting those immediately bordering on ourterritories. In answer to his expostulations upon a measure thusunexpected he is informed that according to the ancient maxims ofpolicy of European nations having colonies their trade is an exclusivepossession of the mother country; that all participation in it by othernations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation, but tobe regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony;that the British Government therefore declines negotiating concerningit, and that as the United States did not forthwith accept purely andsimply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, GreatBritain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even uponthe terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of othernations. We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyedwith the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefitsthan as a mere favor received; that under every circumstance we havegiven an ample equivalent. We have seen every other nation holdingcolonies negotiate with other nations and grant them freely admissionto the colonies by treaty, and so far are the other colonizing nationsof Europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their coloniesthat we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than oneof them by treaty. The refusal, however, of Great Britain to negotiateleaves to the United States no other alternative than that ofregulating or interdicting altogether the trade on their part, according as either measure may effect the interests of our owncountry, and with that exclusive object I would recommend the wholesubject to your calm and candid deliberations. It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial goodunderstanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effectupon 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 havenearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce theexpectation, enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their reportto the satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties. The commission forliquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after theclose of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success. Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the twoGovernments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet proveunsatisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britainare all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strongreluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not offavors, which we neither as nor desire, but of equal reciprocity andgood will. With the American Governments of this hemisphere we continue tomaintain an intercourse altogether friendly, and between their nationsand ours that commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is thesource of mutual comfort and harmony the result is in a continual stateof improvement. The war between Spain and them since the totalexpulsion of the Spanish military force from their continentalterritories has been little more than nominal, and their internaltranquillity, though occasionally menaced by the agitations which civilwars never fail to leave behind them, has not been affected by anyserious calamity. The congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembledat Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at amore favorable season in the neighborhood of Mexico. The decease of oneof our ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of theseason, which delayed the departure of the other, deprived UnitedStates of the advantage of being represented at the first meeting ofthe congress. There is, however, no reason to believe that anytransactions of the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously theinterests of the United States or to require the interposition of ourministers had they been present. Their absence has, indeed, deprivedUnited States of the opportunity of possessing precise and authenticinformation of the treaties which were concluded at Panama; and thewhole result has confirmed me in the conviction of the expediency tothe United States of being represented at the congress. The survivingmember of the mission, appointed during your last session, hasaccordingly proceeded to his destination, and a successor to hisdistinguished and lamented associate will be nominated to the Senate. Atreaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the course of the lastsummer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary at Mexico withthe united states of that Confederacy, which will also be laid beforethe Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification. In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to theprospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention isthat they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at thecorresponding period of the last year. The severe shock so extensivelysustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in GreatBritain has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. Areduced importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reducedreturn to the Treasury at home. The net revenue of the present yearwill not equal that of the last, and the receipts of that which is tocome will fall short of those in the current year. The diminution, however, is in part attributable to the flourishing condition of someof our domestic manufactures, and so far is compensated by anequivalent more profitable to the nation. It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the deficiency in therevenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations of the last year'sestimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the application of morethan $11 millions during the present year to the discharge of theprincipal and interest of the debt, nor the reduction of upward of$7, 000, 000 of the capital of the debt itself. The balance in theTreasury on the first of January last was $5, 201, 650. 43; the receiptsfrom that time to the 30th of September last were $19, 585, 932. 50; thereceipts of the current quarter, estimated at $6, 000, 000, yield, withthe 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, tobalance the receipts; so that the expense of the year, amounting toupward of $1, 000, 000 less than its income, will leave a proportionallyincreased balance in the Treasury on January 1st, 1827, over that ofthe 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 commenceof the year 'til September 30 is estimated at $21, 250, 000, and theamount that will probably accrue during the present quarter isestimated at $4, 250, 000, making for the whole year $25, 500, 000, fromwhich the draw-backs being deducted will leave a clear revenue from thecustoms receivable in the year 1827 of about $20, 400, 000, which, withthe sums to be received from the proceeds of public lands, the bankdividends, and other incidental receipts, will form an aggregate ofabout $23, 000, 000, a sum falling short of the whole expenses of thepresent year little more than the portion of those expenditures appliedto the discharge of the public debt beyond the annual appropriation of$10, 000, 000 by the act of March 3d, 1817. At the passage of that actthe public debt amounted to $123, 500, 000. On the first of January nextit 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 thepassage 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 theinterest and upward of $6, 000, 000 are effective in melting down thecapital. Yet our experience has proved that a revenue consisting so largely ofimposts and tonnage ebbs and flows to an extraordinary extent, with allthe fluctuations incident to the general commerce of the world. It iswithin our recollection that even in the compass of the same last tenyears the receipts of the Treasury were not adequate to theexpenditures of the year, and that in two successive years it was foundnecessary to resort to loans to meet the engagements of the nation. Thereturning tides of the succeeding years replenished the public coffersuntil they have again begun to feel the vicissitude of a decline. Toproduce these alternations of fullness and exhaustion the relativeoperation of abundant or unfruitful seasons, the regulations of foreigngovernments, political revolutions, the prosperous or decayingcondition of manufactures, commercial speculations, and many othercauses, not always to be traced, variously combine. We have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing periods offrom two to three years. The last period of depression to United Stateswas from 1819 to 1822. The corresponding revival was from 1823 to thecommencement of the present year. Still, we have no cause to apprehenda depression comparable to that of the former period, or even toanticipate a deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to applythe annual $10 millions to the reduction of the debt. It is well forus, however, to be admonished of the necessity of abiding by the maximsof the most vigilant economy, and of resorting to all honorable anduseful expedients for pursuing with steady and inflexible perseverancethe total discharge of the debt. Besides the $7, 000, 000 of the loans of 1813 which will have beendischarged in the course of the present year, there are $9, 000, 000which by the terms of the contracts would have been and are nowredeemable. $13, 000, 000 more of the loan of 1814 will become redeemablefrom and after the expiration of the present month, and $9, 000, 000other from and after the close of the ensuing year. They constitute amass of $31, 000, 000, all bearing an interest of 6%, more than$20, 000, 000 of which will be immediately redeemable, and the restwithin little more than a year. Leaving of this amount $15, 000, 000 tocontinue at the interest of 6%, but to be paid off as far as shall befound practicable in the years 1827 and 1828, there is scarcely a doubtthat the remaining $16, 000, 000 might within a few months be dischargedby 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 four years may begreatly facilitated if not wholly accomplished. By an act of Congress of March 3d, 1825, a loan for the purpose nowreferred to, or a subscription to stock, was authorized, at an interestnot exceeding 4. 5%. But at that time so large a portion of the floatingcapital of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations and solittle was left for investment in the stocks that the measure was butpartially successful. At the last session of Congress the condition ofthe funds was still unpropitious to the measure; but the change so soonafterwards occurred that, had the authority existed to redeem the $9millions now redeemable by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5%, it ismorally certain that it might have been effected, and with it a yearlysaving of $90, 000. With regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts, certainoccurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two ofour principal ports, which engaged the attention of Congress at theirlast session and may hereafter require further consideration. Untilwithin a very few years the execution of the laws for raising therevenue, like that of all our other laws, has been insured more by themoral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precautionor by penal sanction. Confiding in the exemplary punctuality andunsullied integrity of our importing merchants, a gradual relaxationfrom the provisions of the collection laws, a close adherence to whichhave caused inconvenience and expense to them, had long becomehabitual, and indulgences had been extended universally because theyhad never been abused. It may be worthy of your serious considerationwhether some further legislative provision may not be necessary to comein aid of this state of unguarded security. From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and ofthe Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will bediscovered the present condition and administration of our militaryestablishment on the land and on the sea. The organization of the Armyhaving undergone no change since its reduction to the present peaceestablishment in 1821, it remains only to observe that it is yet foundadequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in timeof peace can be needed or useful. It may be proper to add that, from adifference of opinion between the late President of the United Statesand the Senate with regard to the construction of the act of Congressof March 2d, 1821, to reduce and fix the military peace establishmentof the United States, it remains hitherto so far without execution thatno colonel has been appointed to command one of the regiments ofartillery. A supplementary or explanatory act of the Legislatureappears to be the only expedient practicable for removing thedifficulty of this appointment. In a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere militaryestablishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the dutiesdevolving upon the administration of the Department of War. It will beseen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army thatevery branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, anddiscipline; that from the commanding general through all the gradationsof superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizensbefore they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army mustconsist in the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and ofpatriotism, by which it is impelled. It may be confidently stated thatthe moral character of the Army is in a state of continual improvement, and that all the arrangements for the disposal of its parts have aconstant 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 purelydefensive, and in their tendency contributing rather to the securityand permanency of peace--the erection of the fortifications providedfor by Congress, and adapted to secure our shores from hostileinvasion; the distribution of the fund of public gratitude and justiceto the pensioners of the Revolutionary war; the maintenance of ourrelations of peace and protection with the Indian tribes, and theinternal improvements and surveys for the location of roads and canals, which during the last three sessions of Congress have engaged so muchof their attention, and may engross so large a share of their futurebenefactions to our country. By the act of April 30th, 1824, suggested and approved by mypredecessor, the sum of $30, 000 was appropriated for the purpose ofcausing to be made the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates of theroutes of such roads and canals as the President of the United Statesmight deem of national importance in a commercial or military point ofview, or necessary for the transportation of the public mail. Thesurveys, plans, and estimates for each, when completed, will be laidbefore Congress. In execution of this act a board of engineers was immediatelyinstituted, and have been since most assiduously and constantlyoccupied in carrying it into effect. The first object to which theirlabors were directed, by order of the late President, was theexamination of the country between the tide waters of the Potomac, theOhio, and Lake Erie, to ascertain the practicability of a communicationbetween them, to designate the most suitable route for the same, and toform plans and estimates in detail of the expense of execution. On March 2d, 1825, they made their first report, which was immediatelycommunicated to Congress, and in which they declared that havingmaturely considered the circumstances observed by them personally, andcarefully studied the results of such of the preliminary surveys aswere then completed, they were decidedly of opinion that thecommunication was practicable. At the last session of Congress, before the board of engineers wereenabled to make up their second report containing a general plan andpreparatory estimate for the work, the Committee of the House ofRepresentatives upon Roads and Canals closed the session with a reportexpressing the hope that the plan and estimate of the board ofengineers might at this time be prepared, and that the subject bereferred to the early and favorable consideration of Congress at theirpresent session. That expected report of the board of engineers isprepared, and will forthwith be laid before you. Under the resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War tohave prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system ofexercise and instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militiaof the United States, to be reported to Congress at the presentsession, a board of distinguished officers of the Army and of themilitia has been convened, whose report will be submitted to you withthat of the Secretary of War. The occasion was thought favorable forconsulting the same board, aided by the results of a correspondencewith the governors of the several States and Territories and othercitizens of intelligence and experience, upon the acknowledgeddefective condition of our militia system, and of the improvements ofwhich it is susceptible. The report of the board upon this subject isalso submitted for your consideration. In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of $5millions will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from theDepartment of War. Less than two fifths of this will be applicable tothe maintenance and support of the Army. $1, 500, 000, in the form ofpensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services andsacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested infortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement, provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the agesto come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants ofanother race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist inthe presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to amagnitude burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without theirequivalents in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union fromengagements more burdensome than debt. In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Departmentwill present an aggregate sum of upward of $3, 000, 000. About half ofthese, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actualservice, and half constitutes a fund of national property, the pledgeof our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year afterthe close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses andcharges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by theact of April 29th, 1816, appropriated $1, 000, 000 annually for eightyears to the gradual increase of the Navy. At a subsequent period thisannual appropriation was reduced to $500, 000 for six years, of whichthe present year is the last. A yet more recent appropriation the lasttwo years, for building ten sloops of war, has nearly restored theoriginal appropriation of 1816 of $1, 000, 000 for every year. The result is before United States all. We have 12 line-of-battleships, 20 frigates, and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a fewmonths preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications alongthe whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who mightattempt to set foot upon our shores. Combining with a system offortifications upon the shores themselves, commenced about the sametime under the auspices of my immediate predecessor, and hithertosystematically pursued, it has placed in our possession the mosteffective sinews of war and has left us at once an example and a lessonfrom which our own duties may be inferred. The gradual increase of the Navy was the principle of which the act ofApril 29th, 1816, was the first development. It was the introduction ofa system to act upon the character and history of our country for anindefinite series of ages. It was a declaration of that Congress totheir constituents and to posterity that it was the destiny and theduty of these confederated States to become in regular process of timeand by no petty advances a great naval power. That which they proposedto accomplish in eight years is rather to be considered as the measureof their means that the limitation of their design. They looked forwardfor a term of years sufficient for the accomplishment of a definiteportion of their purpose, and they left to their successors to fill upthe canvas of which they had traced the large and prophetic outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in contemplation willbe shortly completed. The time which they had allotted for theaccomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for yourconsideration how their successors may contribute their portion of toiland of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradualincrease of our Navy. There is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powersof the Federal Government which has given more general satisfaction tothe people of the Union than this. The system has not been thusvigorously introduced and hitherto sustained to be now departed from orabandoned. In continuing to provide for the gradual increase of theNavy it may not be necessary or expedient to add for the present anymore to the number of our ships; but should you deem it advisable tocontinue the yearly appropriation of $0. 5 millions to the same objects, it may be profitably expended in a providing a supply of timber to beseasoned and other materials for future use in the construction ofdocks or in laying the foundations of a school for naval education, asto the wisdom of Congress either of those measures may appear to claimthe preference. Of the small portions of this Navy engaged in actual service during thepeace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean, in the West India seas, and in the Mediterranean, to which has beenadded a small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of South America. In all they have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributedto make our country advantageously known to foreign nations, havehonorably employed multitudes of our sea men in the service of theircountry, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation tolives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The piracies with which the West India seas were for several yearsinfested have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean theyhave increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for thecontinued presence of our squadron would probably have been distressingto our own. The war which has unfortunately broken out between the Republic ofBuenos Ayres and the Brazilian Government has given rise to very greatirregularities among the naval officers of the latter, by whomprinciples in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have beenbrought forward to which we can not subscribe and which our owncommanders have found it necessary to resist. From the friendlydisposition toward the United States constantly manifested by theEmperor of Brazil, and the very useful and friendly commercialintercourse between the United States and his dominions, we have reasonto believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustainedby several of our citizens from some of his officers will not bewithheld. Abstracts from the recent dispatches of the commanders of ourseveral squadrons are communicated with the report of the Secretary ofthe Navy to Congress. A report from the Post Master General is likewise communicated, presenting in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous, efficient, and economical administration of that Department. Therevenue of the office, even of the year including the latter half of1824 and the first half of 1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sumof more than $45, 000. That of the succeeding year has been still moreproductive. The increase of the receipts in the year preceding thefirst of July last over that of the year before exceeds $136, 000, andthe excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year hasswollen from $45, 000 to yearly $80, 000. During the same period contracts for additional transportation of themail in stages for about 260, 000 miles have been made, and for 70, 000miles annually on horse back. 714 new post offices have beenestablished within the year, and the increase of revenue within thelast three years, as well as the augmentation of the transportation bymail, is more than equal to the whole amount of receipts and of mailconveyance at the commencement of the present century, when the seat ofthe General Government was removed to this place. When we reflect thatthe objects effected by the transportation of the mail are among thechoicest comforts and enjoyments of social life, it is pleasing toobserve that the dissemination of them to every corner of our countryhas out-stripped in their increase even the rapid march of ourpopulation. By the treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Louisianaand the Floridas to the United States, provision was made for thesecurity of land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some progress has been made under the authority of various acts ofCongress in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles, butclaims to a very large extent remain unadjusted. The public faith noless than the just rights of individuals and the interest of thecommunity itself appears to require further provision for the speedysettlement of those claims, which I therefore recommend to the care andattention of the Legislature. In conformity with the provisions of the act of May 20th, 1825, toprovide for erecting a penitentiary in the District of Columbia, andfor other purposes, three commissioners were appointed to select a sitefor the erection of a penitentiary for the District, and also a site inthe county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects havebeen effected. The building of the penitentiary has been commenced, andis in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will becompleted before the meeting of the next Congress. This considerationpoints to the expediency of maturing at the present session a systemfor the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defininga system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and ofdefining the class of offenses which shall be punishable by confinementin this edifice. In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemedinappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are hereassembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a singleglance the period of our origin as a national confederation with thatof our present existence, at the precise interval of half a centuryfrom each other. Since your last meeting at this place the 50thanniversary of the day when our independence was declared has beencelebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart wasbounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid theblessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former agehad handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in thatsolemn scene--the hand that penned the ever memorable Declaration andthe voice that sustained it in debate--were by one summons, at thedistance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of Allto account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered bythe benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance oftheir fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in thecontrast of the first and last day of that half century, howresplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of theindividuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor ofyouth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacredhonor 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 tobreathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country, maywe not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition fromgloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were sinking intothe clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to thebosom of their God! JOHN QUINCY ADAMS *** State of the Union AddressJohn Quincy AdamsDecember 4, 1827 Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: A revolution of the seasons has nearly been completed since therepresentatives of the people and States of this Union were lastassembled at this place to deliberate and to act upon the commonimportant interests of their constituents. In that interval the neverslumbering eye of a wise and beneficent Providence has continued itsguardian care over the welfare of our beloved country; the blessing ofhealth has continued generally to prevail throughout the land; theblessing of peace with our brethren of the human race has been enjoyedwithout interruption; internal quiet has left our fellow citizens inthe full enjoyment of all their rights and in the free exercise of alltheir faculties, to pursue the impulse of their nature and theobligation of their duty in the improvement of their own condition; theproductions of the soil, the exchanges of commerce, the vivifyinglabors of human industry, have combined to mingle in our cup a portionof enjoyment as large and liberal as the indulgence of Heaven hasperhaps ever granted to the imperfect state of man upon earth; and asthe purest of human felicity consists in its participation with others, it is no small addition to the sum of our national happiness at thistime that peace and prosperity prevail to a degree seldom experiencedover the whole habitable globe, presenting, though as yet with painfulexceptions, a foretaste of that blessed period of promise when the lionshall lie down with the lamb and wars shall be no more. To preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct intheir most effective channels the streams which contribute to thepublic weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted. Objectsof deep importance to the welfare of the Union are constantly recurringto demand the attention of the Federal Legislature, and they call withaccumulated interest at the first meeting of the two Houses after theirperiodical renovation. To present to their consideration from time totime subjects in which the interests of the nation are most deeplyinvolved, and for the regulation of which the legislative will is alonecompetent, is a duty prescribed by the Constitution, to the performanceof which the first meeting of the new Congress is a period eminentlyappropriate, and which it is now my purpose to discharge. Our relations of friendship with the other nations of the earth, political and commercial, have been preserved unimpaired, and theopportunities to improve them have been cultivated with anxious andunremitting attention. A negotiation upon subjects of high and delicateinterest with the Government of Great Britain has terminated in theadjustment of some of the questions at issue upon satisfactory termsand the postponement of others for future discussion and agreement. The purposes of the convention concluded at St. Petersburg on July12th, 1822, under the mediation of the late Emperor Alexander, havebeen carried into effect by a subsequent convention, concluded atLondon on November 13th, 1826, the ratifications of which wereexchanged at that place on February 6th, 1827. A copy of theproclamations issued on March 19th, 1827, publishing this convention, is herewith communicated to Congress. The sum of $1, 204, 960, thereinstipulated to be paid to the claimants of indemnity under the firstarticle of the treaty of Ghent, has been duly received, and thecommission instituted, conformably to the act of Congress of March 2d, 1827, for the distribution of the indemnity of the persons entitled toreceive it are now in session and approaching the consummation of theirlabors. This final disposal of one of the most painful topics ofcollision between the United States and Great Britain not only affordsan occasion of gratulation to ourselves, but has had the happiesteffect in promoting a friendly disposition and in softening asperitiesupon other objects of discussion; nor ought it to pass without thetribute of a frank and cordial acknowledgment of the magnanimity withwhich an honorable nation, by the reparation of their own wrongs, achieves a triumph more glorious than any field of blood can everbestow. The conventions of March 7th, 1815, and of October 20th, 1818, willexpire by their own limitation on October 20th, 1828. These haveregulated the direct commercial intercourse between the United Statesand Great Britain upon terms of the most perfect reciprocity; and theyeffected a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims toterritory westward of the Rocky Mountains. These arrangements have beencontinued for an indefinite period of time after the expiration of theabove mentioned conventions, leaving each party the liberty ofterminating them by giving twelve months' notice to the other. The radical principle of all commercial intercourse between independentnations is the mutual interest of both parties. It is the vital spiritof trade itself; nor can it be reconciled to the nature of man or tothe primary laws of human society that any traffic should long bewillingly pursued of which all the advantages are on one side and allthe burdens on the other. Treaties of commerce have been found byexperience to be among the most effective instruments for promotingpeace and harmony between nations whose interests, exclusivelyconsidered on either side, are brought into frequent collisions bycompetition. In framing such treaties it is the duty of each party notsimply to urge with unyielding pertinacity that which suits its owninterest, but to concede liberally to that which is adapted to theinterest of the other. To accomplish this, little more is generally required than a simpleobservance of the rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for thestates-men of one nation by stratagem and management to obtain fromthe weakness or ignorance of another an over-reaching treaty, such acompact would prove an incentive to war rather than a bond of peace. Our conventions with Great Britain are founded upon the principles ofreciprocity. The commercial intercourse between the two countries isgreater in magnitude and amount than between any two other nations onthe globe. It is for all purposes of benefit or advantage to both asprecious, and in all probability far more extensive, than if theparties were still constituent parts of one and the same nation. Treaties between such States, regulating the intercourse of peacebetween them and adjusting interests of such transcendent importance toboth, which have been found in a long experience of years mutuallyadvantageous, should not be lightly cancelled or discontinued. Twoconventions for continuing in force those above mentioned have beenconcluded between the plenipotentiaries of the two Governments onAugust 6th, 1827, and will be forthwith laid before the Senate for theexercise of their constitutional authority concerning them. In the execution of the treaties of peace of November, 1782 andSeptember, 1783, between the United States and Great Britain, and whichterminated the war of our independence, a line of boundary was drawn asthe demarcation of territory between the two countries, extending overnearly 20 degrees of latitude, and ranging over seas, lakes, andmountains, then very imperfectly explored and scarcely opened to thegeographical knowledge of the age. In the progress of discovery andsettlement by both parties since that time several questions ofboundary between their respective territories have arisen, which havebeen found of exceedingly difficult adjustment. At the close of the last war with Great Britain four of these questionspressed themselves upon the consideration of the negotiators of thetreaty of Ghent, but without the means of concluding a definitivearrangement concerning them. They were referred to three separatecommissions consisting, of two commissioners, one appointed by eachparty, to examine and decide upon their respective claims. In the eventof a disagreement between the commissioners, one appointed by eachparty, to examine and decide upon their respective claims. In the eventof a disagreement between the commissioners it was provided that theyshould make reports to their several Governments, and that the reportsshould finally be referred to the decision of a sovereign the commonfriend of both. Of these commissions two have already terminated their sessions andinvestigations, one by entire and the other by partial agreement. Thecommissioners of the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent have finallydisagreed, and made their conflicting reports to their own Governments. But from these reports a great difficulty has occurred in making up aquestion to be decided by the arbitrator. This purpose has, however, been effected by a 4th convention, concluded at London by theplenipotentiaries of the two Governments on September 29th, 1827. Itwill be submitted, together with the others, to the consideration ofthe Senate. While these questions have been pending incidents have occurred ofconflicting pretensions and of dangerous character upon the territoryitself in dispute between the two nations. By a common understandingbetween the Governments it was agreed that no exercise of exclusivejurisdiction by either party while the negotiation was pending shouldchange the state of the question of right to be definitively settled. Such collision has, never the less, recently taken place by occurrencesthe precise character of which has not yet been ascertained. Acommunication from the governor of the State of Maine, withaccompanying documents, and a correspondence between the Secretary ofState and the minister of Great Britain on this subject are nowcommunicated. Measures have been taken to ascertain the state of thefacts more correctly by the employment of a special agent to visit thespot where the alleged outrages have occurred, the result of thoseinquiries, when received, will be transmitted to Congress. While so many of the subjects of high interest to the friendlyrelations between the two countries have been so far adjusted, it is amatter of regret that their views respecting the commercial intercoursebetween the United States and the British colonial possessions have notequally approximated to a friendly agreement. At the commencement of the last session of Congress they were informedof the sudden and unexpected exclusion by the British Government ofaccess in vessels of the United States to all their colonial portsexcept those immediately bordering upon our own territories. In theamicable discussions which have succeeded the adoption of this measurewhich, as it affected harshly the interests of the United States, became subject of expostulation on our part, the principles upon whichits justification has been placed have been of a diversified character. It has been at once ascribed to a mere recurrence to the old, longestablished principle of colonial monopoly and at the same time to afeeling of resentment because the offers of an act of Parliamentopening the colonial ports upon certain conditions had not been graspedat with sufficient eagerness by an instantaneous conformity to them. At a subsequent period it has been intimated that the new exclusion wasin resentment because a prior act of Parliament, of 1822, openingcertain colonial ports, under heavy and burdensome restrictions, tovessels of the United States, had not been reciprocated by an admissionof British vessels from the colonies, and their cargoes, without anyrestriction or discrimination what ever. But be the motive for theinterdiction what it may, the British Government have manifested nodisposition, either by negotiation or by corresponding legislativeenactments, to recede from it, and we have been given distinctly tounderstand that neither of the bills which were under the considerationof Congress at their last session would have been deemed sufficient intheir concessions to have been rewarded by any relaxation from theBritish interdict. It is one of the inconveniences inseparablyconnected with the attempt to adjust by reciprocal legislationinterests of this nature that neither party can know what would besatisfactory to the other, and that after enacting a statute for theavowed and sincere purpose of conciliation it will generally be foundutterly inadequate to the expectation of the other party, and willterminate in mutual disappointment. The session of Congress having terminated without any act upon thesubject, a proclamation was issued on March 17, 1827, conformably tothe provisions of the 6th section of the act of March 3rd, 1823declaring the fact that the trade and intercourse authorized by theBritish act of Parliament of June 24th, 1822, between the United Statesand the British enumerated colonial ports had been by the subsequentacts of Parliament of July 5th, 1825, and the order of council of July27th, 1826 prohibited. The effect of this proclamation, by the terms ofthe act under which it was issued, has been that each and everyprovision of the act concerning navigation of April 18th, 1818, and ofthe act supplementary thereto of May 15th, 1820, revived and is in fullforce. Such, then is the present condition of the trade that, useful as it isto both parties it can, with a single momentary exception, be carriedon directly by the vessels of neither. That exception itself is foundin a proclamation of the governor of the island of St. Christopher andof the Virgin Islands, inviting for three months from August 28th, 1827the importation of the articles of the produce of the United Stateswhich constitute their export portion of this trade in the vessels ofall nations. That period having already expired, the state of mutual interdictionhas again taken place. The British Government have not only declinednegotiation upon this subject, but by the principle they have assumedwith reference to it have precluded even the means of negotiation. Itbecomes not the self respect of the United States either to solicitgratuitous favors or to accept as the grant of a favor that for whichan ample equivalent is exacted. It remains to be determined by therespective Governments whether the trade shall be opened by acts ofreciprocal legislation. It is, in the mean time, satisfactory to knowthat apart from the inconvenience resulting from a disturbance of theusual channels of trade no loss has been sustained by the commerce, thenavigation, or the revenue of the United States, and none of magnitudeis to be apprehended from this existing state of mutual interdict. With the other maritime and commercial nations of Europe ourintercourse continues with little variation. Since the cessation by theconvention of June 24th, 1822, of all discriminating duties upon thevessels of the United States and of France in either country our tradewith that nation has increased and is increasing. A disposition on thepart of France has been manifested to renew that negotiation, and inacceding to the proposal we have expressed the wish that it might beextended to other subjects upon which a good understanding between theparties would be beneficial to the interests of both. The origin of the political relations between the United States andFrance is coeval with the first years of our independence. The memoryof it is interwoven with that of our arduous struggle for nationalexistence. Weakened as it has occasionally been since that time, it canby us never be forgotten, and we should hail with exultation the momentwhich should indicate a recollection equally friendly in spirit on thepart of France. A fresh effort has recently been made by the minister of the UnitedStates residing at Paris to obtain a consideration of the just claimsof citizens of the United States to the reparation of wrongs long sincecommitted, many of them frankly acknowledged and all of them entitledupon every principle of justice to a candid examination. The proposallast made to the French Government has been to refer the subject whichhas formed an obstacle to this consideration to the determination of asovereign the common friend of both. To this offer no definitive answerhas yet been received, but the gallant and honorable spirit which hasat all times been the pride and glory of France will not ultimatelypermit the demands of innocent sufferers to be extinguished in the mereconsciousness of the power to reject them. A new treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has been concluded withthe Kingdom of Sweden, which will be submitted to the Senate for theiradvice with regard to its ratification. At a more recent date aminister plenipotentiary from the Hanseatic Republics of Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen has been received, charged with a special missionfor the negotiation of a treaty of amity and commerce between thatancient and renowned league and the United States. This negotiation hasaccordingly been commenced, and is now in progress, the result of whichwill, if successful, be also submitted to the Senate for theirconsideration. Since the accession of the Emperor Nicholas to the imperial throne ofall the Russias the friendly dispositions toward the United States soconstantly manifested by his predecessor have continued unabated, andhave been recently testified by the appointment of a ministerplenipotentiary to reside at this place. From the interest taken bythis Sovereign in behalf of the suffering Greeks and from the spiritwith which others of the great European powers are cooperating with himthe friends of freedom and of humanity may indulge the hope that theywill obtain relief from that most unequal of conflicts which they haveso long and so gallantly sustained; that they will enjoy the blessingof self government, which by their sufferings in the cause of libertythey have richly earned, and that their independence will be secured bythose liberal institutions of which their country furnished theearliest examples in the history of man-kind, and which haveconsecrated to immortal remembrance the very soil for which they arenow again profusely pouring forth their blood. The sympathies which thepeople and Government of the United States have so warmly indulged withtheir cause have been acknowledged by their Government in a letter ofthanks, which I have received from their illustrious President, atranslation of which is now communicated to Congress, therepresentatives of that nation to whom this tribute of gratitude wasintended to be paid, and to whom it was justly due. In the American hemisphere the cause of freedom and independence hascontinued to prevail, and if signalized by none of those splendidtriumphs which had crowned with glory some of the preceding years ithas only been from the banishment of all external force against whichthe struggle had been maintained. The shout of victory has beensuperseded by the expulsion of the enemy over whom it could have beenachieved. Our friendly wishes and cordial good will, which have constantlyfollowed the southern nations of America in all the vicissitudes oftheir war of independence, are succeeded by a solicitude equally ardentand cordial that by the wisdom and purity of their institutions theymay secure to themselves the choicest blessings of social order and thebest rewards of virtuous liberty. Disclaiming alike all right and allintention of interfering in those concerns which it is the prerogativeof their independence to regulate as to them shall seem fit, we hailwith joy every indication of their prosperity, of their harmony, oftheir persevering and inflexible homage to those principles of freedomand of equal rights which are alone suited to the genius and temper ofthe American nations. It has been, therefore, with some concern that we have observedindications of intestine divisions in some of the Republics of thesouth, and appearances of less union with one another than we believeto be the interest of all. Among the results of this state of thingshas been that the treaties concluded at Panama do not appear to havebeen ratified by the contracting parties, and that the meeting of thecongress at Tacubaya has been indefinitely postponed. In accepting theinvitations to be represented at this congress, while a manifestationwas intended on the part of the United States of the most friendlydisposition toward the southern Republics by whom it had been proposed, it was hoped that it would furnish an opportunity for bringing all thenations of this hemisphere to the common acknowledgment and adoption ofthe principles in the regulation of their internal relations whichwould have secured a lasting peace and harmony between them and havepromoted the cause of mutual benevolence throughout the globe. But asobstacles appear to have arisen to the reassembling of the congress, one of the two ministers commissioned on the part of the United Stateshas returned to the bosom of his country, while the minister chargedwith the ordinary mission to Mexico remains authorized to attend theconferences of the congress when ever they may be resumed. A hope was for a short time entertained that a treaty of peace actuallysigned between the Government of Buenos Ayres and of Brazil wouldsupersede all further occasion for those collisions between belligerentpretensions and neutral rights which are so commonly the result ofmaritime war, and which have unfortunately disturbed the harmony of therelations between the United States and the Brazilian Governments. Attheir last session Congress were informed that some of the navalofficers of that Empire had advanced and practiced upon principles inrelation to blockades and to neutral navigation which we could notsanction, and which our commanders found it necessary to resist. Itappears that they have not been sustained by the Government of Brazilitself. Some of the vessels captured under the assumed authority ofthese erroneous principles have been restored, and we trust that ourjust expectations will be realized that adequate indemnity will be madeto all the citizens of the United States who have suffered by theunwarranted captures which the Brazilian tribunals themselves havepronounced unlawful. In the diplomatic discussions at Rio de Janeiro of these wrongssustained by citizens of the United States and of others which seemedas if emanating immediately from that Government itself the charged'affaires of the United States, under an impression that hisrepresentations in behalf of the rights and interests of his country-men were totally disregarded and useless, deemed it his duty, withoutwaiting for instructions, to terminate his official functions, todemand his pass-ports, and return to the United States. This movement, dictated by an honest zeal for the honor and interests of his country--motives which operated exclusively on the mind of the officer whoresorted to it--has not been disapproved by me. The Brazilian Government, however, complained of it as a measure forwhich no adequate intentional cause had been given by them, and upon anexplicit assurance through their charge d'affaires residing here that asuccessor to the late representative of the United States near thatGovernment, the appointment of whom they desired, should be receivedand treated with the respect due to his character, and that indemnityshould be promptly made for all injuries inflicted on citizens of theUnited States or their property contrary to the laws of nations, atemporary commission as charge d'affaires to that country has beenissued, which it is hopes will entirely restore the ordinary diplomaticintercourse between the two Governments and the friendly relationsbetween their respective nations. Turning from the momentous concerns of our Union in its intercoursewith foreign nations to those of the deepest interest in theadministration of our internal affairs, we find the revenues of thepresent year corresponding as nearly as might be expected with theanticipations of the last, and presenting an aspect still morefavorable in the promise of the next. The balance in the Treasury on January 1st, 1827 was $6, 358, 686. 18. Thereceipts from that day to September 30th, 1827, as near as the returnsof them yet received can show, amount to $16, 886, 581. 32. The receiptsof the present quarter, estimated at $4, 515, 000, added to the aboveform an aggregate of $21, 400, 000 of receipts. The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to $22, 300, 000presenting a small excess over the receipts. But of these $22, 000, 000, upward of $6, 000, 000 have been applied to the discharge of theprincipal of the public debt, the whole amount of which, approaching$74, 000, 000 on January 1st, 1827, will on January 1st, 1828 fall shortof $67, 500, 000. The balance in the Treasury on January 1st, 1828 it isexpected will exceed $5, 450, 000, a sum exceeding that of January 1st, 1825, though falling short of that exhibited on January 1st, 1827. It was foreseen that the revenue of the present year 1827 would notequal that of the last, which had itself been less than that of thenext preceding year. But the hope has been realized which wasentertained, that these deficiencies would in no wise interrupt thesteady operation of the discharge of the public debt by the annual$10, 000, 000 devoted to that object by the act of March 3d, 1817. The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from thecommencement of the year until September 30th, 1827 is $21, 226, 000, andthe probably amount of that which will be secured during the remainderof the year is $5, 774, 000, forming a sum total of $27, 000, 000. With theallowances for draw-backs and contingent deficiencies which may occur, though not specifically foreseen, we may safely estimate the receiptsof the ensuing year at $22, 300, 000--a revenue for the next equal to theexpenditure of the present year. The deep solicitude felt by our citizens of all classes throughout theUnion for the total discharge of the public debt will apologize for theearnestness with which I deem it my duty to urge this topic upon theconsideration of Congress--of recommending to them again the observanceof the strictest economy in the application of the public funds. Thedepression upon the receipts of the revenue which had commenced withthe year 1826 continued with increased severity during the two firstquarters of the present year. The returning tide began to flow with the third quarter, and, so far aswe can judge from experience, may be expected to continue through thecourse of the ensuing year. In the mean time an alleviation from theburden of the public debt will in the three years have been effected tothe amount of nearly $16, 000, 000, and the charge of annual interestwill have been reduced upward of $1, 000, 000. But among the maxims ofpolitical economy which the stewards of the public moneys should neversuffer without urgent necessity to be transcended is that of keepingthe expenditures of the year within the limits of its receipts. The appropriations of the two last years, including the yearly$10, 000, 000 of the sinking fund, have each equaled the promised revenueof the ensuing year. While we foresee with confidence that the publiccoffers will be replenished from the receipts as fast as they will bedrained by the expenditures, equal in amount to those of the currentyear, it should not be forgotten that they could ill suffer theexhaustion of larger disbursements. The condition of the Army and of all the branches of the public serviceunder the superintendence of the Secretary of War will be seen by thereport from that officer and the documents with which it isaccompanied. During the last summer a detachment of the Army has been usefully andsuccessfully called to perform their appropriate duties. At the momentwhen the commissioners appointed for carrying into execution certainprovisions of the treaty of August 19th, 1825, with various tribes ofthe North Western Indians were about to arrive at the appointed placeof meeting the unprovoked murder of several citizens and other acts ofunequivocal hostility committed by a party of the Winnebago tribe, oneof those associated in the treaty, followed by indications of amenacing character among other tribes of the same region, renderednecessary an immediate display of the defensive and protective force ofthe Union in that quarter. It was accordingly exhibited by the immediate and concerted movementsof the governors of the State of Illinois and of the Territory ofMichigan, and competent levies of militia, under their authority, witha corps of 700 men of United States troops, under the command ofGeneral Atkinson, who, at the call of Governor Cass, immediatelyrepaired to the scene of danger from their station at St. Louis. Theirpresence dispelled the alarms of our fellow citizens on thosedisorders, and overawed the hostile purposes of the Indians. Theperpetrators of the murders were surrendered to the authority andoperation of our laws, and every appearance of purposed hostility fromthose Indian tribes has subsided. Although the present organization of the Army and the administration ofits various branches of service are, upon the whole, satisfactory, theyare yet susceptible of much improvement in particulars, some of whichhave been heretofore submitted to the consideration of Congress, andothers are now first presented in the report of the Secretary of War. The expediency of providing for additional numbers of officers in thetwo corps of engineers will in some degree depend upon the number andextent of the objects of national importance upon which Congress maythink it proper that surveys should be made conformably to the act ofApril 30th, 1824. Of the surveys which before the last session ofCongress had been made under the authority of that act, reports weremade--Of the Board of Internal Improvement, on the Chesapeake and OhioCanal. On the continuation of the national road from Cumberland to thetide waters within the District of Columbia. On the continuation of thenational road from Canton to Zanesville. On the location of thenational road from Zanesville to Columbus. On the continuation of thesame to the seat of government in Missouri. On a post road fromBaltimore to Philadelphia. Of a survey of Kennebec River (in part). Ona national road from Washington to Buffalo. On the survey of SaugatuckHarbor and River. On a canal from Lake Pont Chartrain to theMississippi River. On surveys at Edgartown, Newburyport, and HyannisHarbor. On survey of La Plaisance Bay, in the Territory of Michigan. And reports are now prepared and will be submitted to Congress--Onsurveys of the peninsula of Florida, to ascertain the practicability ofa canal to connect the waters of the Atlantic with the Gulf of Mexicoacross that peninsula; and also of the country between the bays ofMobile and of Pensacola, with the view of connecting them together by acanal. On surveys of a route for a canal to connect the waters of Jamesand Great Kenhawa rivers. On the survey of the Swash, in Pamlico Sound, and that of Cape Fear, below the town of Wilmington, in North Carolina. On the survey of the Muscle Shoals, in the Tennessee River, and for aroute for a contemplated communication between the Hiwassee and Coosarivers, in the State of Alabama. Other reports of surveys upon objectspointed out by the several acts of Congress of the last and precedingsessions are in the progress of preparation, and most of them may becompleted before the close of this session. All the officers of bothcorps of engineers, with several other persons duly qualified, havebeen constantly employed upon these services from the passage of theact of April 30th, 1824, to this time. Were no other advantage to accrue to the country from their labors thanthe fund of topographical knowledge which they have collected andcommunicated, that alone would have been a profit to the Union morethan adequate to all the expenditures which have been devoted to theobject; but the appropriations for the repair and continuation of theCumberland road, for the construction of various other roads, for theremoval of obstructions from the rivers and harbors, for the erectionof light houses, beacons, piers, and buoys, and for the completion ofcanals undertaken by individual associations, but needing theassistance of means and resources more comprehensive than individualenterprise can command, may be considered rather as treasures laid upfrom the contributions of the present age for the benefit of posteritythan as unrequited applications of the accruing revenues of the nation. To such objects of permanent improvement to the condition of thecountry, of real addition to the wealth as well as to the comfort ofthe people by whose authority and resources they have been effected, from $3, 000, 000 to $4, 000, 000 of the annual income of the nation have, by laws enacted at the three most recent sessions of Congress, beenapplied, without intrenching upon the necessities of the Treasury, without adding a dollar to the taxes or debts of the community, withoutsuspending even the steady and regular discharge of the debtscontracted in former days, which within the same three years have beendiminished by the amount of nearly $16, 000, 000. The same observations are in a great degree applicable to theappropriations made for fortifications upon the coasts and harbors ofthe United States, for the maintenance of the Military Academy at WestPoint, and for the various objects under the superintendence of theDepartment of the Navy. The report from the Secretary of the Navy andthose from the subordinate branches of both the military departmentsexhibit to Congress in minute detail the present condition of thepublic establishments dependent upon them, the execution of the acts ofCongress relating to them, and the views of the officers engaged in theseveral branches of the service concerning the improvements which maytend to their perfection. The fortification of the coasts and the gradual increase andimprovement of the Navy are parts of a great system of national defensewhich has been upward of ten years in progress, and which for a seriesof years to come will continue to claim the constant and perseveringprotection and superintendence of the legislative authority. Among themeasures which have emanated from these principles the act of the lastsession of Congress for the gradual improvement of the Navy holds aconspicuous place. The collection of timber for the future constructionof vessels of war, the preservation and reproduction of the species oftimber peculiarly adapted to that purpose, the construction of drydocks for the use of the Navy, the erection of a marine railway for therepair of the public ships, and the improvement of the navy yards forthe preservation of the public property deposited in them have allreceived from the Executive the attention required by that act, andwill continue to receive it, steadily proceeding toward the executionof all its purposes. The establishment of a naval academy, furnishing the means of theoreticinstruction to the youths who devote their lives to the service oftheir country upon the ocean, still solicits the sanction of theLegislature. Practical seamanship and the art of navigation may beacquired on the cruises of the squadrons which from time to time aredispatched to distant seas, but a competent knowledge even of the artof ship building, the higher mathematics, and astronomy; the literaturewhich can place our officers on a level of polished education with theofficers of other maritime nations; the knowledge of the laws, municipal and national, which in their intercourse with foreign statesand their governments are continually called into operation, and, aboveall, that acquaintance with the principles of honor and justice, withthe higher obligations of morals and of general laws, human and divine, which constitutes the great distinction between the warrior-patriot andthe licensed robber and pirate--these can be systematically taught andeminently acquired only in a permanent school, stationed upon the shoreand provided with the teachers, the instruments, and the booksconversant with and adapted to the communication of the principles ofthese respective sciences to the youthful and inquiring mind. The report from the Post Master General exhibits the condition of thatDepartment as highly satisfactory for the present and still morepromising for the future. Its receipts for the year ending July 1st, 1827 amounted to $1, 473, 551, and exceeded its expenditures by upward of$100, 000. It can not be an over sanguine estimate to predict that inless than ten years, of which half have elapsed, the receipts will havebeen more than doubled. In the mean time a reduced expenditure upon established routes has keptpace with increased facilities of public accommodation and additionalservices have been obtained at reduced rates of compensation. Withinthe last year the transportation of the mail in stages has been greatlyaugmented. The number of post offices has been increased to 7, 000, andit may be anticipated that while the facilities of intercourse betweenfellow citizens in person or by correspondence will soon be carried tothe door of every villager in the Union, a yearly surplus of revenuewill accrue which may be applied as the wisdom of Congress under theexercise of their constitutional powers may devise for the furtherestablishment and improvement of the public roads, or by adding stillfurther to the facilities in the transportation of the mails. Of theindications of the prosperous condition of our country, none can bemore pleasing than those presented by the multiplying relations ofpersonal and intimate intercourse between the citizens of the Uniondwelling at the remotest distances from each other. Among the subjects which have heretofore occupied the earnestsolicitude and attention of Congress is the management and disposal ofthat portion of the property of the nation which consists of the publiclands. The acquisition of them, made at the expense of the whole Union, not only in treasury but in blood, marks a right of property in themequally extensive. By the report and statements from the General LandOffice now communicated it appears that under the present Government ofthe United States a sum little short of $33, 000, 000 has been paid fromthe common Treasury for that portion of this property which has beenpurchased from France and Spain, and for the extinction of theaboriginal titles. The amount of lands acquired is near 260, 000, 000acres, of which on January 1st, 1826, about 139, 000, 000 acres had beensurveyed, and little more than 19, 000, 000 acres had been sold. Theamount paid into the Treasury by the purchasers of the public landssold is not yet equal to the sums paid for the whole, but leaves asmall balance to be refunded. The proceeds of the sales of the landshave long been pledged to the creditors of the nation, a pledge fromwhich we have reason to hope that they will in a very few years beredeemed. The system upon which this great national interest has been managed wasthe result of long, anxious, and persevering deliberation. Matured andmodified by the progress of our population and the lessons ofexperience, it has been hitherto eminently successful. More than ninetenths of the lands still remain the common property of the Union, theappropriation and disposal of which are sacred trusts in the hands ofCongress. Of the lands sold, a considerable part were conveyed under extendedcredits, which in the vicissitudes and fluctuations in the value oflands and of their produce became oppressively burdensome to thepurchasers. It can never be the interest or the policy of the nation towring from its own citizens the reasonable profits of their industryand enterprise by holding them to the rigorous import of disastrousengagements. In March, 1821, a debt of $22, 000, 000, due by purchasersof the public lands, had accumulated, which they were unable to pay. Anact of Congress of March 2nd, 1821, came to their relief, and has beensucceeded by others, the latest being the act of May 4th, 1826, theindulgent provisions of which expired on July 4th, 1827. The effect ofthese laws has been to reduce the debt from the purchasers to aremaining balance of about $4, 300, 000 due, more than three fifths ofwhich are for lands within the State of Alabama. I recommend toCongress the revival and continuance for a further term of thebeneficent accommodations to the public debtors of that statute, andsubmit to their consideration, in the same spirit of equity, theremission, under proper discriminations, of the forfeitures of partialpayments on account of purchases of the public lands, so far as toallow of their application to other payments. There are various other subjects of deep interest to the whole Unionwhich have heretofore been recommended to the consideration ofCongress, as well by my predecessors as, under the impression of theduties devolving upon me, by myself. Among these are the debt, ratherof justice than gratitude, to the surviving warriors of theRevolutionary war; the extension of the judicial administration of theFederal Government to those extensive since the organization of thepresent judiciary establishment, now constitute at least one third ofits territory, power, and population; the formation of a more effectiveand uniform system for the government of the militia, and theamelioration in some form or modification of the diversified and oftenoppressive codes relating to insolvency. Amidst the multiplicity oftopics of great national concernment which may recommend themselves tothe calm and patriotic deliberations of the Legislature, it may sufficeto say that on these and all other measures which may receive theirsanction my hearty cooperation will be given, conformably to the dutiesenjoined upon me and under the sense of all the obligations prescribedby the Constitution. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS *** State of the Union AddressJohn Quincy AdamsDecember 2, 1828 Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: If the enjoyment in profusion of the bounties of Providence forms asuitable subject of mutual gratulation and grateful acknowledgment, weare admonished at this return of the season when the representatives ofthe nation are assembled to deliberate upon their concerns to offer upthe tribute of fervent and grateful hearts for the never failingmercies of Him who ruleth over all. He has again favored us withhealthful seasons and abundant harvests; He has sustained us in peacewith foreign countries and in tranquillity within our borders; He haspreserved us in the quiet and undisturbed possession of civil andreligious liberty; He has crowned the year with His goodness, imposingon us no other condition than of improving for our own happiness theblessings bestowed by His hands, and, in the fruition of all Hisfavors, of devoting his faculties with which we have been endowed byHim to His glory and to our own temporal and eternal welfare. In the relations of our Federal Union with our brethren of the humanrace the changes which have occurred since the close of your lastsession have generally tended to the preservation of peace and to thecultivation of harmony. Before your last separation a war had unhappilybeen kindled between the Empire of Russia, one of those with which ourintercourse has been no other than a constant exchange of good offices, and that of the Ottoman Porte, a nation from which geographicaldistance, religious opinions and maxims of government on their partlittle suited to the formation of those bonds of mutual benevolencewhich result from the benefits of commerce had department us in astate, perhaps too much prolonged, of coldness and alienation. The extensive, fertile, and populous dominions of the Sultan belongrather to the Asiatic than the European division of the human family. They enter but partially into the system of Europe, nor have their warswith Russia and Austria, the European States upon which they border, for more than a century past disturbed the pacific relations of thoseStates with the other great powers of Europe. Neither France norPrussia nor Great Britain has ever taken part in them, nor is it to beexpected that they will at this time. The declaration of war by Russiahas received the approbation or acquiescence of her allies, and we mayindulge the hope that its progress and termination will be signalizedby the moderation and forbearance no less than by the energy of theEmperor Nicholas, and that it will afford the opportunity for suchcollateral agency in behalf of the suffering Greeks as will secure tothem ultimately the triumph of humanity and of freedom. The state of our particular relations with France has scarcely variedin the course of the present year. The commercial intercourse betweenthe two countries has continued to increase for the mutual benefit ofboth. The claims of indemnity to numbers of our fellow citizens fordepredations upon their property, heretofore committed during therevolutionary governments, remain unadjusted, and still form thesubject of earnest representation and remonstrance. Recent advices fromthe minister of the United States at Paris encourage the expectationthat the appeal to the justice of the French Government will ere longreceive a favorable consideration. The last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision ofthe controversy with Great Britain relating to the north-easternboundary of the United States. By an agreement with the BritishGovernment, carrying into effect the provisions of the 5th article ofthe treaty of Ghent, and the convention of September 29th, 1827, HisMajesty the King of the Netherlands has by common consent been selectedas the umpire between the parties. The proposal to him to accept thedesignation for the performance of this friendly office will be made atan early day, and the United States, relying upon the justice of theircause, will cheerfully commit the arbitrament of it to a prince equallydistinguished for the independence of his spirit, his indefatigableassiduity to the duties of his station, and his inflexible personalprobity. Our commercial relations with Great Britain will deserve the seriousconsideration of Congress and the exercise of a conciliatory andforbearing spirit in the policy of both Governments. The state of themhas been materially changed by the act of Congress, passed at theirlast session, in alteration of several acts imposing duties on imports, and by acts of more recent date of the British Parliament. The effectof the interdiction of direct trade, commenced by Great Britain andreciprocated by the United States, has been, as was to be foreseen, only to substitute different channels for an exchange of commoditiesindispensable to the colonies and profitable to a numerous class of ourfellow citizens. The exports, the revenue, the navigation of the UnitedStates have suffered no diminution by our exclusion from direct accessto the British colonies. The colonies pay more dearly for thenecessaries of life which their Government burdens with the charges ofdouble voyages, freight, insurance, and commission, and the profits ofour exports are somewhat impaired and more injuriously transferred fromone portion of our citizens to another. The resumption of this old and otherwise exploded system of colonialexclusion has not secured to the shipping interest of Great Britain therelief which, at the expense of the distant colonies and of the UnitedStates, it was expected to afford. Other measures have been resorted tomore pointedly bearing upon the navigation of the United States, andmore pointedly bearing upon the navigation of the United States, andwhich, unless modified by the construction given to the recent acts ofParliament, will be manifestly incompatible with the positivestipulations of the commercial convention existing between the twocountries. That convention, however, may be terminated with 12 months'notice, at the option of either party. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce between the United Statesand His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, has been prepared for signature by the Secretary of State and by theBaron de Lederer, intrusted with full powers of the AustrianGovernment. Independently of the new and friendly relations which maybe thus commenced with one of the most eminent and powerful nations ofthe earth, the occasion has been taken in it, as in other recenttreaties concluded by the United States, to extend those principles ofliberal intercourse and of fair reciprocity which intertwine with theexchanges of commerce the principles of justice and the feelings ofmutual benevolence. This system, first proclaimed to the world in the first commercialtreaty ever concluded by the United States--that of February 6th, 1778, with France--has been invariably the cherished policy of our Union. Itis by treaties of commerce alone that it can be made ultimately toprevail as the established system of all civilized nations. With thisprinciple our fathers extended the hand of friendship to every nationof the globe, and to this policy our country has ever since adhered. What ever of regulation in our laws has ever been adopted unfavorableto the interest of any foreign nation has been essentially defensiveand counteracting to similar regulations of theirs operating againstus. Immediately after the close of the War of Independence commissionerswere appointed by the Congress of the Confederation authorized toconclude treaties with every nation of Europe disposed to adopt them. Before the wars of the French Revolution such treaties had beenconsummated with the United Netherlands, Sweden, and Prussia. Duringthose wars treaties with Great Britain and Spain had been effected, andthose with Prussia and France renewed. In all these some concessions tothe liberal principles of intercourse proposed by the United States hadbeen obtained; but as in all the negotiations they came occasionally incollision with previous internal regulations or exclusive and excludingcompacts of monopoly with which the other parties had been trammeled, the advances made in them toward the freedom of trade were partial andimperfect. Colonial establishments, chartered companies, and shipbuilding influence pervaded and encumbered the legislation of all thegreat commercial states; and the United States, in offering free tradeand equal privilege to all, were compelled to acquiesce in manyexceptions with each of the parties to their treaties, accommodated totheir existing laws and anterior agreements. The colonial system by which this whole hemisphere was bound has falleninto ruins, totally abolished by revolutions converting colonies intoindependent nations throughout the two American continents, excepting aportion of territory chiefly at the northern extremity of our own, andconfined to the remnants of dominion retained by Great Britain over theinsular archipelago, geographically the appendages of our part of theglobe. With all the rest we have free trade, even with the insularcolonies of all the European nations, except Great Britain. HerGovernment also had manifested approaches to the adoption of a free andliberal intercourse between her colonies and other nations, though by asudden and scarcely explained revulsion the spirit of exclusion hasbeen revived for operation upon the United States alone. The conclusion of our last treaty of peace with Great Britain wasshortly afterwards followed by a commercial convention, placing thedirect intercourse between the two countries upon a footing of moreequal reciprocity than had ever before been admitted. The sameprinciple has since been much further extended by treaties with France, Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic cities, Prussia, in Europe, and with theRepublics of Colombia and of Central America, in this hemisphere. Themutual abolition of discriminating duties and charges upon thenavigation and commercial intercourse between the parties is thegeneral maxim which characterizes them all. There is reason to expectthat it will at no distant period be adopted by other nations, both ofEurope and America, and to hope that by its universal prevalence one ofthe fruitful sources of wars of commercial competition will beextinguished. Among the nations upon whose Governments many of our fellow citizenshave had long-pending claims of indemnity for depredations upon theirproperty during a period when the rights of neutral commerce weredisregarded was that of Denmark. They were soon after the eventsoccurred the subject of a special mission from the United States, atthe close of which the assurance was given by His Danish Majesty thatat a period of more tranquillity and of less distress they would beconsidered, examined, and decided upon in a spirit of determinedpurpose for the dispensation of justice. I have much pleasure ininforming Congress that the fulfillment of this honorable promise isnow in progress; that a small portion of the claims has already beensettled to the satisfaction of the claimants, and that we have reasonto hope that the remainder will shortly be placed in a train ofequitable adjustment. This result has always been confidently expected, from the character of personal integrity and of benevolence which theSovereign of the Danish dominions has through every vicissitude offortune maintained. The general aspect of the affairs of our neighboring American nationsof the south has been rather of approaching than of settledtranquillity. Internal disturbances have been more frequent among themthan their common friends would have desired. Our intercourse with allhas continued to be that of friendship and of mutual good will. Treaties of commerce and of boundaries with the United Mexican Stateshave been negotiated, but, from various successive obstacles, not yetbrought to a final conclusion. The civil war which unfortunately still prevails in the Republics ofCentral America has been unpropitious to the cultivation of ourcommercial relations with them; and the dissensions and revolutionarychanges in the Republics of Colombia and of Peru have been seen withcordial regret by us, who would gladly contribute to the happiness ofboth. It is with great satisfaction, however, that we have witnessedthe recent conclusion of a peace between the Governments of BuenosAyres and of Brazil, and it is equally gratifying to observe thatindemnity has been obtained for some of the injuries which our fellowcitizens had sustained in the latter of those countries. The rest arein a train of negotiation, which we hope may terminate to mutualsatisfaction, and that it may be succeeded by a treaty of commerce andnavigation, upon liberal principles, propitious to a great and growingcommerce, already important to the interests of our country. The condition and prospects of the revenue are more favorable than ourmost sanguine expectations had anticipated. The balance in the Treasuryon January 1st, 1828, exclusive of the moneys received under theconvention of November 13th, 1826, with Great Britain, was$5, 861, 972. 83. The receipts into the Treasury from January 1st, 1828 toSeptember 30th, 1828, so far as they have been ascertained to form thebasis of an estimate, amount to $18, 633, 580. 27, which, with thereceipts of the present quarter, estimated at $5, 461, 283. 40, form anaggregate of receipts during the year of $24, 094, 863. 67. Theexpenditures of the year may probably amount to $25, 637, 111. 63, andleave in the Treasury on January 1st, 1829 the sum of $5, 125, 638. 14. The receipts of the present year have amounted to near $2, 000, 000 morethan was anticipated at the commencement of the last session ofCongress. The amount of duties secured on importations from the first of Januaryto the 30th of September was about $22, 997, 000, and that of theestimated accruing revenue is $5, 000, 000, forming an aggregate for theyear of near $28, 000, 000. This is $1, 000, 000 more than the estimatelast December for the accruing revenue of the present year, which, withallowances for draw-backs and contingent deficiencies, was expected toproduce an actual revenue of $22, 300, 000. Had these only been realizedthe expenditures of the year would have been also proportionallyreduced, for of these $24, 000, 000 received upward of $9, 000, 000 havebeen applied to the extinction of public debt, bearing an interest of6% a year, and of course reducing the burden of interest annuallypayable in future by the amount of more than $500, 000. The payments onaccount of interest during the current year exceed $3, 000, 000, presenting an aggregate of more than $12, 000, 000 applied during theyear to the discharge of the public debt, the whole of which remainingdue on January 1st, 1829 will amount only to $58, 362, 135. 78. That the revenue of the ensuing year will not fall short of thatreceived in the one now expiring there are indications which canscarcely prove deceptive. In our country an uniform experience of 40years has shown that what ever the tariff of duties upon articlesimported from abroad has been, the amount of importations has alwaysborne an average value nearly approaching to that of the exports, though occasionally differing in the balance, some times being more andsome times less. It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commercethat the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent additionto the wealth of the nation. The extent of the prosperous commerce of the nation must be regulatedby the amount of its exports, and an important addition to the value ofthese will draw after it a corresponding increase of importations. Ithas happened in the vicissitudes of the seasons that the harvests ofall Europe have in the late summer and autumn fallen short of theirusual average. A relaxation of the interdict upon the importation ofgrain and flour from abroad has ensued, a propitious market has beenopened to the granaries of our country, and a new prospect of rewardpresented to the labors of the husband-man, which for several years hasbeen denied. This accession to the profits of agriculture in the middleand western portions of our Union is accidental and temporary. It maycontinue only for a single year. It may be, as has been oftenexperienced in the revolutions of time, but the first of several scantyharvests in succession. We may consider it certain that for theapproaching year it has added an item of large amount to the value ofour exports and that it will produce a corresponding increase ofimportations. It may therefore confidently be foreseen that the revenueof 1829 will equal and probably exceed that of 1828, and will affordthe means of extinguishing $10, 000, 000 more of the principal of thepublic debt. This new element of prosperity to that part of our agriculturalindustry which is occupied in producing the first article of humansubsistence is of the most cheering character to the feelings ofpatriotism. Proceeding from a cause which humanity will view withconcern, the sufferings of scarcity in distant lands, it yields aconsolatory reflection that this scarcity is in no respect attributableto us; that it comes from the dispensation of Him who ordains all inwisdom and goodness, and who permits evil itself only as an instrumentof good; that, far from contributing to this scarcity, our agency willbe applied only to the alleviation of its severity, and that in pouringforth from the abundance of our own garners the supplies which willpartially restore plenty to those who are in need we shall ourselvesreduce our stores and add to the price of our own bread, so as in somedegree to participate in the wants which it will be the good fortune ofour country to relieve. The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturingnation are so linked in union together that no permanent cause ofprosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influenceto the others. All these interests are alike under the protecting powerof the legislative authority, and the duties of the representativebodies are to conciliate them in harmony together. So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for dischargingthe debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operationshould be adapted as much as possible to suit the burden with equalhand upon all in proportion with their ability of bearing it withoutoppression. But the legislation of one nation is some timesintentionally made to bear heavily upon the interests of another. Thatlegislation, adapted, as it is meant to be, to the special interests ofits own people, will often press most unequally upon the severalcomponent interests of its neighbors. Thus the legislation of Great Britain, when, as has recently beenavowed, adapted to the depression of a rival nation, will naturallyabound with regulations to interdict upon the productions of the soilor industry of the other which come in competition with its own, andwill present encouragement, perhaps even bounty, to the raw material ofthe other State which it can not produce itself, and which is essentialfor the use of its manufactures, competitors in the markets of theworld with those of its commercial rival. Such is the state of commercial legislation of Great Britain as itbears upon our interests. It excludes with interdicting duties allimportation (except in time of approaching famine) of the great stapleof production of our Middle and Western States; it proscribes withequal rigor the bulkier lumber and live stock of the same portion andalso of the Northern and Eastern part of our Union. It refuses even therice of the South unless aggravated with a charge of duty upon theNorthern carrier who brings it to them. But the cotton, indispensablefor their looms, they will receive almost duty free to weave it into afabric for our own wear, to the destruction of our own manufactures, which they are enabled thus to under-sell. Is the self-protecting energy of this nation so helpless that thereexists in the political institutions of our country no power tocounter-act the bias of this foreign legislation; that the growers ofgrain must submit to this exclusion from the foreign markets of theirproduce; that the shippers must dismantle their ships, the trade of theNorth stagnate at the wharves, and the manufacturers starve at theirlooms, while the whole people shall pay tribute to foreign industry tobe clad in a foreign garb; that the Congress of the Union are impotentto restore the balance in favor of native industry destroyed by thestatutes of another realm? More just and generous sentiments will, I trust, prevail. If the tariffadopted at the last session of Congress shall be found by experience tobear oppressively upon the interests of any one section of the Union, it ought to be, and I can not doubt will be, so modified as toalleviate its burden. To the voice of just complaint from any portionof their constituents the representatives of the States and of thepeople will never turn away their ears. But so long as the duty of the foreign shall operate only as a bountyupon the domestic article; while the planter and the merchant and theshepherd and the husbandman shall be found thriving in theiroccupations under the duties imposed for the protection of domesticmanufactures, they will not repine at the prosperity shared withthemselves by their fellow citizens of other professions, nor denounceas violations of the Constitution the deliberate acts of Congress toshield from the wrongs of foreigns the native industry of the Union. While the tariff of the last session of Congress was a subject oflegislative deliberation it was foretold by some of its opposers thatone of its necessary consequences would be to impair the revenue. It isyet too soon to pronounce with confidence that this prediction waserroneous. The obstruction of one avenue of trade not unfrequentlyopens an issue to another. The consequence of the tariff will be toincrease the exportation and to diminish the importation of somespecific articles; but by the general law of trade the increase ofexportation of one article will be followed by an increased importationof others, the duties upon which will supply the deficiencies which thediminished importation would otherwise occasion. The effect of taxationupon revenue can seldom be foreseen with certainty. It must abide thetest of experience. As yet no symptoms of diminution are perceptible in the receipts of theTreasury. As yet little addition of cost has even been experienced uponthe articles burdened with heavier duties by the last tariff. Thedomestic manufacturer supplies the same or a kindred article at adiminished price, and the consumer pays the same tribute to the laborof his own country-man which he must otherwise have paid to foreignindustry and toil. The tariff of the last session was in its details not acceptable to thegreat interests of any portion of the Union, not even to the interestwhich it was specially intended to subserve. Its object was to balancethe burdens upon native industry imposed by the operation of foreignlaws, but not to aggravate the burdens of one section of the Union bythe relief afforded to another. To the great principle sanctioned bythat act--one of those upon which the Constitution itself was formed--Ihope and trust the authorities of the Union will adhere. But if any ofthe duties imposed by the act only relieve the manufacturer byaggravating the burden of the planter, let a careful revisal of itsprovisions, enlightened by the practical experience of its effects, bedirected to retain those which impart protection to native industry andremove or supply the place of those which only alleviate one greatnational interest by the depression of another. The United States of America and the people of every State of whichthey are composed are each of them sovereign powers. The legislativeauthority of the whole is exercised by Congress under authority grantedthem in the common Constitution. The legislative power of each State isexercised by assemblies deriving their authority from the constitutionof the State. Each is sovereign within its own province. Thedistribution of power between them presupposes that these authoritieswill move in harmony with each other. The members of the State andGeneral Governments are all under oath to support both, and allegianceis due to the one and to the other. The case of a conflict betweenthese two powers has not been supposed, nor has any provision been madefor it in our institutions; as a virtuous nation of ancient timesexisted more than five centuries without a law for the punishment ofparricide. More than once, however, in the progress of our history have the peopleand the legislatures of one or more States, in moments of excitement, been instigated to this conflict; and the means of effecting thisimpulse have been allegations that the acts of Congress to be resistedwere unconstitutional. The people of no one State have ever delegatedto their legislature the power of pronouncing an act of Congressunconstitutional, but they have delegated to them powers by theexercise of which the execution of the laws of Congress within theState may be resisted. If we suppose the case of such conflictinglegislation sustained by the corresponding executive and judicialauthorities, patriotism and philanthropy turn their eyes from thecondition in which the parties would be placed, and from that of thepeople of both, which must be its victims. The reports from the Secretary of War and the various subordinateoffices of the resort of that Department present an exposition of thepublic administration of affairs connected with them through the courseof the current year. The present state of the Army and the distributionof the force of which it is composed will be seen from the report ofthe Major General. Several alterations in the disposal of the troopshave been found expedient in the course of the year, and the disciplineof the Army, though not entirely free from exception, has beengenerally good. The attention of Congress is particularly invited to that part of thereport of the Secretary of War which concerns the existing system ofour relations with the Indian tribes. At the establishment of theFederal Government under the present Constitution of the United Statesthe principle was adopted of considering them as foreign andindependent powers and also as proprietors of lands. They were, moreover, considered as savages, whom it was our policy and our duty touse our influence in converting to Christianity and in bringing withinthe pale of civilization. As independent powers, we negotiated with them by treaties; asproprietors, we purchased of them all the lands which we could prevailupon them to sell; as brethren of the human race, rude and ignorant, weendeavored to bring them to the knowledge of religion and letters. Theultimate design was to incorporate in our own institutions that portionof them which could be converted to the state of civilization. In thepractice of European States, before our Revolution, they had beenconsidered as children to be governed; as tenants at discretion, to bedispossessed as occasion might require; as hunters to be indemnified bytrifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their gamewas extirpated. In changing the system it would seem as if a fullcontemplation of the consequences of the change had not been taken. We have been far more successful in the acquisition of their lands thanin imparting to them the principles or inspiring them with the spiritof civilization. But in appropriating to ourselves their huntinggrounds we have brought upon ourselves the obligation of providing themwith subsistence; and when we have had the rare good fortune ofteaching them the arts of civilization and the doctrines ofChristianity we have unexpectedly found them forming in the midst ofourselves communities claiming to be independent of ours and rivals ofsovereignty within the territories of the members of our Union. Thisstate of things requires that a remedy should be provided--a remedywhich, while it shall do justice to those unfortunate children ofnature, may secure to the members of our confederation their rights ofsovereignty and of soil. As the outline of a project to that effect, the views presented in the report of the Secretary of War arerecommended to the consideration of Congress. The report from the Engineer Department presents a comprehensive viewof the progress which has been made in the great systems promotive ofthe public interest, commenced and organized under authority ofCongress, and the effects of which have already contributed to thesecurity, as they will hereafter largely contribute to the honor anddignity, of the nation. The first of these great systems is that of fortifications, commencedimmediately after the close of our last war, under the salutaryexperience which the events of that war had impressed upon our country-men of its necessity. Introduced under the auspices of my immediatepredecessor, it has been continued with the persevering and liberalencouragement of the Legislature, and, combined with correspondingexertions for the gradual increase and improvement of the Navy, prepares for our extensive country a condition of defense adapted toany critical emergency which the varying course of events may bringforth. Our advances in these concerted systems have for the last tenyears been steady and progressive, and in a few years more will be socompleted as to leave no cause for apprehension that our sea coast willever again offer a theater of hostile invasion. The next of these cardinal measures of policy is the preliminary togreat and lasting works of public improvement in the surveys of roads, examination for the course of canals, and labors for the removal of theobstructions of rivers and harbors, first commenced by the act ofCongress of April 30th, 1824. The report exhibits in one table the funds appropriated at the last andpreceding sessions of Congress for all these fortifications, surveys, and works of public improvement, the manner in which these funds havebeen applied, the amount expended upon the several works underconstruction, and the further sums which may be necessary to completethem; in a second, the works projected by the Board of Engineers whichhave not been commenced, and the estimate of their cost; in a third, the report of the annual Board of Visitors at the Military Academy atWest Point. For thirteen fortifications erecting on various points of our Atlanticcoast, from Rhode Island to Louisiana, the aggregate expenditure of theyear has fallen little short of $1, 000, 000. For the preparation of fiveadditional reports of reconnoissances and surveys since the lastsession of Congress, for the civil construction upon 37 differentpublic works commenced, eight others for which specific appropriationshave been made by acts of Congress, and twenty other incipient surveysunder the authority given by the act of April 30th, 1824, about$1, 000, 000 more has been drawn from the Treasury. To these $2, 000, 000 is to be added the appropriation of $250, 000 tocommence the erection of a break-water near the mouth of the DelawareRiver, the subscriptions to the Delaware and Chesapeake, the Louisvilleand Portland, the Dismal Swamp, and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, thelarge donations of lands to the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, andAlabama for objects of improvements within those States, and the sumsappropriated for light-houses, buoys, and piers on the coast; and afull view will be taken of the munificence of the nation in theapplication of its resources to the improvement of its own condition. Of these great national under-takings the Academy at West Point isamong the most important in itself and the most comprehensive in itsconsequences. In that institution a part of the revenue of the nationis applied to defray the expense of educating a competent portion ofher youth chiefly to the knowledge and the duties of military life. Itis the living armory of the nation. While the other works ofimprovement enumerated in the reports now presented to the attention ofCongress are destined to ameliorate the face of nature, to multiply thefacilities of communication between the different parts of the Union, to assist the labors, increase the comforts, and enhance the enjoymentsof individuals, the instruction acquired at West Point enlarges thedominion and expands the capacities of the mind. Its beneficial resultsare already experienced in the composition of the Army, and theirinfluence is felt in the intellectual progress of society. Theinstitution is susceptible still of great improvement from benefactionsproposed by several successive Boards of Visitors, to whose earnest andrepeated recommendations I cheerfully add my own. With the usual annual reports from the Secretary of the Navy and theBoard of Commissioners will be exhibited to the view of Congress theexecution of the laws relating to that department of the publicservice. The repression of piracy in the West Indian and in the Grecianseas has been effectually maintained, with scarcely any exception. During the war between the Governments of Buenos Ayres and of Brazilfrequent collisions between the belligerent acts of power and therights of neutral commerce occurred. Licentious blockades, irregularlyenlisted or impressed sea men, and the property of honest commerceseized with violence, and even plundered under legal pretenses, aredisorders never separable from the conflicts of war upon the ocean. With a portion of them the correspondence of our commanders on theeastern aspect of the South American coast and among the islands ofGreece discover how far we have been involved. In these the honor ofour country and the rights of our citizens have been asserted andvindicated. The appearance of new squadrons in the Mediterranean andthe blockade of the Dardanelles indicate the danger of other obstaclesto the freedom of commerce and the necessity of keeping our naval forcein those seas. To the suggestions repeated in the report of theSecretary of the Navy, and tending to the permanent improvement of thisinstitution, I invite the favorable consideration of Congress. A resolution of the House of Representatives requesting that one of oursmall public vessels should be sent to the Pacific Ocean and South Seato examine the coasts, islands, harbors, shoals, and reefs in thoseseas, and to ascertain their true situation and description, has beenput in a train of execution. The vessel is nearly ready to depart. Thesuccessful accomplishment of the expedition may be greatly facilitatedby suitable legislative provisions, and particularly by anappropriation to defray its necessary expense. The addition of a 2nd, and perhaps a 3rd, vessel, with a slight aggravation of the cost, wouldcontribute much to the safety of the citizens embarked on this under-taking, the results of which may be of the deepest interest to ourcountry. With the report of the Secretary of the Navy will be submitted, inconformity to the act of Congress of March 3d, 1827, for the gradualimprovement of the Navy of the United States, statements of theexpenditures under that act and of the measures for carrying the sameinto effect. Every section of that statute contains a distinctprovision looking to the great object of the whole--the gradualimprovement of the Navy. Under its salutary sanction stores of shiptimber have been procured and are in process of seasoning andpreservation for the future uses of the Navy. Arrangements have beenmade for the preservation of the live oak timber growing on the landsof the United States, and for its reproduction, to supply at future anddistant days the waste of that most valuable material for ship buildingby the great consumption of it yearly for the commercial as well as forthe military marine of our country. The construction of the two dry docks at Charlestown and at Norfolk ismaking satisfactory progress toward a durable establishment. Theexaminations and inquiries to ascertain the practicability andexpediency of a marine railway at Pensacola, though not yetaccomplished, have been postponed but to be more effectually made. Thenavy yards of the United States have been examined, and plans for theirimprovement and the preservation of the public property therein atPortsmouth, Charlestown, Philadelphia, Washington, and Gosport, and towhich two others are to be added, have been prepared and received mysanction; and no other portion of my public duties has been performedwith a more intimate conviction of its importance to the future welfareand security of the Union. With the report from the Post Master General is exhibited a comparativeview of the gradual increase of that establishment, from five to fiveyears, since 1792 'til this time in the number of post offices, whichhas grown from less than 200 to nearly 8, 000; in the revenue yielded bythem, which from $67, 000 has swollen to upward of $1, 500, 000, and inthe number of miles of post roads, which from 5, 642 have multiplied to114, 536. While in the same period of time the population of the Unionhas about thrice doubled, the rate of increase of these offices isnearly 40, and of the revenue and of traveled miles from 20 to 25 forone. The increase of revenue within the last five years has been nearlyequal to the whole revenue of the Department in 1812. The expenditures of the Department during the year which ended on July1st, 1828 have exceeded the receipts by a sum of about $25, 000. Theexcess has been occasioned by the increase of mail conveyances andfacilities to the extent of near 800, 000 miles. It has been supplied bycollections from the post masters of the arrearages of preceding years. While the correct principle seems to be that the income levied by theDepartment should defray all its expenses, it has never been the policyof this Government to raise from this establishment any revenue to beapplied to any other purposes. The suggestion of the Post MasterGeneral that the insurance of the safe transmission of moneys by themail might be assumed by the Department for a moderate and competentremuneration will deserve the consideration of Congress. A report from the commissioner of the public buildings in this cityexhibits the expenditures upon them in the course of the current year. It will be seen that the humane and benevolent intentions of Congressin providing, by the act of May 20th, 1826, for the erection of apenitentiary in this District have been accomplished. The authority offurther legislation is now required for the removal to this tenement ofthe offenders against the laws sentenced to atone by personalconfinement for their crimes, and to provide a code for theiremployment and government while thus confined. The commissioners appointed, conformably to the act of March 2d, 1827, to provide for the adjustment of claims of persons entitled toindemnification under the first article of the treaty of Ghent, and forthe distribution among such claimants of the sum paid by the Governmentof Great Britain under the convention of November 13th, 1826, closedtheir labors on August 30th, 1828 last by awarding to the claimants thesum of $1, 197, 422. 18, leaving a balance of $7, 537. 82, which wasdistributed ratably amongst all the claimants to whom awards had beenmade, according to the directions of the act. The exhibits appended to the report from the Commissioner of theGeneral Land Office present the actual condition of that commonproperty of the Union. The amount paid into the Treasury from theproceeds of lands during the year 1827 and for the first half of 1828falls little short of $2, 000, 000. The propriety of further extendingthe time for the extinguishment of the debt due to the United States bythe purchasers of the public lands, limited by the act of March 21st, 1828 to July 4th, 1829, will claim the consideration of Congress, towhose vigilance and careful attention the regulation, disposal, andpreservation of this great national inheritance has by the people ofthe United States been intrusted. Among the important subjects to which the attention of the presentCongress has already been invited, and which may occupy their furtherand deliberate discussion, will be the provision to be made for takingthe 5th census of enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States. The Constitution of the United States requires that this enumerationshould be made within every term of ten years, and the date from whichthe last enumeration commenced was the first Monday of August of theyear 1820. The laws under which the former enumerations were taken were enacted atthe session of Congress immediately preceding the operation; butconsiderable inconveniences were experienced from the delay oflegislation to so late a period. That law, like those of the precedingenumerations, directed that the census should be taken by the marshalsof the several districts and Territories of the Union underinstructions from the Secretary of State. The preparation andtransmission to the marshals of those instructions required more timethan was then allowed between the passage of the law and the day whenthe enumeration was to commence. The term of six months limited for thereturns of the marshals was also found even then too short, and must bemore so now, when an additional population of at least 3, 000, 000 mustbe presented upon the returns. As they are to be made at the short session of Congress, it would, aswell as from other considerations, be more convenient to commence theenumeration from an earlier period of the year than the first ofAugust. The most favorable season would be the spring. On a review of the former enumerations it will be found that the planfor taking every census has contained many improvements upon that ofits predecessor. The last is still susceptible of much improvement. The3rd Census was the first at which any account was taken of themanufactures of the country. It was repeated at the last enumeration, but the returns in both cases were necessarily very imperfect. Theymust always be so, resting, of course, only upon the communicationsvoluntarily made by individuals interested in some of the manufacturingestablishments. Yet they contained much valuable information, and mayby some supplementary provision of the law be rendered more effective. The columns of age, commencing from infancy, have hitherto beenconfined to a few periods, all under the number of 45 years. Importantknowledge would be obtained by extending these columns, in intervals often years, to the utmost boundaries of human life. The labor of takingthem would be a trifling addition to that already prescribed, and theresult would exhibit comparative tables of longevity highly interestingto the country. I deem it my duty further to observe that much of theimperfections in the returns of the last and perhaps of precedingenumerations proceeded from the inadequateness of the compensationsallowed to the marshals and their assistants in taking them. In closing this communication it only remains for me to assure theLegislature of my continued earnest wish for the adoption of measuresrecommended by me heretofore and yet to be acted on by them, and of thecordial concurrence on my part in every constitutional provision whichmay receive their sanction during the session tending to the generalwelfare. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS