HISTORIC SPEECHES
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
1828 State of the Union Address
December 2, 1828
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
If the enjoyment in profusion of the bounties of Providence forms a suitable
subject of mutual gratulation and grateful acknowledgment, we are admonished
at this return of the season when the representatives of the nation are assembled
to deliberate upon their concerns to offer up the tribute of fervent and grateful
hearts for the never failing mercies of Him who ruleth over all. He has again
favored us with healthful seasons and abundant harvests; He has sustained us
in peace with foreign countries and in tranquillity within our borders; He has
preserved us in the quiet and undisturbed possession of civil and religious
liberty; He has crowned the year with His goodness, imposing on us no other
condition than of improving for our own happiness the blessings bestowed by
His hands, and, in the fruition of all His favors, of devoting his faculties
with which we have been endowed by Him to His glory and to our own temporal
and eternal welfare.
In the relations of our Federal Union with our brethren of the human race the
changes which have occurred since the close of your last session have generally
tended to the preservation of peace and to the cultivation of harmony. Before
your last separation a war had unhappily been kindled between the Empire of
Russia, one of those with which our intercourse has been no other than a constant
exchange of good offices, and that of the Ottoman Porte, a nation from which
geographical distance, religious opinions and maxims of government on their
part little suited to the formation of those bonds of mutual benevolence which
result from the benefits of commerce had department us in a state, perhaps too
much prolonged, of coldness and alienation.
The extensive, fertile, and populous dominions of the Sultan belong rather
to the Asiatic than the European division of the human family. They enter but
partially into the system of Europe, nor have their wars with Russia and Austria,
the European States upon which they border, for more than a century past disturbed
the pacific relations of those States with the other great powers of Europe.
Neither France nor Prussia nor Great Britain has ever taken part in them, nor
is it to be expected that they will at this time. The declaration of war by
Russia has received the approbation or acquiescence of her allies, and we may
indulge the hope that its progress and termination will be signalized by the
moderation and forbearance no less than by the energy of the Emperor Nicholas,
and that it will afford the opportunity for such collateral agency in behalf
of the suffering Greeks as will secure to them ultimately the triumph of humanity
and of freedom.
The state of our particular relations with France has scarcely varied in the
course of the present year. The commercial intercourse between the two countries
has continued to increase for the mutual benefit of both. The claims of indemnity
to numbers of our fellow citizens for depredations upon their property, heretofore
committed during the revolutionary governments, remain unadjusted, and still
form the subject of earnest representation and remonstrance. Recent advices
from the minister of the United States at Paris encourage the expectation that
the appeal to the justice of the French Government will ere long receive a favorable
consideration.
The last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision of the controversy
with Great Britain relating to the north-eastern boundary of the United States.
By an agreement with the British Government, carrying into effect the provisions
of the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent, and the convention of 1827-09-29,
His Majesty the King of the Netherlands has by common consent been selected
as the umpire between the parties. The proposal to him to accept the designation
for the performance of this friendly office will be made at an early day, and
the United States, relying upon the justice of their cause, will cheerfully
commit the arbitrament of it to a prince equally distinguished for the independence
of his spirit, his indefatigable assiduity to the duties of his station, and
his inflexible personal probity.
Our commercial relations with Great Britain will deserve the serious consideration
of Congress and the exercise of a conciliatory and forbearing spirit in the
policy of both Governments. The state of them has been materially changed by
the act of Congress, passed at their last session, in alteration of several
acts imposing duties on imports, and by acts of more recent date of the British
Parliament. The effect of the interdiction of direct trade, commenced by Great
Britain and reciprocated by the United States, has been, as was to be foreseen,
only to substitute different channels for an exchange of commodities indispensable
to the colonies and profitable to a numerous class of our fellow citizens. The
exports, the revenue, the navigation of the United States have suffered no diminution
by our exclusion from direct access to the British colonies. The colonies pay
more dearly for the necessaries of life which their Government burdens with
the charges of double voyages, freight, insurance, and commission, and the profits
of our exports are somewhat impaired and more injuriously transferred from one
portion of our citizens to another.
The resumption of this old and otherwise exploded system of colonial exclusion
has not secured to the shipping interest of Great Britain the relief which,
at the expense of the distant colonies and of the United States, it was expected
to afford. Other measures have been resorted to more pointedly bearing upon
the navigation of the United States, and more pointedly bearing upon the navigation
of the United States, and which, unless modified by the construction given to
the recent acts of Parliament, will be manifestly incompatible with the positive
stipulations of the commercial convention existing between the two countries.
That convention, however, may be terminated with 12 months' notice, at the option
of either party.
A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce between the United States and His
Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, has been prepared
for signature by the Secretary of State and by the Baron de Lederer, intrusted
with full powers of the Austrian Government. Independently of the new and friendly
relations which may be thus commenced with one of the most eminent and powerful
nations of the earth, the occasion has been taken in it, as in other recent
treaties concluded by the United States, to extend those principles of liberal
intercourse and of fair reciprocity which intertwine with the exchanges of commerce
the principles of justice and the feelings of mutual benevolence.
This system, first proclaimed to the world in the first commercial treaty ever
concluded by the United States -- that of 1778-02-06, with France -- has been
invariably the cherished policy of our Union. It is by treaties of commerce
alone that it can be made ultimately to prevail as the established system of
all civilized nations. With this principle our fathers extended the hand of
friendship to every nation of the globe, and to this policy our country has
ever since adhered. What ever of regulation in our laws has ever been adopted
unfavorable to the interest of any foreign nation has been essentially defensive
and counteracting to similar regulations of theirs operating against us.
Immediately after the close of the War of Independence commissioners were appointed
by the Congress of the Confederation authorized to conclude treaties with every
nation of Europe disposed to adopt them. Before the wars of the French Revolution
such treaties had been consummated with the United Netherlands, Sweden, and
Prussia. During those wars treaties with Great Britain and Spain had been effected,
and those with Prussia and France renewed. In all these some concessions to
the liberal principles of intercourse proposed by the United States had been
obtained; but as in all the negotiations they came occasionally in collision
with previous internal regulations or exclusive and excluding compacts of monopoly
with which the other parties had been trammeled, the advances made in them toward
the freedom of trade were partial and imperfect. Colonial establishments, chartered
companies, and ship building influence pervaded and encumbered the legislation
of all the great commercial states; and the United States, in offering free
trade and equal privilege to all, were compelled to acquiesce in many exceptions
with each of the parties to their treaties, accommodated to their existing laws
and anterior agreements.
The colonial system by which this whole hemisphere was bound has fallen into
ruins, totally abolished by revolutions converting colonies into independent
nations throughout the two American continents, excepting a portion of territory
chiefly at the northern extremity of our own, and confined to the remnants of
dominion retained by Great Britain over the insular archipelago, geographically
the appendages of our part of the globe. With all the rest we have free trade,
even with the insular colonies of all the European nations, except Great Britain.
Her Government also had manifested approaches to the adoption of a free and
liberal intercourse between her colonies and other nations, though by a sudden
and scarcely explained revulsion the spirit of exclusion has been revived for
operation upon the United States alone.
The conclusion of our last treaty of peace with Great Britain was shortly afterwards
followed by a commercial convention, placing the direct intercourse between
the two countries upon a footing of more equal reciprocity than had ever before
been admitted. The same principle has since been much further extended by treaties
with France, Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic cities, Prussia, in Europe, and
with the Republics of Colombia and of Central America, in this hemisphere. The
mutual abolition of discriminating duties and charges upon the navigation and
commercial intercourse between the parties is the general maxim which characterizes
them all. There is reason to expect that it will at no distant period be adopted
by other nations, both of Europe and America, and to hope that by its universal
prevalence one of the fruitful sources of wars of commercial competition will
be extinguished.
Among the nations upon whose Governments many of our fellow citizens have had
long-pending claims of indemnity for depredations upon their property during
a period when the rights of neutral commerce were disregarded was that of Denmark.
They were soon after the events occurred the subject of a special mission from
the United States, at the close of which the assurance was given by His Danish
Majesty that at a period of more tranquillity and of less distress they would
be considered, examined, and decided upon in a spirit of determined purpose
for the dispensation of justice. I have much pleasure in informing Congress
that the fulfillment of this honorable promise is now in progress; that a small
portion of the claims has already been settled to the satisfaction of the claimants,
and that we have reason to hope that the remainder will shortly be placed in
a train of equitable adjustment. This result has always been confidently expected,
from the character of personal integrity and of benevolence which the Sovereign
of the Danish dominions has through every vicissitude of fortune maintained.
The general aspect of the affairs of our neighboring American nations of the
south has been rather of approaching than of settled tranquillity. Internal
disturbances have been more frequent among them than their common friends would
have desired. Our intercourse with all has continued to be that of friendship
and of mutual good will. Treaties of commerce and of boundaries with the United
Mexican States have been negotiated, but, from various successive obstacles,
not yet brought to a final conclusion.
The civil war which unfortunately still prevails in the Republics of Central
America has been unpropitious to the cultivation of our commercial relations
with them; and the dissensions and revolutionary changes in the Republics of
Colombia and of Peru have been seen with cordial regret by us, who would gladly
contribute to the happiness of both. It is with great satisfaction, however,
that we have witnessed the recent conclusion of a peace between the Governments
of Buenos Ayres and of Brazil, and it is equally gratifying to observe that
indemnity has been obtained for some of the injuries which our fellow citizens
had sustained in the latter of those countries. The rest are in a train of negotiation,
which we hope may terminate to mutual satisfaction, and that it may be succeeded
by a treaty of commerce and navigation, upon liberal principles, propitious
to a great and growing commerce, already important to the interests of our country.
The condition and prospects of the revenue are more favorable than our most
sanguine expectations had anticipated. The balance in the Treasury on 1828-01-01,
exclusive of the moneys received under the convention of 1826-11-13, with Great
Britain, was $5,861,972.83. The receipts into the Treasury from 1828-01-01 to
1828-09-30, so far as they have been ascertained to form the basis of an estimate,
amount to $18,633,580.27, which, with the receipts of the present quarter, estimated
at $5,461,283.40, form an aggregate of receipts during the year of $24,094,863.67.
The expenditures of the year may probably amount to $25,637,111.63, and leave
in the Treasury on 1829-01-01 the sum of $5,125,638.14.
The receipts of the present year have amounted to near $2,000,000 more than
was anticipated at the commencement of the last session of Congress.
The amount of duties secured on importations from the first of January to the
30th of September was about $22,997,000, and that of the estimated accruing
revenue is $5,000,000, forming an aggregate for the year of near $28,000,000.
This is $1,000,000 more than the estimate last December for the accruing revenue
of the present year, which, with allowances for draw-backs and contingent deficiencies,
was expected to produce an actual revenue of $22,300,000. Had these only been
realized the expenditures of the year would have been also proportionally reduced,
for of these $24,000,000 received upward of $9,000,000 have been applied to
the extinction of public debt, bearing an interest of 6% a year, and of course
reducing the burden of interest annually payable in future by the amount of
more than $500,000. The payments on account of interest during the current year
exceed $3,000,000, presenting an aggregate of more than $12,000,000 applied
during the year to the discharge of the public debt, the whole of which remaining
due on 1829-01-01 will amount only to $58,362,135.78.
That the revenue of the ensuing year will not fall short of that received in
the one now expiring there are indications which can scarcely prove deceptive.
In our country an uniform experience of 40 years has shown that what ever the
tariff of duties upon articles imported from abroad has been, the amount of
importations has always borne an average value nearly approaching to that of
the exports, though occasionally differing in the balance, some times being
more and some times less. It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce
that the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance
exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the wealth
of the nation.
The extent of the prosperous commerce of the nation must be regulated by the
amount of its exports, and an important addition to the value of these will
draw after it a corresponding increase of importations. It has happened in the
vicissitudes of the seasons that the harvests of all Europe have in the late
summer and autumn fallen short of their usual average. A relaxation of the interdict
upon the importation of grain and flour from abroad has ensued, a propitious
market has been opened to the granaries of our country, and a new prospect of
reward presented to the labors of the husband-man, which for several years has
been denied. This accession to the profits of agriculture in the middle and
western portions of our Union is accidental and temporary. It may continue only
for a single year. It may be, as has been often experienced in the revolutions
of time, but the first of several scanty harvests in succession. We may consider
it certain that for the approaching year it has added an item of large amount
to the value of our exports and that it will produce a corresponding increase
of importations. It may therefore confidently be foreseen that the revenue of
1829 will equal and probably exceed that of 1828, and will afford the means
of extinguishing $10,000,000 more of the principal of the public debt.
This new element of prosperity to that part of our agricultural industry which
is occupied in producing the first article of human subsistence is of the most
cheering character to the feelings of patriotism. Proceeding from a cause which
humanity will view with concern, the sufferings of scarcity in distant lands,
it yields a consolatory reflection that this scarcity is in no respect attributable
to us; that it comes from the dispensation of Him who ordains all in wisdom
and goodness, and who permits evil itself only as an instrument of good; that,
far from contributing to this scarcity, our agency will be applied only to the
alleviation of its severity, and that in pouring forth from the abundance of
our own garners the supplies which will partially restore plenty to those who
are in need we shall ourselves reduce our stores and add to the price of our
own bread, so as in some degree to participate in the wants which it will be
the good fortune of our country to relieve.
The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation
are so linked in union together that no permanent cause of prosperity to one
of them can operate without extending its influence to the others. All these
interests are alike under the protecting power of the legislative authority,
and the duties of the representative bodies are to conciliate them in harmony
together.
So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the
debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted
as much as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion
with their ability of bearing it without oppression. But the legislation of
one nation is some times intentionally made to bear heavily upon the interests
of another. That legislation, adapted, as it is meant to be, to the special
interests of its own people, will often press most unequally upon the several
component interests of its neighbors.
Thus the legislation of Great Britain, when, as has recently been avowed, adapted
to the depression of a rival nation, will naturally abound with regulations
to interdict upon the productions of the soil or industry of the other which
come in competition with its own, and will present encouragement, perhaps even
bounty, to the raw material of the other State which it can not produce itself,
and which is essential for the use of its manufactures, competitors in the markets
of the world with those of its commercial rival.
Such is the state of commercial legislation of Great Britain as it bears upon
our interests. It excludes with interdicting duties all importation (except
in time of approaching famine) of the great staple of production of our Middle
and Western States; it proscribes with equal rigor the bulkier lumber and live
stock of the same portion and also of the Northern and Eastern part of our Union.
It refuses even the rice of the South unless aggravated with a charge of duty
upon the Northern carrier who brings it to them. But the cotton, indispensable
for their looms, they will receive almost duty free to weave it into a fabric
for our own wear, to the destruction of our own manufactures, which they are
enabled thus to under-sell.
Is the self-protecting energy of this nation so helpless that there exists
in the political institutions of our country no power to counter-act the bias
of this foreign legislation; that the growers of grain must submit to this exclusion
from the foreign markets of their produce; that the shippers must dismantle
their ships, the trade of the North stagnate at the wharves, and the manufacturers
starve at their looms, while the whole people shall pay tribute to foreign industry
to be clad in a foreign garb; that the Congress of the Union are impotent to
restore the balance in favor of native industry destroyed by the statutes of
another realm?
More just and generous sentiments will, I trust, prevail. If the tariff adopted
at the last session of Congress shall be found by experience to bear oppressively
upon the interests of any one section of the Union, it ought to be, and I can
not doubt will be, so modified as to alleviate its burden. To the voice of just
complaint from any portion of their constituents the representatives of the
States and of the people will never turn away their ears.
But so long as the duty of the foreign shall operate only as a bounty upon
the domestic article; while the planter and the merchant and the shepherd and
the husbandman shall be found thriving in their occupations under the duties
imposed for the protection of domestic manufactures, they will not repine at
the prosperity shared with themselves by their fellow citizens of other professions,
nor denounce as violations of the Constitution the deliberate acts of Congress
to shield from the wrongs of foreigns the native industry of the Union.
While the tariff of the last session of Congress was a subject of legislative
deliberation it was foretold by some of its opposers that one of its necessary
consequences would be to impair the revenue. It is yet too soon to pronounce
with confidence that this prediction was erroneous. The obstruction of one avenue
of trade not unfrequently opens an issue to another. The consequence of the
tariff will be to increase the exportation and to diminish the importation of
some specific articles; but by the general law of trade the increase of exportation
of one article will be followed by an increased importation of others, the duties
upon which will supply the deficiencies which the diminished importation would
otherwise occasion. The effect of taxation upon revenue can seldom be foreseen
with certainty. It must abide the test of experience.
As yet no symptoms of diminution are perceptible in the receipts of the Treasury.
As yet little addition of cost has even been experienced upon the articles burdened
with heavier duties by the last tariff. The domestic manufacturer supplies the
same or a kindred article at a diminished price, and the consumer pays the same
tribute to the labor of his own country-man which he must otherwise have paid
to foreign industry and toil.
The tariff of the last session was in its details not acceptable to the great
interests of any portion of the Union, not even to the interest which it was
specially intended to subserve. Its object was to balance the burdens upon native
industry imposed by the operation of foreign laws, but not to aggravate the
burdens of one section of the Union by the relief afforded to another. To the
great principle sanctioned by that act -- one of those upon which the Constitution
itself was formed -- I hope and trust the authorities of the Union will adhere.
But if any of the duties imposed by the act only relieve the manufacturer by
aggravating the burden of the planter, let a careful revisal of its provisions,
enlightened by the practical experience of its effects, be directed to retain
those which impart protection to native industry and remove or supply the place
of those which only alleviate one great national interest by the depression
of another.
The United States of America and the people of every State of which they are
composed are each of them sovereign powers. The legislative authority of the
whole is exercised by Congress under authority granted them in the common Constitution.
The legislative power of each State is exercised by assemblies deriving their
authority from the constitution of the State. Each is sovereign within its own
province. The distribution of power between them presupposes that these authorities
will move in harmony with each other. The members of the State and General Governments
are all under oath to support both, and allegiance is due to the one and to
the other. The case of a conflict between these two powers has not been supposed,
nor has any provision been made for it in our institutions; as a virtuous nation
of ancient times existed more than five centuries without a law for the punishment
of parricide.
More than once, however, in the progress of our history have the people and
the legislatures of one or more States, in moments of excitement, been instigated
to this conflict; and the means of effecting this impulse have been allegations
that the acts of Congress to be resisted were unconstitutional. The people of
no one State have ever delegated to their legislature the power of pronouncing
an act of Congress unconstitutional, but they have delegated to them powers
by the exercise of which the execution of the laws of Congress within the State
may be resisted. If we suppose the case of such conflicting legislation sustained
by the corresponding executive and judicial authorities, patriotism and philanthropy
turn their eyes from the condition in which the parties would be placed, and
from that of the people of both, which must be its victims.
The reports from the Secretary of War and the various subordinate offices of
the resort of that Department present an exposition of the public administration
of affairs connected with them through the course of the current year. The present
state of the Army and the distribution of the force of which it is composed
will be seen from the report of the Major General. Several alterations in the
disposal of the troops have been found expedient in the course of the year,
and the discipline of the Army, though not entirely free from exception, has
been generally good.
The attention of Congress is particularly invited to that part of the report
of the Secretary of War which concerns the existing system of our relations
with the Indian tribes. At the establishment of the Federal Government under
the present Constitution of the United States the principle was adopted of considering
them as foreign and independent powers and also as proprietors of lands. They
were, moreover, considered as savages, whom it was our policy and our duty to
use our influence in converting to Christianity and in bringing within the pale
of civilization.
As independent powers, we negotiated with them by treaties; as proprietors,
we purchased of them all the lands which we could prevail upon them to sell;
as brethren of the human race, rude and ignorant, we endeavored to bring them
to the knowledge of religion and letters. The ultimate design was to incorporate
in our own institutions that portion of them which could be converted to the
state of civilization. In the practice of European States, before our Revolution,
they had been considered as children to be governed; as tenants at discretion,
to be dispossessed as occasion might require; as hunters to be indemnified by
trifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their game was
extirpated. In changing the system it would seem as if a full contemplation
of the consequences of the change had not been taken.
We have been far more successful in the acquisition of their lands than in
imparting to them the principles or inspiring them with the spirit of civilization.
But in appropriating to ourselves their hunting grounds we have brought upon
ourselves the obligation of providing them with subsistence; and when we have
had the rare good fortune of teaching them the arts of civilization and the
doctrines of Christianity we have unexpectedly found them forming in the midst
of ourselves communities claiming to be independent of ours and rivals of sovereignty
within the territories of the members of our Union. This state of things requires
that a remedy should be provided -- a remedy which, while it shall do justice
to those unfortunate children of nature, may secure to the members of our confederation
their rights of sovereignty and of soil. As the outline of a project to that
effect, the views presented in the report of the Secretary of War are recommended
to the consideration of Congress.
The report from the Engineer Department presents a comprehensive view of the
progress which has been made in the great systems promotive of the public interest,
commenced and organized under authority of Congress, and the effects of which
have already contributed to the security, as they will hereafter largely contribute
to the honor and dignity, of the nation.
The first of these great systems is that of fortifications, commenced immediately
after the close of our last war, under the salutary experience which the events
of that war had impressed upon our country-men of its necessity. Introduced
under the auspices of my immediate predecessor, it has been continued with the
persevering and liberal encouragement of the Legislature, and, combined with
corresponding exertions for the gradual increase and improvement of the Navy,
prepares for our extensive country a condition of defense adapted to any critical
emergency which the varying course of events may bring forth. Our advances in
these concerted systems have for the last 10 years been steady and progressive,
and in a few years more will be so completed as to leave no cause for apprehension
that our sea coast will ever again offer a theater of hostile invasion.
The next of these cardinal measures of policy is the preliminary to great and
lasting works of public improvement in the surveys of roads, examination for
the course of canals, and labors for the removal of the obstructions of rivers
and harbors, first commenced by the act of Congress of 1824-04-30.
The report exhibits in one table the funds appropriated at the last and preceding
sessions of Congress for all these fortifications, surveys, and works of public
improvement, the manner in which these funds have been applied, the amount expended
upon the several works under construction, and the further sums which may be
necessary to complete them; in a second, the works projected by the Board of
Engineers which have not been commenced, and the estimate of their cost; in
a third, the report of the annual Board of Visitors at the Military Academy
at West Point.
For 13 fortifications erecting on various points of our Atlantic coast, from
Rhode Island to Louisiana, the aggregate expenditure of the year has fallen
little short of $1,000,000. For the preparation of 5 additional reports of reconnoissances
and surveys since the last session of Congress, for the civil construction upon
37 different public works commenced, 8 others for which specific appropriations
have been made by acts of Congress, and 20 other incipient surveys under the
authority given by the act of 1824-04-30, about $1,000,000 more has been drawn
from the Treasury.
To these $2,000,000 is to be added the appropriation of $250,000 to commence
the erection of a break-water near the mouth of the Delaware River, the subscriptions
to the Delaware and Chesapeake, the Louisville and Portland, the Dismal Swamp,
and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, the large donations of lands to the States
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Alabama for objects of improvements within those
States, and the sums appropriated for light-houses, buoys, and piers on the
coast; and a full view will be taken of the munificence of the nation in the
application of its resources to the improvement of its own condition.
Of these great national under-takings the Academy at West Point is among the
most important in itself and the most comprehensive in its consequences. In
that institution a part of the revenue of the nation is applied to defray the
expense of educating a competent portion of her youth chiefly to the knowledge
and the duties of military life. It is the living armory of the nation. While
the other works of improvement enumerated in the reports now presented to the
attention of Congress are destined to ameliorate the face of nature, to multiply
the facilities of communication between the different parts of the Union, to
assist the labors, increase the comforts, and enhance the enjoyments of individuals,
the instruction acquired at West Point enlarges the dominion and expands the
capacities of the mind. Its beneficial results are already experienced in the
composition of the Army, and their influence is felt in the intellectual progress
of society. The institution is susceptible still of great improvement from benefactions
proposed by several successive Boards of Visitors, to whose earnest and repeated
recommendations I cheerfully add my own.
With the usual annual reports from the Secretary of the Navy and the Board
of Commissioners will be exhibited to the view of Congress the execution of
the laws relating to that department of the public service. The repression of
piracy in the West Indian and in the Grecian seas has been effectually maintained,
with scarcely any exception. During the war between the Governments of Buenos
Ayres and of Brazil frequent collisions between the belligerent acts of power
and the rights of neutral commerce occurred. Licentious blockades, irregularly
enlisted or impressed sea men, and the property of honest commerce seized with
violence, and even plundered under legal pretenses, are disorders never separable
from the conflicts of war upon the ocean.
With a portion of them the correspondence of our commanders on the eastern
aspect of the South American coast and among the islands of Greece discover
how far we have been involved. In these the honor of our country and the rights
of our citizens have been asserted and vindicated. The appearance of new squadrons
in the Mediterranean and the blockade of the Dardanelles indicate the danger
of other obstacles to the freedom of commerce and the necessity of keeping our
naval force in those seas. To the suggestions repeated in the report of the
Secretary of the Navy, and tending to the permanent improvement of this institution,
I invite the favorable consideration of Congress.
A resolution of the House of Representatives requesting that one of our small
public vessels should be sent to the Pacific Ocean and South Sea to examine
the coasts, islands, harbors, shoals, and reefs in those seas, and to ascertain
their true situation and description, has been put in a train of execution.
The vessel is nearly ready to depart. The successful accomplishment of the expedition
may be greatly facilitated by suitable legislative provisions, and particularly
by an appropriation to defray its necessary expense. The addition of a 2nd,
and perhaps a 3rd, vessel, with a slight aggravation of the cost, would contribute
much to the safety of the citizens embarked on this under-taking, the results
of which may be of the deepest interest to our country.
With the report of the Secretary of the Navy will be submitted, in conformity
to the act of Congress of 1827-03-03, for the gradual improvement of the Navy
of the United States, statements of the expenditures under that act and of the
measures for carrying the same into effect. Every section of that statute contains
a distinct provision looking to the great object of the whole -- the gradual
improvement of the Navy. Under its salutary sanction stores of ship timber have
been procured and are in process of seasoning and preservation for the future
uses of the Navy. Arrangements have been made for the preservation of the live
oak timber growing on the lands of the United States, and for its reproduction,
to supply at future and distant days the waste of that most valuable material
for ship building by the great consumption of it yearly for the commercial as
well as for the military marine of our country.
The construction of the two dry docks at Charlestown and at Norfolk is making
satisfactory progress toward a durable establishment. The examinations and inquiries
to ascertain the practicability and expediency of a marine railway at Pensacola,
though not yet accomplished, have been post-poned but to be more effectually
made. The navy yards of the United States have been examined, and plans for
their improvement and the preservation of the public property therein at Portsmouth,
Charlestown, Philadelphia, Washington, and Gosport, and to which 2 others are
to be added, have been prepared and received my sanction; and no other portion
of my public duties has been performed with a more intimate conviction of its
importance to the future welfare and security of the Union.
With the report from the PostMaster General is exhibited a comparative view
of the gradual increase of that establishment, from 5 to 5 years, since 1792
'til this time in the number of post offices, which has grown from less than
200 to nearly 8,000; in the revenue yielded by them, which from $67,000 has
swollen to upward of $1,500,000, and in the number of miles of post roads, which
from 5,642 have multiplied to 114,536. While in the same period of time the
population of the Union has about thrice doubled, the rate of increase of these
offices is nearly 40, and of the revenue and of traveled miles from 20 to 25
for one. The increase of revenue within the last 5 years has been nearly equal
to the whole revenue of the Department in 1812.
The expenditures of the Department during the year which ended on 1828-07-01
have exceeded the receipts by a sum of about $25,000. The excess has been occasioned
by the increase of mail conveyances and facilities to the extent of near 800,000
miles. It has been supplied by collections from the post masters of the arrearages
of preceding years. While the correct principle seems to be that the income
levied by the Department should defray all its expenses, it has never been the
policy of this Government to raise from this establishment any revenue to be
applied to any other purposes. The suggestion of the PostMaster General that
the insurance of the safe transmission of moneys by the mail might be assumed
by the Department for a moderate and competent remuneration will deserve the
consideration of Congress.
A report from the commissioner of the public buildings in this city exhibits
the expenditures upon them in the course of the current year. It will be seen
that the humane and benevolent intentions of Congress in providing, by the act
of 1826-05-20, for the erection of a penitentiary in this District have been
accomplished. The authority of further legislation is now required for the removal
to this tenement of the offenders against the laws sentenced to atone by personal
confinement for their crimes, and to provide a code for their employment and
government while thus confined.
The commissioners appointed, conformably to the act of 1827-03-02, to provide
for the adjustment of claims of persons entitled to indemnification under the
first article of the treaty of Ghent, and for the distribution among such claimants
of the sum paid by the Government of Great Britain under the convention of 1826-11-13,
closed their labors on 1828-08-30 last by awarding to the claimants the sum
of $1,197,422.18, leaving a balance of $7,537.82, which was distributed ratably
amongst all the claimants to whom awards had been made, according to the directions
of the act.
The exhibits appended to the report from the Commissioner of the General Land
Office present the actual condition of that common property of the Union. The
amount paid into the Treasury from the proceeds of lands during the year 1827
and for the first half of 1828 falls little short of $2,000,000. The propriety
of further extending the time for the extinguishment of the debt due to the
United States by the purchasers of the public lands, limited by the act of 1828-03-21
to 1829-07-04, will claim the consideration of Congress, to whose vigilance
and careful attention the regulation, disposal, and preservation of this great
national inheritance has by the people of the United States been intrusted.
Among the important subjects to which the attention of the present Congress
has already been invited, and which may occupy their further and deliberate
discussion, will be the provision to be made for taking the 5th census of enumeration
of the inhabitants of the United States. The Constitution of the United States
requires that this enumeration should be made within every term of 10 years,
and the date from which the last enumeration commenced was the first Monday
of August of the year 1820.
The laws under which the former enumerations were taken were enacted at the
session of Congress immediately preceding the operation; but considerable inconveniences
were experienced from the delay of legislation to so late a period. That law,
like those of the preceding enumerations, directed that the census should be
taken by the marshals of the several districts and Territories of the Union
under instructions from the Secretary of State. The preparation and transmission
to the marshals of those instructions required more time than was then allowed
between the passage of the law and the day when the enumeration was to commence.
The term of 6 months limited for the returns of the marshals was also found
even then too short, and must be more so now, when an additional population
of at least 3,000,000 must be presented upon the returns.
As they are to be made at the short session of Congress, it would, as well
as from other considerations, be more convenient to commence the enumeration
from an earlier period of the year than the first of August. The most favorable
season would be the spring.
On a review of the former enumerations it will be found that the plan for taking
every census has contained many improvements upon that of its predecessor. The
last is still susceptible of much improvement. The 3rd Census was the first
at which any account was taken of the manufactures of the country. It was repeated
at the last enumeration, but the returns in both cases were necessarily very
imperfect. They must always be so, resting, of course, only upon the communications
voluntarily made by individuals interested in some of the manufacturing establishments.
Yet they contained much valuable information, and may by some supplementary
provision of the law be rendered more effective.
The columns of age, commencing from infancy, have hitherto been confined to
a few periods, all under the number of 45 years. Important knowledge would be
obtained by extending these columns, in intervals of 10 years, to the utmost
boundaries of human life. The labor of taking them would be a trifling addition
to that already prescribed, and the result would exhibit comparative tables
of longevity highly interesting to the country. I deem it my duty further to
observe that much of the imperfections in the returns of the last and perhaps
of preceding enumerations proceeded from the inadequateness of the compensations
allowed to the marshals and their assistants in taking them.
In closing this communication it only remains for me to assure the Legislature
of my continued earnest wish for the adoption of measures recommended by me
heretofore and yet to be acted on by them, and of the cordial concurrence on
my part in every constitutional provision which may receive their sanction during
the session tending to the general welfare.
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