Speech Transcript:

I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents
itself of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of
our public affairs. The recent accession of the important state of
north Carolina to the Constitution of the United States (of which
official information has been received), the rising credit and
respectability of our country, the general and increasing good will
toward the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and
plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances auspicious in an
eminent degree to our national prosperity.

In resuming your consultations for the general good you can not but
derive encouragement from the reflection that the measures of the
last session have been as satisfactory to your constituents as the
novelty and difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further
to realize their expectations and to secure the blessings which a
gracious Providence has placed within our reach will in the course of
the present important session call for the cool and deliberate
exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.

Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention
that of providing for the common defense will merit particular
regard. To be prepared for war is on e of the most effectual means of
preserving peace.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which
end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety
and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as
tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly
military, supplies.

The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed
indispensable will be entitled to mature consideration. In the
arrangements which may be made respecting it it will be of importance
to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers
with a due regard to economy.

There was reason to hope that the pacific measures adopted with
regard to certain hostile tribes of Indians would have relieved the
inhabitants of our southern and western frontiers from their
depredations, but you will perceive from the information contained in
the papers which I shall direct to be laid before you (comprehending a
communication from the Commonwealth of Virginia) that we ought to be
prepared to afford protection to those parts of the Union, and, if
necessary, to punish aggressors.

The interests of the United States require that our intercourse with
other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable
me to fulfill my duty in that respect in the manner which
circumstances may render most conducive to the public good, and to
this end that the compensation to be made to the persons who may be
employed should, according to the nature of their appointments, be
defined by law, and a competent fund designated for defraying the
expenses incident to the conduct of foreign affairs.

Various considerations also render it expedient that the terms on
which foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens should be
speedily ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.

Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United
States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be
duly attended to.

The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures by all
proper means will not, I trust, need recommendation; but I can not
forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual
encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful
inventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill and genius in
producing them at home, and of facilitating the intercourse between
the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the
post-office and post-roads.

Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion that
there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the
promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country
the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of
government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of
the community as in ours it is proportionably essential.

To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways
- by convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration
that every valuable end of government is best answered by the
enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people
themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and
provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression
and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens
proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting
from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit
of liberty from that of licentiousness - cherishing the first,
avoiding the last - and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance
against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.

Whether this desirable object will be best promoted by affording aids
to seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a
national university, or by any other expedients will be well worthy of
a place in the deliberations of the legislature.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

I saw with peculiar pleasure at the close of the last session the
resolution entered into by you expressive of your opinion that an
adequate provision for the support of the public credit is a matter
of high importance to the national honor and prosperity. In this
sentiment I entirely concur; and to a perfect confidence in your best
endeavors to devise such a provision as will be truly with the end I
add an equal reliance on the cheerful cooperation of the other branch
of the legislature.

It would be superfluous to specify inducements to a measure in which
the character and interests of the United States are so obviously so
deeply concerned, and which has received so explicit a sanction from
your declaration.

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I have directed the proper officers to lay before you, respectively,
such papers and estimates as regard the affairs particularly
recommended to your consideration, and necessary to convey to you
that information of the state of the Union which it is my duty to
afford.

The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and
efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction
from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of
insuring to our fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right
to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government.