Speech Transcript:

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

In calling you together, fellow citizens, at an earlier day than was
contemplated by the act of the last session of Congress, I have not
been insensible to the personal inconveniences necessarily resulting
from an unexpected change in your arrangements, but matters of great
public concernment have rendered this call necessary, and the
interests you feel in these will supersede in your minds all private
considerations.

Congress witnessed at their late session the extraordinary agitation
produced in the public mind by the suspension of our right of deposit
at the port of New Orleans, no assignment of another place having been
made according to treaty. They were sensible that the continuance of
that privation would be more injurious to our nation than any
consequences which could flow from any mode of redress, but reposing
just confidence in the good faith of the Government whose officer had
committed the wrong, friendly and reasonable representations were
resorted to, and the right of deposit was restored.

Previous, however, to this period we had not been unaware of the
danger to which our peace would be perpetually exposed whilst so
important a key to the commerce of the Western country remained under
foreign power. Difficulties, too, were presenting themselves as to the
navigation of other streams which, arising within our territories,
pass through those adjacent. Propositions had therefore been
authorized for obtaining on fair conditions the sovereignty of New
Orleans and of other possessions in that quarter interesting to our
quiet to such extent as was deemed practicable, and the provisional
appropriation of $2M to be applied and accounted for by the President
of the United States, intended as part of the price, was considered as
conveying the sanction of Congress to the acquisition proposed. The
enlightened Government of France saw with just discernment the
importance to both nations of such liberal arrangements as might best
and permanently promote the peace, friendship, and interests of both,
and the property and sovereignty of all Louisiana which had been
restored to them have on certain conditions been transferred to the
United States by instruments bearing date the 30th of April last.
When these shall have received the constitutional sanction of the
Senate, they will without delay be communicated to the
Representatives also for the exercise of their functions as to those
conditions which are within the powers vested by the Constitution in
Congress.

Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters
secure an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States and
an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from
collision with other powers and the dangers to our peace from that
source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise
in due season important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for
our posterity, and a wide spread for the blessings of freedom and
equal laws.

With the wisdom of Congress it will rest to take those ulterior
measures which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and
temporary government of the country; for its incorporation into our
Union; for rendering the change of government a blessing to our newly
adopted brethren; for securing to them the rights of conscience and of
property; for confirming to the Indian inhabitants their occupancy and
self-government, establishing friendly and commercial relations with
them, and for ascertaining the geography of the country acquired.
Such materials, for your information, relative to its affairs in
general as the short space of time has permitted me to collect will
be laid before you when the subject shall be in a state for your
consideration.

Another important acquisition of territory has also been made since
the last session of Congress. The friendly tribe of Kaskaskia
Indians, with which we have never had a difference, reduced by the
wars and wants of savage life to a few individuals unable to defend
themselves against the neighboring tribes, has transferred its
country to the United States, reserving only for its members what is
sufficient to maintain them in an agricultural way. The
considerations stipulated are that we shall extend to them our
patronage and protection and give them certain annual aids in money,
in implements of agriculture, and other articles of their choice.
This country, among the most fertile within our limits, extending
along the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois to and up to the
Ohio, though not so necessary as a barrier since the acquisition of
the other bank, may yet be well worthy of being laid open to
immediate settlement, as its inhabitants may descend with rapidity in
support of the lower country should future circumstances expose that
to foreign enterprise. As the stipulations in this treaty involve
matters with the competence of both Houses only, it will be laid
before Congress as soon as the Senate shall have advised its
ratification.

With many of the other Indian tribes improvements in agriculture and
household manufacture are advancing, and with all our peace and
friendship are established on grounds much firmer than heretofore.
The measure adopted of establishing trading houses among them and of
furnishing them necessaries in exchange for their commodities at such
moderate prices as leave no gain, but cover us from loss, has the most
conciliatory and useful effect on them, and is that which will best
secure their peace and good will.

The small vessels authorized by Congress with a view to the
Mediterranean service have been sent into that sea, and will be able
more effectually to confine the Tripoline cruisers within their
harbors and supersede the necessity of convoy to our commerce in that
quarter. They will sensibly lessen the expenses of that service the
ensuing year.

A further knowledge of the ground in the northeastern and
northwestern angles of the United States has evinced that the
boundaries established by the treaty of Paris between the British
territories and ours in those parts were too imperfectly described to
be susceptible of execution. It has therefore been thought worthy of
attention for preserving and cherishing the harmony and useful
intercourse subsisting between the two nations to remove by timely
arrangements what unfavorable incidents might otherwise render a
ground of future misunderstanding. A convention has therefore been
entered into which provides for a practicable demarcation of those
limits to the satisfaction of both parties.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the year ending the
30th of September last, with the estimates for the service of the
ensuing year, will be laid before you by the Secretary of the
Treasury so soon as the receipts of the last quarter shall be
returned from the more distant States. It is already ascertained that
the amount paid into the Treasury for that year has been between $11M
and $12M, and that the revenue accrued during the same term exceeds
the sum counted on as sufficient for our current expenses and to
extinguish the public debt within the period heretofore proposed.

The amount of debt paid for the same year is about $3.1M exclusive of
interest, and making, with the payment of the preceding year, a
discharge of more than $8.5M of the principal of that debt, besides
the accruing interest; and there remain in the Treasury nearly $6M.
Of these, $880K have been reserved for payment of the first
installment due under the British convention of 1802 January 08, and
$2 millions are what have been before mentioned as placed by Congress
under the power and accountability of the President toward the price
of New Orleans and other territories acquired, which, remaining
untouched, are still applicable to that object and go in diminution
of the sum to be funded for it.

Should the acquisition of Louisiana be constitutionally confirmed and
carried into effect, a sum of nearly $13M will then be added to our
public debt, most of which is payable after 15 years, before which
term the present existing debts will all be discharged by the
established operation of the sinking fund. When we contemplate the
ordinary annual augmentation of impost from increasing population and
wealth, the augmentation of the same revenue by its extension to the
new acquisition, and the economies which may still be introduced into
our public expenditures, I can not but hope that Congress in reviewing
their resources will find means to meet the intermediate interest of
this additional debt without recurring to new taxes, and applying to
this object only the ordinary progression of our revenue. Its
extraordinary increase in times of foreign war will be the proper and
sufficient fund for any measures of safety or precaution which that
state of things may render necessary in our neutral position.

Remittances for the installments of our foreign debt having been
found practicable without loss, it has not been thought expedient to
use the power given by a former act of Congress of continuing them by
reloans, and of redeeming instead thereof equal sums of domestic debt,
although no difficulty was found in obtaining that accommodation.

The sum of $50K appropriated by Congress for providing gun boats
remains unexpended. The favorable and peaceable turn of affairs on
the Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law
unnecessary, and time was desirable in order that the institution of
that branch of our force might begin on models the most approved by
experience. The same issue of events dispensed with a resort to the
appropriation of $1.5M, contemplated for purposes which were effected
by happier means.

We have seen with sincere concern the flames of war lighted up again
in Europe, and nations with which we have the most friendly and
useful relations engaged in mutual destruction. While we regret the
miseries in which we see others involved, let us bow with gratitude
to that kind Providence which, inspiring with wisdom and moderation
our late legislative councils while placed under the urgency of the
greatest wrongs guarded us from hastily entering into the sanguinity
contest and left us only to look on and pity its ravages.

These will be heaviest on those immediately engaged. Yet the nations
pursuing peace will not be exempt from all evil.

In the course of this conflict let it be our endeavor, as it is our
interest and desire,

to cultivate the friendship of the belligerent nations by every act
of justice and of innocent kindness;
to receive their armed vessels with hospitality from the distresses
of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to none;
to establish in our harbors such a police as may maintain law and
order;
to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in
which their country takes no part;
to punish severely those persons, citizens or alien, who shall usurp
the cover of our flag for vessels not entitled to it, infecting
thereby with suspicion those of real Americans and committing us into
controversies for the redress of wrongs not our own;
to exact from every nation the observance toward our vessels and
citizens of those principles and practices which all civilized people
acknowledge;
to merit the character of a just nation, and maintain that of an
independent one, preferring every consequence to insult and habitual
wrong.
Congress will consider whether the existing laws enable us
efficaciously to maintain this course with our citizens in all places
and with others while within the limits of our jurisdiction, and will
give them the new modifications necessary for these objects. Some
contraventions of right have already taken place, both within our
jurisdictional limits and on the high seas. The friendly disposition
of the Governments from whose agents they have proceeded, as well as
their wisdom and regard for justice, leave us in reasonable
expectation that they will be rectified and prevented in future, and
that no act will be countenanced by them which threatens to disturb
our friendly intercourse.
Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe and from the
political interests which entangle them together, with productions
and wants which render our commerce and friendship useful to them and
theirs to us, it can not be the interest of any to assail us, nor ours
to disturb them. We should be most unwise, indeed, were we to cast
away the singular blessings of the position in which nature has
placed us, the opportunity she has endowed us with of pursuing, at a
distance from foreign contentions, the paths of industry, peace, and
happiness, of cultivating general friendship, and of bringing
collisions of interest to the umpirage of reason rather than of
force.

How desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its
citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct
which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those
passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and
to embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.
Confident, fellow citizens, that you will duly estimate the
importance of neutral dispositions toward the observance of neutral
conduct, that you will be sensible how much it is our duty to look on
the bloody arena spread before us with commiseration indeed, but with
no other wish than to see it closed, I am persuaded you will
cordially cherish these dispositions in all discussions among
yourselves and in all communications with your constituents; and I
anticipate with satisfaction the measures of wisdom which the great
interests now committed to you will give you an opportunity of
providing, and myself that of approving and carrying into execution
with the fidelity I owe to my country.