Speech Transcript:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled:

It would have given me, fellow citizens, great satisfaction to
announce in the moment of your meeting that the difficulties in our
foreign relations existing at the time of your last separation had
been amicably and justly terminated. I lost no time in taking those
measures which were most likely to bring them to such a termination -
by special missions charged with such powers and instructions as in
the event of failure could leave no imputation on either our
moderation or forbearance. The delays which have since taken place in
our negotiations with the British Government appear to have proceeded
from causes which do not forbid the expectation that during the
course of the session I may be enabled to lay before you their final
issue. What will be that of the negotiations for settling our
differences with Spain nothing which had taken place at the date of
the last dispatches enables us to pronounce. On the western side of
the Mississippi she advanced in considerable force, and took post at
the settlement of Bayou Pierre, on the Red River. This village was
originally settled by France, was held by her as long as she held
Louisiana, and was delivered to Spain only as a part of Louisiana.
Being small, insulated, and distant, it was not observed at the
moment of redelivery to France and the United States that she
continued a guard of half a dozen men which had been stationed there.
A proposition, however, having been lately made by our commander in
chief to assume the Sabine River as a temporary line of separation
between the troops of the two nations until the issue of our
negotiations shall be known, this has been referred by the Spanish
commandant to his superior, and in the mean time he has withdrawn his
force to the western side of the Sabine River. The correspondence on
this subject now communicated will exhibit more particularly the
present state of things in that quarter.

The nature of that country requires indispensably that an unusual
proportion of the force employed there should be cavalry or mounted
infantry. In order, therefore, that the commanding officer might be
enabled to act with effect, I had authorized him to call on the
governors of Orleans and Mississippi for a corps of 500 volunteer
cavalry. The temporary arrangement he has proposed may perhaps render
this unnecessary; but I inform you with great pleasure of the
promptitude with which the inhabitants of those Territories have
tendered their services in defense of their country. It has done
honor to themselves, entitled them to the confidence of their fellow
citizens in every part of the Union, and must strengthen the general
determination to protect them efficaciously under all circumstances
which may occur.

Having received information that in another part of the United States
a great number of private individuals were combining together, arming
and organizing themselves contrary to law, to carry on a military
expedition against the territories of Spain, I thought it necessary,
by proclamation as well as by special orders, to take measures for
preventing and suppressing this enterprise, for seizing the vessels,
arms, and other means provided for it, and for arresting and bringing
to justice its authors and abettors. It was due to that good faith
which ought ever to be the rule of action in public as well as in
private transactions, it was due to good order and regular
government, that while the public force was acting strictly on
defensive and merely to protect our citizens from aggression the
criminal attempts of private individuals to decide for their country
the question of peace or war by commencing active and unauthorized
hostilities should be promptly and efficaciously suppressed.

Whether it will be necessary to enlarge our regular forces will
depend on the result of our negotiations with Spain; but as it is
uncertain when that result will be known, the provisional measures
requisite for that, and to meet any pressure intervening in that
quarter, will be a subject for your early consideration.

The possession of both banks of the Mississippi reducing to a single
point the defense of that river, its waters, and the country
adjacent, it becomes highly necessary to provide for that point a
more adequate security. Some position above its mouth, commanding the
passage of the river, should be rendered sufficiently strong to cover
the armed vessels which may be stationed there for defense, and in
conjunction with them to present an insuperable obstacle to any force
attempting to pass. The approaches to the city of New Orleans from the
eastern quarter also will require to be examined and more effectually
guarded. For the internal support of the country the encouragement of
a strong settlement on the western side of the Mississippi, within
reach of New Orleans, will be worthy the consideration of the
Legislature.

The gun boats authorized by an act of the last session are so
advanced that they will be ready for service in the ensuing spring.
Circumstances permitted us to allow the time necessary for their more
solid construction. As a much larger number will still be wanting to
place our sea port towns and waters in that state of defense to which
we are competent and they entitled, a similar appropriation for a
further provision for them is recommended for the ensuing year.

A further appropriation will also be necessary for repairing
fortifications already established and the erection of such other
works as may have real effect in obstructing the approach of an enemy
to our sea port towns, or their remaining before them.

In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the
people, directly expressed by their free suffrages; where the
principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are
renewed by them at short periods; where under the character of jurors
they exercise in person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers;
where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear
with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits
of honest industry and securing to everyone the property which that
acquires, it would not be supposed that any safe-guards could be
needed against insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or
authority. The laws, however, aware that these should not be trusted
to moral restraints only, have wisely provided punishment for these
crimes when committed. But would it not be salutary to give also the
means of preventing their commission? Where an enterprise is
meditated by private individuals against a foreign nation in amity
with the United States, powers of prevention to a certain extent are
given by the laws. Would they not be as reasonable and useful where
the enterprise preparing is against the United States? While
adverting to this branch of law it is proper to observe that in
enterprises meditated against foreign nations the ordinary process of
binding to the observance of the peace and good behavior, could it be
extended to acts to be done out of the jurisdiction of the United
States, would be effectual in some cases where the offender is able
to keep out of sight every indication of his purpose which could draw
on him the exercise of the powers now given by law.

The States on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present
to respect our peace and friendship; with Tunis alone some uncertainty
remains. Persuaded that it is our interest to maintain our peace with
them on equal terms or not at all, I propose to send in due time a
reenforcement into the Mediterranean unless previous information
shall show it to be necessary.

We continue to receive proofs of the growing attachment of our Indian
neighbors and of their dispositions to place all their interests under
the patronage of the United States. These dispositions are inspired by
their confidence in our justice and in the sincere concern we feel for
their welfare; and as long as we discharge these high and honorable
functions with the integrity and good faith which alone can entitle
us to their continuance we may expect to reap the just reward in
their peace and friendship.

The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke for exploring the river
Missouri and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean
has had all the success which could have been expected. They have
traced the Missouri nearly to its source, descended the Columbia to
the Pacific Ocean, ascertained with accuracy the geography of that
interesting communication across our continent, learnt the character
of the country, of its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but
justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke and their brave
companions have by this arduous service deserved well of their
country.

The attempt to explore the Red River, under the direction of Mr.
Freeman, though conducted with a zeal and prudence meriting entire
approbation, has not been equally successful. After proceeding up it
about 600 miles, nearly as far as the French settlements had extended
while the country was in their possession, our geographers were
obliged to return without completing their work.

Very useful additions have also been made to our knowledge of the
Mississippi by Lieutenant Pike, who has ascended it to its source,
and whose journal and map, giving the details of his journey, will
shortly be ready for communication to both Houses of Congress. Those
of Messrs. Lewis, Clarke, and Freeman will require further time to be
digested and prepared. These important surveys, in addition to those
before possessed, furnish materials for commencing an accurate map of
the Mississippi and its western waters. Some principal rivers,
however, remain still to be explored, toward which the authorization
of Congress by moderate appropriations will be requisite.

I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at
which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw
the citizens of the United States from all further participation in
those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on
the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the
reputation, and the best of our country have long been eager to
proscribe. Although no law you may pass can take prohibitory effect
�til the 1st day of the year 1808, yet the intervening period
is not too long to prevent by timely notice expeditions which can not
be completed before that day.

The receipts at the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day
of September last have amounted to near $15M, which have enabled us,
after meeting the current demands, to pay $2.7M of the American
claims in part of the price of Louisiana; to pay of the funded debt
upward of $3M of principal and nearly $4M of interest, and, in
addition, to reimburse in the course of the present month near $2M of
5.5% stock. These payments and reimbursements of the funded debt, with
those which had been made in the 4 years and a half preceding, will at
the close of the present year have extinguished upward of $23M of
principal.

The duties composing the Mediterranean fund will cease by law at the
end of the present session. Considering, however, that they are
levied chiefly on luxuries and that we have an impost on salt, a
necessary of life, the free use of which otherwise is so important, I
recommend to your consideration the suppression of the duties on salt
and the continuation of the Mediterranean fund instead thereof for a
short time, after which that also will become unnecessary for any
purpose now within contemplation.

When both of these branches of revenue shall in this way be
relinquished there will still ere long be an accumulation of moneys
in the Treasury beyond the installments of public debt which we are
permitted by contract to pay. They can not then, without a
modification assented to by the public creditors, be applied to the
extinguishment of this debt and the complete liberation of our
revenues, the most desirable of all objects. Nor, if our peace
continues, will they be wanting for any other existing purpose. The
question therefore now comes forward, To what other objects shall
these surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of impost,
after the entire discharge of the public debt, and during those
intervals when the purposes of war shall not call for them? Shall we
suppress the impost and give that advantage to foreign over domestic
manufactures? On a few articles of more general and necessary use the
suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass
of the articles on which impost is paid are foreign luxuries,
purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the
use of them.

Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and
application to the great purposes of the public education, roads,
rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it
may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of
Federal powers. By these operations new channels of communications
will be opened between the States, the lines of separation will
disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union
cemented by new and indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among
the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its
ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which
manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal, but a
public institution can alone supply those sciences which though
rarely called for are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the
parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country and some
of them to its preservation.

The subject is now proposed for the consideration of Congress,
because if approved by the time the State legislatures shall have
deliberated on this extension of the Federal trusts, and the laws
shall be passed and other arrangements made for their execution, the
necessary funds will be on hand and without employment.

I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States,
necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those
enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public
moneys to be applied.

The present consideration of a national establishment for education
particularly is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if
Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible
to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to
endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the
necessary income. This foundation would have the advantage of being
independent of war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring
for its own purposes the resources destined for them.

This, fellow citizens, is the state of the public interests at the
present moment and according to the information now possessed. But
such is the situation of the nations of Europe and such, too, the
predicament is which we stand with some of them that we can not rely
with certainty on the present aspect of our affairs, that may change
from moment to moment during the course of your session or after you
shall have separated.

Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are and to make a
reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be
raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never
should have been without them. Our resources would have been
exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being
reserved for what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a
quickened, pace in preparation for the defense of our sea port towns
and waters; an early settlement of the most exposed and vulnerable
parts of our country; a militia so organized that its effective
portions can e called to any point in the Union, or volunteers
instead of them to serve a sufficient time, are means which may
always be ready, yet never preying on our resources until actually
called into use. They will maintain the public interests while a more
permanent force shall be in course of preparation. But much will
depend on the promptitude with which these means can be brought into
activity. If war be forced upon us, in spite of our long and vain
appeals to the justice of nations, rapid and vigorous movements in
its outset will go far toward securing us in its course and issue,
and toward throwing its burthens on those who render necessary the
resort from reason to force.

The result of our negotiations, or such incidents in their course as
may enable us to infer their probably issue; such further movements
also on our western frontiers as may shew whether war is to be
pressed there while negotiation is protracted elsewhere, shall be
communicated to you from time to time as they become known to me,
with whatever other information I possess or may receive, which may
aid your deliberations on the great national interests committed to
your charge.