Speech Transcript:

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.