Speech Transcript:

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall
assemble annually on the first Monday of December, and it has been
usual for the President to make no communication of a public
character to the Senate and House of Representatives until advised of
their readiness to receive it. I have deferred to this usage until the
close of the first month of the session, but my convictions of duty
will not permit me longer to postpone the discharge of the obligation
enjoined by the Constitution upon the President "to give to the
Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient." It is matter of congratulation that the Republic is
tranquilly advancing in a career of prosperity and peace.

Whilst relations of amity continue to exist between the United States
and all foreign powers, with some of them grave questions are
depending which may require the consideration of Congress.

Of such questions, the most important is that which has arisen out of
the negotiations with Great Britain in reference to Central America.
By the convention concluded between the two Governments on the 19th
of April, 1850, both parties covenanted that "neither will ever"
"occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion
over Nicaragua. Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of
Central America."

It was the undoubted understanding of the United States in making
this treaty that all the present States of the former Republic of
Central America and the entire territory of each would thenceforth
enjoy complete independence, and that both contracting parties
engaged equally and to the same extent, for the present and, for the
future, that if either then had any claim of right in Central America
such claim and all occupation or authority under it were unreservedly
relinquished by the stipulations of the convention, and that no
dominion was thereafter to be exercised or assumed in any part of
Central America by Great Britain or the United States.

This Government consented to restrictions in regard to a region of
country wherein we had specific and peculiar interests only upon the
conviction that the like restrictions were in the same sense
obligatory on Great Britain. But for this understanding of the force
and effect of the convention it would never have been concluded by
us.

So clear was this understanding on the part of the United States that
in correspondence contemporaneous with the ratification of the
convention it was distinctly expressed that the mutual covenants of
nonoccupation were not intended to apply to the British establishment
at the Balize. This qualification is to be ascribed to the fact that,
in virtue of successive treaties with previous sovereigns of the
country, Great Britain had obtained a concession of the right to cut
mahogany or dyewoods at the Balize, but with positive exclusion of
all domain or sovereignty; and thus it confirms the natural
construction and understood import of the treaty as to all the rest
of the region to which the stipulations applied.

It, however, became apparent at an early day after entering upon the
discharge of my present functions that Great Britain still continued
in the exercise or assertion of large authority in all that part of
Central America commonly called the Mosquito Coast, and covering the
entire length of the State of Nicaragua and a part of Costa Rica;
that she regarded the Balize as her absolute domain and was gradually
extending its limits at the expense of the State of Honduras, and,
that she had formally colonized a considerable insular group known as
the Bay Islands, and belonging of right to that State.

All these acts or pretensions of Great Britain, being contrary to the
rights of the States of Central America and to the manifest tenor of
her stipulations with the United States as understood by this
Government, have been made the subject of negotiation through the
American minister in London. I transmit herewith the instructions to
him on the subject and the correspondence between him and the British
secretary for foreign affairs, by which you will perceive that the two
Governments differ widely and irreconcilably as to the construction of
the convention and its effect on their respective relations to Central
America.

Great Britain so construes the convention as to maintain unchanged
all her previous pretensions over the Mosquito Coast and in different
parts of Central America. These pretensions as to the Mosquito Coast
are founded on the assumption of political relation between Great
Britain and the remnant of a tribe of Indians on that coast, entered
into at a time when the whole country was a colonial possession of
Spain. It can not be successfully controverted that by the public law
of Europe and America no possible act of such Indians or their
predecessors could confer on Great Britain any political rights.

Great Britain does not allege the assent of Spain as the origin of
her claims on the Mosquito Coast. She has, on the contrary, by
repeated and successive treaties renounced and relinquished all
pretensions of her own and recognized the full and sovereign rights
of Spain in the most unequivocal terms. Yet these pretensions, so
without solid foundation in the beginning and thus repeatedly
abjured, were at a recent period revived by Great Britain against the
Central American States, the legitimate successors to all the ancient
jurisdiction of Spain in that region. They were first applied only to
a defined part of the coast of Nicaragua, afterwards to the whole of
its Atlantic coast, and lastly to a part of the coast of Costa Rica,
and they are now reasserted to this extent notwithstanding
engagements to the United States.

On the eastern coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica the interference of
Great Britain, though exerted at one time in the form of military
occupation of the port of San Juan del Norte, then in the peaceful
possession of the appropriate authorities of the Central American
States, is now presented by her as the rightful exercise of a
protectorship over the Mosquito tribe of Indians.

But the establishment at the Balize, now reaching far beyond its
treaty limits into the State of Honduras, and that of the Bay
Islands, appertaining of right to the same State, are as distinctly
colonial governments as those of Jamaica or Canada, and therefore
contrary to the very letter, as well as the spirit, of the convention
with the United States as it was at the time of ratification and now
is understood by this Government.

The interpretation which the British Government thus, in assertion
and act, persists in ascribing to the convention entirely changes its
character. While it holds us to all our obligations, it in a great
measure releases Great Britain from those which constituted the
consideration of this Government for entering into the convention. It
is impossible, in my judgment, for the United States to acquiesce in
such a construction of the respective relations of the two
Governments to Central America.

To a renewed call by this Government upon Great Britain to abide by
and Carry into effect the stipulations of the convention according to
its obvious import by withdrawing from the possession or colonization
of portions of the Central American States of Honduras, Nicaragua,
and Costa Rica, the British Government has at length replied,
affirming that the operation of the treaty is prospective only and
did not require Great Britain to abandon or contract any possessions
held by her in Central America at the date of its conclusion.

This reply substitutes a partial issue in the place of the general
one presented by the United States. The British Government passes
over the question of the rights of Great Britain, real or supposed,
in Central America, and assumes that she had such rights at the date
of the treaty and that those rights comprehended the protectorship of
the Mosquito Indians, the extended jurisdiction and limits of the
Balize, and the colony of the Bay Islands, and thereupon proceeds by
implication to infer that if the stipulations of the treaty be merely
future in effect Great Britain may still continue to hold the
contested portions of Central America. The United States can not
admit either the inference or the premises. We steadily deny that at
the date of the treaty Great Britain had any possessions there other
than the limited and peculiar establishment at the Balize, and
maintain that if she had any they were surrendered by the
convention.

This Government, recognizing the obligations of the treaty, has, of
course, desired to see it executed in good faith by both parties, and
in the discussion, therefore, has not looked to rights which we might
assert independently of the treaty in consideration of our
geographical position and of other circumstances which create for us
relations to the Central American States different from those of any
government of Europe. The British Government, in its last
communication, although well knowing the views of the United States,
still declares that it sees no reason why a conciliatory spirit may
not enable the two Governments to overcome all obstacles to a
satisfactory adjustment of the subject.

Assured of the correctness of the construction of the treaty
constantly adhered to by this Government and resolved to insist on
the rights of the United States, yet actuated also by the same desire
which is avowed by the British Government, to remove all causes of
serious misunderstanding between two nations associated by so many
ties of interest and kindred, it has appeared to me proper not to
consider an amicable solution of the controversy hopeless.

There is, however, reason to apprehend that with Great Britain in the
actual occupation of the disputed territories, and the treaty
therefore practically null so far as regards our rights, this
international difficulty can not long remain undetermined without
involving in serious danger the friendly relations which it is the
interest as well as the duty of both countries to cherish and
preserve. It will afford me sincere gratification if future efforts
shall result in the success anticipated heretofore with more
confidence than the aspect of the case permits me now to entertain.

One other subject of discussion between the United States and Great
Britain has grown out of the attempt, which the exigencies of the war
in which she is engaged with Russia induced her to make, to draw
recruits from the United States.

It is the traditional and settled policy of the United States to
maintain impartial neutrality during the wars which from time to time
occur among the great powers of the world. Performing all the duties
of neutrality toward the respective belligerent states, we may
reasonably expect them not to interfere with our lawful enjoyment of
its benefits. Notwithstanding the existence of such hostilities, our
citizens retained the individual right to continue all their
accustomed pursuits, by land or by sea, at home or abroad, subject
only to such restrictions in this relation as the laws of war, the
usage of nations, or special treaties may impose; and it is our
sovereign right that our territory and jurisdiction shall not be
invaded by either of the belligerent parties for the transit of their
armies, the operations of their fleets, the levy of troops for their
service, the fitting out of cruisers by or against either, or any
other act or incident of war. And these undeniable rights of
neutrality, individual and national, the United States will under no
circumstances surrender.

In pursuance of this policy, the laws of the United States do not
forbid their citizens to sell to either of the belligerent powers
articles contraband of war or take munitions of war or soldiers on
board their private ships for transportation; and although in so
doing the individual citizen exposes his property or person to some
of the hazards of war, his acts do not involve any breach of national
neutrality nor of themselves implicate the Government. Thus, during
the progress of the present war in Europe, our citizens have, without
national responsibility therefor, sold gunpowder and arms to all
buyers, regardless of the destination of those articles. Our
merchantmen have been, and still continue to be, largely employed by
Great Britain and by France in transporting troops, provisions, and
munitions of war to the principal seat of military operations and in
bringing home their sick and wounded soldiers; but such use of our
mercantile marine is not interdicted either by the international or
by our municipal law, and therefore does not compromise our neutral
relations with Russia. But our municipal law, in accordance with the
law of nations, peremptorily forbids not only foreigners, but our own
citizens, to fit out within the United States a vessel to commit
hostilities against any state with which the United States are at
peace, or to increase the force of any foreign armed vessel intended
for such hostilities against a friendly state.

Whatever concern may have been felt by either of the belligerent
powers lest private armed cruisers or other vessels in the service of
one might be fitted out in the ports of this country to depredate on
the property of the other, all such fears have proved to be utterly
groundless. Our citizens have been withheld from any such act or
purpose by good faith and by respect for the law.

While the laws of the Union are thus peremptory in their prohibition
of the equipment or armament of belligerent cruisers in our ports,
they provide not less absolutely that no person shall, within the
territory or jurisdiction of the United States, enlist or enter
himself, or hire or retain another person to enlist or enter himself,
or to go beyond the limits or jurisdiction of the United States with
intent to be enlisted or entered, in the service of any foreign
state, either as a soldier or as a marine or seaman on board of any
vessel of war, letter of marque, or privateer. And these enactments
are also in strict conformity with the law of nations, which declares
that no state has the right to raise troops for land or sea service in
another state without its consent, and that, whether forbidden by the
municipal law or not, the very attempt to do it without such consent
is an attack on the national sovereignty.

Such being the public rights and the municipal law of the United
States, no solicitude on the subject was entertained by this
Government when, a year since, the British Parliament passed an act
to provide for the enlistment of foreigners in the military service
of Great Britain. Nothing on the face of the act or in its public
history indicated that the British Government proposed to attempt
recruitment in the United States, nor did it ever give intimation of
such intention to this Government. It was matter of surprise,
therefore, to find subsequently that the engagement of persons within
the United States to proceed to Halifax, in the British Province of
Nova Scotia, and there enlist in the service of Great Britain, was
going on extensively, with little or no disguise. Ordinary legal
steps were immediately taken to arrest and punish parties concerned,
and so put an end to acts infringing the municipal law and derogatory
to our sovereignty. Meanwhile suitable representations on the subject
were addressed to the British Government.

Thereupon it became known, by the admission of the British Government
itself, that the attempt to draw recruits from this country originated
with it, or at least had its approval and sanction; but it also
appeared that the public agents engaged in it had "stringent
instructions" not to violate the municipal law of the United States.

It is difficult to understand how it should have been supposed that
troops could be raised here by Great Britain without violation of the
municipal law. The unmistakable object of the law was to prevent every
such act which if performed must be either in violation of the law or
in studied evasion of it, and in either alternative the act done
would be alike injurious to the sovereignty of the United States. In
the meantime the matter acquired additional importance by the
recruitments in the United States not being discontinued, and the
disclosure of the fact that they were prosecuted upon a systematic
plan devised by official authority; that recruiting rendezvous had
been opened in our principal cities and depots for the reception of
recruits established on our frontier, and the whole business
conducted under the supervision and by the regular cooperation of
British officers, civil and military, some in the North American
Provinces and some in the United States. The complicity of those
officers in an undertaking which could only be accomplished by
defying our laws, throwing suspicion over our attitude of neutrality,
and disregarding our territorial rights is conclusively proved by the
evidence elicited on the trial of such of their agents as have been
apprehended and convicted. Some of the officers thus implicated are
of high official position, and many of them beyond our jurisdiction,
so that legal proceedings could not reach the source of the
mischief.

These considerations, and the fact that the cause of complaint was
not a mere casual occurrence, trot a deliberate design, entered upon
with full knowledge of our laws and national policy and conducted by
responsible public functionaries, impelled me to present the case to
the British Government, in order to secure not only a cessation of
the, wrong, but its reparation. The subject is still under
discussion, the result of which will be communicated to you in due
time.

I repeat the recommendation submitted to the last Congress, that
provision be made for the appointment of a commissioner, in
connection with Great Britain, to survey and establish the boundary
line which divides the Territory of Washington from the contiguous
British possessions. By reason of the extent and importance of the
country in dispute, there has been imminent danger of collision
between the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United
States, including their respective authorities, in that quarter. The
prospect of a speedy arrangement has contributed hitherto to induce
on both sides forbearance to assert by force what each claims as a
right. Continuance of delay on the part of the two Governments to act
in the matter will increase the dangers and difficulties of the
controversy.

Misunderstanding exists as to the extent, character, and value of the
possessory rights of the Hudsons Bay Company and the property of the
Pugets Sound Agricultural Company reserved in our treaty with Great
Britain relative to the Territory of Oregon. I have reason to believe
that a cession of the rights of both companies to the United States,
which would be the readiest means of terminating all questions, can
be obtained on reasonable terms, and with a view to this end I
present the subject to the attention of Congress.

The colony of Newfoundland, having enacted the laws required by the
treaty of the 5th of June, 1854, is now placed on the same footing in
respect to commercial intercourse with the United States as the other
British North American Provinces.

The commission which that treaty contemplated, for determining the
rights of fishery in rivers and mouths of rivers on the coasts of the
United States and the British North American Provinces, has been
organized, and has commenced its labors, to complete which there are
needed further appropriations for the service of another season.

In pursuance of the authority conferred by a resolution of the Senate
of the United States passed on the 3d of March last, notice was given
to Denmark on the 14th day of April of the intention of this
Government to avail itself of the stipulation of the subsisting
convention of friendship, commerce, and navigation between that
Kingdom and the United States whereby either party might after ten
years terminate the same at the expiration of one year from the date
of notice for that purpose.

The considerations which led me to call the attention of Congress to
that convention and induced the Senate to adopt the resolution
referred to still continue in full force. The convention contains an
article which, although it does not directly engage the United States
to submit to the imposition of tolls on the vessels and cargoes of
Americans passing into or from the Baltic Sea during the continuance
of the treaty, yet may by possibility be construed as implying such
submission. The exaction of those tolls not being justified by any
principle of international law, it became the right and duty of the
United States to relieve themselves from the implication of
engagement on the subject, so as to be perfectly free to act in the
premises in such way as their public interests and honor shall
demand.

I remain of the opinion that the United States ought not to submit to
the payment of the Sound dues, not so much because of their amount,
which is a secondary matter, but because it is in effect the
recognition of the right of Denmark to treat one of the great
maritime highways of nations as a close sea, and prevent the
navigation of it as a privilege, for which tribute may be imposed
upon those who have occasion to use it.

This Government on a former occasion, not unlike the present,
signalized its determination to maintain the freedom of the seas and
of the great natural channels of navigation. The Barbary States had
for a long time coerced the payment of tribute from all nations whose
ships frequented the Mediterranean. To the last demand of such payment
made by them the United States, although suffering less by their
depredations than many other nations, returned the explicit answer
that we preferred war to tribute, and thus opened the way to the
relief of the commerce of the world from an ignominious tax, so long
submitted to by the more powerful nations of Europe.

If the manner of payment of the Sound dues differ from that of the
tribute formerly conceded to the Barbary States, still their exaction
by Denmark has no better foundation in right. Each was in its origin
nothing but a tax on a common natural right, extorted by those who
were at that time able to obstruct the free and secure enjoyment of
it, but who no longer possess that power.

Denmark, while resisting our assertion of the freedom of the Baltic
Sound and Belts, has indicated a readiness to make some new
arrangement on the subject, and has invited the governments
interested, including the United States, to be represented in a
convention to assemble for the purpose of receiving and considering a
proposition which she intends to submit for the capitalization of the
Sound dues and the distribution of the sum to be paid as commutation
among the governments according to the respective proportions of
their maritime commerce to and from the Baltic. I have declined, in
behalf of the United States, to accept this invitation, for the most
cogent reasons. One is that Denmark does not offer to submit to the
convention the question of her right to levy the Sound dues. The
second is that if the convention were allowed to take cognizance of
that particular question, still it would not be competent to deal
with the great international principle involved, which affects the
right in other cases of navigation and commercial freedom, as well as
that of access to the Baltic. Above all, by the express terms of the
proposition it is contemplated that the consideration of the Sound
dues shall be commingled with and made subordinate to a matter wholly
extraneous--the balance of power among the Governments of Europe.

While, however, rejecting this proposition and insisting on the right
of free transit into and from the Baltic, I have expressed to Denmark
a willingness on the part of the United States to share liberally
with other powers in compensating her for any advantages which
commerce shall hereafter derive from expenditures made by her for the
improvement and safety of the navigation of the Sound or Belts.

I lay before you herewith sundry documents on the subject, in which
my views are more fully disclosed. Should no satisfactory arrangement
be soon concluded, I shall again call your attention to the subject,
with recommendation of such measures as may appear to be required in
order to assert and secure the rights of the United States, so far as
they are affected by the pretensions of Denmark.

I announce with much gratification that since the adjournment of the
last Congress the question then existing between this Government and
that of France respecting the French consul at San Francisco has been
satisfactorily determined, and that the relations of the two
Governments continue to be of the most friendly nature.

A question, also, which has been pending for several years between
the United States and the Kingdom of Greece, growing out of the
sequestration by public authorities of that country of property
belonging to the present American consul at Athens, and which had
been the subject of very earnest discussion heretofore, has recently
been settled to the satisfaction of the party interested and of both
Governments.

With Spain peaceful relations are still maintained, and some progress
has been made in securing the redress of wrongs complained of by this
Government. Spain has not only disavowed and disapproved the conduct
of the officers who illegally seized and detained the steamer Black
Warrior at Havana, but has also paid the sum claimed as indemnity for
the loss thereby inflicted on citizens of the United States.

In consequence of a destructive hurricane which visited Cuba in 1844,
the supreme authority of that island issued a decree permitting the
importation for the period of six months of certain building
materials and provisions free of duty, but revoked it when about half
the period only had elapsed, to the injury of citizens of the United
States who had proceeded to act on the faith of that decree. The
Spanish Government refused indemnification to the parties aggrieved
until recently, when it was assented to, payment being promised to be
made so soon as the amount due can be ascertained.

Satisfaction claimed for the arrest and search of the steamer El
Dorado has not yet been accorded, but there is reason to believe that
it will be; and that case, with others, continues to be urged on the
attention of the Spanish Government. I do not abandon the hope of
concluding with Spain some general arrangement which, if it do not
wholly prevent the recurrence of difficulties in Cuba, will render
them less frequent, and, whenever they shall occur, facilitate their
more speedy settlement.

The interposition of this Government has been invoked by many of its
citizens on account of injuries done to their persons and property
for which the Mexican Republic is responsible. The unhappy situation
of that country for some time past has not allowed its Government to
give due consideration to claims of private reparation, and has
appeared to call for and justify some forbearance in such matters on
the part of this Government. But if the revolutionary movements which
have lately occurred in that Republic end in the organization of a
stable government, urgent appeals to its justice will then be made,
and, it may be hoped, with success, for the redress of all complaints
of our citizens.

In regard to the American Republics, which from their proximity and
other considerations have peculiar relations to this Government,
while it has been my constant aim strictly to observe all the
obligations of political friendship and of good neighborhood,
obstacles to this have arisen in some of them from their own
insufficient power to cheek lawless irruptions, which in effect
throws most of the task on the United States. Thus it is that the
distracted internal condition of the State of Nicaragua has made it
incumbent on me to appeal to the good faith of our citizens to
abstain from unlawful intervention in its affairs and to adopt
preventive measures to the same end, which on a similar occasion had
the best results in reassuring the peace of the Mexican States of
Sonora and Lower California.

Since the last session of Congress a treaty of amity, commerce, and
navigation and for the surrender of fugitive criminals with the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies; a treaty of friendship, commerce, and
navigation with Nicaragua, and a convention of commercial reciprocity
with the Hawaiian Kingdom have been negotiated. The latter Kingdom and
the State of Nicaragua have also acceded to a declaration recognizing
as international rights the principles contained in the convention
between the United States and Russia of July 22, 1854. These treaties
and conventions will be laid before the Senate for ratification.

The statements made in my last annual message respecting the
anticipated receipts and expenditures of the Treasury have been
substantially verified.

It appears from the report of the Secretary of the Treasury that the
receipts during the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 1855, from all
sources were $65,003,930, and that the public expenditures for the
same period, exclusive of payments on account of the public debt,
amounted to $56,365,393. During the same period the payments made in
redemption of the public debt, including interest and premium,
amounted to $9,844,528.

The balance in the Treasury at the beginning of the present fiscal
year, July 1, 1855, was $18,931,976; the receipts for the first
quarter and the estimated receipts for the remaining three quarters
amount together to $67,918,734; thus affording in all, as the
available resources of the current fiscal year, the sum of
$86,856,710.

If to the actual expenditures of the first quarter of the current
fiscal year be added the probable expenditures for the remaining
three quarters, as estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury, the
sum total will be $71,226,846, thereby leaving an estimated balance
in the Treasury on July 1, 1856, of $15,623,863.41.

In the above-estimated expenditures of the present fiscal year are
included $3,000,000 to meet the last installment of the ten millions
provided for in the late treaty with Mexico and $7,750,000
appropriated on account of the debt due to Texas, which two sums make
an aggregate amount of $10,750,000 and reduce the expenditures, actual
or estimated, for ordinary objects of the year to the sum of
$60,476,000.

The amount of the public debt at the commencement of the present
fiscal year was $40,583,631, and, deduction being made of subsequent
payments, the whole public debt of the Federal Government remaining
at this time is less than $40,000,000. The remnant of certain other
Government stocks, amounting to $243,000, referred to in my last
message as outstanding, has since been paid.

I am fully persuaded that it would be difficult to devise a system
superior to that by which the fiscal business of the Government is
now conducted. Notwithstanding the great number of public agents of
collection and disbursement, it is believed that the checks and
guards provided, including the requirement of monthly returns, render
it scarcely possible for any considerable fraud on the part of those
agents or neglect involving hazard of serious public loss to escape
detection. I renew, however, the recommendation heretofore made by me
of the enactment of a law declaring it felony on the part of public
officers to insert false entries in their books of record or account
or to make false returns, and also requiring them on the termination
of their service to deliver to their successors all books, records,
and other objects of a public nature in their custody.

Derived, as our public revenue is, in chief part from duties on
imports, its magnitude affords gratifying evidence of the prosperity,
not only of our commerce, but of the other great interests upon which
that depends.

The principle that all moneys not required for the current expenses
of the Government should remain for active employment in the hands of
the people and the conspicuous fact that the annual revenue from all
sources exceeds by many millions of dollars the amount needed for a
prudent and economical administration of public affairs can not fail
to suggest the propriety of an early revision and reduction of the
tariff of duties on imports. It is now so generally conceded that the
purpose of revenue alone can justify the imposition of duties on
imports that in readjusting the impost tables and schedules, which
unquestionably require essential modifications, a departure from the
principles of the present tariff is not anticipated.

The Army during the past year has been actively engaged in defending
the Indian frontier, the state of the service permitting but few and
small garrisons in our permanent fortifications. The additional
regiments authorized at the last session of Congress have been
recruited and organized, and a large portion of the troops have
already been sent to the field. All the duties which devolve on the
military establishment have been satisfactorily performed, and the
dangers and privations incident to the character of the service
required of our troops have furnished additional evidence of their
courage, zeal, and capacity to meet any requisition which their
country may make upon them. For the details of the military
operations, the distribution of the troops, and additional provisions
required for the military service, I refer to the report of the
Secretary of War and the accompanying documents.

Experience gathered from events which have transpired since my last
annual message has but served to confirm the opinion then expressed
of the propriety of making provision by a retired list for disabled
officers and for increased compensation to the officers retained on
the list for active duty. All the reasons which existed when these
measures were recommended on former occasions continue without
modification, except so far as circumstances have given to some of
them additional force.

The recommendations heretofore made for a partial reorganization of
the Army are also renewed. The thorough elementary education given to
those officers who commenced their service with the grade of cadet
qualifies them to a considerable extent to perform the duties of
every arm of the service; but to give the highest efficiency to
artillery requires the practice and special study of many years, and
it is not, therefore, believed to be advisable to maintain in time of
peace a larger force of that arm than can be usually employed in the
duties appertaining to the service of field and siege artillery. The
duties of the staff in all its various branches belong to the
movements of troops, and the efficiency of an army in the field would
materially depend upon the ability with which those duties are
discharged. It is not, as in the case of the artillery, a specialty,
but requires also an intimate knowledge of the duties of an officer
of the line, and it is not doubted that to complete the education of
an officer for either the line or the general staff it is desirable
that he shall have served in both. With this view, it was recommended
on a former occasion that the duties of the staff should be mainly
performed by details from the line, and, with conviction of the
advantages which would result from such a change, it is again
presented for the consideration of Congress.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy, herewith submitted, exhibits
in full the naval operations of the past year, together with the
present condition of the service, and it makes suggestions of further
legislation, to which your attention is invited.

The construction of the six steam frigates for which appropriations
were made by the last Congress has proceeded in the most satisfactory
manner and with such expedition as to warrant the belief that they
will be ready for service early in the coming spring. Important as
this addition to our naval force is, it still remains inadequate to
the contingent exigencies of the protection of the extensive seacoast
and vast commercial interests of the United States. In view of this
fact and of the acknowledged wisdom of the policy of a gradual and
systematic increase of the Navy an appropriation is recommended for
the construction of six steam sloops of war.

In regard to the steps taken in execution of the act of Congress to
promote the efficiency of the Navy, it is unnecessary for me to say
more than to express entire concurrence in the observations on that
subject presented by the Secretary in his report.

It will be perceived by the report of the postmaster-General that the
gross expenditure of the Department for the last fiscal year was
$9,968,342 and the gross receipts $7,342,136, making an excess of
expenditure over receipts of $2,626,206; and that the cost of mail
transportation during that year was $674,952 greater than the
previous year. Much of the heavy expenditures to which the Treasury
is thus subjected is to be ascribed to the large quantity of printed
matter conveyed by the mails, either franked or liable to no postage
by law or to very low rates of postage compared with that charged on
letters, and to the great cost of mail service on railroads and by
ocean steamers. The suggestions of the Postmaster-General on the
subject deserve the consideration of Congress.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior will engage your
attention as well for useful suggestions it contains as for the
interest and importance of the subjects to which they refer.

The aggregate amount of public land sold during the last fiscal year,
located with military scrip or land warrants, taken up under grants
for roads, and selected as swamp lands by States is 24,557,409 acres,
of which the portion sold was 15,729,524 acres, yielding in receipts
the sum of $11,485,380. In the same period of time 8,723,854 acres
have been surveyed, but, in consideration of the quantity already
subject to entry, no additional tracts have been brought into
market.

The peculiar relation of the General Government to the District of
Columbia renders it proper to commend to your care not only its
material but also its moral interests, including education, more
especially in those parts of the District outside of the cities of
Washington and Georgetown.

The commissioners appointed to revise and codify the laws of the
District have made such progress in the performance of their task as
to insure its completion in the time prescribed by the act of
Congress.

Information has recently been received that the peace of the
settlements in the Territories of Oregon and Washington is disturbed
by hostilities on the part of the Indians, with indications of
extensive combinations of a hostile character among the tribes in
that quarter, the more serious in their possible effect by reason of
the undetermined foreign interests existing in those Territories, to
which your attention has already been especially invited. Efficient
measures have been taken, which, it is believed, will restore quiet
and afford protection to our citizens.

In the Territory of Kansas there have been acts prejudicial to good
order, but as yet none have occurred under circumstances to justify
the interposition of the Federal Executive. That could only be in
case of obstruction to Federal law or of organized resistance to
Territorial law, assuming the character of insurrection, which, if it
should occur, it would be my duty promptly to overcome and suppress. I
cherish the hope, however, that the occurrence of any such untoward
event will be prevented by the sound sense of the people of the
Territory, who by its organic law, possessing the right to determine
their own domestic institutions, are entitled while deporting
themselves peacefully to the free exercise of that right, and must be
protected in the enjoyment of it without interference on the part of
the citizens of any of the States. The southern boundary line of this
Territory has never been surveyed and established. The rapidly
extending settlements in that region and the fact that the main route
between Independence, in the State of Missouri, and New Mexico is
contiguous in this line suggest the probability that embarrassing
questions of jurisdiction may consequently arise. For these and other
considerations I commend the subject to your early attention.

I have thus passed in review the general state of the Union,
including such particular concerns of the Federal Government, whether
of domestic or foreign relation, as it appeared to me desirable and
useful to bring to the special notice of Congress. Unlike the great
States of Europe and Asia and many of those of America, these United
States are wasting their strength neither in foreign war nor domestic
strife. Whatever of discontent or public dissatisfaction exists is
attributable to the imperfections of human nature or is incident to
all governments, however perfect, which human wisdom can devise. Such
subjects of political agitation as occupy the public mind consist to a
great extent of exaggeration of inevitable evils, or over zeal in
social improvement, or mere imagination of grievance, having but
remote connection with any of the constitutional functions or duties
of the Federal Government. To whatever extent these questions exhibit
a tendency menacing to the stability of the Constitution or the
integrity of the Union, and no further, they demand the consideration
of the Executive and require to be presented by him to Congress.

Before the thirteen colonies became a confederation of independent
States they were associated only by community of transatlantic
origin, by geographical position, and by the mutual tie of common
dependence on Great Britain. When that tie was sundered they
severally assumed the powers and rights of absolute self-government.
The municipal and social institutions of each, its laws of property
and of personal relation, even its political organization, were such
only as each one chose to establish, wholly without interference from
any other. In the language of the Declaration of Independence, each
State had "full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract
alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things
which independent states may of right do." The several colonies
differed in climate, in soil, in natural productions, in religion, in
systems of education, in legislation, and in the forms of political
administration, and they continued to differ in these respects when
they voluntarily allied themselves as States to carry on the War of
the Revolution. The object of that war was to disenthrall the united
colonies from foreign rule, which had proved to be oppressive, and to
separate them permanently from the mother country. The political
result was the foundation of a Federal Republic of the free white men
of the colonies, constituted, as they were, in distinct and
reciprocally independent State governments. As for the subject races,
whether Indian or African, the wise and brave statesmen of that day,
being engaged in no extravagant scheme of social change, left them as
they were, and thus preserved themselves and their posterity from the
anarchy and the ever-recurring civil wars which have prevailed in
other revolutionized European colonies of America.

When the confederated States found it convenient to modify the
conditions of their association by giving to the General Government
direct access in some respects to the people of the States, instead
of confining it to action on the States as such, they proceeded to
frame the existing Constitution, adhering steadily to one guiding
thought, which was to delegate only such power as was necessary and
proper to the execution of specific purposes, or, in other words, to
retain as much as possible consistently with those purposes of the
independent powers of the individual States. For objects of common
defense and security, they intrusted to the General Government
certain carefully defined functions, leaving all others as the
undelegated rights of the separate independent sovereignties.

Such is the constitutional theory of our Government, the practical
observance of which has carried us, and us alone among modern
republics, through nearly three generations of time without the cost
of one drop of blood shed in civil war. With freedom and concert of
action, it has enabled us to contend successfully on the battlefield
against foreign foes, has elevated the feeble colonies into powerful
States, and has raised our industrial productions and our commerce
which transports them to the level of the richest and the greatest
nations of Europe. And the admirable adaptation of our political
institutions to their objects, combining local self-government with
aggregate strength, has established the practicability of a
government like ours to cover a continent with confederate states.

The Congress of the United States is in effect that congress of
sovereignties which good men in the Old World have sought for, but
could never attain, and which imparts to America an exemption from
the mutable leagues for common action, from the wars, the mutual
invasions, and vague aspirations after the balance of power which
convulse from time to time the Governments of Europe. Our cooperative
action rests in the conditions of permanent confederation prescribed
by the Constitution. Our balance of power is in the separate reserved
rights of the States and their equal representation in the Senate.
That independent sovereignty in every one of the States, with its
reserved rights of local self-government assured to each by their
coequal power in the Senate, was the fundamental condition of the
Constitution. Without it the Union would never have existed. However
desirous the larger States might be to reorganize the Government so
as to give to their population its proportionate weight in the common
counsels, they knew it was impossible unless they conceded to the
smaller ones authority to exercise at least a negative influence on
all the measures of the Government, whether legislative or executive,
through their equal representation in the Senate. Indeed, the larger
States themselves could not have failed to perceive that the same
power was equally necessary to them for the security of their own
domestic interests against the aggregate force of the General
Government. In a word, the original States went into this permanent
league on the agreed premises of exerting their common strength for
the defense of the whole and of all its parts, but of utterly
excluding all capability of reciprocal aggression. Each solemnly
bound itself to all the others neither to undertake nor permit any
encroachment upon or intermeddling with another's reserved rights.

Where it was deemed expedient particular rights of the States were
expressly guaranteed by the Constitution, but in all things besides
these rights were guarded by the limitation of the powers granted and
by express reservation of all powers not granted in the compact of
union. Thus the great power of taxation was limited to purposes of
common defense and general welfare, excluding objects appertaining to
the local legislation of the several States; and those purposes of
general welfare and common defense were afterwards defined by
specific enumeration as being matters only of co-relation between the
States themselves or between them and foreign governments, which,
because of their common and general nature, could not be left to the
separate control of each State.

Of the circumstances of local condition, interest, and rights in
which a portion of the States, constituting one great section of the
Union, differed from the rest and from another section, the most
important was the peculiarity of a larger relative colored population
in the Southern than in the Northern States.

A population of this class, held in subjection, existed in nearly all
the States, but was more numerous and of more serious concernment in
the South than in the North on account of natural differences of
climate and production; and it was foreseen that, for the same
reasons, while this population would diminish and sooner or later
cease to exist in some States, it might increase in others. The
peculiar character and magnitude of this question of local rights,
not in material relations only, but still more in social ones, caused
it to enter into the special stipulations of the Constitution.

Hence, while the General Government, as well by the enumerated powers
granted to it as by those not enumerated, and therefore refused to it,
was forbidden to touch this matter in the sense of attack or offense,
it was placed under the general safeguard of the Union in the sense
of defense against either invasion or domestic violence, like all
other local interests of the several States. Each State expressly
stipulated, as well for itself as for each and all of its citizens,
and every citizen of each State became solemnly bound by his
allegiance to the Constitution that any person held to service or
labor in one State, escaping into another, should not, in consequence
of any law or regulation thereof, be discharged from such service or
labor, but should be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor might be due by the laws of his State.

Thus and thus only, by the reciprocal guaranty of all the rights of
every State against interference on the part of another, was the
present form of government established by our fathers and transmitted
to us, and by no other means is it possible for it to exist. If one
State ceases to respect the rights of another and obtrusively
intermeddles with its local interests; if a portion of the States
assume to impose their institutions on the others or refuse to
fulfill their obligations to them, we are no longer united, friendly
States, but distracted, hostile ones, with little capacity left of
common advantage, but abundant means of reciprocal injury and
mischief. Practically it is immaterial whether aggressive
interference between the States or deliberate refusal on the part of
any one of them to comply with constitutional obligations arise from
erroneous conviction or blind prejudice, whether it be perpetrated by
direction or indirection. In either case it is full of threat and of
danger to the durability of the Union.

Placed in the office of Chief Magistrate as the executive agent of
the whole country, bound to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, and specially enjoined by the Constitution to give
information to Congress on the state of the Union, it would be
palpable neglect of duty on my part to pass over a subject like this,
which beyond all things at the present time vitally concerns
individual and public security.

It has been matter of painful regret to see States conspicuous for
their services in rounding this Republic and equally sharing its
advantages disregard their constitutional obligations to it. Although
conscious of their inability to heal admitted and palpable social
evils of their own, and which are completely within their
jurisdiction, they engage in the offensive and hopeless undertaking
of reforming the domestic institutions of other States, wholly beyond
their control and authority. In the vain pursuit of ends by them
entirely unattainable, and which they may not legally attempt to
compass, they peril the very existence of the Constitution and all
the countless benefits which it has conferred. While the people of
the Southern States confine their attention to their own affairs, not
presuming officiously to intermeddle with the social institutions of
the Northern States, too many of the inhabitants of the latter are
permanently organized in associations to inflict injury on the former
by wrongful acts, which would be cause of war as between foreign
powers and only fail to be such in our system because perpetrated
under cover of the Union.

Is it possible to present this subject as truth and the occasion
require without noticing the reiterated but groundless allegation
that the South has persistently asserted claims and obtained
advantages in the practical administration of the General Government
to the prejudice of the North, and in which the latter has
acquiesced? That is, the States which either promote or tolerate
attacks on the rights of persons and of property in other States, to
disguise their own injustice, pretend or imagine, and constantly
aver, that they, whose constitutional rights are thus systematically
assailed, are themselves the aggressors. At the present time this
imputed aggression, resting, as it does, only in the vague
declamatory charges of political agitators, resolves itself into
misapprehension, or misinterpretation, of the principles and facts of
the political organization of the new Territories of the United
States.

What is the voice of history? When the ordinance which provided for
the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio and for
its eventual subdivision into new States was adopted in the Congress
of the Confederation, it is not to be supposed that the question of
future relative power as between the States which retained and those
which did not retain a numerous colored population escaped notice or
failed to be considered. And yet the concession of that vast
territory to the interests and opinions of the Northern States, a
territory now the seat of five among the largest members of the
Union, was in great measure the act of the State of Virginia and of
the South.

When Louisiana was acquired by the United States, it was an
acquisition not less to the North than to the South; for while it was
important to the country at the mouth of the river Mississippi to
become the emporium of the country above it, so also it was even more
important to the whole Union to have that emporium; and although the
new province, by reason of its imperfect settlement, was mainly
regarded as on the Gulf of Mexico, yet in fact it extended to the
opposite boundaries of the United States, with far greater breadth
above than below, and was in territory, as in everything else,
equally at least an accession to the Northern States. It is mere
delusion and prejudice, therefore, to speak of Louisiana as
acquisition in the special interest of the South.

The patriotic and just men who participated in the act were
influenced by motives far above all sectional jealousies. It was in
truth the great event which, by completing for us the possession of
the Valley of the Mississippi, with commercial access to the Gulf of
Mexico, imparted unity and strength to the whole Confederation and
attached together by indissoluble ties the East and the West, as well
as the North and the South.

As to Florida, that was but the transfer by Spain to the United
States of territory on the east side of the river Mississippi in
exchange for large territory which the United States transferred to
Spain on the west side of that river, as the entire diplomatic
history of the transaction serves to demonstrate. Moreover, it was an
acquisition demanded by the commercial interests and the security of
the whole Union. In the meantime the people of the United States had
grown up to a proper consciousness of their strength, and in a brief
contest with France and in a second serious war with Great Britain
they had shaken off all which remained of undue reverence for Europe,
and emerged from the atmosphere of those transatlantic influences
which surrounded the infant Republic, and had begun to turn their
attention to the full and systematic development of the internal
resources of the Union.

Among the evanescent controversies of that period the most
conspicuous was the question of regulation by Congress of the social
condition of the future States to be rounded in the territory of
Louisiana.

The ordinance for the government of the territory northwest of the
river Ohio had contained a provision which prohibited the use of
servile labor therein, subject to the condition of the extraditions
of fugitives from service due in any other part of the United States.
Subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution this provision ceased
to remain as a law, for its operation as such was absolutely
superseded by the Constitution. But the recollection of the fact
excited the zeal of social propagandism in some sections of the
Confederation, and when a second State, that of Missouri, came to be
formed in the territory of Louisiana proposition was made to extend
to the latter territory the restriction originally applied to the
country situated between the rivers Ohio and Mississippi.

Most questionable as was this proposition in all its constitutional
relations, nevertheless it received the sanction of Congress, with
some slight modifications of line, to save the existing rights of the
intended new State. It was reluctantly acquiesced in by Southern
States as a sacrifice to the cause of peace and of the Union, not
only of the rights stipulated by the treaty of Louisiana, but of the
principle of equality among the States guaranteed by the
Constitution. It was received by the Northern States with angry and
resentful condemnation and complaint, because it did not concede all
which they had exactingly demanded. Having passed through the forms
of legislation, it took its place in the statute book, standing open
to repeal, like any other act of doubtful constitutionality, subject
to be pronounced null and void by the courts of law, and possessing
no possible efficacy to control the rights of the States which might
thereafter be organized out of any part of the original territory of
Louisiana.

In all this, if any aggression there were, any innovation upon
preexisting rights, to which portion of the Union are they justly
chargeable? This controversy passed away with the occasion, nothing
surviving it save the dormant letter of the statute.

But long afterwards, when by the proposed accession of the Republic
of Texas the United States were to take their next step in
territorial greatness, a similar contingency occurred and became the
occasion for systematized attempts to intervene in the domestic
affairs of one section of the Union, in defiance of their rights as
States and of the stipulations of the Constitution. These attempts
assumed a practical direction in the shape of persevering endeavors
by some of the Representatives in both Houses of Congress to deprive
the Southern States of the supposed benefit of the provisions of the
act authorizing the organization of the State of Missouri.

But the good sense of the people and the vital force of the
Constitution triumphed over sectional prejudice and the political
errors of the day, and the State of Texas returned to the Union as
she was, with social institutions which her people had chosen for
themselves and with express agreement by the reannexing act that she
should be susceptible of subdivision into a plurality of States.

Whatever advantage the interests of the Southern States, as such,
gained by this were far inferior in results, as they unfolded in the
progress of time, to those which sprang from previous concessions
made by the South.

To every thoughtful friend of the Union, to the true lovers of their
country, to all who longed and labored for the full success of this
great experiment of republican institutions, it was cause of
gratulation that such an opportunity had occurred to illustrate our
advancing power on this continent and to furnish to the world
additional assurance of the strength and stability of the
Constitution. Who would wish to see Florida still a European colony?
Who would rejoice to hail Texas as a lone star instead of one in the
galaxy of States? Who does not appreciate the incalculable benefits
of the acquisition of Louisiana? And yet narrow views and sectional
purposes would inevitably have excluded them all from the Union.

But another struggle on the same point ensued when our victorious
armies returned from Mexico and it devolved on Congress to provide
for the territories acquired by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The
great relations of the subject had now become distinct and clear to
the perception of the public mind, which appreciated the evils of
sectional controversy upon the question of the admission of new
States. In that crisis intense solicitude pervaded the nation. But
the patriotic impulses of the popular heart, guided by the admonitory
advice of the Father of his Country, rose superior to all the
difficulties of the incorporation of a new empire into the Union. In
the counsels of Congress there was manifested extreme antagonism of
opinion and action between some Representatives, who sought by the
abusive and unconstitutional employment of the legislative powers of
the Government to interfere in the condition of the inchoate States
and to impose their own social theories upon the latter, and other
Representatives, who repelled the interposition of the General
Government in this respect and maintained the self-constituting
rights of the States. In truth, the thing attempted was in form alone
action of the General Government, while in reality it was the
endeavor, by abuse of legislative power, to force the ideas of
internal policy entertained in particular States upon allied
independent States. Once more the Constitution and the Union
triumphed signally. The new territories were organized without
restrictions on the disputed point, and were thus left to judge in
that particular for themselves; and the sense of constitutional faith
proved vigorous enough in Congress not only to accomplish this primary
object, but also the incidental and hardly less important one of so
amending the provisions of the statute for the extradition of
fugitives from service as to place that public duty under the
safeguard of the General Government, and thus relieve it from
obstacles raised up by the legislation of some of the States.

Vain declamation regarding the provisions of law for the extradition
of fugitives from service, with occasional episodes of frantic effort
to obstruct their execution by riot and murder, continued for a brief
time to agitate certain localities. But the true principle of leaving
each State and Territory to regulate its own laws of labor according
to its own sense of right and expediency had acquired fast hold of
the public judgment, to such a degree that by common consent it was
observed in the organization of the Territory of Washington. When,
more recently, it became requisite to organize the Territories of
Nebraska and Kansas, it was the natural and legitimate, if not the
inevitable, consequence of previous events and legislation that the
same great and sound principle which had already been applied to Utah
and New Mexico should be applied to them--that they should stand
exempt from the restrictions proposed in the act relative to the
State of Missouri.

These restrictions were, in the estimation of many thoughtful men,
null from the beginning, unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary
to the treaty stipulations for the cession of Louisiana, and
inconsistent with the equality of these States.

They had been stripped of all moral authority by persistent efforts
to procure their indirect repeal through contradictory enactments.
They had been practically abrogated by the legislation attending the
organization of Utah, New Mexico, and Washington. If any vitality
remained in them it would have been taken away, in effect, by the new
Territorial acts in the form originally proposed to the Senate at the
first session of the last Congress. It was manly and ingenuous, as
well as patriotic and just, to do this directly and plainly, and thus
relieve the statute book of an act which might be of possible future
injury, but of no possible future benefit; and the measure of its
repeal was the final consummation and complete recognition of the
principle that no portion of the United States shall undertake
through assumption of the powers of the General Government to dictate
the social institutions of any other portion.

The scope and effect of the language of repeal were not left in
doubt. It was declared in terms to be "the true intent and meaning of
this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free
to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way,
subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

The measure could not be withstood upon its merits alone. It was
attacked with violence on the false or delusive pretext that it
constituted a breach of faith. Never was objection more utterly
destitute of substantial justification. When before was it imagined
by sensible men that a regulative or declarative statute, whether
enacted ten or forty years ago, is irrepealable; that an act of
Congress is above the Constitution? If, indeed, there were in the
facts any cause to impute bad faith, it would attach to those only
who have never