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States are found to be so eligible, that the general disposition to preserve both continues to gain strength.

I feel particular satisfaction in remarking that an interior view of our country presents us with grateful proofs of its substantial and increasing prosperity. To a thriving agriculture, and the improvements relating to it, is added a highly interesting extension of useful manufactures, the combined product of professional occupations and of household industry. Such, indeed, is the experience of economy, as well as of policy, in these substitutes for supplies heretofore obtained by foreign commerce, that in a national view the change is justly regarded as of itself more than a recompense for those privations and losses resulting from foreign injustice which furnished the general impulse required for its accomplishment. How far it may be expedient to guard the infancy of this improvement in the distribution of labor by regulations of the commercial tariff, is a subject which can not fail to suggest itself to your patriotic reflections.

It will rest with the consideration of Congress, also, whether a provident as well as fair encouragement would not be given to our navigation by such regulations as would place it on a level of competition with foreign vessels, particularly in transporting the important and bulky productions of our own soil. The failure of equality and reciprocity in the existing regulations on this subject operates in our ports as a premium to foreign competitors; and the inconvenience must increase as these may be multiplied, under more favorable circumstances, by the more than countervailing encouragements now given them by the laws of their respective countries.

While it is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people, and while it is evident that the means of diffusing and improving useful knowledge form so small a proportion of the expenditures for national purposes, I can not presume it to be unseasonable to invite your attention to the advantages of superadding to the means of education provided by the several states a seminary of learning instituted by the national legislature, within the limits of their exclusive jurisdiction, the expense of which might be defrayed or reimbursed out of the vacant grounds which have accrued to the nation within those limits.

Such an institution, though local in its legal character, would be universal in its beneficial effects. By enlightening the opinions, by expanding the patriotism, and by assimilating the principles, the sentiments, and the manners of those who might resort to this temple of science, to be redistributed in due time through every part of the community, sources of jealousy and prejudice would be diminished, the features of national character would be multiplied, and greater extent given to social harmony. But above all, a well-constituted seminary, in the centre of the nation, is recommended by the consideration that the additional instruction emanating from it would contribute not less to strengthen the foundations than to adorn the structure of our free and happy system of government.

Among the commercial abuses still committed under the American flag, and leaving in force my former reference to that subject, it appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced the interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil. In the midst of uncertainties necessarily connected with the great in

terests of the United States, prudence requires a continuance of our defensive and precautionary arrangements. The secretary of war and the secretary of the navy will submit the statements and estimates which may aid Congress in their ensuing provisions for the land and naval forces. The statements of the latter will include a view of the transfers of appropriations in the naval expenditures, and the grounds on which they were made.

The fortifications for the defence of our maritime frontier have been prosecuted according to the plan laid down in 1808. The works, with some exceptions, are completed and furnished with ordnance. Those for the security of the city of New York, though far advanced toward completion, will require a further time and appropriation. This is the case with a few others, either not completed or in need of repairs.

The improvements in quality and quantity, made in the manufacture of cannon and small arms, both at the public armories and private factories, warrant additional confidence in the competency of these resources for supplying the public exigencies.

These preparations for arming the militia having thus far provided for one of the objects contemplated by the power vested in Congress with respect to that great bulwark of the public safety, it is for their consideration whether further provisions are not requisite for the other contemplated objects of organization and discipline. To give to this great mass of physical and moral force the efficiency which it merits, and is capable of receiving, it is indispensable that they should be instructed and practised in the rules by which they are to be governed. Toward an accomplishment of this important work, I recommend for the consideration of Congress the expediency of instituting a system which shall in the first instance call into the field, at the public expense and for a given time, certain portions of the commissioned and non-commissioned officers. The instruction and discipline thus acquired would gradually diffuse through the entire body of the militia that practical knowledge and promptitude for active service which are the great ends to be pursued. Experience has left no doubt either of the necessity or of the efficacy of competent military skill in those portions of an army, in fitting it for the final duties which it may have to perform.

The corps of engineers, with the military academy, are entitled to the early attention of Congress. The buildings at the seat fixed by law for the present academy, are so far in decay as not to afford the necessary accommodation. But a revision of the law is recommended, principally with a view to a more enlarged cultivation and diffusion of the advantages of such institutions, by providing professorships for all the necessary branches of military instruction, and by the establishment of an additional academy at the seat of government or elsewhere. The means by which wars, as well for defence as for offence, are now carried on, render these schools of the more scientific operations an indispensable part of every adequate system. Even among nations whose large standing armies and frequent wars afford every other opportunity of instruction, these establishments are found to be indispensable for the due attainment of the branches of military science which require a regular course of study and experiment. In a government happily without the other opportunities, seminaries where the elementary principles of the art of war can be taught without actual war, and without the expense of extensive and standing armies, have the precious advantage of uniting an essential preparation

against external danger with a scrupulous regard to internal safety. In no other way, probably, can a provision of equal efficacy for the public defence be made at so little expense, or more consistently with the public liberty.

The receipts into the treasury during the year ending on the 30th of September last (and amounting to more than eight millions and a half of dollars), have exceeded the current expenses of government, including the interest on the public debt. For the purpose of reimbursing, at the end of the year, three millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the principal, a loan, as authorized by law, had been negotiated to that amount, but has since been reduced to two millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the reduction being permitted by the state of the treasury, in which there will be a balance remaining at the end of the year, estimated at two millions of dollars. For the probable receipts of the next year, and other details, I refer to statements which will be transmitted from the treasury, and which will enable you to judge what further provisions may be necessary for the ensuing years.

Reserving for future occasions in the course of the session whatever other communications may claim your attention, I close the present by expressing my reliance, under the blessing of Divine Providence, on the judgment and patriotism which will guide your measures, at a period particularly calling for united councils and inflexible exertions for the welfare of our country, and by assuring you of the fidelity and alacrity with which my co-operation will be afforded.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

FEBRUARY 21, 1811.

To the House of Representatives of the United States :

HAVING examined and considered the bill, entitled, " An act incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the town of Alexandria, in the District of Columbia," I now return the bill to the house of representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections:

Because the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited, by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates, in particular, the article of the constitution of the United States, which declares, that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment." The bill enacts into, and establishes by law, sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the organization and polity of the church incorporated, and comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the same; so that no change could be made therein by the particular society, or by the general church of which it is a member, and whose authority it recognises. This particular church, therefore, would so far be a religious establishment by law; a legal force and sanction being given to certain articles in her constitution and administration. Nor can it be considered, that the articles thus established are to be taken as the descriptive criteria only of the corporate identity of the society, inasmuch as this identity must depend upon other characteristics; as the regulations established are generally unessential, and alterable according to the principles and canons, by which churches of that denom

ination govern themselves; and as the injunctions and prohibitions contained in the regulations, would be enforced by the general consequences applicable to a violation of them according to the local law.

Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church, an authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the education of the poor children of the same; an authority which being altogether superfluous, if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

FEBRUARY 28, 1811.

To the House of Representatives of the United States :

HAVING examined and considered the bill, entitled, " An act for the relief of Richard Tervin, William Coleman, Edwin Lewis, Samuel Mims, Joseph Wilson, and the Baptist church at Salem meeting-house, in the Mississippi territory," I now return the same to the house of representatives, in which it originated, with the following objection :

Because the bill, in reserving a certain parcel of land of the United States for the use of the said Baptist church, comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States, for the use and support of religious societies; contrary to the article of the constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment."

THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.

NOVEMBER 5, 1811.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives :

IN calling you together sooner than a separation from your homes would otherwise have been required, I yielded to considerations drawn from the posture of our foreign affairs; and in fixing the present for the time of your meeting, regard was had to the probability of further developments of the policy of the belligerent powers toward this country, which might the more unite the national councils in the measures to be pursued.

At the close of the last session of Congress, it was hoped that the successive confirmations of the extinction of the French decrees, so far as they violated our neutral commerce, would have induced the government of Great Britain to repeal its orders in council, and thereby authorize a removal of the existing obstructions to her commerce with the United States.

Instead of this reasonable step toward satisfaction and friendship between the two nations, the orders were, at a moment when least to have been expected, put into more rigorous execution; and it was communicated through the British envoy just arrived, that while the revocation of the

edicts of France, as officially made known to the British government, was denied to have taken place, it was an indispensable condition of the repeal of the British orders that commerce should be restored to a footing that would admit the productions and manufactures of Great Britain, when owned by neutrals, into markets shut against them by her enemy; the United States being given to understand that, in the meantime, a continuance of their non-importation act would lead to measures of retaliation.

At a later date, it has indeed appeared that a communication to the British government of fresh evidence of the repeal of the French decrees against our neutral trade was followed by an intimation that it had been transmitted to the British plenipotentiary here in order that it might receive full consideration in the depending discussions. This communication appears not to have been received; but the transmission of it hither, instead of founding on it an actual repeal of the orders, or assurances that the repeal would ensue, will not permit us to rely on any effective change in the British cabinet. To be ready to meet with cordiality satisfactory proofs of such a change, and to proceed in the meantime in adapting our measures to the views which have been disclosed through that minister, will best consult our whole duty.

In the unfriendly spirit of those disclosures, indemnity and redress for other wrongs have continued to be withheld, and our coasts and the mouths of our harbors have again witnessed scenes not less derogatory to the dearest of our national rights than vexatious to the regular course of our trade.

Among the occurrences produced by the conduct of British ships-of-war hovering on our coasts, was an encounter between one of them and the Amercan frigate commanded by Captain Rodgers, rendered unavoidable on the part of the latter by a fire commenced without cause by the former, whose commander is therefore alone chargeable with the blood unfortunately shed in maintaining the honor of the American flag. The proceedings of a court of inquiry requested by Captain Rodgers are communicated, together with the correspondence relating to the occurrence between the secretary of state and his Britannic majesty's envoy. To these are added the several correspondences which have passed on the subject of the British orders in council, and to both, the correspondence relating to the Floridas, in which Congress will be made acquainted with the interposition which the government of Great Britain has thought proper to make against the proceedings of the United States.

The justness and fairness which have been evinced on the part of the United States toward France, both before and since the revocation of her decrees, authorized an expectation that her government would have followed up that measure by all such others as were due to our reasonable claims, as well as dictated by its amicable professions. No proof, however, is yet given of an intention to repair the other wrongs done to the United States, and particularly to restore the great amount of American property seized and condemned under edicts which, though not affecting our neutral relations, and therefore not entering into questions between the United States and other belligerents, were nevertheless founded in such unjust principles that the reparation ought to have been prompt and ample.

In addition to this and other demands of strict right on that nation, the United States have much reason to be dissatisfied with the rigorous and unexpected restrictions to which their trade with the French dominions

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