State of the Union Addresses

of Thomas Jefferson

State of the Union Address

December 8, 1801

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

It is a circumstance of sincere gratification to me that on meeting the

great council of our nation I am able to announce to them on grounds of

reasonable certainty that the wars and troubles which have for so many

years afflicted our sister nations have at length come to an end, and that

the communications of peace and commerce are once more opening among them.

Whilst we devoutly return thanks to the beneficent Being who has been

pleased to breathe into them the spirit of conciliation and forgiveness, we

are bound with peculiar gratitude to be thankful to Him that our own peace

has been preserved through so perilous a season, and ourselves permitted

quietly to cultivate the earth and to practice and improve those arts which

tend to increase our comforts. The assurances, indeed, of friendly

disposition received from all the powers with whom we have principle

relations had inspired a confidence that our peace with them would not have

been disturbed. But a cessation of irregularities which had affected the

commerce of neutral nations and of the irritations and injuries produced by

them can not but add to this confidence, and strengthens at the same time

the hope that wrongs committed on unoffending friends under a pressure of

circumstances will now be reviewed with candor, and will be considered as

founding just claims of retribution for the past and new assurance for the

future.

Among our Indian neighbors also a spirit of peace and friendship generally

prevails, and I am happy to inform you that the continued efforts to

introduce among them the implements and the practice of husbandry and the

household arts have not been without success; that they are becoming more

and more sensible of the superiority of this dependence for clothing and

subsistence over the precarious resources of hunting and fishing, and

already we are able to announce that instead of that constant diminution of

their numbers produced by their wars and their wants, some of them begin to

experience an increase of population.

To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only

exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States,

had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and

had permitted itself to denounce war on our failure to comply before a

given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer.

I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean, with assurances

to that power of our sincere desire to remain in peace, but with orders to

protect our commerce against the threatened attack. The measure was

seasonable and salutary. The Bey had already declared war. His cruisers

were out. Two had arrived at Gibraltar. Our commerce in the Mediterranean

was blockaded and that of the Atlantic in peril.

The arrival of our squadron dispelled the danger. One of the Tripolitan

cruisers having fallen in with and engaged the small schooner Enterprise,

commanded by Lieutenant Sterret, which had gone as a tender to our larger

vessels, was captured, after a heavy slaughter of her men, without the loss

of a single one on our part. The bravery exhibited by our citizens on that

element will, I trust, be a testimony to the world that it is not the want

of that virtue which makes us seek their peace, but a conscientious desire

to direct the energies of our nation to the multiplication of the human

race, and not to its destruction. Unauthorized by the Constitution, without

the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense, the vessel,

being disabled from committing further hostilities, was liberated with its

crew.

The Legislature will doubtless consider whether, by authorizing measures of

offense also, they will place our force on an equal footing with that of

its adversaries. I communicate all material information on this subject,

that in the exercise of this important function confided by the

Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form itself

on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight.

I wish I could say that our situation with all the other Barbary States was

entirely satisfactory. Discovering that some delays had taken place in the

performance of certain articles stipulated by us, I thought it my duty, by

immediate measures for fulfilling them, to vindicate to ourselves the right

of considering the effect of departure from stipulation on their side. From

the papers which will be laid before you you will be enabled to judge

whether our treaties are regarded by them as fixing at all the measure of

their demands or as guarding from the exercise of force our vessels within

their power, and to consider how far it will be safe and expedient to leave

our affairs with them in their present posture.

I lay before you the result of the census lately taken of our inhabitants,

to a conformity with which we are now to reduce the ensuing ration of

representation and taxation. You will perceive that the increase of numbers

during the last 10 years, proceeding in geometric ratio, promises a

duplication in little more than 22 years. We contemplate this rapid growth

and the prospect it holds up to us, not with a view to the injuries it may

enable us to do others in some future day, but to the settlement of the

extensive country still remaining vacant within our limits to the

multiplication of men susceptible of happiness, educated in the love of

order, habituated to self-government, and valuing its blessings above all

price.

Other circumstances, combined with the increase of numbers, have produced

an augmentation of revenue arising from consumption in a ratio far beyond

that of population alone; and though the changes in foreign relations now

taking place so desirably for the whole world may for a season affect this

branch of revenue, yet weighing all probabilities of expense as well as of

income, there is reasonable ground of confidence that we may now safely

dispense with all the internal taxes, comprehending excise, stamps,

auctions, licenses, carriages, and refined sugars, to which the postage on

news papers may be added to facilitate the progress of information, and

that the remaining sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the

support of Government, to pay the interest of the public debts, and to

discharge the principals within shorter periods than the laws or the

general expectation had contemplated.

War, indeed, and untoward events may change this prospect of things and

call for expenses which imposts could not meet; but sound principles will

not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate

treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps,

happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure.

These views, however, of reducing our burthens are formed on the

expectation that a sensible and at the same time a salutary reduction may

take place in our habitual expenditures. For this purpose those of the

civil Government, the Army, and Navy will need revisal.

When we consider that this Government is charged with the external and

mutual relations only of these States; that the States themselves have

principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation,

constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether

our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices and

officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily and sometimes injuriously

to the service they were meant to promote.

I will cause to be laid before you an essay toward a statement of those

who, under public employment of various kinds, draw money from the Treasury

or from our citizens. Time has not permitted a perfect enumeration, the

ramifications of office being too multiplied and remote to be completely

traced in a first trial.

Among those who are dependent on Executive discretion I have begun the

reduction of what was deemed unnecessary. The expenses of diplomatic agency

have been considerably diminished. The inspectors of internal revenue who

were found to obstruct the accountability of the institution have been

discontinued. Several agencies created by Executive authorities, on

salaries fixed by that also, have been suppressed, and should suggest the

expediency of regulating that power by law, so as to subject its exercises

to legislative inspection and sanction.

Other reformations of the same kind will be pursued with that caution which

is requisite in removing useless things, not to injure what is retained.

But the great mass of public offices is established by law, and therefore

by law alone can be abolished. Should the Legislature think it expedient to

pass this roll in review and try all its parts by the test of public

utility, they may be assured of every aid and light which Executive

information can yield.

Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies and

to increase expense to the ultimate term of burthen which the citizen can

bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents

itself for taking off the surcharge, that it never may be seen here that

after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it can

subsist, Government shall itself consume the whole residue of what it was

instituted to guard.

In our care, too, of the public contributions intrusted to our direction it

would be prudent to multiply barriers against their dissipation by

appropriating specific sums to every specific purpose susceptible of

definition; by disallowing all applications of money varying from the

appropriation in object or transcending it in amount; by reducing the

undefined field of contingencies and thereby circumscribing discretionary

powers over money, and by bringing back to a single department all

accountabilities for money, where the examinations may be prompt,

efficacious, and uniform.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, as prepared

by the Secretary of the Treasury, will, as usual, be laid before you. The

success which has attended the late sales of the public lands shews that

with attention they may be made an important source of receipt. Among the

payments those made in discharge of the principal and interest of the

national debt will shew that the public faith has been exactly maintained.

To these will be added an estimate of appropriations necessary for the

ensuing year. This last will, of course, be affected by such modifications

of the system of expense as you shall think proper to adopt.

A statement has been formed by the Secretary of War, on mature

consideration, of all the posts and stations where garrisons will be

expedient and of the number of men requisite for each garrison. The whole

amount is considerably short of the present military establishment. For the

surplus no particular use can be pointed out.

For defense against invasion their number is as nothing, nor is it

conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of

peace for that purpose. Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular

point in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only

force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them is the

body of the neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these,

collected from the parts most convenient in numbers proportioned to the

invading force, it is best to rely not only to meet the first attack, but if

it threatens to be permanent to maintain the defense until regulars may be

engaged to relieve them. These considerations render it important that we

should at every session continue to amend the defects which from time to

time shew themselves in the laws for regulating the militia until they are

sufficiently perfect. Nor should we now or at any time separate until we

say we have done everything for the militia which we could do were an enemy

at our door.

The provision of military stores on hand will be laid before you, that you

may judge of the additions still requisite.

With respect to the extent to which our naval preparations should be

expected to appear, but just attention to the circumstances of every part

of the Union will doubtless reconcile all. A small force will probably

continue to be wanted for actual service in the Mediterranean. Whatever

annual sum beyond that you may think proper to appropriate to naval

preparations would perhaps be better employed in providing those articles

which may be kept without waste or consumption, and be in readiness when

any exigence calls them into use. Progress has been made, as will appear by

papers now communicated, in providing materials for 74-gun ships as

directed by law.

How far the authority given by the Legislature for procuring and

establishing sites for naval purposes has been perfectly understood and

pursued in the execution admits of some doubt. A statement of the expenses

already incurred on that subject is now laid before you. I have in certain

cases suspended or slackened these expenditures, that the Legislature might

determine whether so many yards are necessary as have been contemplated.

The works at this place are among those permitted to go on, and 5 of the 7

frigates directed to be laid up have been brought and laid up here, where,

besides the safety of their position, they are under the eye of the

Executive Administration, as well as of its agents, and where yourselves

also will be guided by your own view in the legislative provisions

respecting them which may from time to time be necessary. They are

preserved in such condition, as well the vessels as whatever belongs to

them, as to be at all times ready for sea on a short warning. Two others

are yet to be laid up so soon as they shall have received the repairs

requisite to put them also into sound condition. As a superintending

officer will be necessary at each yard, his duties and emoluments, hitherto

fixed by the Executive, will be a more proper subject for legislation. A

communication will also be made of our progress in the execution of the law

respecting the vessels directed to be sold.

The fortifications of our harbors, more or less advanced, present

considerations of great difficulty. While some of them are on a scale

sufficiently proportioned to the advantages of their position, to the

efficacy of their protection, and the importance of the points within it,

others are so extensive, will cost so much in their first erection, so much

in their maintenance, and require such a force to garrison them as to make

it questionable what is best now to be done. A statement of those commenced

or projected, of the expenses already incurred, and estimates of their

future cost, as far as can be foreseen, shall be laid before you, that you

may be enabled to judge whether any alteration is necessary in the laws

respecting this subject.

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our

prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual

enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes

be seasonably interposed. If in the course of your observations or

inquiries they should appear to need any aid within the limits of our

constitutional powers, your sense of their importance is a sufficient

assurance they will occupy your attention. We can not, indeed, but all feel

an anxious solicitude for the difficulties under which our carrying trade

will soon be placed. How far it can be relieved, otherwise than by time, is

a subject of important consideration.

The judiciary system of the United States, and especially that portion of

it recently erected, will of course present itself to the contemplation of

Congress, and, that they may be able to judge of the proportion which the

institution bears on the business it has to perform, I have caused to be

procured from the several States and now lay before Congress an exact

statement of all the causes decided since the first establishment of the

courts, and of those which were depending when additional courts and judges

were brought in to their aid.

And while on the judiciary organization it will be worthy your

consideration whether the protection of the inestimable institution of

juries has been extended to all the cases involving the security of our

persons and property. Their impartial selection also being essential to

their value, we ought further to consider whether that is sufficiently

secured in those States where they are named by a marshal depending on

Executive will or designated by the court or by officers dependent on

them.

I can not omit recommending a revisal of the laws on the subject of

naturalization. Considering the ordinary chances of human life, a denial of

citizenship under a residence of 14 years is a denial to a great proportion

of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from their first

settlement by many of these States, and still believed of consequence to

their prosperity; and shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from

distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to

our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum

on this globe? The Constitution indeed has wisely provided that for

admission to certain offices of important trust a residence shall be

required sufficient to develop character and design. But might not the

general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to

everyone manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes

permanently with us, with restrictions, perhaps, to guard against the

fraudulent usurpation of our flag, an abuse which brings so much

embarrassment and loss on the genuine citizen and so much danger to the

nation of being involved in war that no endeavor should be spared to detect

and suppress it?

These, fellow citizens, are the matters respecting the state of the nation

which I have thought of importance to be submitted to your consideration at

this time. Some others of less moment or not yet ready for communication

will be the subject of separate messages. I am happy in this opportunity of

committing the arduous affairs of our Government to the collected wisdom of

the Union. Nothing shall be wanting on my part to inform as far as in my

power the legislative judgment, nor to carry that judgment into faithful

execution.

The prudence and temperance of your discussions will promote within your

own walls that conciliation which so much befriends rational conclusion,

and by its example will encourage among our constituents that progress of

opinion which is tending to unite them in object and in will. That all

should be satisfied with any one order of things is not to be expected; but

I indulge the pleasing persuasion that the great body of our citizens will

cordially concur in honest and disinterested efforts which have for their

object to preserve the General and State Governments in their

constitutional form and equilibrium; to maintain peace abroad, and order

and obedience to the laws at home; to establish principles and practices of

administration favorable to the security of liberty and property, and to

reduce expenses to what is necessary for the useful purposes of Government.

State of the Union Address

December 15, 1802

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

When we assemble together, fellow citizens, to consider the state of our

beloved country, our just attentions are first drawn to those pleasing

circumstances which mark the goodness of that Being from whose favor they

flow and the large measure of thankfulness we owe for His bounty. Another

year has come around, and finds us still blessed with peace and friendship

abroad; law, order, and religion at home; good affection and harmony with

our Indian neighbors; our burthens lightened, yet our income sufficient for

the public wants, and the produce of the year great beyond example. These,

fellow citizens, are the circumstances under which we meet, and we remark

with special satisfaction those which under the smiles of Providence result

from the skill, industry, and order of our citizens, managing their own

affairs in their own way and for their own use, unembarrassed by too much

regulation, unoppressed by fiscal exactions.

On the restoration of peace in Europe that portion of the general carrying

trade which had fallen to our share during the war was abridged by the

returning competition of the belligerent powers. This was to be expected,

and was just. But in addition we find in some parts of Europe monopolizing

discriminations, which in the form of duties tend effectually to prohibit

the carrying thither our own produce in our own vessels. From existing

amities and a spirit of justice it is hoped that friendly discussion will

produce a fair and adequate reciprocity. But should false calculations of

interest defeat our hope, it rests with the Legislature to decide whether

they will meet inequalities abroad with countervailing inequalities at

home, or provide for the evil in any other way.

It is with satisfaction I lay before you an act of the British Parliament

anticipating this subject so far as to authorize a mutual abolition of the

duties and countervailing duties permitted under the treaty of 1794. It

shows on their part a spirit of justice and friendly accommodation which it

is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations. Whether this

would produce a due equality in the navigation between the two countries is

a subject for your consideration.

Another circumstance which claims attention as directly affecting the very

source of our navigation is the defect or the evasion of the law providing

for the return of sea men, and particularly of those belonging to vessels

sold abroad. Numbers of them, discharged in foreign ports, have been thrown

on the hands of our consuls, who, to rescue them from the dangers into

which their distresses might plunge them and save them to their country,

have found it necessary in some cases to return them at the public charge.

The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisiana to France, which took

place in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make a

change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless have

just weight in any deliberations of the Legislature connected with that

subject.

There was reason not long since to apprehend that the warfare in which we

were engaged with Tripoli might be taken up by some other of the Barbary

Powers. A reenforcement, therefore, was immediately ordered to the vessels

already there. Subsequent information, however, has removed these

apprehensions for the present. To secure our commerce in that sea with the

smallest force competent, we have supposed it best to watch strictly the

harbor of Tripoli. Still, however, the shallowness of their coast and the

want of smaller vessels on our part has permitted some cruisers to escape

unobserved, and to one of these an American vessel unfortunately fell prey.

The captain, one American sea man, and two others of color remain prisoners

with them unless exchanged under an agreement formerly made with the

Bashaw, to whom, on the faith of that, some of his captive subjects had

been restored.

The convention with the State of Georgia has been ratified by their

legislature, and a repurchase from the Creeks has been consequently made of

a part of the Talasscee country. In this purchase has been also

comprehended a part of the lands within the fork of Oconee and Oakmulgee

rivers. The particulars of the contract will be laid before Congress so

soon as they shall be in a state for communication.

In order to remove every ground of difference possible with our Indian

neighbors, I have proceeded in the work of settling with them and marking

the boundaries between us. That with the Choctaw Nation is fixed in one

part and will be through the whole within a short time. The country to

which their title had been extinguished before the Revolution is sufficient

to receive a very respectable population, which Congress will probably see

the expediency of encouraging so soon as the limits shall be declared. We

are to view this position as an outpost of the United States, surrounded by

strong neighbors and distant from its support; and how far that monopoly

which prevents population should here be guarded against and actual

habitation made a condition of the continuance of title will be for your

consideration. A prompt settlement, too, of all existing rights and claims

within this territory presents itself as a preliminary operation.

In that part of the Indiana Territory which includes Vincennes the lines

settled with the neighboring tribes fix the extinction of their title at a

breadth of 24 leagues from east to west and about the same length parallel

with and including the Wabash. They have also ceded a tract of 4 miles

square, including the salt springs near the mouth of that river.

In the Department of Finance it is with pleasure I inform you, that the

receipts of external duties for the last 12 months have exceeded those of

any former year, and that the ration of increase has been also greater than

usual. This has enabled us to answer all the regular exigencies of

Government, to pay from the Treasury within one year upward of $8 millions,

principal and interest, of the public debt, exclusive of upward of $1

million paid by the sale of bank stock, and making in the whole a

reduction of nearly $5.5 millions of principal, and to have now in the

Treasury $4.5 millions which are in a course of application to the

further discharge of debt and current demands. Experience, too, so far,

authorizes us to believe, if no extraordinary event supervenes, and the

expenses which will be actually incurred shall not be greater than were

contemplated by Congress at their last session, that we shall not be

disappointed in the expectations then formed. But nevertheless, as the

effect of peace on the amount of duties is not yet fully ascertained, it

is the more necessary to practice every useful economy and to incur no

expense which may be avoided without prejudice.

The collection of the internal taxes having been completed in some of the

States, the officers employed in it are of course out of commission. In

others they will be so shortly. But in a few, where the arrangements for

the direct tax had been retarded, it will be some time before the system is

closed. It has not yet been thought necessary to employ the agent

authorized by an act of the last session for transacting business in Europe

relative to debts and loans. Nor have we used the power confided by the

same act of prolonging the foreign debt by reloans, and of redeeming

instead thereof an equal sum of the domestic debt. Should, however, the

difficulties of remittance on so large a scale render it necessary at any

time, the power shall be executed and the money thus employed abroad shall,

in conformity with that law, be faithfully applied here in an equivalent

extinction of domestic debt.

When effects so salutary result from the plans you have already sanctioned;

when merely by avoiding false objects of expense we are able, without a

direct tax, without internal taxes, and without borrowing to make large and

effectual payments toward the discharge of our public debt and the

emancipation of our posterity from that mortal canker, it is an

encouragement, fellow citizens, of the highest order to proceed as we have

begun in substituting economy for taxation, and in pursuing what is useful

for a nation placed as we are, rather than what is practiced by others

under different circumstances. And when so ever we are destined to meet

events which shall call forth all the energies of our country-men, we have

the firmest reliance on those energies and the comfort of leaving for calls

like these the extraordinary resources of loans and internal taxes. In the

mean time, by payments of the principal of our debt, we are liberating

annually portions of the external taxes and forming from them a growing

fund still further to lessen the necessity of recurring to extraordinary

resources.

The usual account of receipts and expenditures for the last year, with an

estimate of the expenses of the ensuing one, will be laid before you by the

Secretary of the Treasury.

No change being deemed necessary in our military establishment, an estimate

of its expenses for the ensuing year on its present footing, as also of the

sums to be employed in fortifications and other objects within that

department, has been prepared by the Secretary of War, and will make a part

of the general estimates which will be presented you.

Considering that our regular troops are employed for local purposes, and

that the militia is our general reliance for great and sudden emergencies,

you will doubtless think this institution worthy of a review, and give it

those improvements of which you find it susceptible.

Estimates for the Naval Department, prepared by the Secretary of the Navy,

for another year will in like manner be communicated with the general

estimates. A small force in the Mediterranean will still be necessary to

restrain the Tripoline cruisers, and the uncertain tenure of peace with

some other of the Barbary Powers may eventually require that force to be

augmented. The necessity of procuring some smaller vessels for that service

will raise the estimate, but the difference in their maintenance will soon

make it a measure of economy.

Presuming it will be deemed expedient to expend annually a convenient sum

toward providing the naval defense which our situation may require, I can

not but recommend that the first appropriations for that purpose may go to

the saving what we already possess. No cares, no attentions, can preserve

vessels from rapid decay which lie in water and exposed to the sun. These

decays require great and constant repairs, and will consume, if continued,

a great portion of the moneys destined to naval purposes. To avoid this

waste of our resources it is proposed to add to our navy-yard here a dock

within which our present vessels may be laid up dry and under cover from

the sun. Under these circumstances experience proves that works of wood

will remain scarcely at all affected by time. The great abundance of

running water which this situation possesses, at heights far above the

level of the tide, if employed as is practiced for lock navigation,

furnishes the means for raising and laying up our vessels on a dry and

sheltered bed. And should the measure be found useful here, similar

depositories for laying up as well as for building and repairing vessels

may hereafter be undertaken at other navy-yards offering the same means.

The plans and estimates of the work, prepared by a person of skill and

experience, will be presented to you without delay, and from this it will

be seen that scarcely more than has been the cost of one vessel is necessary

to save the whole, and that the annual sum to be employed toward its

completion may be adapted to the views of the Legislature as to naval

expenditure. To cultivate peace and maintain commerce and navigation in all

their lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries as nurseries of

navigation and for the nurture of man, and protect the manufactures adapted

to our circumstances; to preserve the faith of the nation by an exact

discharge of its debts and contracts, expend the public money with the same

care and economy we would practice with our own, and impose on our citizens

no unnecessary burthens; to keep in all things within the pale of our

constitutional powers, and cherish the federal union as the only rock of

safety--these, fellow citizens, are the land-marks by which we are to

guide ourselves in all proceedings. By continuing to make these the rule of

our action we shall endear to our country-men the true principles of their

Constitution and promote an union of sentiment and of action equally

auspicious to their happiness and safety. On my part, you may count on a

cordial concurrence in every measure for the public good and on all the

information I possess which may enable you to discharge to advantage the

high functions with which you are invested by your country.

TH. JEFFERSON

State of the Union Address

October 17, 1803

To The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

In calling you together, fellow citizens, at an earlier day than was

contemplated by the act of the last session of Congress, I have not been

insensible to the personal inconveniences necessarily resulting from an

unexpected change in your arrangements, but matters of great public

concernment have rendered this call necessary, and the interests you feel

in these will supersede in your minds all private considerations.

Congress witnessed at their late session the extraordinary agitation

produced in the public mind by the suspension of our right of deposit at

the port of New Orleans, no assignment of another place having been made

according to treaty. They were sensible that the continuance of that

privation would be more injurious to our nation than any consequences which

could flow from any mode of redress, but reposing just confidence in the

good faith of the Government whose officer had committed the wrong,

friendly and reasonable representations were resorted to, and the right of

deposit was restored.

Previous, however, to this period we had not been unaware of the danger to

which our peace would be perpetually exposed whilst so important a key to

the commerce of the Western country remained under foreign power.

Difficulties, too, were presenting themselves as to the navigation of other

streams which, arising within our territories, pass through those adjacent.

Propositions had therefore been authorized for obtaining on fair conditions

the sovereignty of New Orleans and of other possessions in that quarter

interesting to our quiet to such extent as was deemed practicable, and the

provisional appropriation of $2 millions to be applied and accounted

for by the President of the United States, intended as part of the price,

was considered as conveying the sanction of Congress to the acquisition

proposed. The enlightened Government of France saw with just discernment

the importance to both nations of such liberal arrangements as might best

and permanently promote the peace, friendship, and interests of both, and

the property and sovereignty of all Louisiana which had been restored to

them have on certain conditions been transferred to the United States by

instruments bearing date the 30th of April last. When these shall have

received the constitutional sanction of the Senate, they will without delay

be communicated to the Representatives also for the exercise of their

functions as to those conditions which are within the powers vested by the

Constitution in Congress.

Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters

secure an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States and an

uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from collision

with other powers and the dangers to our peace from that source, the

fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise in due season

important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for our posterity, and a

wide spread for the blessings of freedom and equal laws.

With the wisdom of Congress it will rest to take those ulterior measures

which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and temporary

government of the country; for its incorporation into our Union; for

rendering the change of government a blessing to our newly adopted

brethren; for securing to them the rights of conscience and of property;

for confirming to the Indian inhabitants their occupancy and

self-government, establishing friendly and commercial relations with them,

and for ascertaining the geography of the country acquired. Such materials,

for your information, relative to its affairs in general as the short space

of time has permitted me to collect will be laid before you when the

subject shall be in a state for your consideration.

Another important acquisition of territory has also been made since the

last session of Congress. The friendly tribe of Kaskaskia Indians, with

which we have never had a difference, reduced by the wars and wants of

savage life to a few individuals unable to defend themselves against the

neighboring tribes, has transferred its country to the United States,

reserving only for its members what is sufficient to maintain them in an

agricultural way. The considerations stipulated are that we shall extend to

them our patronage and protection and give them certain annual aids in

money, in implements of agriculture, and other articles of their choice.

This country, among the most fertile within our limits, extending along the

Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois to and up to the Ohio, though

not so necessary as a barrier since the acquisition of the other bank, may

yet be well worthy of being laid open to immediate settlement, as its

inhabitants may descend with rapidity in support of the lower country

should future circumstances expose that to foreign enterprise. As the

stipulations in this treaty involve matters with the competence of both

Houses only, it will be laid before Congress as soon as the Senate shall

have advised its ratification.

With many of the other Indian tribes improvements in agriculture and

household manufacture are advancing, and with all our peace and friendship

are established on grounds much firmer than heretofore. The measure adopted

of establishing trading houses among them and of furnishing them

necessaries in exchange for their commodities at such moderate prices as

leave no gain, but cover us from loss, has the most conciliatory and useful

effect on them, and is that which will best secure their peace and good

will.

The small vessels authorized by Congress with a view to the Mediterranean

service have been sent into that sea, and will be able more effectually to

confine the Tripoline cruisers within their harbors and supersede the

necessity of convoy to our commerce in that quarter. They will sensibly

lessen the expenses of that service the ensuing year.

A further knowledge of the ground in the northeastern and northwestern

angles of the United States has evinced that the boundaries established by

the treaty of Paris between the British territories and ours in those parts

were too imperfectly described to be susceptible of execution. It has

therefore been thought worthy of attention for preserving and cherishing

the harmony and useful intercourse subsisting between the two nations to

remove by timely arrangements what unfavorable incidents might otherwise

render a ground of future misunderstanding. A convention has therefore been

entered into which provides for a practicable demarcation of those limits

to the satisfaction of both parties.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the year ending the 30th of

September last, with the estimates for the service of the ensuing year,

will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury so soon as the

receipts of the last quarter shall be returned from the more distant

States. It is already ascertained that the amount paid into the Treasury

for that year has been between $11 millions and $12 millions, and that the

revenue accrued during the same term exceeds the sum counted on as

sufficient for our current expenses and to extinguish the public debt

within the period heretofore proposed.

The amount of debt paid for the same year is about $3.1 millions exclusive

of interest, and making, with the payment of the preceding year, a

discharge of more than $8.5 millions of the principal of that debt,

besides the accruing interest; and there remain in the Treasury nearly

$6 millions. Of these, $880 thousands have been reserved for payment of

the first installment due under the British convention of January 8th,

1802, and $2 millions are what have been before mentioned as placed by

Congress under the power and accountability of the President toward the

price of New Orleans and other territories acquired, which, remaining

untouched, are still applicable to that object and go in diminution of

the sum to be funded for it.

Should the acquisition of Louisiana be constitutionally confirmed and

carried into effect, a sum of nearly $13 millions will then be added to

our public debt, most of which is payable after fifteen years, before

which term the present existing debts will all be discharged by the

established operation of the sinking fund. When we contemplate the

ordinary annual augmentation of impost from increasing population and

wealth, the augmentation of the same revenue by its extension to the new

acquisition, and the economies which may still be introduced into our

public expenditures, I can not but hope that Congress in reviewing

their resources will find means to meet the intermediate interest of

this additional debt without recurring to new taxes, and applying to this

object only the ordinary progression of our revenue. Its extraordinary

increase in times of foreign war will be the proper and sufficient fund

for any measures of safety or precaution which that state of things may

render necessary in our neutral position.

Remittances for the installments of our foreign debt having been found

practicable without loss, it has not been thought expedient to use the

power given by a former act of Congress of continuing them by reloans, and

of redeeming instead thereof equal sums of domestic debt, although no

difficulty was found in obtaining that accommodation.

The sum of $50 thousands appropriated by Congress for providing gun boats

remains unexpended. The favorable and peaceable turn of affairs on the

Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary, and

time was desirable in order that the institution of that branch of our

force might begin on models the most approved by experience. The same

issue of events dispensed with a resort to the appropriation of $1.5

millions, contemplated for purposes which were effected by happier means.

We have seen with sincere concern the flames of war lighted up again in

Europe, and nations with which we have the most friendly and useful

relations engaged in mutual destruction. While we regret the miseries in

which we see others involved, let us bow with gratitude to that kind

Providence which, inspiring with wisdom and moderation our late legislative

councils while placed under the urgency of the greatest wrongs guarded us

from hastily entering into the sanguinary contest and left us only to look

on and pity its ravages.

These will be heaviest on those immediately engaged. Yet the nations

pursuing peace will not be exempt from all evil.

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

interest and desire, to cultivate the friendship of the belligerent nations

by every act of justice and of innocent kindness; to receive their armed

vessels with hospitality from the distresses of the sea, but to administer

the means of annoyance to none; to establish in our harbors such a police

as may maintain law and order; to restrain our citizens from embarking

individually in a war in which their country takes no part; to punish

severely those persons, citizens or alien, who shall usurp the cover of our

flag for vessels not entitled to it, infecting thereby with suspicion those

of real Americans and committing us into controversies for the redress of

wrongs not our own; to exact from every nation the observance toward our

vessels and citizens of those principles and practices which all civilized

people acknowledge; to merit the character of a just nation, and maintain

that of an independent one, preferring every consequence to insult and

habitual wrong. Congress will consider whether the existing laws enable us

efficaciously to maintain this course with our citizens in all places and

with others while within the limits of our jurisdiction, and will give them

the new modifications necessary for these objects. Some contraventions of

right have already taken place, both within our jurisdictional limits and

on the high seas. The friendly disposition of the Governments from whose

agents they have proceeded, as well as their wisdom and regard for justice,

leave us in reasonable expectation that they will be rectified and

prevented in future, and that no act will be countenanced by them which

threatens to disturb our friendly intercourse.

Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe and from the political

interests which entangle them together, with productions and wants which

render our commerce and friendship useful to them and theirs to us, it can

not be the interest of any to assail us, nor ours to disturb them. We

should be most unwise, indeed, were we to cast away the singular blessings

of the position in which nature has placed us, the opportunity she has

endowed us with of pursuing, at a distance from foreign contentions, the

paths of industry, peace, and happiness, of cultivating general friendship,

and of bringing collisions of interest to the umpirage of reason rather

than of force.

How desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its

citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct which

their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those passions and

partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to embarrass and

embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe. Confident, fellow citizens,

that you will duly estimate the importance of neutral dispositions toward

the observance of neutral conduct, that you will be sensible how much it is

our duty to look on the bloody arena spread before us with commiseration

indeed, but with no other wish than to see it closed, I am persuaded you

will cordially cherish these dispositions in all discussions among

yourselves and in all communications with your constituents; and I

anticipate with satisfaction the measures of wisdom which the great

interests now committed to you will give you an opportunity of providing,

and myself that of approving and carrying into execution with the fidelity

I owe to my country.

TH. JEFFERSON

State of the Union Address

November 8, 1804

The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

To a people, fellow citizens, who sincerely desire the happiness and

prosperity of other nations; to those who justly calculate that their own

well-being is advanced by that of the nations with which they have

intercourse, it will be a satisfaction to observe that the war which was

lighted up in Europe a little before our last meeting has not yet extended

its flames to other nations, nor been marked by the calamities which

sometimes stain the foot-steps of war. The irregularities, too, on the

ocean, which generally harass the commerce of neutral nations, have, in

distant parts, disturbed ours less than on former occasions; but in the

American seas they have been greater from peculiar causes, and even within

our harbors and jurisdiction infringements on the authority of the laws

have been committed which have called for serious attention. The friendly

conduct of the Governments from whose officers and subjects these acts have

proceeded, in other respects and in places more under their observation and

control, gives us confidence that our representations on this subject will

have been properly regarded.

While noticing the irregularities committed on the ocean by others, those

on our own part should not be omitted nor left unprovided for. Complaints

have been received that persons residing within the United States have

taken on themselves to arm merchant vessels and to force a commerce into

certain ports and countries in defiance of the laws of those countries.

That individuals should undertake to wage private war, independently of the

authority of their country, can not be permitted in a well-ordered society.

Its tendency to produce aggression on the laws and rights of other nations

and to endanger the peace of our own is so obvious that I doubt not you

will adopt measures for restraining it effectually in future.

Soon after the passage of the act of the last session authorizing the

establishment of a district and port of entry on the waters of the Mobile

we learnt that its object was misunderstood on the part of Spain. Candid

explanations were immediately given and assurances that, reserving our

claims in that quarter as a subject of discussion and arrangement with

Spain, no act was meditated in the mean time inconsistent with the peace

and friendship existing between the two nations, and that conformably to

these intentions would be the execution of the law. That Government had,

however, thought proper to suspend the ratification of the convention of

1802; but the explanations which would reach them soon after, and still

more the confirmation of them by the tenor of the instrument establishing

the port and district, may reasonably be expected to replace them in the

dispositions and views of the whole subject which originally dictated the

convention.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the objections which had been

urged by that Government against the validity of our title to the country

of Louisiana have been withdrawn, its exact limits, however, remaining

still to be settled between us; and to this is to be added that, having

prepared and delivered the stock created in execution of the convention of

Paris of April 30th, 1803, in consideration of the cession of that

country, we have received from the Government of France an acknowledgment,

in due form, of the fulfillment of that stipulation.

With the nations of Europe in general our friendship and intercourse are

undisturbed, and from the Governments of the belligerent powers especially

we continue to receive those friendly manifestations which are justly due

to an honest neutrality and to such good offices consistent with that as we

have opportunities of rendering.

The activity and success of the small force employed in the Mediterranean

in the early part of the present year, the reenforcements sent into that

sea, and the energy of the officers having command in the several vessels

will, I trust, by the sufferings of war, reduce the barbarians of Tripoli

to the desire of peace on proper terms. Great injury, however, ensues to

ourselves, as well as to others interested, from the distance to which

prizes must be brought for adjudication and from the impracticability of

bringing hither such as are not sea worthy.

The Bey of Tunis having made requisitions unauthorized by our treaty, their

rejection has produced from him some expressions of discontent, but to

those who expect us to calculate whether a compliance with unjust demands

will not cost us less than a war we must leave as a question of calculation

for them also whether to retire from unjust demands will not cost them less

than a war. We can do to each other very sensible injuries by war, but the

mutual advantages of peace make that the best interest of both.

Peace and intercourse with the other powers on the same coast continue on

the footing on which they are established by treaty.

In pursuance of the act providing for the temporary government of

Louisiana, the necessary officers for the Territory of Orleans were

appointed in due time to commence the exercise of their functions on the

first day of October. The distance, however, of some of them and

indispensable previous arrangements may have retarded its commencement in

some of its parts. The form of government thus provided having been

considered but as temporary, and open to such future improvements as

further information of the circumstances of our brethren there might

suggest, it will of course be subject to your consideration.

In the district of Louisiana it has been thought best to adopt the division

into subordinate districts which had been established under its former

government. These being five in number, a commanding officer has been

appointed to each, according to the provisions of the law, and so soon as

they can be at their stations that district will also be in its due state

of organization. In the mean time, their places are supplied by the

officers before commanding there, and the function of the governor and

judges of Indiana having commenced, the government, we presume, is

proceeding in its new form. The lead mines in that district offer so rich a

supply of that metal as to merit attention. The report now communicated

will inform you of their state and of the necessity of immediate inquiry

into their occupation and titles.

With the Indian tribes established within our newly acquired limits, I have

deemed it necessary to open conferences for the purpose of establishing a

good understanding and neighborly relations between us. So far as we have

yet learned, we have reason to believe that their dispositions are

generally favorable and friendly; and with these dispositions on their

part, we have in our own hands means which can not fail us for preserving

their peace and friendship. By pursuing an uniform course of justice toward

them, by aiding them in all the improvements which may better their

condition, and especially by establishing a commerce on terms which shall

be advantageous to them and only not losing to us, and so regulated as that

no incendiaries of our own or any other nation may be permitted to disturb

the natural effects of our just and friendly offices, we may render

ourselves so necessary to their comfort and prosperity that the protection

of our citizens from their disorderly members will become their interest

and their voluntary care. Instead, therefore, of an augmentation of

military force proportioned to our extension of frontier, I propose a

moderate enlargement of the capital employed in that commerce as a more

effectual, economical, and humane instrument for preserving peace and good

neighborhood with them.

On this side of the Mississippi an important relinquishment of native title

has been received from the Delawares. That tribe, desiring to extinguish in

their people the spirit of hunting and to convert superfluous lands into

the means of improving what they retain, has ceded to us all the country

between the Wabash and Ohio south of and including the road from the rapids

toward Vincennes, for which they are to receive annuities in animals and

implements for agriculture and in other necessaries. This acquisition is

important, not only for its extent and fertility, but as fronting three

hundred miles on the Ohio, and near half that on the Wabash. The produce

of the settled country descending those rivers will no longer pass in

review of the Indian frontier but in a small portion, and, with the

cession heretofore made by the Kaskaskias, nearly consolidates our

possessions north of the Ohio, in a very respectable breadth--from Lake

Erie to the Mississippi. The Piankeshaws having some claim to the country

ceded by the Delawares, it has been thought best to quiet that by fair

purchase also. So soon as the treaties on this subject shall have received

their constitutional sanctions they shall be laid before both houses.

The act of Congress of February 28th, 1803, for building and employing a

number of gun boats, is now in a course of execution to the extent there

provided for. The obstacle to naval enterprise which vessels of this

construction offer for our sea port towns, their utility toward supporting

within our waters the authority of the laws, the promptness with which they

will be manned by the sea men and militia of the place in the moment they

are wanting, the facility of their assembling from different parts of the

coast to any point where they are required in greater force than ordinary,

the economy of their maintenance and preservation from decay when not in

actual service, and the competence of our finances to this defensive

provision without any new burthen are considerations which will have due

weight with Congress in deciding on the expediency of adding to their

number from year to year, as experience shall test their utility, until all

our important harbors, by these and auxiliary means, shall be secured

against insult and opposition to the laws.

No circumstance has arisen since your last session which calls for any

augmentation of our regular military force. Should any improvement occur in

the militia system, that will be always seasonable.

Accounts of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, with estimates

for the ensuing one, will as usual be laid before you.

The state of our finances continues to fulfill our expectations. $11.5

millions, received in the course of the year ending the 30th of September

last, have enabled us, after meeting all the ordinary expenses of the

year, to pay upward of $3.6 millions of the public debt, exclusive of

interest. This payment, with those of the two preceding years, has

extinguished upward of $12 millions of the principal and a greater sum

of interest within that period, and by a proportionate diminution of

interest renders already sensible the effect of the growing sum yearly

applicable to the discharge of the principal.

It is also ascertained that the revenue accrued during the last year

exceeds that of the preceding, and the probable receipts of the ensuing

year may safely be relied on as sufficient, with the sum already in the

Treasury, to meet all the current demands of the year, to discharge upward

of $3.5 millions of the engagements incurred under the British and French

conventions, and to advance in the further redemption of the funded debt as

rapidly as had been contemplated.

These, fellow citizens, are the principal matters which I have thought it

necessary at this time to communicate for your consideration and attention.

Some others will be laid before you in the course of the session; but in

the discharge of the great duties confided to you by our country you will

take a broader view of the field of legislation.

Whether the great interests of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, or

navigation can within the pale of your constitutional powers be aided in

any of their relations; whether laws are provided in all cases where they

are wanting; whether those provided are exactly what they should be; whether

any abuses take place in their administration, or in that of the public

revenues; whether the organization of the public agents or of the public

force is perfect in all its parts; in fine, whether anything can be done to

advance the general good, are questions within the limits of your functions

which will necessarily occupy your attention. In these and all other

matters which you in your wisdom may propose for the good of our country,

you may count with assurance on my hearty cooperation and faithful

execution.

TH. JEFFERSON

State of the Union Address

December 3, 1805

The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming against

each other, and when those with whom we have principal intercourse are

engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them

toward our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be unaffected

by what is passing on the general theater, a meeting of the representatives

of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually

desirable. Coming from every section of our country, they bring with them

the sentiments and the information of the whole, and will be enabled to

give a direction to the public affairs which the will and the wisdom of the

whole will approve and support.

In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place notice

the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever which in

latter times has occasionally visited our shores. Providence in His

goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened the

number of victims which have usually fallen before it. In the course of the

several visitations by this disease it has appeared that it is strictly

local, incident to cities and on the tide waters only, incommunicable in

the country either by persons under the disease or by goods carried from

diseased places; that its access is with the autumn and it disappears with

the early frosts.

These restrictions within narrow limits of time and space give security

even to our maritime cities during three quarter of the year, and to the

country always. Although from these facts it appears unnecessary, yet to

satisfy the fears of foreign nations and cautions on their part not to be

complained of in a danger whose limits are yet unknown to them I have

strictly enjoined on the officers at the head of the customs to certify

with exact truth for every vessel sailing for a foreign port the state of

health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she

sails. Under every motive from character and duty to certify the truth, I

have no doubt they have faithfully executed this injunction. Much real

injury has, however, been sustained from a propensity to identify with this

endemic and to call by the same name fevers of very different kinds, which

have been known at all times and in all countries, and never have been

placed among those deemed contagious.

As we advance in our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the source

from which individuals receive it, the State authorities charged with the

care of the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce,

will become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in

these departments. The burthen of quarantines is felt at home as well as

abroad; their efficacy merits examination. Although the health laws of the

States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet commerce

claims that their attention be ever awake to them.

Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has considerably

changed. Our coasts have been infested and our harbors watched by private

armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal

commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing practical acts

beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very

entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels

of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also. They have carried

them off under pretense of legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a

court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way or in

obscure places where no evidence could arise against them, maltreated the

crews, and abandoned them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores

without food or clothing. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any

control of their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to

cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions

found hovering on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to

bring the offenders in for trial as pirates.

The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors under color of

seeking enemies has been also carried on by public armed ships to the great

annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too, have been

interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in justice nor in the

usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these a belligerent takes

to itself a commerce with its own enemy which it denies to a neutral on the

ground of its aiding that enemy in the war; but reason revolts at such

inconsistency, and the neutral having equal right with the belligerent to

decide the question, the interests of our constituents and the duty of

maintaining the authority of reason, the only umpire between just nations,

impose on us the obligation of providing an effectual and determined

opposition to a doctrine so injurious to the rights of peaceable nations.

Indeed, the confidence we ought to have in the justice of others still

countenances the hope that a sounder view of those rights will of itself

induce from every belligerent a more correct observance of them.

With Spain our negotiations for a settlement of differences have not had a

satisfactory issue. Spoliations during a former war, for which she had

acknowledged herself responsible, have been refused to be compensated but

on conditions affecting other claims in no wise connected with them. Yet

the same practices are renewed in the present war and are already of great

amount. On the Mobile, our commerce passing through that river continues to

be obstructed by arbitrary duties and vexatious searches. Propositions for

adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana have not been acceded to.

While, however, the right is unsettled, we have avoided changing the state

of things by taking new posts or strengthening ourselves in the disputed

territories, in the hope that the other power would not by a contrary

conduct oblige us to meet their example and endanger conflicts of authority,

the issue of which may not be easily controlled. But in this hope we

have now reason to lessen our confidence.

Inroads have been recently made into the Territories of Orleans and the

Mississippi, our citizens have been seized and their property plundered in

the very parts of the former which had been actually delivered up by Spain,

and this by the regular officers and soldiers of that Government. I have

therefore found it necessary at length to give orders to our troops on that

frontier to be in readiness to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms

any similar aggressions in future. Other details necessary for your full

information of the state of things between this country and that shall be

the subject of another communication.

In reviewing these injuries from some of the belligerent powers the

moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom of the Legislature will be called

into action. We ought still to hope that time and a more correct estimate

of interest as well as of character will produce the justice we are bound

to expect, but should any nation deceive itself by false calculations, and

disappoint that expectation, we must join in the unprofitable contest of

trying which party can do the other the most harm.

Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where that is

competent it is always the most desirable. But some of them are of a nature

to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it. I can not,

therefore, but recommend such preparations as circumstances call for.

The first object is to place our sea port towns out of the danger of

insult. Measures have been already taken for furnishing them with heavy

cannon for the service of such land batteries as may make a part of their

defense against armed vessels approaching them. In aid of these it is

desirable we should have a competent number of gun boats, and the number,

to be competent, must be considerable. If immediately begun, they may be in

readiness for service at the opening of the next season.

Whether it will be necessary to augment our land forces will be decided by

occurrences probably in the course of your session. In the mean time you

will consider whether it would not be expedient for a state of peace as

well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable us on

any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger portions,

unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward of three

hundred thousand able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years,

which the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will

furnish a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they

may be wanted, and will give time for raising regular forces after the

necessity of them shall become certain; and the reducing to the early

period of life all its active service can not but be desirable to our

younger citizens of the present as well as future times, in as much as it

engages to them in more advanced age a quiet and undisturbed repose in

the bosom of their families. I can not, then, but earnestly recommend to

your early consideration the expediency of so modifying our militia

system as, by a separation of the more active part from that which is

less so, we may draw from it when necessary an efficient corps fit for

real and active service, and to be called to it in regular rotation.

Considerable provision has been made under former authorities from Congress

of material for the construction of ships of war of 74 guns. These

materials are on hand subject to the further will of the Legislature.

An immediate prohibition of the exportation of arms and ammunition is also

submitted to your determination.

Turning from these unpleasant views of violence and wrong, I congratulate

you on the liberation of our fellow citizens who were stranded on the coast

of Tripoli and made prisoners of war. In a government bottomed on the will

of all the life and liberty of every individual citizen become interesting

to all.

In the treaty, therefore, which has concluded our warfare with that State

an article for the ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation

by land by a small band of our country-men and others, engaged for the

occasion in conjunction with the troops of the ex-Bashaw of that country,

gallantly conducted by our late consul, Eaton, and their successful

enterprise on the city of Derne, contributed doubtless to the impression

which produced peace, and the conclusion of this prevented opportunities of

which the officers and men of our squadron destined for Tripoli would have

availed themselves to emulate the acts of valor exhibited by their brethren

in the attack of the last year. Reflecting with high satisfaction on the

distinguished bravery displayed whenever occasions permitted it in the late

Mediterranean service, I think it would be an useful encouragement as well

as a just reward to make an opening for some present promotion by enlarging

our peace establishment of captains and lieutenants.

With Tunis some misunderstandings have arisen not yet sufficiently

explained, but friendly discussions with their ambassador recently arrived

and a mutual disposition to do whatever is just and reasonable can not fail

of dissipating these, so that we may consider our peace on that coast,

generally, to be on as sound a footing as it has been at any preceding

time. Still, it will not be expedient to withdraw immediately the whole of

our force from that sea.

The law providing for a naval peace establishment fixes the number of

frigates which shall be kept in constant service in time of peace, and

prescribes that they shall be manned by not more than two-thirds of their

complement of sea men and ordinary sea men. Whether a frigate may be

trusted to two-thirds only of her proper complement of men must depend on

the nature of the service on which she is ordered; that may sometimes, for

her safety as well as to insure her object, require her fullest complement.

In adverting to this subject Congress will perhaps consider whether the

best limitation on the Executive discretion in this case would not be by

the number of sea men which may be employed in the whole service rather

than by the number of vessels. Occasions oftener arise for the employment

of small than of large vessels, and it would lessen risk as well as

expense to be authorized to employ them of preference. The limitation

suggested by the number of sea men would admit a selection of vessels

best adapted to the service.

Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them with spirit, and others

beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household

manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields subsistence

with less labor and more certainty than the forest, and find it their

interest from time to time to dispose of parts of their surplus and waste

lands for the means of improving those they occupy and of subsisting their

families while they are preparing their farms. Since your last session the

Northern tribes have sold to us the lands between the Connecticut Reserve

and the former Indian boundary and those on the Ohio from the same boundary

to the rapids and for a considerable depth inland. The Chickasaws and

Cherokees have sold us the country between and adjacent to the two

districts of Tennessee, and the Creeks the residue of their lands in the

fork of the Ocmulgee up to the Ulcofauhatche. The three former purchases

are important, in as much as they consolidate disjoined parts of our

settled country and render their intercourse secure; and the second

particularly so, as, with the small point on the river which we expect is

by this time ceded by the Piankeshaws, it completes our possession of the

whole of both banks of the Ohio from its source to near its mouth, and the

navigation of that river is thereby rendered forever safe to our citizens

settled and settling on its extensive waters. The purchase from the Creeks,

too, has been for some time particularly interesting to the State of

Georgia.

The several treaties which have been mentioned will be submitted to both

Houses of Congress for the exercise of their respective functions.

Deputations now on their way to the seat of Government from various nations

of Indians inhabiting the Missouri and other parts beyond the Mississippi

come charged with assurances of their satisfaction with the new relations

in which they are placed with us, of their dispositions to cultivate our

peace and friendship, and their desire to enter into commercial intercourse

with us. A state of our progress in exploring the principal rivers of that

country, and of the information respecting them hitherto obtained, will be

communicated as soon as we shall receive some further relations which we

have reason shortly to expect.

The receipts of the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of

September last have exceeded the sum of $13 millions, which, with not

quite $5 millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have

enabled us after meeting other demands to pay nearly $2 millions of the

debt contracted under the British treaty and convention, upward of $4

millions of principal of the public debt, and $4 millions of interest.

These payments, with those which had been made in three years and a half

preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly $18 millions of

principal. Congress by their act of November 10th, 1803, authorized us to

borrow $1.75 millions toward meeting the claims of our citizens assumed by

the convention with France. We have not, however, made use of this

authority, because the sum of $4.5 millions, which remained in the

Treasury on the same 30th day of September last, with the receipts of

which we may calculate on for the ensuing year, besides paying the annual

sum of $8 millions appropriated to the funded debt and meeting all the

current demands which may be expected, will enable us to pay the whole

sum of $3.75 millions assumed by the French convention and still leave

us a surplus of nearly $1 million at our free disposal. Should you

concur in the provisions of arms and armed vessels recommended by the

circumstances of the times, this surplus will furnish the means of doing

so.

On this first occasion of addressing Congress since, by the choice of my

constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I embrace

the opportunity to give this public assurance that I will exert my best

endeavors to administer faithfully the executive department, and will

zealously cooperate with you in every measure which may tend to secure the

liberty, property, and personal safety of our fellow citizens, and to

consolidate the republican forms and principles of our Government.

In the course of your session you shall receive all the aid which I can

give for the dispatch of public business, and all the information necessary

for your deliberations, of which the interests of our own country and the

confidence reposed in us by others will admit a communication.

TH. JEFFERSON

State of the Union Address

December 2, 1806

The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

It would have given me, fellow citizens, great satisfaction to announce in

the moment of your meeting that the difficulties in our foreign relations

existing at the time of your last separation had been amicably and justly

terminated. I lost no time in taking those measures which were most likely

to bring them to such a termination--by special missions charged with such

powers and instructions as in the event of failure could leave no

imputation on either our moderation or forbearance. The delays which have

since taken place in our negotiations with the British Government appear to

have proceeded from causes which do not forbid the expectation that during

the course of the session I may be enabled to lay before you their final

issue. What will be that of the negotiations for settling our differences

with Spain nothing which had taken place at the date of the last dispatches

enables us to pronounce. On the western side of the Mississippi she

advanced in considerable force, and took post at the settlement of Bayou

Pierre, on the Red River. This village was originally settled by France,

was held by her as long as she held Louisiana, and was delivered to Spain

only as a part of Louisiana. Being small, insulated, and distant, it was

not observed at the moment of redelivery to France and the United States

that she continued a guard of half a dozen men which had been stationed

there. A proposition, however, having been lately made by our commander in

chief to assume the Sabine River as a temporary line of separation between

the troops of the two nations until the issue of our negotiations shall be

known, this has been referred by the Spanish commandant to his superior,

and in the mean time he has withdrawn his force to the western side of the

Sabine River. The correspondence on this subject now communicated will

exhibit more particularly the present state of things in that quarter.

The nature of that country requires indispensably that an unusual

proportion of the force employed there should be cavalry or mounted

infantry. In order, therefore, that the commanding officer might be enabled

to act with effect, I had authorized him to call on the governors of

Orleans and Mississippi for a corps of five hundred volunteer cavalry.

The temporary arrangement he has proposed may perhaps render this

unnecessary; but I inform you with great pleasure of the promptitude with

which the inhabitants of those Territories have tendered their services in

defense of their country. It has done honor to themselves, entitled them

to the confidence of their fellow citizens in every part of the Union,

and must strengthen the general determination to protect them

efficaciously under all circumstances which may occur.

Having received information that in another part of the United States a

great number of private individuals were combining together, arming and

organizing themselves contrary to law, to carry on a military expedition

against the territories of Spain, I thought it necessary, by proclamation

as well as by special orders, to take measures for preventing and

suppressing this enterprise, for seizing the vessels, arms, and other means

provided for it, and for arresting and bringing to justice its authors and

abettors. It was due to that good faith which ought ever to be the rule of

action in public as well as in private transactions, it was due to good

order and regular government, that while the public force was acting

strictly on defensive and merely to protect our citizens from aggression

the criminal attempts of private individuals to decide for their country

the question of peace or war by commencing active and unauthorized

hostilities should be promptly and efficaciously suppressed.

Whether it will be necessary to enlarge our regular forces will depend on

the result of our negotiations with Spain; but as it is uncertain when that

result will be known, the provisional measures requisite for that, and to

meet any pressure intervening in that quarter, will be a subject for your

early consideration.

The possession of both banks of the Mississippi reducing to a single point

the defense of that river, its waters, and the country adjacent, it becomes

highly necessary to provide for that point a more adequate security. Some

position above its mouth, commanding the passage of the river, should be

rendered sufficiently strong to cover the armed vessels which may be

stationed there for defense, and in conjunction with them to present an

insuperable obstacle to any force attempting to pass. The approaches to the

city of New Orleans from the eastern quarter also will require to be

examined and more effectually guarded. For the internal support of the

country the encouragement of a strong settlement on the western side of the

Mississippi, within reach of New Orleans, will be worthy the consideration

of the Legislature.

The gun boats authorized by an act of the last session are so advanced that

they will be ready for service in the ensuing spring. Circumstances

permitted us to allow the time necessary for their more solid construction.

As a much larger number will still be wanting to place our sea port towns

and waters in that state of defense to which we are competent and they

entitled, a similar appropriation for a further provision for them is

recommended for the ensuing year.

A further appropriation will also be necessary for repairing fortifications

already established and the erection of such other works as may have real

effect in obstructing the approach of an enemy to our sea port towns, or

their remaining before them.

In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people,

directly expressed by their free suffrages; where the principal executive

functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them at short

periods; where under the character of jurors they exercise in person the

greatest portion of the judiciary powers; where the laws are consequently

so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all,

restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to

everyone the property which that acquires, it would not be supposed that

any safe-guards could be needed against insurrection or enterprise on the

public peace or authority. The laws, however, aware that these should not

be trusted to moral restraints only, have wisely provided punishment for

these crimes when committed. But would it not be salutary to give also the

means of preventing their commission? Where an enterprise is meditated by

private individuals against a foreign nation in amity with the United

States, powers of prevention to a certain extent are given by the laws.

Would they not be as reasonable and useful where the enterprise preparing

is against the United States? While adverting to this branch of law it is

proper to observe that in enterprises meditated against foreign nations the

ordinary process of binding to the observance of the peace and good

behavior, could it be extended to acts to be done out of the jurisdiction

of the United States, would be effectual in some cases where the offender

is able to keep out of sight every indication of his purpose which could

draw on him the exercise of the powers now given by law.

The States on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present to

respect our peace and friendship; with Tunis alone some uncertainty

remains. Persuaded that it is our interest to maintain our peace with them

on equal terms or not at all, I propose to send in due time a reenforcement

into the Mediterranean unless previous information shall show it to be

unnecessary.

We continue to receive proofs of the growing attachment of our Indian

neighbors and of their dispositions to place all their interests under the

patronage of the United States. These dispositions are inspired by their

confidence in our justice and in the sincere concern we feel for their

welfare; and as long as we discharge these high and honorable functions

with the integrity and good faith which alone can entitle us to their

continuance we may expect to reap the just reward in their peace and

friendship.

The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke for exploring the river Missouri

and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean has had all the

success which could have been expected. They have traced the Missouri

nearly to its source, descended the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean,

ascertained with accuracy the geography of that interesting communication

across our continent, learnt the character of the country, of its commerce

and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke

and their brave companions have by this arduous service deserved well of

their country.

The attempt to explore the Red River, under the direction of Mr. Freeman,

though conducted with a zeal and prudence meriting entire approbation, has

not been equally successful. After proceeding up it about six hundred

miles, nearly as far as the French settlements had extended while the

country was in their possession, our geographers were obliged to return

without completing their work.

Very useful additions have also been made to our knowledge of the

Mississippi by Lieutenant Pike, who has ascended it to its source, and

whose journal and map, giving the details of his journey, will shortly be

ready for communication to both Houses of Congress. Those of Messrs. Lewis,

Clarke, and Freeman will require further time to be digested and prepared.

These important surveys, in addition to those before possessed, furnish

materials for commencing an accurate map of the Mississippi and its western

waters. Some principal rivers, however, remain still to be explored, toward

which the authorization of Congress by moderate appropriations will be

requisite.

I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at which

you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw the citizens

of the United States from all further participation in those violations of

human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending

inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best

of our country have long been eager to proscribe. Although no law you may

pass can take prohibitory effect until the first day of the year 1808,

yet the intervening period is not too long to prevent by timely notice

expeditions which can not be completed before that day.

The receipts at the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of

September last have amounted to near $15 millions, which have enabled us,

after meeting the current demands, to pay $2.7 millions of the American

claims in part of the price of Louisiana; to pay of the funded debt upward

of $3 millions of principal and nearly $4 millions of interest, and, in

addition, to reimburse in the course of the present month near $2

millions of 5.5% stock. These payments and reimbursements of the funded

debt, with those which had been made in the four years and a half

preceding, will at the close of the present year have extinguished upward

of $23 millions of principal.

The duties composing the Mediterranean fund will cease by law at the end of

the present session. Considering, however, that they are levied chiefly on

luxuries and that we have an impost on salt, a necessary of life, the free

use of which otherwise is so important, I recommend to your consideration

the suppression of the duties on salt and the continuation of the

Mediterranean fund instead thereof for a short time, after which that also

will become unnecessary for any purpose now within contemplation.

When both of these branches of revenue shall in this way be relinquished

there will still ere long be an accumulation of moneys in the Treasury

beyond the installments of public debt which we are permitted by contract

to pay. They can not then, without a modification assented to by the public

creditors, be applied to the extinguishment of this debt and the complete

liberation of our revenues, the most desirable of all objects. Nor, if our

peace continues, will they be wanting for any other existing purpose. The

question therefore now comes forward, To what other objects shall these

surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of impost, after the

entire discharge of the public debt, and during those intervals when the

purposes of war shall not call for them? Shall we suppress the impost and

give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures? On a few

articles of more general and necessary use the suppression in due season

will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost

is paid are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough

to afford themselves the use of them.

Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to

the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such

other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to

the constitutional enumeration of Federal powers. By these operations new

channels of communications will be opened between the States, the lines of

separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their

union cemented by new and indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among

the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its

ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so

much better all the concerns to which it is equal, but a public institution

can alone supply those sciences which though rarely called for are yet

necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the

improvement of the country and some of them to its preservation.

The subject is now proposed for the consideration of Congress, because if

approved by the time the State legislatures shall have deliberated on this

extension of the Federal trusts, and the laws shall be passed and other

arrangements made for their execution, the necessary funds will be on hand

and without employment.

I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States,

necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those

enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys

to be applied.

The present consideration of a national establishment for education

particularly is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if

Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible to

found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to endow

it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the necessary

income. This foundation would have the advantage of being independent of

war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring for its own purposes

the resources destined for them.

This, fellow citizens, is the state of the public interests at the present

moment and according to the information now possessed. But such is the

situation of the nations of Europe and such, too, the predicament in which

we stand with some of them that we can not rely with certainty on the

present aspect of our affairs, that may change from moment to moment during

the course of your session or after you shall have separated.

Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are and to make a

reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised

whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have

been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which

have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take

place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, pace in preparation for the defense

of our sea port towns and waters; an early settlement of the most exposed

and vulnerable parts of our country; a militia so organized that its

effective portions can be called to any point in the Union, or volunteers

instead of them to serve a sufficient time, are means which may always be

ready, yet never preying on our resources until actually called into use.

They will maintain the public interests while a more permanent force shall

be in course of preparation. But much will depend on the promptitude with

which these means can be brought into activity. If war be forced upon us,

in spite of our long and vain appeals to the justice of nations, rapid and

vigorous movements in its outset will go far toward securing us in its

course and issue, and toward throwing its burthens on those who render

necessary the resort from reason to force.

The result of our negotiations, or such incidents in their course as may

enable us to infer their probable issue; such further movements also on our

western frontiers as may shew whether war is to be pressed there while

negotiation is protracted elsewhere, shall be communicated to you from time

to time as they become known to me, with whatever other information I

possess or may receive, which may aid your deliberations on the great

national interests committed to your charge.

TH. JEFFERSON

State of the Union Address

October 27, 1807

The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

Circumstances, fellow citizens, which seriously threatened the peace of our

country have made it a duty to convene you at an earlier period than usual.

The love of peace so much cherished in the bosoms of our citizens, which

has so long guided the proceedings of their public councils and induced

forbearance under so many wrongs, may not insure our continuance in the

quiet pursuits of industry. The many injuries and depredations committed on

our commerce and navigation upon the high seas for years past, the

successive innovations on those principles of public law which have been

established by the reason and usage of nations as the rule of their

intercourse and the umpire and security of their rights and peace, and all

the circumstances which induced the extraordinary mission to London are

already known to you.

The instructions given to our ministers were framed in the sincerest spirit

of amity and moderation. They accordingly proceeded, in conformity

therewith, to propose arrangements which might embrace and settle all the

points in difference between us, which might bring us to a mutual

understanding on our neutral and national rights and provide for a

commercial intercourse on conditions of some equality. After long and

fruitless endeavors to effect the purposes of their mission and to obtain

arrangements within the limits of their instructions, they concluded to

sign such as could be obtained and to send them for consideration, candidly

declaring to the other negotiators at the same time that they were acting

against their instructions, and that their Government, therefore, could not

be pledged for ratification.

Some of the articles proposed might have been admitted on a principle of

compromise, but others were too highly disadvantageous, and no sufficient

provision was made against the principal source of the irritations and

collisions which were constantly endangering the peace of the two nations.

The question, therefore, whether a treaty should be accepted in that form

could have admitted but of one decision, even had no declarations of the

other party impaired our confidence in it. Still anxious not to close the

door against friendly adjustment, new modifications were framed and further

concessions authorized than could before have been supposed necessary; and

our ministers were instructed to resume their negotiations on these

grounds.

On this new reference to amicable discussion we were reposing in

confidence, when on the 22nd day of June last by a formal order from a

British admiral the frigate Chesapeake, leaving her port for a distant

service, was attacked by one of those vessels which had been lying in our

harbors under the indulgences of hospitality, was disabled from proceeding,

had several of her crew killed and four taken away. On this outrage no

commentaries are necessary. Its character has been pronounced by the

indignant voices of our citizens with an emphasis and unanimity never

exceeded. I immediately, by proclamation, interdicted our harbors and

waters to all British armed vessels, forbade intercourse with them, and

uncertain how far hostilities were intended, and the town of Norfolk,

indeed, being threatened with immediate attack, a sufficient force was

ordered for the protection of that place, and such other preparations

commenced and pursued as the prospect rendered proper. An armed vessel of

the United States was dispatched with instructions to our ministers at

London to call on that Government for the satisfaction and security

required by the outrage. A very short interval ought now to bring the

answer, which shall be communicated to you as soon as received; then also,

or as soon after as the public interests shall be found to admit, the

unratified treaty and proceedings relative to it shall be made known to

you.

The aggression thus begun has been continued on the part of the British

commanders by remaining within our waters in defiance of the authority of

the country, by habitual violations of its jurisdiction, and at length by

putting to death one of the persons whom they had forcibly taken from on

board the Chesapeake. These aggravations necessarily lead to the policy

either of never admitting an armed vessel into our harbors or of

maintaining in every harbor such an armed force as may constrain obedience

to the laws and protect the lives and property of our citizens against

their armed guests; but the expense of such a standing force and its

inconsistence with our principles dispense with those courtesies which

would necessarily call for it, and leave us equally free to exclude the

navy, as we are the army, of a foreign power from entering our limits.

To former violations of maritime rights another is now added of very

extensive effect. The Government of that nation has issued an order

interdicting all trade by neutrals between ports not in amity with them;

and being now at war with nearly every nation on the Atlantic and

Mediterranean seas, our vessels are required to sacrifice their cargoes at

the first port they touch or to return home without the benefit of going to

any other market. Under this new law of the ocean our trade on the

Mediterranean has been swept away by seizures and condemnations, and that

in other seas is threatened with the same fate.

Our differences with Spain remain still unsettled, no measure having been

taken on her part since my last communications to Congress to bring them to

a close. But under a state of things which may favor reconsideration they

have been recently pressed, and an expectation is entertained that they may

now soon be brought to an issue of some sort. With their subjects on our

borders no new collisions have taken place nor seem immediately to be

apprehended. To our former grounds of complaint has been added a very

serious one, as you will see by the decree a copy of which is now

communicated. Whether this decree, which professes to be conformable to

that of the French Government of November 21st, 1806, heretofore

communicated to Congress, will also be conformed to that in its

construction and application in relation to the United States had not

been ascertained at the date of our last communications. These, however,

gave reason to expect such a conformity.

With the other nations of Europe our harmony has been uninterrupted, and

commerce and friendly intercourse have been maintained on their usual

footing.

Our peace with the several states on the coast of Barbary appears as firm

as at any former period and as likely to continue as that of any other

nation.

Among our Indian neighbors in the northwestern quarter some fermentation

was observed soon after the late occurrences, threatening the continuance

of our peace. Messages were said to be interchanged and tokens to be

passing, which usually denote a state of restless among them, and the

character of the agitators pointed to the sources of excitement. Measures

were immediately taken for providing against that danger; instructions were

given to require explanations, and, with assurances of our continued

friendship, to admonish the tribes to remain quiet at home, taking no part

in quarrels not belonging to them. As far as we are yet informed, the

tribes in our vicinity, who are most advanced in the pursuits of industry,

are sincerely disposed to adhere to their friendship with us and to their

peace with all others, while those more remote do not present appearances

sufficiently quiet to justify the intermission of military precaution on

our part.

The great tribes on our southwestern quarter, much advanced beyond the

others in agriculture and household arts, appear tranquil and identifying

their views with ours in proportion to their advancement. With the whole of

these people, in every quarter, I shall continue to inculcate peace and

friendship with all their neighbors and perseverance in those occupations

and pursuits which will best promote their own well-being.

The appropriations of the last session for the defense of our sea port

towns and harbors were made under expectation that a continuance of our

peace would permit us to proceed in that work according to our convenience.

It has been thought better to apply the sums then given toward the defense

of New York, Charleston, and New Orleans chiefly, as most open and most

likely first to need protection, and to leave places less immediately in

danger to the provisions of the present session.

The gun boats, too, already provided have on a like principle been chiefly

assigned to New York, New Orleans, and the Chesapeake. Whether our movable

force on the water, so material in aid of the defensive works on the land,

should be augmented in this or any other form is left to the wisdom of the

Legislature. For the purpose of manning these vessels in sudden attacks on

our harbors it is a matter for consideration whether the sea men of the

United States may not justly be formed into a special militia, to be called

on for tours of duty in defense of the harbors where they shall happen to

be, the ordinary militia of the place furnishing that portion which may

consist of landsmen.

The moment our peace was threatened I deemed it indispensable to secure a

greater provision of those articles of military stores with which our

magazines were not sufficiently furnished. To have awaited a previous and

special sanction by law would have lost occasions which might not be

retrieved. I did not hesitate, therefore, to authorize engagements for such

supplements to our existing stock as would render it adequate to the

emergencies threatening us, and I trust that the Legislature, feeling the

same anxiety for the safety of our country, so materially advanced by this

precaution, will approve, when done, what they would have seen so important

to be done if then assembled. Expenses, also unprovided for, arose out of

the necessity of calling all our gun boats into actual service for the

defense of our harbors; all of which accounts will be laid before you.

Whether a regular army is to be raised, and to what extent, must depend on

the information so shortly expected. In the mean time I have called on the

States for quotas of militia, to be in readiness for present defense, and

have, moreover, encouraged the acceptance of volunteers; and I am happy to

inform you that these have offered themselves with great alacrity in every

part of the Union. They are ordered to be organized and ready at a

moment's warning to proceed on any service to which they may be

called, and every preparation within the Executive powers has been made to

insure us the benefit of early exertions.

I informed Congress at their last session of the enterprises against the

public peace which were believed to be in preparation by Aaron Burr and his

associates, of the measures taken to defeat them and to bring the offenders

to justice. Their enterprises were happily defeated by the patriotic

exertions of the militia whenever called into action, by the fidelity of

the Army, and energy of the commander in chief in promptly arranging the

difficulties presenting themselves on the Sabine, repairing to meet those

arising on the Mississippi, and dissipating before their explosion plots

engendering there. I shall think it my duty to lay before you the

proceedings and the evidence publicly exhibited on the arraignment of the

principal offenders before the circuit court of Virginia.

You will be enabled to judge whether the defect was in the testimony, in

the law, or in the administration of the law; and wherever it shall be

found, the Legislature alone can apply or originate the remedy. The framers

of our Constitution certainly supposed they had guarded as well their

Government against destruction by treason as their citizens against

oppression under pretense of it, and if these ends are not attained it is

of importance to inquire by what means more effectual they may be secured.

The accounts of the receipts of revenue during the year ending on the 30th

day of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement will be

hereafter transmitted from the Treasury. In the mean time, it is

ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $16 millions, which,

with the $5.5 millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have

enabled us, after meeting the current demands and interest incurred, to

pay more than $4 millions of the principal of our funded debt. These

payments, with those of the preceding five and a half years, have

extinguished of the funded debt $25.5 millions, being the whole which

could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and of our

contracts, and have left us in the Treasury $8.5 millions.

A portion of this sum may be considered as a commencement of accumulation

of the surpluses of revenue which, after paying the installments of debt as

they shall become payable, will remain without any specific object. It may

partly, indeed, be applied toward completing the defense of the exposed

points of our country, on such a scale as shall be adapted to our

principles and circumstances. This object is doubtless among the first

entitled to attention in such a state of our finances, and it is one which,

whether we have peace or war, will provide security where it is due.

Whether what shall remain of this, with the future surpluses, may be

usefully applied to purposes already authorized or more usefully to others

requiring new authorities, or how otherwise they shall be disposed of, are

questions calling for the notice of Congress, unless, indeed, they shall be

superseded by a change in our public relations now awaiting the

determination of others. Whatever be that determination, it is a great

consolation that it will become known at a moment when the supreme council

of the nation is assembled at its post, and ready to give the aids of its

wisdom and authority to whatever course the good of our country shall then

call us to pursue.

Matters of minor importance will be the subjects of future communications,

and nothing shall be wanting on my part which may give information or

dispatch to the proceedings of the Legislature in the exercise of their

high duties, and at a moment so interesting to the public welfare.

TH. JEFFERSON

State of the Union Address

November 8, 1808

The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

It would have been a source, fellow citizens, of much gratification if our

last communications from Europe had enabled me to inform you that the

belligerent nations, whose disregard of neutral rights has been so

destructive to our commerce, had become awakened to the duty and true

policy of revoking their unrighteous edicts. That no means might be omitted

to produce this salutary effect, I lost no time in availing myself of the

act authorizing a suspension, in whole or in part, of the several embargo

laws. Our ministers at London and Paris were instructed to explain to the

respective Governments there our disposition to exercise the authority in

such manner as would withdraw the pretext on which the aggressions were

originally founded and open the way for a renewal of that commercial

intercourse which it was alleged on all sides had been reluctantly

obstructed.

As each of those Governments had pledged its readiness to concur in

renouncing a measure which reached its adversary through the incontestable

rights of neutrals only, and as the measure had been assumed by each as a

retaliation for an asserted acquiescence in the aggression of the other, it

was reasonably expected that the occasion would have been seized by both

for evincing the sincerity of their professions, and for restoring to the

commerce of the United States its legitimate freedom. The instructions to

our ministers with respect to the different belligerents were necessarily

modified with a reference to their different circumstances, and to the

condition annexed by law to the Executive power of suspension, requiring a

decree of security to our commerce which would not result from a repeal of

the decrees of France. Instead of a pledge, therefore, of a suspension of

the embargo as to her in case of such a repeal, it was presumed that a

sufficient inducement might be found in other considerations, and

particularly in the change produced by a compliance with our just demands

by one belligerent and a refusal by the other in the relations between the

other and the United States.

To Great Britain, whose power on the ocean is so ascendant, it was deemed

not inconsistent with that condition to state explicitly that on her

rescinding her orders in relation to the United States their trade would be

opened with her, and remain shut to her enemy in case of his failure to

rescind his decrees also. From France no answer has been received, nor any

indication that the requisite change in her decrees is contemplated. The

favorable reception of the proposition to Great Britain was the less to be

doubted, as her orders of council had not only been referred for their

vindication to an acquiescence on the part of the United States no longer

to be pretended, but as the arrangement proposed, whilst it resisted the

illegal decrees of France, involved, moreover, substantially the precise

advantages professedly aimed at by the British orders. The arrangement has

nevertheless been rejected.

This candid and liberal experiment having thus failed, and no other event

having occurred on which a suspension of the embargo by the Executive was

authorized, it necessarily remains in the extent originally given to it. We

have the satisfaction, however, to reflect that in return for the

privations imposed by the measure, and which our fellow citizens in general

have borne with patriotism, it has had the important effects of saving our

mariners and our vast mercantile property, as well as of affording time for

prosecuting the defensive and provisional measures called for by the

occasion. It has demonstrated to foreign nations the moderation and

firmness which govern our councils, and to our citizens the necessity of

uniting in support of the laws and the rights of their country, and has

thus long frustrated those usurpations and spoliations which, if resisted,

involved war; if submitted to, sacrificed a vital principle of our national

independence.

Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which, in defiance of laws

which consecrate the rights of neutrals, overspread the ocean with danger,

it will rest with the wisdom of Congress to decide on the course best

adapted to such a state of things; and bringing with them, as they do, from

every part of the Union the sentiments of our constituents, my confidence

is strengthened that in forming this decision they will, with an unerring

regard to the essential rights and interests of the nation, weigh and

compare the painful alternatives out of which a choice is to be made. Nor

should I do justice to the virtues which on other occasions have marked the

character of our fellow citizens if I did not cherish an equal confidence

that the alternative chosen, whatever it may be, will be maintained with

all the fortitude and patriotism which the crisis ought to inspire.

The documents containing the correspondences on the subject of the foreign

edicts against our commerce, with the instructions given to our ministers

at London and Paris, are now laid before you.

The communications made to Congress at their last session explained the

posture in which the close of the discussions relating to the attack by a

British ship of war on the frigate Chesapeake left a subject on which the

nation had manifested so honorable a sensibility. Every view of what had

passed authorized a belief that immediate steps would be taken by the

British Government for redressing a wrong which the more it was

investigated appeared the more clearly to require what had not been

provided for in the special mission. It is found that no steps have been

taken for the purpose. On the contrary, it will be seen in the documents

laid before you that the inadmissible preliminary which obstructed the

adjustment is still adhered to, and, moreover, that it is now brought into

connection with the distinct and irrelative case of the orders in council.

The instructions which had been given to our minister at London with a view

to facilitate, if necessary, the reparation claimed by the United States

are included in the documents communicated.

Our relations with the other powers of Europe have undergone no material

changes since your last session. The important negotiations with Spain

which had been alternately suspended and resumed necessarily experience a

pause under the extraordinary and interesting crisis which distinguishes

her internal situation.

With the Barbary Powers we continue in harmony, with the exception of an

unjustifiable proceeding of the Dey of Algiers toward our consul to that

Regency. Its character and circumstances are now laid before you, and will

enable you to decide how far it may, either now or hereafter, call for any

measures not within the limits of the Executive authority.

With our Indian neighbors the public peace has been steadily maintained.

Some instances of individual wrong have, as at other times, taken place,

but in no wise implicating the will of the nation. Beyond the Mississippi

the Ioways, the Sacs and the Alabamas have delivered up for trial and

punishment individuals from among themselves accused of murdering citizens

of the United States. On this side of the Mississippi the Creeks are

exerting themselves to arrest offenders of the same kind, and the Choctaws

have manifested their readiness and desire for amicable and just

arrangements respecting depredations committed by disorderly persons of

their tribe. And, generally, from a conviction that we consider them as a

part of ourselves, and cherish with sincerity their rights and interests,

the attachment of the Indian tribes is gaining strength daily--is

extending from the nearer to the more remote, and will amply requite us for

the justice and friendship practiced toward them. Husbandry and household

manufacture are advancing among them more rapidly with the Southern than

Northern tribes, from circumstances of soil and climate, and one of the two

great divisions of the Cherokee Nation have now under consideration to

solicit the citizenship of the United States, and to be identified with us

in laws and government in such progressive manner as we shall think best.

In consequence of the appropriations of the last session of Congress for

the security of our sea port towns and harbors, such works of defense have

been erected as seemed to be called for by the situation of the several

places, their relative importance, and the scale of expense indicated by

the amount of the appropriation. These works will chiefly be finished in

the course of the present season, except at New York and New Orleans, where

most was to be done; and although a great proportion of the last

appropriation has been expended on the former place, yet some further views

will be submitted to Congress for rendering its security entirely adequate

against naval enterprise. A view of what has been done at the several

places, and of what is proposed to be done, shall be communicated as soon

as the several reports are received.

Of the gun boats authorized by the act of December last, it has been

thought necessary to build only one hundred and three in the present year.

These, with those before possessed, are sufficient for the harbors and

waters most exposed, and the residents will require little time for their

construction when it shall be deemed necessary.

Under the act of the last session for raising an additional military force

so many officers were immediately appointed as were necessary for carrying

on the business of recruiting, and in proportion as it advanced others have

been added. We have reason to believe their success has been satisfactory,

although such returns have not yet been received as enable me to present

you a statement of the numbers engaged.

I have not thought it necessary in the course of the last season to call

for any general detachments of militia or of volunteers under the laws

passed for that purpose. For the ensuing season, however, they will be

required to be in readiness should their service be wanted. Some small and

special detachments have been necessary to maintain the laws of embargo on

that portion of our northern frontier which offered peculiar facilities for

evasion, but these were replaced as soon as it could be done by bodies of

new recruits. By the aid of these and of the armed vessels called into

service in other quarters the spirit of disobedience and abuse, which

manifested itself early and with sensible effect while we were unprepared

to meet it, has been considerably repressed.

Considering the extraordinary character of the times in which we live, our

attention should unremittingly be fixed on the safety of our country. For a

people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed

militia is their best security. It is therefore incumbent on us at every

meeting to revise the condition of the militia, and to ask ourselves if it

is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at every point of our territories

exposed to invasion. Some of the States have paid a laudable attention to

this object, but every degree of neglect is to be found among others.

Congress alone having the power to produce an uniform state of preparation

in this great organ of defense, the interests which they so deeply feel in

their own and their country's security will present this as among the most

important objects of their deliberation.

Under the acts of March 11th and April 23rd respecting arms, the

difficulty of procuring them from abroad during the present situation

and dispositions of Europe induced us to direct our whole efforts to the

means of internal supply. The public factories have therefore been

enlarged, additional machineries erected, and, in proportion as

artificers can be found or formed, their effect, already more than

doubled, may be increased so as to keep pace with the yearly increase

of the militia. The annual sums appropriated by the latter have been

directed to the encouragement of private factories of arms, and contracts

have been entered into with individual undertakers to nearly the amount

of the first year's appropriation.

The suspension of our foreign commerce, produced by the injustice of the

belligerent powers and the consequent losses and sacrifices of our citizens

are subjects of just concern. The situation into which we have thus been

forced has impelled us to apply a portion of our industry and capital to

internal manufactures and improvements. The extent of this conversion is

daily increasing, and little doubt remains that the establishments formed

and forming will, under the auspices of cheaper materials and subsistence,

the freedom of labor from taxation with us, and of protecting duties and

prohibitions, become permanent. The commerce with the Indians, too, within

our own boundaries is likely to receive abundant aliment from the same

internal source, and will secure to them peace and the progress of

civilization, undisturbed by practices hostile to both.

The accounts of the receipts and expenditures during the year ending the

30th of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement will

hereafter be transmitted from the Treasury. In the mean time it is

ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $18 millions, which,

with the $8.5 millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have

enabled us, after meeting the current demands and interest incurred, to

pay $2.3 millions of the principal of our funded debt, and left us in

the Treasury on that day near $14 millions. Of these, $5.35 millions will

be necessary to pay what will be due on the 1st day of January next, which

will complete the reimbursement of the 8% stock. These payments, with

those made in the six and a half years preceding, will have extinguished

$33.58 millions of the principal of the funded debt, being the whole which

could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and of our

contracts, and the amount of principal thus discharged will have liberated

the revenue from about $2 millions of interest and added that sum annually

to the disposable surplus.

The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be

applied to the payment of the public debt whenever the freedom and safety

of our commerce shall be restored merits the consideration of Congress.

Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be

reduced? Or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improvements of

roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity

and union under the powers which Congress may already possess or such

amendment to the Constitution as may be approved by the States? While

uncertain of the course of things, the time may be advantageously employed

in obtaining the powers necessary for a system of improvement, should that

be thought best.

Availing myself of this the last occasion which will occur of addressing

the two Houses of the Legislature at their meeting, I can not omit the

expression of my sincere gratitude for the repeated proofs of confidence

manifested to me by themselves and their predecessors since my call to the

administration and the many indulgences experienced at their hands. These

same grateful acknowledgements are due to my fellow citizens generally,

whose support has been my great encouragement under all embarrassments. In

the transaction of their business I can not have escaped error. It is

incident to our imperfect nature. But I may say with truth my errors have

been of the understanding, not of intention, and that the advancement of

their rights and interests has been the constant motive for every measure.

On these considerations I solicit their indulgence. Looking forward with

anxiety to future destinies, I trust that in their steady character,

unshaken by difficulties, in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and

support of the public authorities, I see a sure guaranty of the permanence

of our Republic; and, retiring from the charge of their affairs, I carry

with me the consolation of a firm persuasion that Heaven has in store for

our beloved country long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.

TH. JEFFERSON

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