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A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS.

BY JAMES D. RICHARDSON


James Madison

March 4, 1809, to March 4, 1817




James Madison


James Madison was born in King George County, Va., on the 16th of March,
1751. He was the son of James Madison, the family being of English
descent, and among the early settlers of Virginia. Was fitted for
college by private tutors, and entered Princeton College in 1769,
graduating in 1771; remained a year at college pursuing his studies.
After this he returned to Virginia and began the practice of law. In
1776 was elected a member of the general assembly of Virginia, and in
1778 was appointed a member of the executive council. In the winter of
1779-80 was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, of which body
he continued an active and prominent member till 1784. The legislature
of Virginia appointed him in 1786 a delegate to a convention at
Annapolis, Md., to devise a system of commercial regulations for all the
States. Upon their recommendation a convention of delegates from all the
States was held in Philadelphia in May, 1787. This Convention framed the
Constitution of the United States, and of it Mr. Madison was a leading
member. He was next a member of the convention of his State which met to
consider the new Constitution for the United States. Was a member of the
House of Representatives in the First Congress, taking his seat in
April, 1789, and continued to be a member of the House during both of
Washington's terms as President. He married Mrs. Dolly Paine Todd, of
Philadelphia, in 1794, she being the widow of a Pennsylvania lawyer. Her
father was a Quaker, and had removed from Virginia to Philadelphia.
Declined the office of Secretary of State, vacated by Jefferson, in
1793. He retired from Congress in 1797, and in 1798 accepted a seat in
the Virginia assembly. In 1801 was appointed by President Jefferson
Secretary of State, which office he held during the eight years of
Jefferson's Administration. In 1808 was elected President, and was
reelected in 1812. On March 4, 1817, he retired from public life, and
passed the remainder of his days at Montpelier, in Orange County, Va. In
1829 was chosen a member of the State convention to revise the
constitution of Virginia, and was also chosen president of an
agricultural society in his county. He died on the 28th day of June,
1836, and was buried at his home.




LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ELECT.

The President of the Senate communicated the following letter from the
President elect of the United States:

CITY OF WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1809_.

Hon. JOHN MILLEDGE,

_President pro tempore of the Senate_.

SIR: I beg leave through you to inform the honorable the Senate of the
United States that I propose to take the oath which the Constitution
prescribes to the President of the United States before he enters on the
execution of his office on Saturday, the 4th instant, at 12 o'clock, in
the Chamber of the House of Representatives.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,

JAMES MADISON.




FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.


Unwilling to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I avail
myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound impression
made on me by the call of my country to the station to the duties of
which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So
distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate and
tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would under any
circumstances have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as well as
filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be assumed. Under the
various circumstances which give peculiar solemnity to the existing
period, I feel that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to me
are inexpressibly enhanced.

The present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel, and
that of our own country full of difficulties. The pressure of these,
too, is the more severely felt because they have fallen upon us at a
moment when the national prosperity being at a height not before
attained, the contrast resulting from the change has been rendered the
more striking. Under the benign influence of our republican
institutions, and the maintenance of peace with all nations whilst so
many of them were engaged in bloody and wasteful wars, the fruits of a
just policy were enjoyed in an unrivaled growth of our faculties and
resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improvements of agriculture,
in the successful enterprises of commerce, in the progress of
manufactures and useful arts, in the increase of the public revenue and
the use made of it in reducing the public debt, and in the valuable
works and establishments everywhere multiplying over the face of our
land.

It is a precious reflection that the transition from this prosperous
condition of our country to the scene which has for some time been
distressing us is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor, as I
trust, on any involuntary errors in the public councils. Indulging no
passions which trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it
has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by
observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect of the
nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations with the most
scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor in the world, the truth of
these assertions will not be questioned; posterity at least will do
justice to them.

This unexceptionable course could not avail against the injustice and
violence of the belligerent powers. In their rage against each other, or
impelled by more direct motives, principles of retaliation have been
introduced equally contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law.
How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite of the
demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given by the
United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to induce a
revocation of them, can not be anticipated. Assuring myself that under
every vicissitude the determined spirit and united councils of the
nation will be safeguards to its honor and its essential interests, I
repair to the post assigned me with no other discouragement than what
springs from my own inadequacy to its high duties. If I do not sink
under the weight of this deep conviction it is because I find some
support in a consciousness of the purposes and a confidence in the
principles which I bring with me into this arduous service.

To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having
correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward
belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and
reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an
appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities,
so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a
spirit of independence too just to invade the rights of others, too
proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices
ourselves and too elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold
the union of the States as the basis of their peace and happiness; to
support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in
its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and
authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally
incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system; to
avoid the slightest interference with the rights of conscience or the
functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to
preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of
private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press; to observe
economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public resources by an
honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the requisite
limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and
trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics--that without
standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large
ones safe; to promote by authorized means improvements friendly to
agriculture, to manufactures, and to external as well as internal
commerce; to favor in like manner the advancement of science and the
diffusion of information as the best aliment to true liberty; to carry
on the benevolent plans which have been so meritoriously applied to the
conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and
wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the improvements of
which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized
state--as far as sentiments and intentions such as these can aid the
fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me.

It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path in which I am to tread
lighted by examples of illustrious services successfully rendered in the
most trying difficulties by those who have marched before me. Of those
of my immediate predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I
may, however, be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with which my
heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the benedictions of a
beloved country, gratefully bestowed for exalted talents zealously
devoted through a long career to the advancement of its highest interest
and happiness.

But the source to which I look for the aids which alone can supply my
deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my
fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the
other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In
these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to
that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and
guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of
nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this
rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout
gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best
hopes for the future.

MARCH 4, 1809.




SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.


_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

On this first occasion of meeting you it affords me much satisfaction to
be able to communicate the commencement of a favorable change in our
foreign relations, the critical state of which induced a session of
Congress at this early period.

In consequence of the provisions of the act interdicting commercial
intercourse with Great Britain and France, our ministers at London and
Paris were without delay instructed to let it be understood by the
French and British Governments that the authority vested in the
Executive to renew commercial intercourse with their respective nations
would be exercised in the case specified by that act.

Soon after these instructions were dispatched it was found that the
British Government, anticipating from early proceedings of Congress at
their last session the state of our laws, which has had the effect of
placing the two belligerent powers on a footing of equal restrictions,
and relying on the conciliatory disposition of the United States, had
transmitted to their legation here provisional instructions not only to
offer satisfaction for the attack on the frigate _Chesapeake_, and
to make known the determination of His Britannic Majesty to send an
envoy extraordinary with powers to conclude a treaty on all the points
between the two countries, but, moreover, to signify his willingness in
the meantime to withdraw his orders in council, in the persuasion that
the intercourse with Great Britain would be renewed on the part of the
United States.

These steps of the British Government led to the correspondence and the
proclamation now laid before you, by virtue of which the commerce
between the two countries will be renewable after the 10th day of June
next.

Whilst I take pleasure in doing justice to the councils of His Britannic
Majesty, which, no longer adhering to the policy which made an
abandonment by France of her decrees a prerequisite to a revocation of
the British orders, have substituted the amicable course which has
issued thus happily, I can not do less than refer to the proposal
heretofore made on the part of the United States, embracing a like
restoration of the suspended commerce, as a proof of the spirit of
accommodation which has at no time been intermitted, and to the result
which now calls for our congratulations, as corroborating the principles
by which the public councils have been guided during a period of the
most trying embarrassments.

The discontinuance of the British orders as they respect the United
States having been thus arranged, a communication of the event has been
forwarded in one of our public vessels to our minister plenipotentiary
at Paris, with instructions to avail himself of the important addition
thereby made to the considerations which press on the justice of the
French Government a revocation of its decrees or such a modification of
them as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the
United States.

The revision of our commercial laws proper to adapt them to the
arrangement which has taken place with Great Britain will doubtless
engage the early attention of Congress. It will be worthy at the same
time of their just and provident care to make such further alterations
in the laws as will more especially protect and foster the several
branches of manufacture which have been recently instituted or extended
by the laudable exertions of our citizens.

Under the existing aspect of our affairs I have thought it not
inconsistent with a just precaution to have the gunboats, with the
exception of those at New Orleans, placed in a situation incurring no
expense beyond that requisite for their preservation and conveniency for
future service, and to have the crews of those at New Orleans reduced to
the number required for their navigation and safety.

I have thought also that our citizens detached in quotas of militia
amounting to 100,000 under the act of March, 1808, might not improperly
be relieved from the state in which they were held for immediate
service. A discharge of them has been accordingly directed.

The progress made in raising and organizing the additional military
force, for which provision was made by the act of April, 1808, together
with the disposition of the troops, will appear by a report which the
Secretary of War is preparing, and which will be laid before you.

Of the additional frigates required by an act of the last session to be
fitted for actual service, two are in readiness, one nearly so, and the
fourth is expected to be ready in the month of July. A report which the
Secretary of the Navy is preparing on the subject, to be laid before
Congress, will shew at the same time the progress made in officering and
manning these ships. It will shew also the degree in which the
provisions of the act relating to the other public armed ships have been
carried into execution.

It will rest with the judgment of Congress to decide how far the change
in our external prospects may authorize any modifications of the laws
relating to the army and navy establishments.

The works of defense for our seaport towns and harbors have proceeded
with as much activity as the season of the year and other circumstances
would admit. It is necessary, however, to state that, the appropriations
hitherto made being found to be deficient, a further provision will
claim the early consideration of Congress.

The whole of the 8 per cent stock remaining due by the United States,
amounting to $5,300,000, had been reimbursed on the last day of the year
1808; and on the 1st day of April last the sum in the Treasury exceeded
$9,500,000. This, together with the receipts of the current year on
account of former revenue bonds, will probably be nearly if not
altogether sufficient to defray the expenses of the year. But the
suspension of exports and the consequent decrease of importations during
the last twelve months will necessarily cause a great diminution in the
receipts of the year 1810. After that year, should our foreign relations
be undisturbed, the revenue will again be more than commensurate to all
the expenditures.

Aware of the inconveniences of a protracted session at the present
season of the year, I forbear to call the attention of the Legislature
to any matters not particularly urgent. It remains, therefore, only to
assure you of the fidelity and alacrity with which I shall cooperate
for the welfare and happiness of our country, and to pray that it may
experience a continuance of the divine blessings by which it has been
so signally favored.

JAMES MADISON.

MAY 23, 1809.





SPECIAL MESSAGES.


MAY 26, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I now lay before Congress the report of the Secretary of War, shewing
the progress made in carrying into effect the act of April, 1808, for
raising an additional military force, and the disposition of the troops.

JAMES MADISON.



JUNE 4, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the request of the legislature of Pennsylvania, I
transmit to Congress a copy of certain of its proceedings, communicated
for the purpose by the governor of that State.

JAMES MADISON.



JUNE 15, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 13th instant,
I transmit extracts from letters from Mr. Pinkney to the Secretary of
State, accompanied by letters and communications to him from the British
secretary of state for the foreign department, all of which have been
received here since the last session of Congress.

To these documents are added a communication just made by Mr. Erskine
to the Secretary of State, and his answer.

JAMES MADISON.



JUNE 20, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 19th instant, I
transmit such information as has been received respecting exiles from
Cuba arrived or expected within the United States; also a letter from
General Turreau connected with that subject.

JAMES MADISON.



JUNE 26, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

The considerations which led to the nomination of a minister
plenipotentiary to Russia being strengthened by evidence since received
of the earnest desire of the Emperor to establish a diplomatic
intercourse between the two countries, and of a disposition in his
councils favorable to the extension of a commerce mutually advantageous,
as will be seen by the extracts from letters from General Armstrong and
Consul Harris herewith confidentially communicated, I nominate John
Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, to be minister plenipotentiary of the
United States to the Court of St. Petersburg.

JAMES MADISON.




PROCLAMATIONS.


[From Annals of Congress, Eleventh Congress, part 2, 2060.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it is provided by the eleventh section of the act of Congress
entitled "An act to interdict the commercial intercourse between the
United States and Great Britain and France and their dependencies, and
for other purposes," that "in case either France or Great Britain shall
so revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the
neutral commerce of the United States" the President is authorized to
declare the same by proclamation, after which the trade suspended by the
said act and by an act laying an embargo on all ships and vessels in the
ports and harbors of the United States and the several acts
supplementary thereto may be renewed with the nation so doing; and

Whereas the Honorable David Montague Erskine, His Britannic Majesty's
envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, has, by the order and
in the name of his Sovereign, declared to this Government that the
British orders in council of January and November, 1807, will have been
withdrawn as respects the United States on the 10th day of June next:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States, do
hereby proclaim that the orders in council aforesaid will have been
withdrawn on the said 10th day of June next, after which day the trade
of the United States with Great Britain, as suspended by the act of
Congress above mentioned and an act laying an embargo on all ships and
vessels in the ports and harbors of the United States and the several
acts supplementary thereto, may be renewed.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at Washington,
the 19th day of April, A.D. 1809, and of the Independence of the United
States the thirty-third.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  R. SMITH,
    _Secretary of State_.



[From Annals of Congress, Eleventh Congress, part 2, 2076.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, in consequence of a communication from His Britannic Majesty's
envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary declaring that the
British orders of council of January and November, 1807, would have been
withdrawn on the 10th day of June last, and by virtue of authority given
in such event by the eleventh section of the act of Congress entitled
"An act to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United
States and Great Britain and France and their dependencies, and for
other purposes," I, James Madison, President of the United States, did
issue my proclamation bearing date on the 19th of April last, declaring
that the orders in council aforesaid would have been so withdrawn on the
said 10th day of June, after which the trade suspended by certain acts
of Congress might be renewed; and

Whereas it is now officially made known to me that the said orders in
council have not been withdrawn agreeably to the communication and
declaration aforesaid:

I do hereby proclaim the same, and, consequently, that the trade
renewable on the event of the said orders, being withdrawn, is to be
considered as under the operation of the several acts by which such
trade was suspended.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of
Washington, the 9th day of August, A.D. 1809, and of the Independence
of the said United States the thirty-fourth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  R. SMITH,
    _Secretary of State_.




FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.


NOVEMBER 29, 1809.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

At the period of our last meeting I had the satisfaction of
communicating an adjustment with one of the principal belligerent
nations, highly important in itself, and still more so as presaging a
more extended accommodation. It is with deep concern I am now to inform
you that the favorable prospect has been overclouded by a refusal of the
British Government to abide by the act of its minister plenipotentiary,
and by its ensuing policy toward the United States as seen through the
communications of the minister sent to replace him.

Whatever pleas may be urged for a disavowal of engagements formed by
diplomatic functionaries in cases where by the terms of the engagements
a mutual ratification is reserved, or where notice at the time may have
been given of a departure from instructions, or in extraordinary cases
essentially violating the principles of equity, a disavowal could not
have been apprehended in a case where no such notice or violation
existed, where no such ratification was reserved, and more especially
where, as is now in proof, an engagement to be executed without any such
ratification was contemplated by the instructions given, and where it
had with good faith been carried into immediate execution on the part of
the United States.

These considerations not having restrained the British Government from
disavowing the arrangement by virtue of which its orders in council were
to be revoked, and the event authorizing the renewal of commercial
intercourse having thus not taken place, it necessarily became a
question of equal urgency and importance whether the act prohibiting
that intercourse was not to be considered as remaining in legal force.
This question being, after due deliberation, determined in the
affirmative, a proclamation to that effect was issued. It could not but
happen, however, that a return to this state of things from that which
had followed an execution of the arrangement by the United States would
involve difficulties. With a view to diminish these as much as possible,
the instructions from the Secretary of the Treasury now laid before you
were transmitted to the collectors of the several ports. If in
permitting British vessels to depart without giving bonds not to proceed
to their own ports it should appear that the tenor of legal authority
has not been strictly pursued, it is to be ascribed to the anxious
desire which was felt that no individuals should be injured by so
unforeseen an occurrence; and I rely on the regard of Congress for
the equitable interests of our own citizens to adopt whatever further
provisions may be found requisite for a general remission of penalties
involuntarily incurred.

The recall of the disavowed minister having been followed by the
appointment of a successor, hopes were indulged that the new mission
would contribute to alleviate the disappointment which had been
produced, and to remove the causes which had so long embarrassed the
good understanding of the two nations. It could not be doubted that it
would at least be charged with conciliatory explanations of the step
which had been taken and with proposals to be substituted for the
rejected arrangement. Reasonable and universal as this expectation was,
it also has not been fulfilled. From the first official disclosures of
the new minister it was found that he had received no authority to enter
into explanations relative to either branch of the arrangement disavowed
nor any authority to substitute proposals as to that branch which
concerned the British orders in council, and, finally, that his
proposals with respect to the other branch, the attack on the frigate
_Chesapeake_, were founded on a presumption repeatedly declared to
be inadmissible by the United States, that the first step toward
adjustment was due from them, the proposals at the same time omitting
even a reference to the officer answerable for the murderous aggression,
and asserting a claim not less contrary to the British laws and British
practice than to the principles and obligations of the United States.

The correspondence between the Department of State and this minister
will show how unessentially the features presented in its commencement
have been varied in its progress. It will show also that, forgetting the
respect due to all governments, he did not refrain from imputations on
this, which required that no further communications should be received
from him. The necessity of this step will be made known to His Britannic
Majesty through the minister plenipotentiary of the United States in
London; and it would indicate a want of the confidence due to a
Government which so well understands and exacts what becomes foreign
ministers near it not to infer that the misconduct of its own
representative will be viewed in the same light in which it has been
regarded here. The British Government will learn at the same time that
a ready attention will be given to communications through any channel
which may be substituted. It will be happy if the change in this respect
should be accompanied by a favorable revision of the unfriendly policy
which has been so long pursued toward the United States.

With France, the other belligerent, whose trespasses on our commercial
rights have long been the subject of our just remonstrances, the posture
of our relations does not correspond with the measures taken on the part
of the United States to effect a favorable change. The result of the
several communications made to her Government, in pursuance of the
authorities vested by Congress in the Executive, is contained in the
correspondence of our minister at Paris now laid before you.

By some of the other belligerents, although professing just and amicable
dispositions, injuries materially affecting our commerce have not been
duly controlled or repressed. In these cases the interpositions deemed
proper on our part have not been omitted. But it well deserves the
consideration of the Legislature how far both the safety and the honor
of the American flag may be consulted, by adequate provisions against
that collusive prostitution of it by individuals unworthy of the
American name which has so much favored the real or pretended suspicions
under which the honest commerce of their fellow-citizens has suffered.

In relation to the powers on the coast of Barbary, nothing has occurred
which is not of a nature rather to inspire confidence than distrust as
to the continuance of the existing amity. With our Indian neighbors, the
just and benevolent system continued toward them has also preserved
peace, and is more and more advancing habits favorable to their
civilization and happiness.

From a statement which will be made by the Secretary of War it will be
seen that the fortifications on our maritime frontier are in many of the
ports completed, affording the defense which was contemplated, and that
a further time will be required to render complete the works in the
harbor of New York and in some other places. By the enlargement of the
works and the employment of a greater number of hands at the public
armories the supply of small arms of an improving quality appears to be
annually increasing at a rate that, with those made on private contract,
may be expected to go far toward providing for the public exigency.

The act of Congress providing for the equipment of our vessels of war
having been fully carried into execution, I refer to the statement of
the Secretary of the Navy for the information which may be proper on
that subject. To that statement is added a view of the transfers of
appropriations authorized by the act of the session preceding the last
and of the grounds on which the transfers were made.

Whatever may be the course of your deliberations on the subject of our
military establishments, I should fail in my duty in not recommending
to your serious attention the importance of giving to our militia, the
great bulwark of our security and resource of our power, an organization
the best adapted to eventual situations for which the United States
ought to be prepared.

The sums which had been previously accumulated in the Treasury, together
with the receipts during the year ending on the 30th of September last
(and amounting to more than $9,000,000), have enabled us to fulfill all
our engagements and to defray the current expenses of Government without
recurring to any loan. But the insecurity of our commerce and the
consequent diminution of the public revenue will probably produce a
deficiency in the receipts of the ensuing year, for which and for other
details I refer to the statements which will be transmitted from the
Treasury.

In the state which has been presented of our affairs with the great
parties to a disastrous and protracted war, carried on in a mode equally
injurious and unjust to the United States as a neutral nation, the
wisdom of the National legislature will be again summoned to the
important decision on the alternatives before them. That these will be
met in a spirit worthy the councils of a nation conscious both of its
rectitude and of its rights, and careful as well of its honor as of its
peace, I have an entire confidence; and that the result will be stamped
by a unanimity becoming the occasion, and be supported by every portion
of our citizens with a patriotism enlightened and invigorated by
experience, ought as little to be doubted.

In the midst of the wrongs and vexations experienced from external
causes there is much room for congratulation on the prosperity and
happiness flowing from our situation at home. The blessing of health
has never been more universal. The fruits of the seasons, though in
particular articles and districts short of their usual redundancy, are
more than sufficient for our wants and our comforts. The face of our
country everywhere presents the evidence of laudable enterprise, of
extensive capital, and of durable improvement. In a cultivation of the
materials and the extension of useful manufactures, more especially
in the general application to household fabrics, we behold a rapid
diminution of our dependence on foreign supplies. Nor is it unworthy
of reflection that this revolution in our pursuits and habits is in no
slight degree a consequence of those impolitic and arbitrary edicts by
which the contending nations, in endeavoring each of them to obstruct
our trade with the other, have so far abridged our means of procuring
the productions and manufactures of which our own are now taking the
place.

Recollecting always that for every advantage which may contribute to
distinguish our lot from that to which others are doomed by the unhappy
spirit of the times we are indebted to that Divine Providence whose
goodness has been so remarkably extended to this rising nation, it
becomes us to cherish a devout gratitude, and to implore from the same
omnipotent source a blessing on the consultations and measures about to
be undertaken for the welfare of our beloved country.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 12, 1809.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

According to the request of the House of Representatives expressed in
their resolution of the 11th instant, I now lay before them a printed
copy of a paper purporting to be a circular letter from Mr. Jackson to
the British consuls in the United States, as received in a Gazette at
the Department of State; and also a printed paper received in a letter
from our minister in London, purporting to be a copy of a dispatch from
Mr. Canning to Mr. Erskine of the 23d of January last.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 16, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Agreeably to the request in the resolution of the 15th instant, I
transmit a copy of the correspondence with the governor of Pennsylvania
in the case of Gideon Olmstead,

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 16, 1809.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Agreeably to the request expressed in the resolution of the 13th
instant, I lay before the House extracts from the correspondence of the
minister plenipotentiary of the United States at London.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 22, 1809.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration whether they will
advise and consent to the ratification thereof, a treaty concluded on
the 30th September last with the Delaware, Potawattamie, Miami, and
Eel-river Miami Indian tribes northwest of the Ohio; a separate article
of the same date, with the said tribes, and a convention with the Weea
tribe, concluded on the 26th October last; the whole being accompanied
with the explanatory documents,

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 3, 1810.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The act authorizing a detachment of 100,000 men from the militia will
expire on the 30th of March next. Its early revival is recommended, in
order that timely steps may be taken for arrangements such as the act
contemplated.

Without interfering with the modifications rendered necessary by the
defects or the inefficacy of the laws restrictive of commerce and
navigation, or with the policy of disallowing to foreign armed vessels
the use of our waters, it falls within my duty to recommend also that,
in addition to the precautionary measure authorized by that act and to
the regular troops for completing the legal establishment of which
enlistments are renewed, every necessary provision may be made for a
volunteer force of 20,000 men, to be enlisted for a short period and
held in a state of organization and readiness for actual service at the
shortest warning.

I submit to the consideration of Congress, moreover, the expediency of
such a classification and organization of the militia as will best
insure prompt and successive aids from that source, adequate to
emergencies which may call for them.

It will rest with them also to determine how far further provision may
be expedient for putting into actual service, if necessary, any part of
the naval armament not now employed.

At a period presenting features in the conduct of foreign powers toward
the United States which impose on them the necessity of precautionary
measures involving expense, it is a happy consideration that such is the
solid state of the public credit that reliance may be justly placed on
any legal provision that may be made for resorting to it in a convenient
form and to an adequate amount,

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 9, 1810.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration whether they will
advise and consent to the ratification thereof, a treaty concluded on
the 9th day of December last with the Kickapoo tribe of Indians,
accompanied by explanations in an extract of a letter from the governor
of the Indiana Territory,

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 15, 1810.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration whether they will
advise and consent to the ratification thereof, a treaty concluded with
the Great and Little Osage Indians on the 10th day of November, 1808,
and the 31st day of August, 1809.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 22, 1810.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit to the Senate a report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
complying with their resolution of the 27th of December, on the subject
of disbursements in the intercourse with the Barbary Powers.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 28, 1810.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now lay before you copies of the treaties concluded with the Delaware,
Pottawatamie, Miami, Eel River, and Wea tribes of Indians for the
extinguishment of their title to the lands therein described, and I
recommend to the consideration of Congress the making provision by law
for carrying them into execution.

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 15, 1810.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

A treaty having been entered into and duly ratified with the Kickapoo
tribe of Indians for the extinguishment of their title to certain lands
within the Indiana Territory, involving conditions which require
legislative provision, I submit copies thereof to both branches for
consideration.

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 27, 1810,

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

In consequence of your resolution of the 26th instant, an inquiry has
been made into the correspondence of our minister at the Court of London
with the Department of State, from which it appears that no official
communication has been received from him since his receipt of the letter
of November 23 last from the Secretary of State. A letter of January 4,
1810, has been received from that minister by Mr. Smith, but being
stated to be private and unofficial, and involving, moreover, personal
considerations of a delicate nature, a copy is considered as not within
the purview of the call of the House.

JAMES MADISON.




PROCLAMATIONS.


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the territory south of the Mississippi Territory and eastward of
the river Mississippi, and extending to the river Perdido, of which
possession was not delivered to the United States in pursuance of the
treaty concluded at Paris on the 30th April, 1803, has at all times, as
is well known, been considered and claimed by them as being within the
colony of Louisiana conveyed by the said treaty in the same extent that
it had in the hands of Spain and that it had when France originally
possessed it; and

Whereas the acquiescence of the United States in the temporary
continuance of the said territory under the Spanish authority was not
the result of any distrust of their title, as has been particularly
evinced by the general tenor of their laws and by the distinction made
in the application of those laws between that territory and foreign
countries, but was occasioned by their conciliatory views and by a
confidence in the justice of their cause and in the success of candid
discussion and amicable negotiation with a just and friendly power; and

Whereas a satisfactory adjustment, too long delayed, without the fault
of the United States, has for some time been entirely suspended by
events over which they had no control; and

Whereas a crisis has at length arrived subversive of the order of things
under the Spanish authorities, whereby a failure of the United States
to take the said territory into its possession may lead to events
ultimately contravening the views of both parties, whilst in the
meantime the tranquillity and security of our adjoining territories are
endangered and new facilities given to violations of our revenue and
commercial laws and of those prohibiting the introduction of slaves;

Considering, moreover, that under these peculiar and imperative
circumstances a forbearance on the part of the United States to occupy
the territory in question, and thereby guard against the confusions and
contingencies which threaten it, might be construed into a dereliction
of their title or an insensibility to the importance of the stake;
considering that in the hands of the United States it will not cease
to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation and adjustment;
considering, finally, that the acts of Congress, though contemplating a
present possession by a foreign authority, have contemplated also an
eventual possession of the said territory by the United States, and are
accordingly so framed as in that case to extend in their operation to
the same:

Now be it known that I, James Madison, President of the United States of
America, in pursuance of these weighty and urgent considerations, have
deemed it right and requisite that possession should be taken of the
said territory in the name and behalf of the United States. William
C.C. Claiborne, governor of the Orleans Territory, of which the said
Territory is to be taken as part, will accordingly proceed to execute
the same and to exercise over the said Territory the authorities and
functions legally appertaining to his office; and the good people
inhabiting the same are invited and enjoined to pay due respect to him
in that character, to be obedient to the laws, to maintain order, to
cherish harmony, and in every manner to conduct themselves as peaceable
citizens, under full assurance that they will be protected in the
enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 27th day of October, A.D. 1810, and
in the thirty-fifth year of the Independence of the said United States.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  R. SMITH,
    _Secretary of State_.




[From Annals of Congress, Eleventh Congress, third session, 1248.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by the fourth section of the act of Congress passed on the 1st
day of May, 1810, entitled "An act concerning the commercial intercourse
between the United States and Great Britain and France and their
dependencies, and for other purposes," it is provided "that in case
either Great Britain or France shall before the 3d day of March next
so revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the
neutral commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the
United States shall declare by proclamation, and if the other nation
shall not within three months thereafter so revoke or modify her edicts
in like manner, then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth,
ninth, tenth, and eighteenth sections of the act entitled 'An act to
interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great
Britain and France and their dependencies, and for other purposes,'
shall from and after the expiration of three months from the date of the
proclamation aforesaid be revived and have full force and effect so far
as relates to the dominions, colonies, and dependencies, and to the
articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of the dominions, colonies,
and dependencies, of the nation thus refusing or neglecting to revoke or
modify her edicts in the manner aforesaid. And the restrictions imposed
by this act shall, from the date of such proclamation cease and be
discontinued in relation to the nation revoking or modifying her decrees
in the manner aforesaid;" and

Whereas it has been officially made known to this Government that the
edicts of France violating the neutral commerce of the United States
have been so revoked as to cease to have effect on the 1st of the
present month:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States, do
hereby proclaim that the said edicts of France have been so revoked as
that they ceased on the said 1st day of the present month to violate the
neutral commerce of the United States, and that from the date of these
presents all the restrictions imposed by the aforesaid act shall cease
and be discontinued in relation to France and their dependencies.

[SEAL.]

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand, at the city of
Washington, this 2d day of November, A.D. 1810, and of the Independence
of the United States the thirty-fifth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  R. SMITH,
    _Secretary of State_.




SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _December 5, 1810_.

_Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

The embarrassments which have prevailed in our foreign relations, and so
much employed the deliberations of Congress, make it a primary duty in
meeting you to communicate whatever may have occurred in that branch of
our national affairs.

The act of the last session of Congress concerning the commercial
intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and France and
their dependencies having invited in a new form a termination of their
edicts against our neutral commerce, copies of the act were immediately
forwarded to our ministers at London and Paris, with a view that its
object might be within the early attention of the French and British
Governments.

By the communication received through our minister at Paris it appeared
that a knowledge of the act by the French Government was followed by a
declaration that the Berlin and Milan decrees were revoked, and would
cease to have effect on the 1st day of November ensuing. These being the
only known edicts of France within the description of the act, and the
revocation of them being such that they ceased at that date to violate
our neutral commerce, the fact, as prescribed by law, was announced by a
proclamation bearing date the 2d day of November.

It would have well accorded with the conciliatory views indicated by
this proceeding on the part of France to have extended them to all the
grounds of just complaint which now remain unadjusted with the United
States. It was particularly anticipated that, as a further evidence of
just dispositions toward them, restoration would have been immediately
made of the property of our citizens seized under a misapplication of
the principle of reprisals combined with a misconstruction of a law of
the United States. This expectation has not been fulfilled.

From the British Government no communication on the subject of the act
has been received. To a communication from our minister at London of a
revocation by the French Government of its Berlin and Milan decrees it
was answered that the British system would be relinquished as soon as
the repeal of the French decrees should have actually taken effect and
the commerce of neutral nations have been restored to the condition in
which it stood previously to the promulgation of those decrees. This
pledge, although it does not necessarily import, does not exclude the
intention of relinquishing, along with the orders in council, the
practice of those novel blockades which have a like effect of
interrupting our neutral commerce, and this further justice to the
United States is the rather to be looked for, inasmuch as the blockades
in question, being not more contrary to the established law of nations
than inconsistent with the rules of blockade formally recognized by
Great Britain herself, could have no alleged basis other than the plea
of retaliation alleged as the basis of the orders in council. Under the
modification of the original orders of November, 1807, into the orders
of April, 1809, there is, indeed, scarcely a nominal distinction between
the orders and the blockades. One of those illegitimate blockades,
bearing date in May, 1806, having been expressly avowed to be still
unrescinded, and to be in effect comprehended in the orders in council,
was too distinctly brought within the purview of the act of Congress not
to be comprehended in the explanation of the requisites to a compliance
with it. The British Government was accordingly apprised by our minister
near it that such was the light in which the subject was to be regarded.

On the other important subjects depending between the United States and
that Government no progress has been made from which an early and
satisfactory result can be relied on.

In this new posture of our relations with those powers the consideration
of Congress will be properly turned to a removal of doubts which may
occur in the exposition and of difficulties in the execution of the act
above cited.

The commerce of the United States with the north of Europe, heretofore
much vexed by licentious cruisers, particularly under the Danish flag,
has latterly been visited with fresh and extensive depredations. The
measures pursued in behalf of our injured citizens not having obtained
justice for them, a further and more formal interposition with the
Danish Government is contemplated. The principles which have been
maintained by that Government in relation to neutral commerce, and the
friendly professions of His Danish Majesty toward the United States, are
valuable pledges in favor of a successful issue.

Among the events growing out of the state of the Spanish Monarchy, our
attention was imperiously attracted to the change developing itself in
that portion of West Florida which, though of right appertaining to the
United States, had remained in the possession of Spain awaiting the
result of negotiations for its actual delivery to them. The Spanish
authority was subverted and a situation produced exposing the country to
ulterior events which might essentially affect the rights and welfare of
the Union. In such a conjuncture I did not delay the interposition
required for the occupancy of the territory west of the river Perdido,
to which the title of the United States extends, and to which the laws
provided for the Territory of Orleans are applicable. With this view,
the proclamation of which a copy is laid before you was confided to the
governor of that Territory to be carried into effect. The legality and
necessity of the course pursued assure me of the favorable light in
which it will present itself to the Legislature, and of the promptitude
with which they will supply whatever provisions may be due to the
essential rights and equitable interests of the people thus brought into
the bosom of the American family.

Our amity with the powers of Barbary, with the exception of a recent
occurrence at Tunis, of which an explanation is just received, appears
to have been uninterrupted and to have become more firmly established.

With the Indian tribes also the peace and friendship of the United
States are found to be so eligible that the general disposition to
preserve both continues to gain strength.

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

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

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

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

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

In the midst of uncertainties necessarily connected with the great
interests of the United States, prudence requires a continuance of our
defensive and precautionary arrangement. The Secretary of War and
Secretary of the Navy will submit the statements and estimates which may
aid Congress in their ensuing provisions for the land and naval forces.
The statements of the latter will include a view of the transfers of
appropriations in the naval expenditures and the grounds on which they
were made.

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

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

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

The Corps of Engineers, with the Military Academy, are entitled to the
early attention of Congress. The buildings at the seat fixed by law for
the present Academy are so far in decay as not to afford the necessary
accommodation. But a revision of the law is recommended, principally
with a view to a more enlarged cultivation and diffusion of the
advantages of such institutions, by providing professorships for all the
necessary branches of military instruction, and by the establishment of
an additional academy at the seat of Government or elsewhere. The means
by which war, as well for defense as for offense, are now carried on
render these schools of the more scientific operations an indispensable
part of every adequate system. Even among nations whose large standing
armies and frequent wars afford every other opportunity of instruction
these establishments are found to be indispensable for the due
attainment of the branches of military science which require a regular
course of study and experiment. In a government happily without the
other opportunities seminaries where the elementary principles of the
art of war can be taught without actual war, and without the expense of
extensive and standing armies, have the precious advantage of uniting an
essential preparation against external danger with a scrupulous regard
to internal safety. In no other way, probably, can a provision of equal
efficacy for the public defense be made at so little expense or more
consistently with the public liberty.

The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th of
September last (and amounting to more than $8,500,000) have exceeded the
current expenses of the Government, including the interest on the public
debt. For the purpose of reimbursing at the end of the year $3,750,000
of the principal, a loan, as authorized by law, had been negotiated to
that amount, but has since been reduced to $2,750,000, the reduction
being permitted by the state of the Treasury, in which there will be a
balance remaining at the end of the year estimated at $2,000,000. For
the probable receipts of the next year and other details I refer to
statements which will be transmitted from the Treasury, and which will
enable you to judge what further provisions may be necessary for the
ensuing years.

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

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 12, 1810.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress, and recommend to their early attention, a report
of the Secretary of State, from which it will be seen that a very
considerable demand beyond the legal appropriations has been incurred
for the support of seamen distressed by seizures, in different parts of
Europe, of the vessels to which they belonged.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _January 3, 1811_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress, in confidence, a letter of the 2d of December
from Governor Folch, of West Florida, to the Secretary of State, and
another of the same date from the same to John McKee.

I communicate in like manner a letter from the British chargé d'affaires
to the Secretary of State, with the answer of the latter. Although the
letter can not have been written in consequence of any instruction from
the British Government founded on the late order for taking possession
of the portion of West Florida well known to be claimed by the United
States; although no communication has ever been made by that Government
to this of any stipulation with Spain contemplating an interposition
which might so materially affect the United States, and although no call
can have been made by Spain in the present instance for the fulfillment
of any such subsisting engagement, yet the spirit and scope of the
document, with the accredited source from which it proceeds, required
that it should not be withheld from the consideration of Congress.

Taking into view the tenor of these several communications, the posture
of things with which they are connected, the intimate relation of the
country adjoining the United States eastward of the river Perdido to
their security and tranquillity, and the peculiar interest they
otherwise have in its destiny, I recommend to the consideration of
Congress the seasonableness of a declaration that the United States
could not see without serious inquietude any part of a neighboring
territory in which they have in different respects so deep and so just a
concern pass from the hands of Spain into those of any other foreign
power.

I recommend to their consideration also the expediency of authorizing
the Executive to take temporary possession of any part or parts of the
said Territory, in pursuance of arrangements which may be desired by the
Spanish authorities, and for making provision for the government of the
same during such possession.

The wisdom of Congress will at the same time determine how far it may be
expedient to provide for the event of a subversion of the Spanish
authorities within the Territory in question, and an apprehended
occupancy thereof by any other foreign power.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 10, 1811.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress, in confidence, the translation of a letter
from Louis de Onis to the captain general of Caraccas.

The tendency of misrepresentations and suggestions which it may be
inferred from this specimen enter into more important correspondences of
the writer to promote in foreign councils at a critical period views
adverse to the peace and to the best interests of our country renders
the contents of the letter of sufficient moment to be made known to the
legislature,

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 30, 1811.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to Congress copies of a letter from the Secretary of the
Treasury, accompanied by copies of the Laws, Treaties, and other
Documents Relative to the Public Lands, as collected and arranged
pursuant to the act passed April 27, 1810.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 31, 1811.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress a letter from the chargé d'affaires of the United
States at Paris to the Secretary of State, and another from the same to
the French minister of foreign relations; also two letters from the
agent of the American consul at Bordeaux to the Secretary of State.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 16, 1811.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now lay before Congress the treaty concluded on the 10th of November,
1808, on the part of the United States with the Great and Little Osage
tribes of Indians, with a view to such legal provisions as may be deemed
proper for fulfilling its stipulations.

JAMES MADISON.




VETO MESSAGES.


FEBRUARY 21, 1811.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

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

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

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

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 28, 1811.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act for the relief
of Richard Tervin, William Coleman, Edwin Lewis, Samuel Mims, Joseph
Wilson, and the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, in the
Mississippi Territory," I now return the same to the House of
Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objection:

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

JAMES MADISON.




PROCLAMATION.


[From the National Intelligencer, July 25, 1811]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas great and weighty matters claiming the consideration of the
Congress of the United States form an extraordinary occasion for
convening them, I do by these presents appoint Monday, the 4th day of
November next, for their meeting at the city of Washington, hereby
requiring the respective Senators and Representatives then and there to
assemble in Congress, in order to receive such communications as may
then be made to them, and to consult and determine on such measures as
in their wisdom may be deemed meet for the welfare of the United States.

[SEAL.]

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand, Done at the city of
Washington, the 24th day of July, A.D. 1811, and of the Independence of
the United States the thirty-sixth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.




THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _November 5, 1811_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

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

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

Instead of this reasonable step toward satisfaction and friendship
between the two nations, the orders were, at a moment when least to have
been expected, put into more rigorous execution; and it was communicated
through the British envoy just arrived that whilst the revocation of the
edicts of France, as officially made known to the British Government,
was denied to have taken place, it was an indispensable condition of the
repeal of the British orders that commerce should be restored to a
footing that would admit the productions and manufactures of Great
Britain, when owned by neutrals, into markets shut against them by her
enemy, the United States being given to understand that in the meantime
a continuance of their non importation act would lead to measures of
retaliation.

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

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

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

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

In addition to this and other demands of strict right on that nation,
the United States have much reason to be dissatisfied with the rigorous
and unexpected restrictions to which their trade with the French
dominions has been subjected, and which, if not discontinued, will
require at least corresponding restrictions on importations from France
into the United States.

On all those subjects our minister plenipotentiary lately sent to Paris
has carried with him the necessary instructions, the result of which
will be communicated to you, and, by ascertaining the ulterior policy of
the French Government toward the United States, Will enable you to adapt
to it that of the United States toward France.

Our other foreign relations remain without unfavorable changes. With
Russia they are on the best footing of friendship. The ports of Sweden
have afforded proofs of friendly dispositions toward our commerce in the
councils of that nation also, and the information from our special
minister to Denmark shews that the mission had been attended with
valuable effects to our citizens, whose property had been so extensively
violated and endangered by cruisers under the Danish flag.

Under the ominous indications which commanded attention it became a duty
to exert the means committed to the executive department in providing
for the general security. The works of defense on our maritime frontier
have accordingly been prosecuted with an activity leaving little to be
added for the completion of the most important ones, and, as
particularly suited for cooperation in emergencies, a portion of the
gunboats have in particular harbors been ordered into use. The ships of
war before in commission, with the addition of a frigate, have been
chiefly employed as a cruising guard to the rights of our coast, and
such a disposition has been made of our land forces as was thought to
promise the services most appropriate and important. In this disposition
is included a force consisting of regulars and militia, embodied in the
Indiana Territory and marched toward our northwestern frontier. This
measure was made requisite by several murders and depredations committed
by Indians, but more especially by the menacing preparations and aspect
of a combination of them on the Wabash, under the influence and
direction of a fanatic of the Shawanese tribe. With these exceptions the
Indian tribes retain their peaceable dispositions toward us, and their
usual pursuits.

I must now add that the period is arrived which claims from the
legislative guardians of the national rights a system of more ample
provisions for maintaining them. Notwithstanding the scrupulous justice,
the protracted moderation, and the multiplied efforts on the part of the
United States to substitute for the accumulating dangers to the peace of
the two countries all the mutual advantages of reestablished friendship
and confidence, we have seen that the British cabinet perseveres not
only in withholding a remedy for other wrongs, so long and so loudly
calling for it, but in the execution, brought home to the threshold of
our territory, of measures which under existing circumstances have the
character as well as the effect of war on our lawful commerce.

With this evidence of hostile inflexibility in trampling on rights which
no independent nation can relinquish, Congress will feel the duty of
putting the United States into an armor and an attitude demanded by the
crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and expectations.

I recommend, accordingly, that adequate provision be made for filling
the ranks and prolonging the enlistments of the regular troops; for an
auxiliary force to be engaged for a more limited term; for the
acceptance of volunteer corps, whose patriotic ardor may court a
participation in urgent services; for detachments as they may be wanted
of other portions of the militia, and for such a preparation of the
great body as will proportion its usefulness to its intrinsic
capacities. Nor can the occasion fail to remind you of the importance of
those military seminaries which in every event will form a valuable and
frugal part of our military establishment.

The manufacture of cannon and small arms has proceeded with due success,
and the stock and resources of all the necessary munitions are adequate
to emergencies. It will not be inexpedient, however, for Congress to
authorize an enlargement of them.

Your attention will of course be drawn to such provisions on the subject
of our naval force as may be required for the services to which it may
be best adapted. I submit to Congress the seasonableness also of an
authority to augment the stock of such materials as are imperishable in
their nature, or may not at once be attainable.

In contemplating the scenes which distinguish this momentous epoch, and
estimating their claims to our attention, it is impossible to overlook
those developing themselves among the great communities which occupy the
southern portion of our own hemisphere and extend into our neighborhood.
An enlarged philanthropy and an enlightened forecast concur in imposing
on the national councils an obligation to take a deep interest in their
destinies, to cherish reciprocal sentiments of good will, to regard the
progress of events, and not to be unprepared for whatever order of
things may be ultimately established.

Under another aspect of our situation the early attention of Congress
will be due to the expediency of further guards against evasions and
infractions of our commercial laws. The practice of smuggling, which is
odious everywhere, and particularly criminal in free governments, where,
the laws being made by all for the good of all, a fraud is committed on
every individual as well as on the state, attains its utmost guilt when
it blends with a pursuit of ignominious gain a treacherous subserviency,
in the transgressors, to a foreign policy adverse to that of their own
country. It is then that the virtuous indignation of the public should
be enabled to manifest itself through the regular animadversions of the
most competent laws.

To secure greater respect to our-mercantile flag, and to the honest
interests which it covers, it is expedient also that it be made
punishable in our citizens to accept licenses from foreign governments
for a trade unlawfully interdicted by them to other American citizens,
or to trade under false colors or papers of any sort.

A prohibition is equally called for against the acceptance by our
citizens of special licenses to be used in a trade with the United
States, and against the admission into particular ports of the United
States of vessels from foreign countries authorized to trade with
particular ports only.

Although other subjects will press more immediately on your
deliberations, a portion of them can not but be well bestowed on the
just and sound policy of securing to our manufactures the success they
have attained, and are still attaining, in some degree, under the
impulse of causes not permanent, and to our navigation, the fair extent
of which is at present abridged by the unequal regulations of foreign
governments.

Besides the reasonableness of saving our manufactures from sacrifices
which a change of circumstances might bring on them, the national
interest requires that, with respect to such articles at least as belong
to our defense and our primary wants, we should not be left in
unnecessary dependence on external supplies. And whilst foreign
governments adhere to the existing discriminations in their ports
against our navigation, and an equality or lesser discrimination is
enjoyed by their navigation in our ports, the effect can not be
mistaken, because it has been seriously felt by our shipping interests;
and in proportion as this takes place the advantages of an independent
conveyance of our products to foreign markets and of a growing body of
mariners trained by their occupations for the service of their country
in times of danger must be diminished.

The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th of
September last have exceeded $13,500,000, and have enabled us to defray
the current expenses, including the interest on the public debt, and to
reimburse more than $5,000,000 of the principal without recurring to the
loan authorized by the act of the last session. The temporary loan
obtained in the latter end of the year 1810 has also been reimbursed,
and is not included in that amount.

The decrease of revenue arising from the situation of our commerce, and
the extraordinary expenses which have and may become necessary, must be
taken into view in making commensurate provisions for the ensuing year;
and I recommend to your consideration the propriety of insuring a
sufficiency of annual revenue at least to defray the ordinary expenses
of Government, and to pay the interest on the public debt, including
that on new loans which may be authorized.

I can not close this communication without expressing my deep sense of
the crisis in which you are assembled, my confidence in a wise and
honorable result to your deliberations, and assurances of the faithful
zeal with which my cooperating duties will be discharged, invoking at
the same time the blessing of Heaven on our beloved country and on all
the means that may be employed in vindicating its rights and advancing
its welfare.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


WASHINGTON, _November 13, 1811_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress copies of a correspondence between the envoy
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain and the
Secretary of State relative to the aggression committed by a British
ship of war on the United States frigate _Chesapeake_, by which it
will be seen that that subject of difference between the two countries
is terminated by an offer of reparation, which has been acceded to.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _December 18, 1811_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress two letters received from Governor Harrison, of
the Indiana Territory, reporting the particulars and the issue of the
expedition under his command, of which notice was taken in my
communication of November 5.

While it is deeply lamented that so many valuable lives have been lost
in the action which took place on the 7th ultimo, Congress will see with
satisfaction the dauntless spirit and fortitude victoriously displayed
by every description of the troops engaged, as well as the collected
firmness which distinguished their commander on an occasion requiring
the utmost exertions of valor and discipline.

It may reasonably be expected that the good effects of this critical
defeat and dispersion of a combination of savages, which appears to have
been spreading to a greater extent, will be experienced not only in a
cessation of the murders and depredations committed on our frontier, but
in the prevention of any hostile incursions otherwise to have been
apprehended.

The families of those brave and patriotic citizens who have fallen in
this severe conflict will doubtless engage the favorable attention of
Congress.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _December 23, 1811_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress copies of an act of the legislature of New
York relating to a canal from the Great Lakes to Hudson River. In making
the communication I consult the respect due to that State, in whose
behalf the commissioners appointed by the act have placed it in my hands
for the purpose.

The utility of canal navigation is universally admitted. It is no less
certain that scarcely any country offers more extensive opportunities
for that branch of improvements than the United States, and none,
perhaps, inducements equally persuasive to make the most of them. The
particular undertaking contemplated by the State of New York, which
marks an honorable spirit of enterprise and comprises objects of
national as well as more limited importance, will recall the attention
of Congress to the signal advantages to be derived to the United States
from a general system of internal communication and conveyance, and
suggest to their consideration whatever steps may be proper on their
part toward its introduction and accomplishment. As some of those
advantages have an intimate connection with the arrangements and
exertions for the general security, it is at a period calling for those
that the merits of such a system will be seen in the strongest lights.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _December 27, 1811_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of resolutions entered into by the
legislature of Pennsylvania, which have been transmitted to me with that
view by the governor of that State, in pursuance of one of the said
resolutions.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _January 15, 1812_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to Congress an account of the contingent expenses of the
Government for the year 1811, incurred on the occasion of taking
possession of the territory limited eastwardly by the river Perdido,
and amounting to $3,396.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _January 16, 1812_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress a letter from the envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain to the Secretary of State,
with the answer of the latter.

The continued evidence afforded in this correspondence of the hostile
policy of the British Government against our national rights strengthens
the considerations recommending and urging the preparation of adequate
means for maintaining them.

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 3, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

At the request of the convention assembled in the Territory of Orleans
on the 22d day of November last, I transmit to Congress the proceedings
of that body in pursuance of the act entitled "An act to enable the
people of the Territory of Orleans to form a constitution and State
government, and for the admission of the said State into the Union on an
equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes."

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 9, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of certain documents which remain in the
Department of State. They prove that at a recent period, whilst the
United States, notwithstanding the wrongs sustained by them, ceased not
to observe the laws of peace and neutrality toward Great Britain, and in
the midst of amicable professions and negotiations on the part of the
British Government, through its public minister here, a secret agent of
that Government was employed in certain States, more especially at the
seat of government in Massachusetts, in fomenting disaffection to the
constituted authorities of the nation, and in intrigues with the
disaffected, for the purpose of bringing about resistance to the laws,
and eventually, in concert with a British force, of destroying the Union
and forming the eastern part thereof into a political connection with
Great Britain.

In addition to the effect which the discovery of such a procedure ought
to have on the public councils, it will not fail to render more dear to
the hearts of all good citizens that happy union of these States which,
under Divine Providence, is the guaranty of their liberties, their
safety, their tranquillity, and their prosperity.

JAMES MADISON.



APRIL 1, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Considering it as expedient, under existing circumstances and prospects,
that a general embargo be laid on all vessels now in port, or hereafter
arriving, for the period of sixty days, I recommend the immediate
passage of a law to that effect.

JAMES MADISON.



APRIL 20, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Among the incidents to the unexampled increase and expanding interests
of the American nation under the fostering influence of free
constitutions and just laws has been a corresponding accumulation of
duties in the several Departments of the Government, and this has been
necessarily the greater in consequence of the peculiar state of our
foreign relations and the connection of these with our internal
administration.

The extensive and multiplied preparations into which the United States
are at length driven for maintaining their violated rights have caused
this augmentation of business to press on the Department of War
particularly, with a weight disproportionate to the powers of any single
officer, with no other aids than are authorized by existing laws. With a
view to a more adequate arrangement for the essential objects of that
Department, I recommend to the early consideration of Congress a
provision for two subordinate appointments therein, with such
compensations annexed as may be reasonably expected by citizens duly
qualified for the important functions which may be properly assigned to
them.

JAMES MADISON.



MAY 26, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress, for their information, copies and extracts
from the correspondence of the Secretary of State and the minister
plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris. These documents will
place before Congress the actual posture of our relations with France.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _June 1, 1812_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of
those heretofore laid before them on the subject of our affairs with
Great Britain.

Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which
Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior
magnitude, the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts
hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating
the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing
and carrying off persons sailing under it, not in the exercise of a
belligerent right founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but
of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction
is thus extended to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can
operate but the law of nations and the laws of the country to which the
vessels belong, and a self-redress is assumed which, if British subjects
were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of
force for a resort to the responsible sovereign which falls within
the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects in such
cases be regarded as within the exercise of a belligerent right, the
acknowledged laws of war, which forbid an article of captured property
to be adjudged without a regular investigation before a competent
tribunal, would imperiously demand the fairest trial where the sacred
rights of persons were at issue. In place of such a trial these rights
are subjected to the will of every petty commander.

The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone
that, under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American
citizens, under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag,
have been torn from their country and from everything dear to them; have
been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation and exposed,
under the severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most
distant and deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their
oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of
their own brethren.

Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt
to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain
exhausted remonstrances and expostulations, and that no proof might be
wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for a
continuance of the practice, the British Government was formally assured
of the readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements such as
could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects were the real
and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.

British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights
and the peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and
departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added
the most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly
spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial
jurisdiction. The principles and rules enforced by that nation, when
a neutral nation, against armed vessels of belligerents hovering near
her coasts and disturbing her commerce are well known. When called on,
nevertheless, by the United States to punish the greater offenses
committed by her own vessels, her Government has bestowed on their
commanders additional marks of honor and confidence.

Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force and
sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has
been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been
cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed
at our agricultural and maritime interests. In aggravation of these
predatory measures they have been considered as in force from the dates
of their notification, a retrospective effect being thus added, as has
been done in other important cases, to the unlawfulness of the course
pursued. And to render the outrage the more signal these mock blockades
have been reiterated and enforced in the face of official communications
from the British Government declaring as the true definition of a legal
blockade "that particular ports must be actually invested and previous
warning given to vessels bound to them not to enter."

Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our
neutral trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to the sweeping
system of blockades, under the name of orders in council, which has
been molded and managed as might best suit its political views, its
commercial jealousies, or the avidity of British cruisers.

To our remonstrances against the complicated and transcendent injustice
of this innovation the first reply was that the orders were reluctantly
adopted by Great Britain as a necessary retaliation on decrees of her
enemy proclaiming a general blockade of the British Isles at a time when
the naval force of that enemy dared not issue from his own ports. She
was reminded without effect that her own prior blockades, unsupported by
an adequate naval force actually applied and continued, were a bar to
this plea; that executed edicts against millions of our property could
not be retaliation on edicts confessedly impossible to be executed; that
retaliation, to be just, should fall on the party setting the guilty
example, not on an innocent party which was not even chargeable with an
acquiescence in it.

When deprived of this flimsy veil for a prohibition of our trade with
her enemy by the repeal of his prohibition of our trade with Great
Britain, her cabinet, instead of a corresponding repeal or a practical
discontinuance of its orders, formally avowed a determination to persist
in them against the United States until the markets of her enemy should
be laid open to British products, thus asserting an obligation on a
neutral power to require one belligerent to encourage by its internal
regulations the trade of another belligerent, contradicting her own
practice toward all nations, in peace as well as in war, and betraying
the insincerity of those professions which inculcated a belief that,
having resorted to her orders with regret, she was anxious to find an
occasion for putting an end to them.

Abandoning still more all respect for the neutral rights of the United
States and for its own consistency, the British Government now demands
as prerequisites to a repeal of its orders as they relate to the United
States that a formality should be observed in the repeal of the French
decrees nowise necessary to their termination nor exemplified by British
usage, and that the French repeal, besides including that portion of the
decrees which operates within a territorial jurisdiction, as well as
that which operates on the high seas, against the commerce of the United
States should not be a single and special repeal in relation to the
United States, but should be extended to whatever other neutral nations
unconnected with them may be affected by those decrees. And as an
additional insult, they are called on for a formal disavowal of
conditions and pretensions advanced by the French Government for which
the United States are so far from having made themselves responsible
that, in official explanations which have been published to the world,
and in a correspondence of the American minister at London with the
British minister for foreign affairs such a responsibility was
explicitly and emphatically disclaimed.

It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of
the United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the
belligerent rights of Great Britain; not as supplying the wants of
her enemies, which she herself supplies; but as interfering with the
monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation. She
carries on a war against the lawful commerce of a friend that she may
the better carry on a commerce with an enemy--a commerce polluted by the
forgeries and perjuries which are for the most part the only passports
by which it can succeed.

Anxious to make every experiment short of the last resort of injured
nations, the United States have withheld from Great Britain, under
successive modifications, the benefits of a free intercourse with their
market, the loss of which could not but outweigh the profits accruing
from her restrictions of our commerce with other nations. And to entitle
these experiments to the more favorable consideration they were so
framed as to enable her to place her adversary under the exclusive
operation of them. To these appeals her Government has been equally
inflexible, as if willing to make sacrifices of every sort rather than
yield to the claims of justice or renounce the errors of a false pride.
Nay, so far were the attempts carried to overcome the attachment
of the British cabinet to its unjust edicts that it received every
encouragement within the competency of the executive branch of our
Government to expect that a repeal of them would be followed by a war
between the United States and France, unless the French edicts should
also be repealed. Even this communication, although silencing forever
the plea of a disposition in the United States to acquiesce in those
edicts originally the sole plea for them, received no attention.

If no other proof existed of a predetermination of the British
Government against a repeal of its orders, it might be found in the
correspondence of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at
London and the British secretary for foreign affairs in 1810, on the
question whether the blockade of May, 1806, was considered as in force
or as not in force. It had been ascertained that the French Government,
which urged this blockade as the ground of its Berlin decree, was
willing in the event of its removal to repeal that decree, which, being
followed by alternate repeals of the other offensive edicts, might
abolish the whole system on both sides. This inviting opportunity for
accomplishing an object so important to the United States, and professed
so often to be the desire of both the belligerents, was made known
to the British Government. As that Government admits that an actual
application of an adequate force is necessary to the existence of a
legal blockade, and it was notorious that if such a force had ever been
applied its long discontinuance had annulled the blockade in question,
there could be no sufficient objection on the part of Great Britain to a
formal revocation of it, and no imaginable objection to a declaration of
the fact that the blockade did not exist. The declaration would have
been consistent with her avowed principles of blockade, and would have
enabled the United States to demand from France the pledged repeal of
her decrees, either with success, in which case the way would have
been opened for a general repeal of the belligerent edicts, or without
success, in which case the United States would have been justified
in turning their measures exclusively against France. The British
Government would, however, neither rescind the blockade nor declare its
nonexistence, nor permit its nonexistence to be inferred and affirmed
by the American plenipotentiary. On the contrary, by representing the
blockade to be comprehended in the orders in council, the United States
were compelled so to regard it in their subsequent proceedings.

There was a period when a favorable change in the policy of the
British cabinet was justly considered as established. The minister
plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty here proposed an adjustment of
the differences more immediately endangering the harmony of the two
countries. The proposition was accepted with the promptitude and
cordiality corresponding with the invariable professions of this
Government. A foundation appeared to be laid for a sincere and lasting
reconciliation. The prospect, however, quickly vanished. The whole
proceeding was disavowed by the British Government without any
explanations which could at that time repress the belief that the
disavowal proceeded from a spirit of hostility to the commercial rights
and prosperity of the United States; and it has since come into proof
that at the very moment when the public minister was holding the
language of friendship and inspiring confidence in the sincerity of the
negotiation with which he was charged a secret agent of his Government
was employed in intrigues having for their object a subversion of our
Government and a dismemberment of our happy union.

In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United States
our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the
savages on one of our extensive frontiers--a warfare which is known to
spare neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly
shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and
combinations which have for some time been developing themselves among
tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons
without connecting their hostility with that influence and without
recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions
heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that Government.

Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped
on our country, and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and
conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert. It might at least
have been expected that an enlightened nation, if less urged by moral
obligations or invited by friendly dispositions on the part of the
United States, would have found in its true interest alone a sufficient
motive to respect their rights and their tranquillity on the high
seas; that an enlarged policy would have favored that free and general
circulation of commerce in which the British nation is at all times
interested, and which in times of war is the best alleviation of its
calamities to herself as well as to other belligerents; and more
especially that the British cabinet would not, for the sake of a
precarious and surreptitious intercourse with hostile markets, have
persevered in a course of measures which necessarily put at hazard the
invaluable market of a great and growing country, disposed to cultivate
the mutual advantages of an active commerce.

Other counsels have prevailed. Our moderation and conciliation have
had no other effect than to encourage perseverance and to enlarge
pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of
lawless violence, committed on the great common and highway of nations,
even within sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold
our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and industry, or
returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful
destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the organs of public
law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their unfortunate crews
dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British
fleets, whilst arguments are employed in support of these aggressions
which have no foundation but in a principle equally supporting a claim
to regulate our external commerce in all cases whatsoever.

We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against
the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace
toward Great Britain.

Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive
usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force
in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into
the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections
which might entangle it in the contest or views of other powers,
and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable
reestablishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question which
the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the
Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations I am happy
in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and
patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation.

Having presented this view of the relations of the United States with
Great Britain and of the solemn alternative growing out of them, I
proceed to remark that the communications last made to Congress on the
subject of our relations with France will have shewn that since the
revocation of her decrees, as they violated the neutral rights of the
United States, her Government has authorized illegal captures by its
privateers and public ships, and that other outrages have been practiced
on our vessels and our citizens. It will have been seen also that no
indemnity had been provided or satisfactorily pledged for the extensive
spoliations committed under the violent and retrospective orders of the
French Government against the property of our citizens seized within the
jurisdiction of France. I abstain at this time from recommending to the
consideration of Congress definitive measures with respect to that
nation, in the expectation that the result of unclosed discussions
between our minister plenipotentiary at Paris and the French Government
will speedily enable Congress to decide with greater advantage on the
course due to the rights, the interests, and the honor of our country.

JAMES MADISON.



JUNE 30, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

With a view the better to adapt to the public service the volunteer
force contemplated by the act passed on the 6th day of February, I
recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency of making the
requisite provision for the officers thereof being commissioned by the
authority of the United States.

Considering the distribution of the military forces of the United States
required by the circumstances of our country, I recommend also to the
consideration of Congress the expediency of providing for the
appointment of an additional number of general officers, and of deputies
in the Adjutant's, Quartermaster's, Inspector's, and Paymaster's
departments of the Army, and for the employment in cases of emergency of
additional engineers.

JAMES MADISON.



JULY 1, 1812.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
26th of June, I transmit the information contained in the documents
herewith enclosed.

JAMES MADISON.



_From the Secretary of State to General George Matthews and Colonel
John M'Kee_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _January 26, 1811_.

The President of the United States having appointed you jointly and
severally commissioners for carrying into effect certain provisions of
an act of Congress (a copy of which is inclosed) relative to the portion
of the Floridas situated to the east of the river Perdido, you will
repair to that quarter with all possible expedition, concealing from
general observation the trust committed to you with that discretion
which the delicacy and importance of the undertaking require.

Should you find Governor Folk or the local authority existing there
inclined to surrender in an amicable manner the possession of the
remaining portion or portions of West Florida now held by him in the
name of the Spanish Monarchy, you are to accept in behalf of the United
States the abdication of his or of the other existing authority and the
jurisdiction of the country over which it extends. And should a
stipulation be insisted on for the redelivery of the country at a future
period, you may engage for such redelivery to the lawful sovereign.

The debts clearly due from the Spanish Government to the people of the
Territory surrendered may, if insisted on, be assumed within reasonable
limits and under specified descriptions to be settled hereafter as a
claim against Spain in an adjustment of our affairs with her. You may
also guarantee, in the name of the United States, the confirmation of
all such titles to land as are clearly sanctioned by Spanish laws, and
Spanish civil functionaries, where no special reasons may require
changes, are to be permitted to remain in office with the assurance of a
continuation of the prevailing laws, with such alterations only as may
be necessarily required in the new situation of the country.

If it should be required and be found necessary, you may agree to
advance, as above, a reasonable sum for the transportation of the
Spanish troops.

These directions are adapted to one of the contingencies specified in
the act of Congress, namely, the amicable surrender of the possession of
the Territory by the local ruling authority. But should the arrangement
contemplated by the statute not be made, and should there be room to
entertain a suspicion of an existing design in any foreign power to
occupy the country in question, you are to keep yourselves on the alert,
and on the first undoubted manifestation of the approach of a force for
that purpose you will exercise with promptness and vigor the powers with
which you are invested by the President to preoccupy by force the
Territory, to the entire exclusion of any armament that may be advancing
to take the possession of it. In this event you will exercise a sound
discretion in applying the powers given with respect to debts, titles to
lands, civil officers, and the continuation of the Spanish laws, taking
care to commit the Government on no point further than may be necessary;
and should any Spanish military force remain within the country after
the occupancy by the troops of the United States, you may in such case
aid in their removal from the same.

The universal toleration which the laws of the United States assure to
every religious persuasion will not escape you as an argument for
quieting the minds of uninformed individuals who may entertain fears on
that head.

The conduct you are to pursue in regard to East Florida must be
regulated by the dictates of your own judgments, on a close view and
accurate knowledge of the precise state of things there, and of the real
disposition of the Spanish Government always recurring to the present
instruction as the paramount rule of your proceedings. Should you
discover an inclination in the governor of East Florida, or in the
existing local authority, amicably to surrender that province into the
possession of the United States, you are to accept it on the same terms
that are prescribed by these instructions in relation to West Florida.
And in case of the actual appearance of any attempt to take possession
by a foreign power, you will pursue the same effective measures for the
occupation of the Territory and for the exclusion of the foreign force
as you are directed to pursue with respect to the country east of the
Perdido, forming at this time the extent of Governor Folk's
jurisdiction.

If you should, under these instructions, obtain possession of Mobile,
you will lose no time in informing Governor Claiborne thereof, with a
request that he will without delay take the necessary steps for the
occupation of the same.

All ordnance and military stores that may be found in the Territory must
be held as the property of the Spanish Government, to be accounted for
hereafter to the proper authority, and you will not fail to transmit an
inventory thereof to this Department.

If in the execution of any part of these instructions you should need
the aid of a military force, the same will be afforded you upon your
application to the commanding officer of the troops of the United States
on that station, or to the commanding officer of the nearest post, in
virtue of orders which have been issued from the War Department. And in
case you should, moreover, need naval assistance, you will receive the
same upon your application to the naval commander in pursuance of orders
from the Navy Department.

From the Treasury Department will be issued the necessary instructions
in relation to imposts and duties, and to the slave ships whose arrival
is apprehended.

The President, relying upon your discretion, authorizes you to draw upon
the collectors of Orleans and Savannah for such sums as may be necessary
to defray unavoidable expenses that may be incurred in the execution of
these instructions, not exceeding in your drafts on New Orleans $8,000
and in your drafts on Savannah $2,000, without further authority, of
which expenses you will hereafter exhibit a detailed account duly
supported by satisfactory vouchers.

POSTSCRIPT.--If Governor Folk should unexpectedly require and
pertinaciously insist that the stipulation for the redelivery of the
Territory should also include that portion of the country which is
situated west of the river Perdido, you are, in yielding to such demand,
only to use general words that may by implication comprehend that
portion of country; but at the same time you are expressly to provide
that such stipulation shall not in any way impair or affect the right or
title of the United States to the same.



_The Secretary of State to General Matthews_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _April 4, 1812_.

General MATTHEWS, etc.

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 14th of March,
and have now to communicate to you the sentiments of the President on
the very interesting subject to which it relates.

I am sorry to have to state that the measures which you appear to have
adopted for obtaining possession of Amelia Island and other parts of
Bast Florida are not authorized by the law of the United States or the
instructions founded on it under which you have acted.

You were authorized by the law, a copy of which was communicated to you,
and by your instructions, which are strictly conformable to it, to take
possession of East Florida only in case one of the following contingencies
should happen: Either that the governor or other existing local
authority should be disposed to place it amicably in the hands of the
United States, or that an attempt should be made to, take possession
of it by a foreign power. Should the first contingency happen it would
follow that the arrangement, being amicable, would require no force on
the part of the United States to carry it into effect. It was only in
case of an attempt to take it by a foreign power that force could be
necessary, in which event only were you authorized to avail yourself
of it.

In neither of these contingencies was it the policy of the law or
purpose of the Executive to wrest the Province forcibly from Spain,
but only to occupy it with a view to prevent its falling into the
hands of any foreign power, and to hold that pledge under the existing
peculiarity of the circumstances of the Spanish Monarchy for a just
result in an amicable negotiation with Spain.

Had the United States been disposed to proceed otherwise, that intention
would have been manifested by a change of the law and suitable measures
to carry it into effect; and as it was in their power to take possession
whenever they might think that circumstances authorized and required it,
it would be the more to be regretted if possession should be effected by
any means irregular in themselves and subjecting the Government of the
United States to unmerited censure.

The views of the Executive respecting East Florida are further
illustrated by your instructions as to West Florida. Although the United
States have thought that they had a good title to the latter Province,
they did not take possession until after the Spanish authority had been
subverted by a revolutionary proceeding, and the contingency of the
country being thrown into foreign hands had forced itself into view. Nor
did they then, nor have they since, dispossessed the Spanish troops of
the post which they occupied. If they did not think proper to take
possession by force of a province to which they thought they were justly
entitled, it could not be presumed that they should intend to act
differently in respect to one to which they had not such a claim.

I may add that although due sensibility has been always felt for the
injuries which were received from the Spanish Government in the last
war, the present situation of Spain has been a motive for a moderate and
pacific policy toward her.

In communicating to you these sentiments of the Executive on the
measures you have lately adopted for taking possession of East Florida,
I add with pleasure that the utmost confidence is reposed in your
integrity and zeal to promote the welfare of your country. To that zeal
the error into which you have fallen is imputed. But in consideration of
the part which you have taken, which differs so essentially from that
contemplated and authorized by the Government, and contradicts so
entirely the principles on which it has uniformly and sincerely acted,
you will be sensible of the necessity of discontinuing the service in
which you have been employed.

You will therefore consider your powers as revoked on the receipt of
this letter. The new duties to be performed will be transferred to the
governor of Georgia, to whom instructions will be given on all the
circumstances to which it may be proper at the present juncture to call
his attention.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant,

JAMES MONROE.



_The Secretary of State to His Excellency D.B. Mitchell, the
governor of Georgia_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _April 10, 1812_.

SIR: The President is desirous of availing the public of your services
in a concern of much delicacy and of high importance to the United
States. Circumstances with which you are in some degree acquainted, but
which will be fully explained by the inclosed papers, have made it
necessary to revoke the powers heretofore committed to General Matthews
and to commit them to you. The President is persuaded that you will not
hesitate to undertake a trust so important to the nation, and peculiarly
to the State of Georgia. He is the more confident in this belief from
the consideration that these new duties may be discharged without
interfering, as he presumes, with those of the station which you now
hold.

By the act of the 15th of January, 1811, you will observe that it was
not contemplated to take possession of East Florida or any part thereof,
unless it should be surrendered to the United States amicably by the
governor or other local authority of the Province, or against an attempt
to take possession of it by a foreign power, and you will also see that
General Matthews's instructions, of which a copy is likewise inclosed,
correspond fully with the law.

By the documents in possession of the Government it appears that neither
of these contingencies have happened; that instead of an amicable
surrender by the governor or other local authority the troops of the
United States have been used to dispossess the Spanish authority by
force. I forbear to dwell on the details of this transaction because it
is painful to recite them. By the letter to General Matthews which is
inclosed, open for your perusal, you will fully comprehend the views of
the Government respecting the late transaction, and by the law, the
former instructions to the General, and the late letter now forwarded
you will be made acquainted with the course of conduct which it is
expected of you to pursue in future in discharging the duties heretofore
enjoined on him.

It is the desire of the President that you should turn your attention
and direct your efforts in the first instance to the restoration of that
state of things in the Province which existed before the late
transactions. The Executive considers it proper to restore back to the
Spanish authorities Amelia Island and such other parts, if any, of East
Florida as may have thus been taken from them. With this view it will be
necessary for you to communicate _directly_ with the governor or
principal officer of Spain in that Province, and to act in harmony with
him in the attainment of it. It is presumed that the arrangement will be
easily and amicably made between you. I inclose you an order from the
Secretary of War to the commander of the troops of the United States to
evacuate the country when requested so to do by you, and to pay the same
respect in future to your order in fulfilling the duties enjoined by the
law that he had been instructed to do to that of General Matthews.

In restoring to the Spanish authorities Amelia Island and such other
parts of East Florida as may have been taken possession of in the name
of the United States there is another object to which your particular
attention will be due. In the measures lately adopted by General
Matthews to take possession of that Territory it is probable that much
reliance has been placed by the people who acted in it on the
countenance and support of the United States. It will be improper to
expose these people to the resentment of the Spanish authorities. It is
not to be presumed that those authorities in regaining possession of the
Territory in this amicable mode from the United States will be disposed
to indulge any such feeling toward them. You will, however, come to a
full understanding with the Spanish governor on this subject, and not
fail to obtain from him the most explicit and satisfactory assurance
respecting it. Of this assurance you will duly apprise the parties
interested, and of the confidence which you repose in it. It is hoped
that on this delicate and very interesting point the Spanish governor
will avail himself of the opportunity it presents to evince the friendly
disposition of his Government toward the United States.

There is one other remaining circumstance only to which I wish to call
your attention, and that relates to General Matthews himself. His
gallant and meritorious services in our Revolution and patriotic conduct
since have always been held in high estimation by the Government. His
errors in this instance are imputed altogether to his zeal to promote
the welfare of his country; but they are of a nature to impose on the
Government the necessity of the measures now taken, in giving effect to
which you will doubtless feel a disposition to consult, as far as may
be, his personal sensibility.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

JAMES MONROE.

P.S.--Should you find it impracticable to execute the duties designated
above in person, the President requests that you will be so good as to
employ some very respectable character to represent you in it, to whom
you are authorized to allow a similar compensation. It is hoped,
however, that you may be able to attend to it in person, for reasons
which I need not enter into. The expenses to which you may be exposed
will be promptly paid to your draft on this Department.



_The Secretary of State to D.B. Mitchell, esq., governor of Georgia_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _May 27, 1812_.

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 2d instant from
St. Marys, where you had arrived in discharge of the trust reposed in
you by the President, in relation to East Florida.

My letter by Mr. Isaacs has, I presume, substantially answered the most
important of the queries submitted in your letter, but I will give to
each a more distinct answer.

By the law of which a copy was forwarded to you it is made the duty of
the President to prevent the occupation of East Florida by any foreign
power. It follows that you are authorized to consider the entrance, or
attempt to enter, especially under existing circumstances, of British
troops of any description as the case contemplated by the law, and to
use the proper means to defeat it.

An instruction will be immediately forwarded to the commander of the
naval force of the United States in the neighborhood of East Florida to
give you any assistance, in case of emergency, which you may think
necessary and require.

It is not expected, if you find it proper to withdraw the troops, that
you should interfere to compel the patriots to surrender the country or
any part of it to the Spanish authorities. The United States are
responsible for their own conduct only; not for that of the inhabitants
of East Florida. Indeed, in consequence of the compromitment of the
United States to the inhabitants, you have been already instructed not
to withdraw the troops, unless you find that it may be done consistently
with their safety, and to report to the Government the result of your
conferences with the Spanish authorities, with your opinion of their
views, holding in the meantime the ground occupied.

In the present state of our affairs with Great Britain the course above
pointed out is the more justifiable and proper.

I have the honor, etc.,

JAMES MONROE.



JULY 6, 1812.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit to the Senate copies and extracts of documents in the
archives of the Department of State falling within the purview of their
resolution of the 4th instant, on the subject of British impressments
from American vessels. The information, though voluminous, might have
been enlarged with more time for research and preparation. In some
instances it might at the same time have been abridged but for the
difficulty of separating the matter extraneous to the immediate object
of the resolution.

JAMES MADISON.





VETO MESSAGE.


APRIL 3, 1812.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act providing for
the trial of causes pending in the respective district courts of the
United States, in case of the absence or disability of the judges
thereof," which bill was presented to me on the 25th of March past, I
now return the same to the House of Representatives, in which it
originated, with the following objections:

Because the additional services imposed by the bill on the justices of
the Supreme Court of the United States are to be performed by them
rather in the quality of other judges of other courts, namely, judges of
the district courts, than in the quality of justices of the Supreme
Court. They are to hold the said district courts, and to do and perform
all acts relating to the said courts which are by law required of the
district judges. The bill therefore virtually appoints, for the time,
the justices of the Supreme Court to other distinct offices to which, if
compatible with their original offices, they ought to be appointed by
another than the legislative authority, in pursuance of legislative
provisions authorizing the appointments.

Because the appeal allowed by law for the decision of the district
courts to the circuit courts, whilst it corroborates the construction
which regards a judge of one court as clothed with a new office, by
being constituted a judge of the other, submits for correction erroneous
judgments, not to superior or other judges, but to the erring individual
himself, acting as sole judge in the appellate court.

Because the additional services to be required may, by distances of
place and by the casualties contemplated by the bill, become
disproportionate to the strength and health of the justices who are to
perform them, the additional services being, moreover, entitled to no
additional compensation, nor the additional expenses incurred to
reimbursement. In this view the bill appears to be contrary to equity,
as well as a precedent for modifications and extensions of judicial
services encroaching on the constitutional tenure of judicial offices.

Because, by referring to the President of the United States questions of
disability in the district judges and of the unreasonableness of
delaying the suits or causes pending in the district courts, and leaving
it with him in such causes to require the justices of the Supreme Court
to perform additional services, the bill introduces an unsuitable
relation of members of the judiciary department to a discretionary
authority of the executive department.

JAMES MADISON




PROCLAMATIONS.


[From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 1, p. 448.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that a number of individuals who
have deserted from the Army of the United States have become sensible of
their offense and are desirous of returning to their duty, a full pardon
is hereby granted and proclaimed to each and all such individuals as
shall within four months from the date hereof surrender themselves to
the commanding officer of any military post within the United States or
the Territories thereof.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 7th day of February, A.D. 1812, and
of the Independence of the United States the thirty-sixth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.



[From Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, part 2, 2223.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by virtue of the constituted
authority vested in them, have declared by their act bearing date the
18th day of the present month that war exists between the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof and the United
States of America and their Territories:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States of
America, do hereby proclaim the same to all whom it may concern; and I
do specially enjoin on all persons holding offices, civil or military,
under the authority of the United States that they be vigilant and
zealous in discharging the duties respectively incident thereto; and I
do moreover exhort all the good people of the United States, as they
love their country, as they value the precious heritage derived from the
virtue and valor of their fathers, as they feel the wrongs which have
forced on them the last resort of injured nations, and as they consult
the best means under the blessing of Divine Providence of abridging its
calamities, that they exert themselves in preserving order, in promoting
concord, in maintaining the authority and efficacy of the laws, and in
supporting and invigorating all the measures which may be adopted by the
constituted authorities for obtaining a speedy, a just, and an honorable
peace.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed to these presents.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 19th day of June, 1812, and of the
Independence of the United States the thirty-sixth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.



[From Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, part 2, 2224.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by a joint resolution of the
two Houses, have signified a request that a day may be recommended to be
observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity as
a day of public humiliation and prayer; and

Whereas such a recommendation will enable the several religious
denominations and societies so disposed to offer at one and the same
time their common vows and adorations to Almighty God on the solemn
occasion produced by the war in which He has been pleased to permit
the injustice of a foreign power to involve these United States:

I do therefore recommend the third Thursday in August next as a
convenient day to be set apart for the devout purposes of rendering the
Sovereign of the Universe and the Benefactor of Mankind the public
homage due to His holy attributes; of acknowledging the transgressions
which might justly provoke the manifestations of His divine displeasure;
of seeking His merciful forgiveness and His assistance in the great
duties of repentance and amendment, and especially of offering fervent
supplications that in the present season of calamity and war He would
take the American people under His peculiar care and protection; that He
would guide their public councils, animate their patriotism, and bestow
His blessing on their arms; that He would inspire all nations with a
love of justice and of concord and with a reverence for the unerring
precept of our holy religion to do to others as they would require that
others should do to them; and, finally, that, turning the hearts of our
enemies from the violence and injustice which sway their councils
against us, He would hasten a restoration of the blessings of peace.

[SEAL.]

Given at Washington, the 9th day of July, A.D. 1812.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.



[From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 3, p. 101.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that a number of individuals who
have deserted from the Army of the United States have become sensible of
their offenses and are desirous of returning to their duty, a full
pardon is hereby granted and proclaimed to each and all such individuals
as shall within four months from the date hereof surrender themselves to
the commanding officer of any military post within the United States or
the Territories thereof.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 8th day of October, A.D. 1812, and
of the Independence of the United States the thirty-seventh.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.




FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _November 4, 1812_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

On our present meeting it is my first duty to invite your attention to
the providential favors which our country has experienced in the unusual
degree of health dispensed to its inhabitants, and in the rich abundance
with which the earth has rewarded the labors bestowed on it. In the
successful cultivation of other branches of industry, and in the
progress of general improvement favorable to the national prosperity,
there is just occasion also for our mutual congratulations and
thankfulness.

With these blessings are necessarily mingled the pressures and
vicissitudes incident to the state of war into which the United States
have been forced by the perseverance of a foreign power in its system of
injustice and aggression.

Previous to its declaration it was deemed proper, as a measure of
precaution and forecast, that a considerable force should be placed in
the Michigan Territory with a general view to its security, and, in
the event of war, to such operations in the uppermost Canada as would
intercept the hostile influence of Great Britain over the savages,
obtain the command of the lake on which that part of Canada borders,
and maintain cooperating relations with such forces as might be most
conveniently employed against other parts. Brigadier-General Hull was
charged with this provisional service, having under his command a body
of troops composed of regulars and of volunteers from the State of Ohio.
Having reached his destination after his knowledge of the war, and
possessing discretionary authority to act offensively, he passed into
the neighboring territory of the enemy with a prospect of easy and
victorious progress. The expedition, nevertheless, terminated
unfortunately, not only in a retreat to the town and fort of Detroit,
but in the surrender of both and of the gallant corps commanded by that
officer. The causes of this painful reverse will be investigated by a
military tribunal.

A distinguishing feature in the operations which preceded and followed
this adverse event is the use made by the enemy of the merciless savages
under their influence. Whilst the benevolent policy of the United States
invariably recommended peace and promoted civilization among that
wretched portion of the human race, and was making exertions to dissuade
them from taking either side in the war, the enemy has not scrupled to
call to his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horrors of those
instruments of carnage and torture which are known to spare neither age
nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honorable war and against
the feelings sacred to humanity the British commanders can not resort to
a plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our example.
They can not mitigate it by calling it a self-defense against men in
arms, for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless
families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable for the
atrocities perpetrated, since the savages are employed with a knowledge,
and even with menaces, that their fury could not be controlled. Such is
the spectacle which the deputed authorities of a nation boasting its
religion and morality have not been restrained from presenting to an
enlightened age.

The misfortune at Detroit was not, however, without a consoling effect.
It was followed by signal proofs that the national spirit rises
according to the pressure on it. The loss of an important post and of
the brave men surrendered with it inspired everywhere new ardor and
determination. In the States and districts least remote it was no sooner
known than every citizen was ready to fly with his arms at once to
protect his brethren against the bloodthirsty savages let loose by the
enemy on an extensive frontier, and to convert a partial calamity into
a source of invigorated efforts. This patriotic zeal, which it was
necessary rather to limit than excite, has embodied an ample force from
the States of Kentucky and Ohio and from parts of Pennsylvania and
Virginia. It is placed, with the addition of a few regulars, under
the command of Brigadier-General Harrison, who possesses the entire
confidence of his fellow-soldiers, among whom are citizens, some of them
volunteers in the ranks, not less distinguished by their political
stations than by their personal merits. The greater portion of this
force is proceeding on its destination toward the Michigan Territory,
having succeeded in relieving an important frontier post, and in several
incidental operations against hostile tribes of savages, rendered
indispensable by the subserviency into which they had been seduced by
the enemy--a seduction the more cruel as it could not fail to impose a
necessity of precautionary severities against those who yielded to it.

At a recent date an attack was made on a post of the enemy near Niagara
by a detachment of the regular and other forces under the command of
Major-General Van Rensselaer, of the militia of the State of New York.
The attack, it appears, was ordered in compliance with the ardor of the
troops, who executed it with distinguished gallantry, and were for a
time victorious; but not receiving the expected support, they were
compelled to yield to reenforcements of British regulars and savages.
Our loss has been considerable, and is deeply to be lamented. That of
the enemy, less ascertained, will be the more felt, as it includes among
the killed the commanding general, who was also the governor of the
Province, and was sustained by veteran troops from unexperienced
soldiers, who must daily improve in the duties of the field.

Our expectation of gaining the command of the Lakes by the invasion of
Canada from Detroit having been disappointed, measures were instantly
taken to provide on them a naval force superior to that of the enemy.
From the talents and activity of the officer charged with this object
everything that can be done may be expected. Should the present season
not admit of complete success, the progress made will insure for the
next a naval ascendency where it is essential to our permanent peace
with and control over the savages.

Among the incidents to the measures of the war I am constrained to
advert to the refusal of the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut
to furnish the required detachments of militia toward the defense of the
maritime frontier. The refusal was founded on a novel and unfortunate
exposition of the provisions of the Constitution relating to the
militia. The correspondences which will be laid before you contain
the requisite information on the subject. It is obvious that if the
authority of the United States to call into service and command the
militia for the public defense can be thus frustrated, even in a state
of declared war and of course under apprehensions of invasion preceding
war, they are not one nation for the purpose most of all requiring it,
and that the public safety may have no other resource than in those
large and permanent military establishments which are forbidden by the
principles of our free government, and against the necessity of which
the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.

On the coasts and on the ocean the war has been as successful as
circumstances inseparable from its early stages could promise. Our
public ships and private cruisers, by their activity, and, where there
was occasion, by their intrepidity, have made the enemy sensible of the
difference between a reciprocity of captures and the long confinement of
them to their side. Our trade, with little exception, has safely reached
our ports, having been much favored in it by the course pursued by a
squadron of our frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers, and in
the instance in which skill and bravery were more particularly tried
with those of the enemy the American flag had an auspicious triumph.
The frigate _Constitution_, commanded by Captain Hull, after a close
and short engagement completely disabled and captured a British frigate,
gaining for that officer and all on board a praise which can not be too
liberally bestowed, not merely for the victory actually achieved, but
for that prompt and cool exertion of commanding talents which, giving to
courage its highest character, and to the force applied its full effect,
proved that more could have been done in a contest requiring more.

Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war can not be
exempt, I lost no time after it was declared in conveying to the British
Government the terms on which its progress might be arrested, without
awaiting the delays of a formal and final pacification, and our chargé
d'affaires at London was at the same time authorized to agree to an
armistice founded upon them. These terms required that the orders in
council should be repealed as they affected the United States, without a
revival of blockades violating acknowledged rules, and that there should
be an immediate discharge of American seamen from British ships, and a
stop to impressment from American ships, with an understanding that
an exclusion of the seamen of each nation from the ships of the other
should be stipulated, and that the armistice should be improved into
a definitive and comprehensive adjustment of depending controversies.
Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations meeting the
views of this Government had taken place before this pacific advance was
communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance was declined from an
avowed repugnance to a suspension of the practice of impressments during
the armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement proposed
with respect to seamen would be accepted. Whether the subsequent
communications from this Government, affording an occasion for
reconsidering the subject on the part of Great Britain, will be viewed
in a more favorable light or received in a more accommodating spirit
remains to be known. It would be unwise to relax our measures in any
respect on a presumption of such a result.

The documents from the Department of State which relate to this subject
will give a view also of the propositions for an armistice which have
been received here, one of them from the authorities at Halifax and in
Canada, the other from the British Government itself through Admiral
Warren, and of the grounds on which neither of them could be accepted.

Our affairs with France retain the posture which they held at my last
communications to you. Notwithstanding the authorized expectations of an
early as well as favorable issue to the discussions on foot, these have
been procrastinated to the latest date. The only intervening occurrence
meriting attention is the promulgation of a French decree purporting to
be a definitive repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This proceeding,
although made the ground of the repeal of the British orders in council,
is rendered by the time and manner of it liable to many objections.

The final communications from our special minister to Denmark afford
further proofs of the good effects of his mission, and of the amicable
disposition of the Danish Government. From Russia we have the
satisfaction to receive assurances of continued friendship, and that it
will not be affected by the rupture between the United States and Great
Britain. Sweden also professes sentiments favorable to the subsisting
harmony.

With the Barbary Powers, excepting that of Algiers, our affairs remain
on the ordinary footing. The consul-general residing with that Regency
has suddenly and without cause been banished, together with all the
American citizens found there. Whether this was the transitory effect of
capricious despotism or the first act of predetermined hostility is not
ascertained. Precautions were taken by the consul on the latter
supposition.

The Indian tribes not under foreign instigations remain at peace, and
receive the civilizing attentions which have proved so beneficial to
them.

With a view to that vigorous prosecution of the war to which our
national faculties are adequate, the attention of Congress will be
particularly drawn to the insufficiency of existing provisions for
filling up the military establishment. Such is the happy condition of
our country, arising from the facility of subsistence and the high wages
for every species of occupation, that notwithstanding the augmented
inducements provided at the last session, a partial success only has
attended the recruiting service. The deficiency has been necessarily
supplied during the campaign by other than regular troops, with all
the inconveniences and expense incident to them. The remedy lies in
establishing more favorably for the private soldier the proportion
between his recompense and the term of his enlistment, and it is a
subject which can not too soon or too seriously be taken into
consideration.

The same insufficiency has been experienced in the provisions for
volunteers made by an act of the last session. The recompense for the
service required in this case is still less attractive than in the
other, and although patriotism alone has sent into the field some
valuable corps of that description, those alone who can afford the
sacrifice can be reasonably expected to yield to that impulse.

It will merit consideration also whether as auxiliary to the security
of our frontiers corps may not be advantageously organized with a
restriction of their services to particular districts convenient to
them, and whether the local and occasional services of mariners and
others in the seaport towns under a similar organization would not be
a provident addition to the means of their defense.

I recommend a provision for an increase of the general officers of the
Army, the deficiency of which has been illustrated by the number and
distance of separate commands which the course of the war and the
advantage of the service have required.

And I can not press too strongly on the earliest attention of the
Legislature the importance of the reorganization of the staff
establishment with a view to render more distinct and definite the
relations and responsibilities of its several departments. That there
is room for improvements which will materially promote both economy and
success in what appertains to the Army and the war is equally inculcated
by the examples of other countries and by the experience of our own.

A revision of the militia laws for the purpose of rendering them more
systematic and better adapting them to emergencies of the war is at this
time particularly desirable.

Of the additional ships authorized to be fitted for service, two will
be shortly ready to sail, a third is under repair, and delay will be
avoided in the repair of the residue. Of the appropriations for the
purchase of materials for shipbuilding, the greater part has been
applied to that object and the purchase will be continued with the
balance.

The enterprising spirit which has characterized our naval force and its
success, both in restraining insults and depredations on our coasts and
in reprisals on the enemy, will not fail to recommend an enlargement of
it.

There being reason to believe that the act prohibiting the acceptance
of British licenses is not a sufficient guard against the use of them,
for purposes favorable to the interests and views of the enemy, further
provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so that
penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious
intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced
by any statutory provisions.

A considerable number of American vessels which were in England when the
revocation of the orders in council took place were laden with British
manufactures under an erroneous impression that the nonimportation act
would immediately cease to operate, and have arrived in the United
States. It did not appear proper to exercise on unforeseen cases of such
magnitude the ordinary powers vested in the Treasury Department to
mitigate forfeitures without previously affording to Congress an
opportunity of making on the subject such provision as they may think
proper. In their decision they will doubtless equally consult what is
due to equitable considerations and to the public interest.

The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th of
September last have exceeded $16,500,000, which have been sufficient
to defray all the demands on the Treasury to that day, including a
necessary reimbursement of near three millions of the principal of the
public debt. In these receipts is included a sum of near $5,850,000,
received on account of the loans authorized by the acts of the last
session; the whole sum actually obtained on loan amounts to $11,000,000,
the residue of which, being receivable subsequent to the 30th of
September last, will, together with the current revenue, enable us to
defray all the expenses of this year.

The duties on the late unexpected importations of British manufactures
will render the revenue of the ensuing year more productive than could
have been anticipated.

The situation of our country, fellow-citizens, is not without its
difficulties, though it abounds in animating considerations, of which
the view here presented of our pecuniary resources is an example. With
more than one nation we have serious and unsettled controversies, and
with one, powerful in the means and habits of war, we are at war. The
spirit and strength of the nation are nevertheless equal to the support
of all its rights, and to carry it through all its trials. They can be
met in that confidence. Above all, we have the inestimable consolation
of knowing that the war in which we are actually engaged is a war
neither of ambition nor of vainglory; that it is waged not in violation
of the rights of others, but in the maintenance of our own; that it was
preceded by a patience without example under wrongs accumulating without
end, and that it was finally not declared until every hope of averting
it was extinguished by the transfer of the British scepter into new
hands clinging to former councils, and until declarations were
reiterated to the last hour, through the British envoy here, that
the hostile edicts against our commercial rights and our maritime
independence would not be revoked; nay, that they could not be revoked
without violating the obligations of Great Britain to other powers, as
well as to her own interests. To have shrunk under such circumstances
from manly resistance would have been a degradation blasting our best
and proudest hopes; it would have struck us from the high rank where the
virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and have betrayed the
magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for future generations. It
would have acknowledged that on the element which forms three-fourths of
the globe we inhabit, and where all independent nations have equal and
common rights, the American people were not an independent people,
but colonists and vassals. It was at this moment and with such an
alternative that war was chosen. The nation felt the necessity of it,
and called for it. The appeal was accordingly made, in a just cause,
to the Just and All-powerful Being who holds in His hand the chain of
events and the destiny of nations. It remains only that, faithful to
ourselves, entangled in no connections with the views of other powers,
and ever ready to accept peace from the hand of justice, we prosecute
the war with united counsels and with the ample faculties of the nation
until peace be so obtained and as the only means under the Divine
blessing of speedily obtaining it.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


NOVEMBER, 12, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

For the further information of Congress relative to the pacific advances
made on the part of this Government to that of Great Britain, and the
manner in which they have been met by the latter, I transmit the sequel
of the communications on that subject received from the late chargé
d'affaires at London.

JAMES MADISON.



NOVEMBER 17, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to Congress copies of a letter from the consul general of
the United States to Algiers, stating the circumstances preceding and
attending his departure from that Regency.

JAMES MADISON



WASHINGTON, _December 11, 1812_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to Congress copies of a letter to the Secretary of the Navy
from Captain Decatur, of the frigate _United States_, reporting his
combat and capture of the British frigate _Macedonian_. Too much
praise can not be bestowed on that officer and his companions on board
for the consummate skill and conspicuous valor by which this trophy has
been added to the naval arms of the United States.

I transmit also a letter from Captain Jones, who commanded the sloop
of war _Wasp_, reporting his capture of the British sloop of war
_Frolic_, after a close action, in which other brilliant titles will
be seen to the public admiration and praise.

A nation feeling what it owes to itself and to its citizens could never
abandon to arbitrary violence on the ocean a class of them which give
such examples of capacity and courage in defending their rights on that
element, examples which ought to impress on the enemy, however brave and
powerful, preference of justice and peace to hostility against a country
whose prosperous career may be accelerated but can not be prevented by
the assaults made on it.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 22, 1813.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit, for the information of Congress, copies of a correspondence
between John Mitchell, agent for American prisoners of war at Halifax,
and the British admiral commanding at that station.

I transmit, for the like purpose, copies of a letter from Commodore
Rodgers to the Secretary of the Navy,

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 22, 1813.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress a letter, with accompanying documents, from
Captain Bainbridge, now commanding the United States frigate the
_Constitution_, reporting his capture and destruction of the
British frigate the _Java_. The circumstances and the issue of this
combat afford another example of the professional skill and heroic
spirit which prevail in our naval service. The signal display of both by
Captain Bainbridge, his officers and crew, commands the highest praise.

This being a second instance in which the condition of the captured
ship, by rendering it impossible to get her into port, has barred
a contemplated reward of successful valor, I recommend to the
consideration of Congress the equity and propriety of a general
provision allowing in such cases, both past and future, a fair
proportion of the value which would accrue to the captors on the
safe arrival and sale of the prize.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 24, 1813.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of a proclamation of the British
lieutenant-governor of the island of Bermuda, which has appeared under
circumstances leaving no doubt of its authenticity. It recites a British
order in council of the 26th of October last, providing for the supply
of the British West Indies and other colonial possessions by a trade
under special licenses, and is accompanied by a circular instruction to
the colonial governors which confines licensed importations from ports
of the United States to the ports of the Eastern States exclusively.

The Government of Great Britain had already introduced into her commerce
during war a system which, at once violating the rights of other nations
and resting on a mass of forgery and perjury unknown to other times,
was making an unfortunate progress in undermining those principles
of morality and religion which are the best foundation of national
happiness.

The policy now proclaimed to the world introduces into her modes of
warfare a system equally distinguished by the deformity of its features
and the depravity of its character, having for its object to dissolve
the ties of allegiance and the sentiments of loyalty in the adversary
nation, and to seduce and separate its component parts the one from the
other.

The general tendency of these demoralizing and disorganizing
contrivances will be reprobated by the civilized and Christian world,
and the insulting attempt on the virtue, the honor, the patriotism, and
the fidelity of our brethren of the Eastern States will not fail to call
forth all their indignation and resentment, and to attach more and more
all the States to that happy Union and Constitution against which such
insidious and malignant artifices are directed.

The better to guard, nevertheless, against the effect of individual
cupidity and treachery and to turn the corrupt projects of the enemy
against himself, I recommend to the consideration of Congress the
expediency of an effectual prohibition of any trade whatever by citizens
or inhabitants of the United States under special licenses, whether
relating to persons or ports, and in aid thereof a prohibition of all
exportations from the United States in foreign bottoms, few of which are
actually employed, whilst multiplying counterfeits of their flags and
papers are covering and encouraging the navigation of the enemy.

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 3, 1813.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Conformably to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
27th of January last, I transmit "rolls of the persons having office or
employment of a public nature under the United States,"

JAMES MADISON.




VETO MESSAGE.


NOVEMBER 5, 1812.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The bill entitled "An act supplementary to the acts heretofore passed on
the subject of an uniform rule of naturalization," which passed the two
Houses at the last session of Congress, having appeared to me liable to
abuse by aliens having no real purpose of effectuating a naturalization,
and therefore not been signed, and having been presented at an hour
too near the close of the session to be returned with objections for
reconsideration, the bill failed to become a law. I also recommend that
provision be now made in favor of aliens entitled to the contemplated
benefit, under such regulations as will prevent advantage being taken
of it for improper purposes.

JAMES MADISON.




SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.


About to add the solemnity of an oath to the obligations imposed by a
second call to the station in which my country heretofore placed me,
I find in the presence of this respectable assembly an opportunity of
publicly repeating my profound sense of so distinguished a confidence
and of the responsibility united with it. The impressions on me are
strengthened by such an evidence that my faithful endeavors to discharge
my arduous duties have been favorably estimated, and by a consideration
of the momentous period at which the trust has been renewed. From the
weight and magnitude now belonging to it I should be compelled to shrink
if I had less reliance on the support of an enlightened and generous
people, and felt less deeply a conviction that the war with a powerful
nation, which forms so prominent a feature in our situation, is stamped
with that justice which invites the smiles of Heaven on the means of
conducting it to a successful termination.

May we not cherish this sentiment without presumption when we reflect
on the characters by which this war is distinguished?

It was not declared on the part of the United States until it had been
long made on them, in reality though not in name; until arguments and
expostulations had been exhausted; until a positive declaration had been
received that the wrongs provoking it would not be discontinued; nor
until this last appeal could no longer be delayed without breaking down
the spirit of the nation, destroying all confidence in itself and in its
political institutions, and either perpetuating a state of disgraceful
suffering or regaining by more costly sacrifices and more severe
struggles our lost rank and respect among independent powers.

On the issue of the war are staked our national sovereignty on the
high seas and the security of an important class of citizens, whose
occupations give the proper value to those of every other class. Not to
contend for such a stake is to surrender our equality with other powers
on the element common to all and to violate the sacred title which every
member of the society has to its protection. I need not call into view
the unlawfulness of the practice by which our mariners are forced at the
will of every cruising officer from their own vessels into foreign
ones, nor paint the outrages inseparable from it. The proofs are in the
records of each successive Administration of our Government, and the
cruel sufferings of that portion of the American people have found their
way to every bosom not dead to the sympathies of human nature.

As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its
objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it
on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no
precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed, The war has been
waged on our part with scrupulous regard to all these obligations, and
in a spirit of liberality which was never surpassed.

How little has been the effect of this example on the conduct of the
enemy!

They have retained as prisoners of war citizens of the United States
not liable to be so considered under the usages of war.

They have refused to consider as prisoners of war, and threatened to
punish as traitors and deserters, persons emigrating without restraint
to the United States, incorporated by naturalization into our political
family, and fighting under the authority of their adopted country in
open and honorable war for the maintenance of its rights and safety.
Such is the avowed purpose of a Government which is in the practice of
naturalizing by thousands citizens of other countries, and not only of
permitting but compelling them to fight its battles against their native
country.

They have not, it is true, taken into their own hands the hatchet and
the knife, devoted to indiscriminate massacre, but they have let loose
the savages armed with these cruel instruments; have allured them into
their service, and carried them to battle by their sides, eager to glut
their savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished and to finish the
work of torture and death on maimed and defenseless captives. And, what
was never before seen, British commanders have extorted victory over the
unconquerable valor of our troops by presenting to the sympathy of their
chief captives awaiting massacre from their savage associates. And now
we find them, in further contempt of the modes of honorable warfare,
supplying the place of a conquering force by attempts to disorganize our
political society, to dismember our confederated Republic. Happily, like
others, these will recoil on the authors; but they mark the degenerate
counsels from which they emanate, and if they did not belong to a
series of unexampled inconsistencies might excite the greater wonder as
proceeding from a Government which founded the very war in which it has
been so long engaged on a charge against the disorganizing and
insurrectional policy of its adversary.

To render the justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the
reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest
manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was
scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the
reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed. Still more precise
advances were repeated, and have been received in a spirit forbidding
every reliance not placed on the military resources of the nation.

These resources are amply sufficient to bring the war to an honorable
issue. Our nation is in number more than half that of the British Isles.
It is composed of a brave, a free, a virtuous, and an intelligent
people. Our country abounds in the necessaries, the arts, and the
comforts of life. A general prosperity is visible in the public
countenance. The means employed by the British cabinet to undermine it
have recoiled on themselves; have given to our national faculties a more
rapid development, and, draining or diverting the precious metals from
British circulation and British vaults, have poured them into those of
the United States. It is a propitious consideration that an unavoidable
war should have found this seasonable facility for the contributions
required to support it. When the public voice called for war, all knew,
and still know, that without them it could not be carried on through the
period which it might last, and the patriotism, the good sense, and the
manly spirit of our fellow-citizens are pledges for the cheerfulness
with which they will bear each his share of the common burden. To render
the war short and its success sure, animated and systematic exertions
alone are necessary, and the success of our arms now may long preserve
our country from the necessity of another resort to them. Already
have the gallant exploits of our naval heroes proved to the world
our inherent capacity to maintain our rights on one element. If the
reputation of our arms has been thrown under clouds on the other,
presaging flashes of heroic enterprise assure us that nothing is wanting
to correspondent triumphs there also but die discipline and habits which
are in daily progress.

MARCH 4, 1813.




SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _May 25, 1813_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

At an early day after the close of the last session of Congress an offer
was formally communicated from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
Russia of his mediation, as the common friend of the United States and
Great Britain, for the purpose of facilitating a peace between them. The
high character of the Emperor Alexander being a satisfactory pledge for
the sincerity and impartiality of his offer, it was immediately
accepted, and as a further proof of the disposition on the part of the
United States, to meet their adversary in honorable experiments for
terminating the war it was determined to avoid intermediate delays
incident to the distance of the parties by a definitive provision for
the contemplated negotiation. Three of our eminent citizens were
accordingly commissioned with the requisite powers to conclude a treaty
of peace with persons clothed with like powers on the part of Great
Britain. They are authorized also to enter into such conventional
regulations of the commerce between the two countries as may be mutually
advantageous. The two envoys who, were in the United States at the time
of their appointment have proceeded to join their colleague already at
St. Petersburg.

The envoys have received another commission authorizing them to conclude
with Russia a treaty of commerce with a view to strengthen the amicable
relations and improve the beneficial intercourse between the two
countries.

The issue of this friendly interposition of the Russian Emperor and this
pacific manifestation on the part of the United States time only can
decide. That the sentiments of Great Britain toward that Sovereign will
have produced an acceptance of his offered mediation must be presumed.
That no adequate motives exist to prefer a continuance of war with the
United States to the terms on which they are willing to close it is
certain. The British cabinet also must be sensible that, with respect to
the important question of impressment, on which the war so essentially
turns, a search for or seizure of British persons or property on board
neutral vessels on the high seas is not a belligerent right derived from
the law of nations, and it is obvious that no visit or search or use of
force for any purpose on board the vessels of one independent power on
the high seas can in war or peace be sanctioned by the laws or authority
of another power. It is equally obvious that, for the purpose of
preserving to each State its seafaring members, by excluding them from
the vessels of the other, the mode heretofore proposed by the United
States and now enacted by them as an article of municipal policy, can
not for a moment be compared with the mode practiced by Great Britain
without a conviction of its title to preference, inasmuch as the latter
leaves the discrimination between the mariners of the two nations to
officers exposed by unavoidable bias as well as by a defect of evidence
to a wrong decision, under circumstances precluding for the most part
the enforcement of controlling penalties, and where a wrong decision,
besides the irreparable violation of the sacred rights of persons, might
frustrate the plans and profits of entire voyages; whereas the mode
assumed by the United States guards with studied fairness and efficacy
against errors in such cases and avoids the effect of casual errors on
the safety of navigation and the success of mercantile expeditions.

If the reasonableness of expectations drawn from these considerations
could guarantee their fulfillment a just peace would not be distant. But
it becomes the wisdom of the National Legislature to keep in mind the
true policy, or rather the indispensable obligation, of adapting its
measures to the supposition that the only course to that happy event is
in the vigorous employment of the resources of war. And painful as the
reflection is, this duty is particularly enforced by the spirit and
manner in which the war continues to be waged by the enemy, who,
uninfluenced by the unvaried examples of humanity set them, are adding
to the savage fury of it on one frontier a system of plunder and
conflagration on the other, equally forbidden by respect for national
character and by the established rules of civilized warfare.

As an encouragement to persevering and invigorated exertions to bring
the contest to a happy result, I have the satisfaction of being able to
appeal to the auspicious progress of our arms both by land and on the
water.

In continuation of the brilliant achievements of our infant Navy, a
signal triumph has been gained by Captain Lawrence and his companions in
the _Hornet_ sloop of war, which destroyed a British sloop of war
with a celerity so unexampled and with a slaughter of the enemy so
disproportionate to the loss in the _Hornet_ as to claim for the
conquerors the highest praise and the full recompense provided by
Congress in preceding cases. Our public ships of war in general, as well
as the private armed vessels, have continued also their activity and
success against the commerce of the enemy, and by their vigilance and
address have greatly frustrated the efforts of the hostile squadrons
distributed along our coasts to intercept them in returning into port
and resuming their cruises.

The augmentation of our naval force, as authorized at the last session
of Congress, is in progress. On the Lakes our superiority is near at
hand where it is not already established.

The events of the campaign, so far as they are known to us, furnish
matter of congratulation, and show that under a wise organization and
efficient direction the Army is destined to a glory not less brilliant
than that which already encircles the Navy. The attack and capture of
York is in that quarter a presage of future and greater victories, while
on the western frontier the issue of the late siege of Fort Meigs leaves
us nothing to regret but a single act of inconsiderate valor.

The provisions last made for filling the ranks and enlarging the staff
of the Army have had the best effects. It will be for the consideration
of Congress whether other provisions depending on their authority may
not still further improve the military establishment and the means of
defense.

The sudden death of the distinguished citizen who represented the United
States in France, without any special arrangements by him for such a
contingency, has left us without the expected sequel to his last
communications, nor has the French Government taken any measures for
bringing the depending negotiations to a conclusion through its
representative in the United States. This failure adds to delays before
so unreasonably spun out. A successor to our deceased minister has been
appointed and is ready to proceed on his mission. The course which he
will pursue in fulfilling it is that prescribed by a steady regard to
the true interests of the United States, which equally avoids an
abandonment of their just demands and a connection of their fortunes
with the systems of other powers.

The receipts in the Treasury from the 1st of October to the 31st day of
March last, including the sums received on account of Treasury notes and
of the loans authorized by the acts of the last and the preceding
sessions of Congress, have amounted to $15,412,000. The expenditures
during the same period amounted to $15,920,000, and left in the Treasury
on the 1st of April the sum of $1,857,000. The loan of $16,000,000,
authorized by the act of the 8th of February last, has been contracted
for. Of that sum more than $1,000,000 had been paid into the Treasury
prior to the 1st of April, and formed a part of the receipts as above
stated. The remainder of that loan, amounting to near $15,000,000, with
the sum of $5,000,000 authorized to be issued in Treasury notes, and the
estimated receipts from the customs and the sales of public lands,
amounting to $9,300,000, and making, in the whole, $29,300,000, to
be received during the last nine months of the present year, will
be necessary to meet the expenditures already authorized and the
engagements contracted in relation to the public debt. These engagements
amount during that period to $10,500,000, which, with near one million
for the civil, miscellaneous, and diplomatic expenses, both foreign and
domestic, and $17,800,000 for the military and naval expenditures,
including the ships of war building and to be built, will leave a sum
in the Treasury at the end of the present year equal to that on the 1st
of April last. A part of this sum may be considered as a resource for
defraying any extraordinary expenses already authorized by law beyond
the sums above estimated, and a further resource for any emergency may
be found in the sum of $1,000,000, the loan of which to the United
States has been authorized by the State of Pennsylvania, but which has
not yet been brought into effect.

This view of our finances, whilst it shows that due provision has been
made for the expenses of the current year, shows at the same time, by
the limited amount of the actual revenue and the dependence on loans,
the necessity of providing more adequately for the future supplies
of the Treasury. This can be best done by a well-digested system of
internal revenue in aid of existing sources, which will have the effect
both of abridging the amount of necessary loans and, on that account, as
well as by placing the public credit on a more satisfactory basis, of
improving the terms on which loans may be obtained. The loan of sixteen
millions was not contracted for at a less interest than about 7 1/2 per
cent, and, although other causes may have had an agency, it can not be
doubted that, with the advantage of a more extended and less precarious
revenue, a lower rate of interest might have sufficed. A longer
postponement of this advantage could not fail to have a still greater
influence on future loans.

In recommending to the National Legislature this resort to additional
taxes I feel great satisfaction in the assurance that our constituents,
who have already displayed so much zeal and firmness in the cause of
their country, will cheerfully give any other proof of their patriotism
which it calls for. Happily no people, with local and transitory
exceptions never to be wholly avoided, are more able than the people
of the United States to spare for the public wants a portion of their
private means, whether regard be had to the ordinary profits of industry
or the ordinary price of subsistence in our country compared with those
in any other. And in no case could stronger reasons be felt for yielding
the requisite contributions. By rendering the public resources certain
and commensurate to the public exigencies, the constituted authorities
will be able to prosecute the war the more rapidly to its proper issue;
every hostile hope founded on a calculated failure of our resources
will be cut off, and by adding to the evidence of bravery and skill
in combats on the ocean and the land, and alacrity in supplying the
treasure necessary to give them their fullest effect, and demonstrating
to the world the public energy which our political institutions combine,
with the personal liberty distinguishing them, the best security will be
provided against future enterprises on the rights or the peace of the
nation.

The contest in which the United States are engaged appeals for its
support to every motive that can animate an uncorrupted and enlightened
people--to the love of country; to the pride of liberty; to an emulation
of the glorious founders of their independence by a successful
vindication of its violated attributes; to the gratitude and sympathy
which demand security from the most degrading wrongs of a class of
citizens who have proved themselves so worthy the protection of their
country by their heroic zeal in its defense; and, finally, to the sacred
obligation of transmitting entire to future generations that precious
patrimony of national rights and independence which is held in trust by
the present from the goodness of Divine Providence.

Being aware of the inconveniences to which a protracted session at this
season would be liable, I limit the present communication to objects of
primary importance. In special messages which may ensue regard will be
had to the same consideration.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


MAY 29, 1813.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

The Swedish Government having repeatedly manifested a desire to
interchange a public minister with the United States, and having lately
appointed one with that view, and other considerations concurring to
render it advisable at this period to make a correspondent appointment,
I nominate Jonathan Russell, of Rhode Island, to be minister
plenipotentiary of the United States to Sweden.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _July 6, 1813_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I have received from the committee appointed by the resolution of the
Senate of the 14th day of June a copy of that resolution, which
authorizes the committee to confer with the President on the subject of
the nomination made by him of a minister plenipotentiary to Sweden.

Conceiving it to be my duty to decline the proposed conference with the
committee, and it being uncertain when it may be convenient to explain
to the committee, and through them to the Senate, the grounds of my so
doing, I think it proper to address the explanation directly to the
Senate. Without entering into a general review of the relations in which
the Constitution has placed the several departments of the Government to
each other, it will suffice to remark that the Executive and Senate, in
the cases of appointments to office and of treaties, are to be
considered as independent of and coordinate with each other. If they
agree, the appointments or treaties are made; if the Senate disagree,
they fail. If the Senate wish information previous to their final
decision, the practice, keeping in view the constitutional relations of
the Senate and the Executive, has been either to request the Executive
to furnish it or to refer the subject to a committee of their body to
communicate, either formally or informally, with the head of the proper
department. The appointment of a committee of the Senate to confer
immediately with the Executive himself appears to lose sight of the
coordinate relation between the Executive and the Senate which the
Constitution has established, and which ought therefore to be
maintained.

The relation between the Senate and House of Representatives, in whom
legislative power is concurrently vested, is sufficiently analogous to
illustrate that between the Executive and Senate in making appointments
and treaties. The two Houses are in like manner independent of and
coordinate with each other, and the invariable practice of each in
appointing committees of conference and consultation is to commission
them to confer not with the coordinate body itself, but with a committee
of that body; and although both branches of the Legislature may be too
numerous to hold conveniently a conference with committees, were they to
be appointed by either to confer with the entire body of the other, it
may be fairly presumed that if the whole number of either branch were
not too large for the purpose the objection to such a conference, being
against the principle as derogating from the coordinate relations of the
two Houses, would retain all its force.

I add only that I am entirely persuaded of the purity of the intentions
of the Senate in the course they have pursued on this occasion, and with
which my view of the subject makes it my duty not to accord, and that
they will be cheerfully furnished with all the suitable information in
possession of the Executive in any mode deemed consistent with the
principles of the Constitution and the settled practice under it.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _July 20, 1813_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

There being sufficient ground to infer that it is the purpose of the
enemy to combine with the blockade of our ports special licenses to
neutral vessels or to British vessels in neutral disguises, whereby
they may draw from our country the precise kind and quantity of
exports essential to their wants, whilst its general commerce remains
obstructed, keeping in view also the insidious discrimination between
the different ports of the United States; and as such a system, if not
counteracted, will have the effect of diminishing very materially the
pressure of the war on the enemy, and encouraging a perseverance in it,
at the same time that it will leave the general commerce of the United
States under all the pressure the enemy can impose, thus subjecting
the whole to British regulation in subserviency to British monopoly,
I recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency of an
immediate and effectual prohibition of exports limited to a convenient
day in their next session, and removable in the meantime in the event
of a cessation of the blockade of our ports.

JAMES MADISON.





PROCLAMATION.


[From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 4, p. 345.]

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by a joint resolution of the
two Houses, have signified a request that a day may be recommended to be
observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity as
a day of public humiliation and prayer; and

Whereas in times of public calamity such as that of the war brought on
the United States by the injustice of a foreign government it is
especially becoming that the hearts of all should be touched with the
same and the eyes of all be turned to that Almighty Power in whose hand
are the welfare and the destiny of nations:

I do therefore issue this my proclamation, recommending to all who shall
be piously disposed to unite their hearts and voices in addressing at
one and the same time their vows and adorations to the Great Parent and
Sovereign of the Universe that they assemble on the second Thursday of
September next in their respective religious congregations to render Him
thanks for the many blessings He has bestowed on the people of the
United States; that He has blessed them with a land capable of yielding
all the necessaries and requisites of human life, with ample means for
convenient exchanges with foreign countries; that He has blessed the
labors employed in its cultivation and improvement; that He is now
blessing the exertions to extend and establish the arts and manufactures
which will secure within ourselves supplies too important to remain
dependent on the precarious policy or the peaceable dispositions of
other nations, and particularly that He has blessed the United States
with a political Constitution founded on the will and authority of the
whole people and guaranteeing to each individual security, not only of
his person and his property, but of those sacred rights of conscience so
essential to his present happiness and so dear to his future hopes; that
with those expressions of devout thankfulness be joined supplications to
the same Almighty Power that He would look down with compassion on our
infirmities; that He would pardon our manifold transgressions and
awaken and strengthen in all the wholesome purposes of repentance and
amendment; that in this season of trial and calamity He would preside in
a particular manner over our public councils and inspire all citizens
with a love of their country and with those fraternal affections and
that mutual confidence which have so happy a tendency to make us safe
at home and respected abroad; and that as He was graciously pleased
heretofore to smile on our struggles against the attempts of the
Government of the Empire of which these States then made a part to wrest
from them the rights and privileges to which they were entitled in
common with every other part and to raise them to the station of an
independent and sovereign people, so He would now be pleased in like
manner to bestow His blessing on our arms in resisting the hostile and
persevering efforts of the same power to degrade us on the ocean, the
common inheritance of all, from rights and immunities belonging and
essential to the American people as a coequal member of the great
community of independent nations; and that, inspiring our enemies
with moderation, with justice, and with that spirit of reasonable
accommodation which our country has continued to manifest, we may be
enabled to beat our swords into plowshares and to enjoy in peace every
man the fruits of his honest industry and the rewards of his lawful
enterprise.

If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy the favorable regard
of the Holy and Omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be
that in which those who join in it are guided only by their free choice,
by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences;
and such a spectacle must be interesting to all Christian nations as
proving that religion, that gift of Heaven for the good of man, freed
from all coercive edicts, from that unhallowed connection with the
powers of this world which corrupts religion into an instrument or an
usurper of the policy of the state, and making no appeal but to reason,
to the heart, and to the conscience, can spread its benign influence
everywhere and can attract to the divine altar those freewill offerings
of humble supplication, thanksgiving, and praise which alone can be
acceptable to Him whom no hypocrisy can deceive and no forced sacrifices
propitiate.

Upon these principles and with these views the good people of the United
States are invited, in conformity with the resolution aforesaid, to
dedicate the day above named to the religious solemnities therein
recommended.

[SEAL.]

Given at Washington, this 23d day of July, A.D. 1813.

JAMES MADISON.




FIFTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _December 7, 1813_.

_Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In meeting you at the present interesting conjuncture it would have been
highly satisfactory if I could have communicated a favorable result to
the mission charged with negotiations for restoring peace. It was a just
expectation, from the respect due to the distinguished Sovereign who had
invited them by his offer of mediation, from the readiness with which
the invitation was accepted on the part of the United States, and from
the pledge to be found in an act of their Legislature for the liberality
which their plenipotentiaries would carry into the negotiations, that no
time would be lost by the British Government in embracing the experiment
for hastening a stop to the effusion of blood. A prompt and cordial
acceptance of the mediation on that side was the less to be doubted, as
it was of a nature not to submit rights or pretensions on either side
to the decision of an umpire, but to afford merely an opportunity,
honorable and desirable to both, for discussing and, if possible,
adjusting them for the interest of both.

The British cabinet, either mistaking our desire of peace for a dread
of British power or misled by other fallacious calculations, has
disappointed this reasonable anticipation. No communications from
our envoys having reached us, no information on the subject has been
received from that source; but it is known that the mediation was
declined in the first instance, and there is no evidence,
notwithstanding the lapse of time, that a change of disposition in the
British councils has taken place or is to be expected.

Under such circumstances a nation proud of its rights and conscious of
its strength has no choice but an exertion of the one in support of the
other.

To this determination the best encouragement is derived from the success
with which it has pleased the Almighty to bless our arms both on the
land and on the water.

Whilst proofs have been continued of the enterprise and skill of our
cruisers, public and private, on the ocean, and a new trophy gained in
the capture of a British by an American vessel of war, after an action
giving celebrity to the name of the victorious commander, the great
inland waters on which the enemy were also to be encountered have
presented achievements of our naval arms as brilliant in their character
as they have been important in their consequences.

On Lake Erie, the squadron under command of Captain Perry having met the
British squadron of superior force, a sanguinary conflict ended in the
capture of the whole. The conduct of that officer, adroit as it was
daring, and which was so well seconded by his comrades, justly entitles
them to the admiration and gratitude of their country, and will fill an
early page in its naval annals with a victory never surpassed in luster,
however much it may have been in magnitude.

On Lake Ontario the caution of the British commander, favored by
contingencies, frustrated the efforts of the American commander to bring
on a decisive action. Captain Chauncey was able, however, to establish
an ascendency on that important theater, and to prove by the manner
in which he effected everything possible that opportunities only were
wanted for a more shining display of his own talents and the gallantry
of those under his command.

The success on Lake Erie having opened a passage to the territory of the
enemy, the officer commanding the Northwestern army transferred the war
thither, and rapidly pursuing the hostile troops, fleeing with their
savage associates, forced a general action, which quickly terminated in
the capture of the British and dispersion of the savage force.

This result is signally honorable to Major General Harrison, by whose
military talents it was prepared; to Colonel Johnson and his mounted
volunteers, whose impetuous onset gave a decisive blow to the ranks of
the enemy, and to the spirit of the volunteer militia, equally brave and
patriotic, who bore an interesting part in the scene; more especially to
the chief magistrate of Kentucky, at the head of them, whose heroism
signalized in the war which established the independence of his country,
sought at an advanced age a share in hardships and battles for
maintaining its rights and its safety.

The effect of these successes has been to rescue the inhabitants of
Michigan from their oppressions, aggravated by gross infractions of
the capitulation which subjected them to a foreign power; to alienate
the savages of numerous tribes from the enemy, by whom they were
disappointed and abandoned, and to relieve an extensive region of
country from a merciless warfare which desolated its frontiers and
imposed on its citizens the most harassing services.

In consequence of our naval superiority on Lake Ontario and the
opportunity afforded by it for concentrating our forces by water,
operations which had been provisionally planned were set on foot against
the possessions of the enemy on the St. Lawrence. Such, however, was the
delay produced in the first instance by adverse weather of unusual
violence and continuance and such the circumstances attending the final
movements of the army, that the prospect, at one time so favorable, was
not realized.

The cruelty of the enemy in enlisting the savages into a war with a
nation desirous of mutual emulation in mitigating its calamities has not
been confined to any one quarter. Wherever they could be turned against
us no exertions to effect it have been spared. On our southwestern
border the Creek tribes, who, yielding to our persevering endeavors,
were gradually acquiring more civilized habits, became the unfortunate
victims of seduction. A war in that quarter has been the consequence,
infuriated by a bloody fanaticism recently propagated among them. It
was necessary to crush such a war before it could spread among the
contiguous tribes and before it could favor enterprises of the enemy
into that vicinity. With this view a force was called into the service
of the United States from the States of Georgia and Tennessee, which,
with the nearest regular troops and other corps from the Mississippi
Territory, might not only chastise the savages into present peace but
make a lasting impression on their fears.

The progress of the expedition, as far as is yet known, corresponds with
the martial zeal with which it was espoused, and the best hopes of a
satisfactory issue are authorized by the complete success with which a
well-planned enterprise was executed against a body of hostile savages
by a detachment of the volunteer militia of Tennessee, under the gallant
command of General Coffee, and by a still more important victory over a
larger body of them, gained under the immediate command of Major General
Jackson, an officer equally distinguished for his patriotism and his
military talents.

The systematic perseverance of the enemy in courting the aid of the
savages in all quarters had the natural effect of kindling their
ordinary propensity to war into a passion, which, even among those
best disposed toward the United States, was ready, if not employed
on our side, to be turned against us. A departure from our protracted
forbearance to accept the services tendered by them has thus been forced
upon us. But in yielding to it the retaliation has been mitigated as
much as possible, both in its extent and in its character, stopping far
short of the example of the enemy, who owe the advantages they have
occasionally gained in battle chiefly to the number of their savage
associates, and who have not controlled them either from their usual
practice of indiscriminate massacre on defenseless inhabitants or from
scenes of carnage without a parallel on prisoners to the British arms,
guarded by all the laws of humanity and of honorable war. For these
enormities the enemy are equally responsible, whether with the power to
prevent them they want the will or with the knowledge of a want of power
they still avail themselves of such instruments.

In other respects the enemy are pursuing a course which threatens
consequences most afflicting to humanity.

A standing law of Great Britain naturalizes, as is well known, all
aliens complying with conditions limited to a shorter period than
those required by the United States, and naturalized subjects are
in war employed by her Government in common with native subjects.
In a contiguous British Province regulations promulgated since the
commencement of the war compel citizens of the United States being there
under certain circumstances to bear arms, whilst of the native emigrants
from the United States, who compose much of the population of the
Province, a number have actually borne arms against the United States
within their limits, some of whom, after having done so, have become
prisoners of war, and are now in our possession. The British commander
in that Province, nevertheless, with the sanction, as appears, of his
Government, thought proper to select from American prisoners of war and
send to Great Britain for trial as criminals a number of individuals who
had emigrated from the British dominions long prior to the state of war
between the two nations, who had incorporated themselves into our
political society in the modes recognized by the law and the practice of
Great Britain, and who were made prisoners of war under the banners of
their adopted country, fighting for its rights and its safety.

The protection due to these citizens requiring an effectual
interposition in their behalf, a like number of British prisoners of
war were put into confinement, with a notification that they would
experience whatever violence might be committed on the American
prisoners of war sent to Great Britain.

It was hoped that this necessary consequence of the step unadvisedly
taken on the part of Great Britain would have led her Government to
reflect on the inconsistencies of its conduct, and that a sympathy with
the British, if not with the American, sufferers would have arrested the
cruel career opened by its example.

This was unhappily not the case. In violation both of consistency and of
humanity, American officers and noncommissioned officers in double the
number of the British soldiers confined here were ordered into close
confinement, with formal notice that in the event of a retaliation for
the death which might be inflicted on the prisoners of war sent to Great
Britain for trial the officers so confined would be put to death also.
It was notified at the same time that the commanders of the British
fleets and armies on our coasts are instructed in the same event to
proceed with a destructive severity against our towns and their
inhabitants.

That no doubt might be left with the enemy of our adherence to the
retaliatory resort imposed on us, a correspondent number of British
officers, prisoners of war in our hands, were immediately put into close
confinement to abide the fate of those confined by the enemy, and the
British Government has been apprised of the determination of this
Government to retaliate any other proceedings against us contrary to
the legitimate modes of warfare.

It is as fortunate for the United States that they have it in their
power to meet the enemy in this deplorable contest as it is honorable
to them that they do not join in it but under the most imperious
obligations, and with the humane purpose of effectuating a return to
the established usages of war.

The views of the French Government on the subjects which have been so
long committed to negotiation have received no elucidation since the
close of your late session. The minister plenipotentiary of the United
States at Paris had not been enabled by proper opportunities to press
the objects of his mission as prescribed by his instructions.

The militia being always to be regarded as the great bulwark of defense
and security for free states, and the Constitution having wisely
committed to the national authority a use of that force as the best
provision against an unsafe military establishment, as well as a
resource peculiarly adapted to a country having the extent and the
exposure of the United States, I recommend to Congress a revision of the
militia laws for the purpose of securing more effectually the services
of all detachments called into the employment and placed under the
Government of the United States.

It will deserve the consideration of Congress also whether among other
improvements in the militia laws justice does not require a regulation,
under due precautions, for defraying the expense incident to the first
assembling as well as the subsequent movements of detachments called
into the national service.

To give to our vessels of war, public and private, the requisite
advantage in their cruises, it is of much importance that they should
have, both for themselves and their prizes, the use of the ports and
markets of friendly powers. With this view, I recommend to Congress the
expediency of such legal provisions as may supply the defects or remove
the doubts of the Executive authority, to allow to the cruisers of other
powers at war with enemies of the United States such use of the American
ports as may correspond with the privileges allowed by such powers to
American cruisers.

During the year ending on the 30th of September last the receipts into
the Treasury have exceeded $37,500,000, of which near twenty-four
millions were the produce of loans. After meeting all demands for
the public service there remained in the Treasury on that day near
$7,000,000. Under the authority contained in the act of the 2d of August
last for borrowing $7,500,000, that sum has been obtained on terms more
favorable to the United States than those of the preceding loan made
during the present year. Further sums to a considerable amount will be
necessary to be obtained in the same way during the ensuing year, and
from the increased capital of the country, from the fidelity with which
the public engagements have been kept and the public credit maintained,
it may be expected on good grounds that the necessary pecuniary supplies
will not be wanting.

The expenses of the current year, from the multiplied operations falling
within it, have necessarily been extensive; but on a just estimate of
the campaign in which the mass of them has been incurred the cost will
not be found disproportionate to the advantages which have been gained.
The campaign has, indeed, in its latter stages in one quarter been less
favorable than was expected, but in addition to the importance of our
naval success the progress of the campaign has been filled with
incidents highly honorable to the American arms.

The attacks of the enemy on Craney Island, on Fort Meigs, on Sacketts
Harbor, and on Sandusky have been vigorously and successfully repulsed;
nor have they in any case succeeded on either frontier excepting when
directed against the peaceable dwellings of individuals or villages
unprepared or undefended.

On the other hand, the movements of the American Army have been followed
by the reduction of York, and of Forts George, Erie, and Maiden; by the
recovery of Detroit and the extinction of the Indian war in the West,
and by the occupancy or command of a large portion of Upper Canada.
Battles have also been fought on the borders of the St. Lawrence, which,
though not accomplishing their entire objects, reflect honor on the
discipline and prowess of our soldiery, the best auguries of eventual
victory. In the same scale are to be placed the late successes in the
South over one of the most powerful, which had become one of the most
hostile also, of the Indian tribes.

It would be improper to close this communication without expressing a
thankfulness in which all ought to unite for the numerous blessings
with which our beloved country continues to be favored; for the
abundance which overspreads our land, and the prevailing health of its
inhabitants; for the preservation of our internal tranquillity, and
the stability of our free institutions, and, above all, for the light
of divine truth and the protection of every man's conscience in the
enjoyment of it. And although among our blessings we can not number an
exemption from the evils of war, yet these will never be regarded as
the greatest of evils by the friends of liberty and of the rights of
nations. Our country has before preferred them to the degraded condition
which was the alternative when the sword was drawn in the cause which
gave birth to our national independence, and none who contemplate the
magnitude and feel the value of that glorious event will shrink from a
struggle to maintain the high and happy ground on which it placed the
American people.

With all good citizens the justice and necessity of resisting wrongs
and usurpations no longer to be borne will sufficiently outweigh the
privations and sacrifices inseparable from a state of war. But it
is a reflection, moreover, peculiarly consoling, that, whilst wars
are generally aggravated by their baneful effects on the internal
improvements and permanent prosperity of the nations engaged in them,
such is the favored situation of the United States that the calamities
of the contest into which they have been compelled to enter are
mitigated by improvements and advantages of which the contest itself
is the source.

If the war has increased the interruptions of our commerce, it has at
the same time cherished and multiplied our manufactures so as to make us
independent of all other countries for the more essential branches for
which we ought to be dependent on none, and is even rapidly giving them
an extent which will create additional staples in our future intercourse
with foreign markets.

If much treasure has been expended, no inconsiderable portion of it has
been applied to objects durable in their value and necessary to our
permanent safety.

If the war has exposed us to increased spoliations on the ocean and to
predatory incursions on the land, it has developed the national means of
retaliating the former and of providing protection against the latter,
demonstrating to all that every blow aimed at our maritime independence
is an impulse accelerating the growth of our maritime power.

By diffusing through the mass of the nation the elements of military
discipline and instruction; by augmenting and distributing warlike
preparations applicable to future use; by evincing the zeal and valor
with which they will be employed and the cheerfulness with which every
necessary burden will be borne, a greater respect for our rights and a
longer duration of our future peace are promised than could be expected
without these proofs of the national character and resources.

The war has proved moreover that our free Government, like other free
governments, though slow in its early movements, acquires in its
progress a force proportioned to its freedom, and that the union of
these States, the guardian of the freedom and safety of all and of each,
is strengthened by every occasion that puts it to the test.

In fine, the war, with all its vicissitudes, is illustrating the
capacity and the destiny of the United States to be a great, a
flourishing, and a powerful nation, worthy of the friendship which it
is disposed to cultivate with all others, and authorized by its own
example to require from all an observance of the laws of justice and
reciprocity. Beyond these their claims have never extended, and in
contending for these we behold a subject for our congratulations in the
daily testimonies of increasing harmony throughout the nation, and may
humbly repose our trust in the smiles of Heaven on so righteous a cause.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 9, 1813.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The tendency of our commercial and navigation laws in their present
state to favor the enemy and thereby prolong the war is more and more
developed by experience. Supplies of the most essential kinds And their
way not only to British ports and British armies at a distance, but the
armies in our neighborhood with which our own are contending derive from
our ports and outlets a subsistence attainable with difficulty, if at
all, from other sources. Even the fleets and troops infesting our coasts
and waters are by like supplies accommodated and encouraged in their
predatory and incursive warfare.

Abuses having a like tendency take place in our import trade. British
fabrics and products find their way into our ports under the name and
from the ports of other countries, and often in British vessels
disguised as neutrals by false colors and papers.

To these abuses it may be added that illegal importations are openly
made with advantage to the violators of the law, produced by
undervaluations or other circumstances involved in the course of the
judicial proceedings against them.

It is found also that the practice of ransoming is a cover for collusive
captures and a channel for intelligence advantageous to the enemy.

To remedy as much as possible these evils, I recommend:

That an effectual embargo on exports be immediately enacted.

That all articles known to be derived, either not at all or in any
immaterial degree only, from the productions of any other country than
Great Britain, and particularly the extensive articles made of wool and
cotton materials, and ardent spirits made from the cane, be expressly
and absolutely prohibited, from whatever port or place or in whatever
vessels the same may be brought into the United States, and that all
violations of the nonimportation act be subjected to adequate penalties.

That among the proofs of the neutral and national character of
foreign vessels it be required that the masters and supercargoes and
three-fourths at least of the crews be citizens or subjects of the
country under whose flag the vessels sail.

That all persons concerned in collusive captures by the enemy or in
ransoming vessels or their cargoes from the enemy be subjected to
adequate penalties.

To shorten as much as possible the duration of the war it is
indispensable that the enemy should feel all the pressure that can be
given to it, and the restraints having that tendency will be borne with
the greater cheerfulness by all good citizens, as the restraints will
affect those most who are most ready to sacrifice the interest of their
country in pursuit of their own.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 6, 1814.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit, for the information of Congress, copies of a letter from the
British secretary of state for foreign affairs to the Secretary of
State, with the answer of the latter.

In appreciating the accepted proposal of the Government of Great Britain
for instituting negotiations for peace Congress will not fail to keep in
mind that vigorous preparations for carrying on the war can in no
respect impede the progress to a favorable result, whilst a relaxation
of such preparations, should the wishes of the United States for a
speedy restoration of the blessings of peace be disappointed, would
necessarily have the most injurious consequences.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 26, 1814.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

It has appeared that at the recovery of the Michigan Territory from the
temporary possession of the enemy the inhabitants thereof were left in
so destitute and distressed a condition as to require from the public
stores certain supplies essential to their subsistence, which have been
prolonged under the same necessity which called for them.

The deplorable situation of the savages thrown by the same event on the
mercy and humanity of the American commander at Detroit drew from the
same source the means of saving them from perishing by famine, and in
other places the appeals made by the wants and sufferings of that
unhappy description of people have been equally imperious.

The necessity imposed by the conduct of the enemy in relation to the
savages of admitting their cooperation in some instances with our arms
has also involved occasional expense in supplying their wants, and it
is possible that a perseverance of the enemy in their cruel policy may
render a further expense for the like purpose inevitable.

On these subjects an estimate from the Department of War will be laid
before Congress, and I recommend a suitable provision for them.

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 31, 1814.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Taking into view the mutual interests which the United States and
the foreign nations in amity with them have in a liberal commercial
intercourse, and the extensive changes favorable thereto which have
recently taken place; taking into view also the important advantages
which may otherwise result from adapting the state of our commercial
laws to the circumstances now existing, I recommend to the consideration
of Congress the expediency of authorizing, after a certain day,
exportations, specie excepted, from the United States in vessels of the
United States and in vessels owned and navigated by the subjects of
powers at peace with them, and a repeal of so much of our laws as
prohibits the importation of articles not the property of enemies, but
produced or manufactured only within their dominions.

I recommend also, as a more effectual safeguard and encouragement to our
growing manufactures, that the additional duties on imports which are
to expire at the end of one year after a peace with Great Britain be
prolonged to the end of two years after that event, and that, in favor
of our moneyed institutions, the exportation of specie be prohibited
throughout the same period.

JAMES MADISON.





PROCLAMATIONS.


[From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 6, p. 279.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that a number of individuals who
have deserted from the Army of the United States have become sensible of
their offenses and are desirous of returning to their duty, a full
pardon is hereby granted and proclaimed to each and all such individuals
as shall within three months from the date hereof surrender themselves
to the commanding officer of any military post within the United States
or the Territories thereof.

[SEAL.]

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, the 17th day of June, A.D. 1814, and of
the Independence of the United States the thirty eighth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it is manifest that the blockade which has been proclaimed by
the enemy of the whole Atlantic coast of the United States, nearly 2,000
miles in extent, and abounding in ports, harbors, and navigable inlets,
can not be carried into effect by any adequate force actually stationed
for the purpose, and it is rendered a matter of certainty and notoriety
by the multiplied and daily arrivals and departures of the public and
private armed vessels of the United States and of other vessels that no
such adequate force has been so stationed; and

Whereas a blockade thus destitute of the character of a regular and
legal blockade as defined and recognized by the established law of
nations, whatever other purposes it may be made to answer, forms no
lawful prohibition or obstacle to such neutral and friendly vessels
as may choose to visit and trade with the United States; and

Whereas it accords with the interest and the amicable views of the
United States to favor and promote as far as may be the free and
mutually beneficial commercial intercourse of all friendly nations
disposed to engage therein, and with that view to afford to their
vessels destined to the United States a more positive and satisfactory
security against all interruptions, molestations, or vexations whatever
from the cruisers of the United States:

Now be it known that I, James Madison, President of the United States of
America, do by this my proclamation strictly order and instruct all the
public armed vessels of the United States and all private armed vessels
commissioned as privateers or with letters of marque and reprisal not
to interrupt, detain, or otherwise molest or vex any vessels whatever
belonging to neutral powers or the subjects or citizens thereof, which
vessels shall be actually bound and proceeding to any port or place
within the jurisdiction of the United States, but, on the contrary, to
render to all such vessels all the aid and kind offices which they may
need or require.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of
Washington, the 29th day of June, A.D. 1814, and of the Independence
of the United States the thirty-eighth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.




[From Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, vol. 3, 9.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas great and weighty matters claiming the consideration of the
Congress of the United States form an extraordinary occasion for
convening them, I do by these presents appoint Monday, the 19th day of
September next, for their meeting at the city of Washington, hereby
requiring the respective Senators and Representatives then and there to
assemble in Congress, in order to receive such communications as may
then be made to them and to consult and determine on such measures as in
their wisdom may be deemed meet for the welfare of the United States.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand,

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 8th day of August, A.D. 1814, and of
the Independence of the United States the thirty-ninth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.




[From Nile's Weekly Register, vol. 7, p. 2.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the enemy by a sudden incursion have succeeded in invading the
capital of the nation, defended at the moment by troops less numerous
than their own and almost entirely of the militia, during their
possession of which, though for a single day only, they wantonly
destroyed the public edifices, having no relation in their structure to
operations of war nor used at the time for military annoyance, some of
these edifices being also costly monuments of taste and of the arts, and
others depositories of the public archives, not only precious to the
nation as the memorials of its origin and its early transactions, but
interesting to all nations as contributions to the general stock of
historical instruction and political science; and

Whereas advantage has been taken of the loss of a fort more immediately
guarding the neighboring town of Alexandria to place the town within the
range of a naval force too long and too much in the habit of abusing its
superiority wherever it can be applied to require as the alternative of
a general conflagration an undisturbed plunder of private property,
which has been executed in a manner peculiarly distressing to the
inhabitants, who had inconsiderately cast themselves upon the justice
and generosity of the victor; and

Whereas it now appears by a direct communication from the British
commander on the American station to be his avowed purpose to employ the
force under his direction "in destroying and laying waste such towns and
districts upon the coast as may be found assailable," adding to this
declaration the insulting pretext that it is in retaliation for a wanton
destruction committed by the army of the United States in Upper Canada,
when it is notorious that no destruction has been committed, which,
notwithstanding the multiplied outrages previously committed by the
enemy was not unauthorized, and promptly shown to be so, and that the
United States have been as constant in their endeavors to reclaim the
enemy from such outrages by the contrast of their own example as they
have been ready to terminate on reasonable conditions the war itself;
and

Whereas these proceedings and declared purposes, which exhibit a
deliberate disregard of the principles of humanity and the rules of
civilized warfare, and which must give to the existing war a character
of extended devastation and barbarism at the very moment of negotiations
for peace, invited by the enemy himself, leave no prospect of safety to
anything within the reach of his predatory and incendiary operations but
in manful and universal determination to chastise and expel the invader:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States, do
issue this my proclamation, exhorting all the good people thereof to
unite their hearts and hands in giving effect to the ample means
possessed for that purpose. I enjoin it on all officers, civil and
military, to exert themselves in executing the duties with which they
are respectively charged; and more especially I require the officers
commanding the respective military districts to be vigilant and alert in
providing for the defense thereof, for the more effectual accomplishment
of which they are authorized to call to the defense of exposed and
threatened places portions of the militia most convenient thereto,
whether they be or be not parts of the quotas detached for the service
of the United States under requisitions of the General Government.

On an occasion which appeals so forcibly to the proud feelings and
patriotic devotion of the American people none will forget what they
owe to themselves, what they owe to their country and the high destinies
which await it, what to the glory acquired by their fathers in
establishing the independence which is now to be maintained by their
sons with the augmented strength and resources with which time and
Heaven had blessed them.

[SEAL.]

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed to these presents. Done at the city of
Washington, the 1st day of September, A.D. 1814 and of the Independence
of the United States the thirty-ninth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.




SPECIAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _September 17, 1814_.

The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: The destruction of the Capitol by the enemy having made it
necessary that other accommodations should be provided for the
meeting of Congress, chambers for the Senate and for the House of
Representatives, with other requisite apartments, have been fitted up,
under the direction of the superintendent of the city, in the public
building heretofore allotted for the post and other public offices.

With this information, be pleased, sir, to accept assurances of my great
respect and consideration.

JAMES MADISON.




SIXTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _September 20, 1814_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

Notwithstanding the early day which had been fixed for your session of
the present year, I was induced to call you together still sooner, as
well that any inadequacy in the existing provisions for the wants of the
Treasury might be supplied as that no delay might happen in providing
for the result of the negotiations on foot with Great Britain, whether
it should require arrangements adapted to a return of peace or further
and more effective provisions for prosecuting the war.

That result is not yet known. If, on the one hand, the repeal of the
orders in council and the general pacification in Europe, which withdrew
the occasion on which impressments from American vessels were practiced,
suggest expectations that peace and amity may be reestablished, we are
compelled, on the other hand, by the refusal of the British Government
to accept the offered mediation of the Emperor of Russia, by the delays
in giving effect to its own proposal of a direct negotiation, and, above
all, by the principles and manner in which the war is now avowedly
carried on to infer that a spirit of hostility is indulged more violent
than ever against the rights and prosperity of this country.

This increased violence is best explained by the two important
circumstances that the great contest in Europe for an equilibrium
guaranteeing all its States against the ambition of any has been closed
without any check on the overbearing power of Great Britain on the
ocean, and it has left in her hands disposable armaments, with which,
forgetting the difficulties of a remote war with a free people, and
yielding to the intoxication of success, with the example of a great
victim to it before her eyes, she cherishes hopes of still further
aggrandizing a power already formidable in its abuses to the
tranquillity of the civilized and commercial world.

But whatever may have inspired the enemy with these more violent
purposes, the public councils of a nation more able to maintain than it
was to acquire its independence, and with a devotion to it rendered more
ardent by the experience of its blessings, can never deliberate but
on the means most effectual for defeating the extravagant views or
unwarrantable passions with which alone the war can now be pursued
against us.

In the events of the present campaign the enemy, with all his augmented
means and wanton use of them, has little ground for exultation, unless
he can feel it in the success of his recent enterprises against this
metropolis and the neighboring town of Alexandria, from both of which
his retreats were as precipitate as his attempts were bold and
fortunate. In his other incursions on our Atlantic frontier his
progress, often checked and chastised by the martial spirit of the
neighboring citizens, has had more effect in distressing individuals
and in dishonoring his arms than in promoting any object of legitimate
warfare; and in the two instances mentioned, however deeply to be
regretted on our part, he will find in his transient success, which
interrupted for a moment only the ordinary public business at the seat
of Government, no compensation for the loss of character with the world
by his violations of private property and by his destruction of public
edifices protected as monuments of the arts by the laws of civilized
warfare.

On our side we can appeal to a series of achievements which have given
new luster to the American arms. Besides the brilliant incidents in the
minor operations of the campaign, the splendid victories gained on the
Canadian side of the Niagara by the American forces under Major-General
Brown and Brigadiers Scott and Gaines have gained for these heroes and
their emulating companions the most unfading laurels, and, having
triumphantly tested the progressive discipline of the American soldiery,
have taught the enemy that the longer he protracts his hostile efforts
the more certain and decisive will be his final discomfiture.

On our southern border victory has continued also to follow the American
standard. The bold and skillful operations of Major-General Jackson,
conducting troops drawn from the militia of the States least distant,
particularly of Tennessee, have subdued the principal tribes of hostile
savages, and, by establishing a peace with them, preceded by recent and
exemplary chastisement, has best guarded against the mischief of their
cooperation with the British enterprises which may be planned against
that quarter of our country. Important tribes of Indians on our
northwestern frontier have also acceded to stipulations which bind them
to the interests of the United States and to consider our enemy as
theirs also.

In the recent attempt of the enemy on the city of Baltimore, defended by
militia and volunteers, aided by a small body of regulars and seamen, he
was received with a spirit which produced a rapid retreat to his ships,
whilst a concurrent attack by a large fleet was successfully resisted by
the steady and well-directed fire of the fort and batteries opposed to
it.

In another recent attack by a powerful force on our troops at
Plattsburg, of which regulars made a part only, the enemy, after a
perseverance for many hours, was finally compelled to seek safety in a
hasty retreat, with our gallant bands pressing upon him.

On the Lakes, so much contested throughout the war, the great exertions
for the command made on our part have been well repaid. On Lake Ontario
our squadron is now and has been for some time in a condition to confine
that of the enemy to his own port, and to favor the operations of our
land forces on that frontier.

A part of the squadron on Lake Erie has been extended into Lake Huron,
and has produced the advantage of displaying our command on that lake
also. One object of the expedition was the reduction of Mackinaw, which
failed with the loss of a few brave men, among whom was an officer
justly distinguished for his gallant exploits. The expedition, ably
conducted by both the land and the naval commanders, was otherwise
highly valuable in its effects.

On Lake Champlain, where our superiority had for some time been
undisputed, the British squadron lately came into action with the
American, commanded by Captain Macdonough. It issued in the capture of
the whole of the enemy's ships. The best praise for this officer and his
intrepid comrades is in the likeness of his triumph to the illustrious
victory which immortalized another officer and established at a critical
moment our command of another lake.

On the ocean the pride of our naval arms had been amply supported. A
second frigate has indeed fallen into the hands of the enemy, but the
loss is hidden in the blaze of heroism with which she was defended.
Captain Porter, who commanded her, and whose previous career had
been distinguished by daring enterprise and by fertility of genius,
maintained a sanguinary contest against two ships, one of them superior
to his own, and under other severe disadvantages, till humanity tore
down the colors which valor had nailed to the mast. This officer and his
brave comrades have added much to the rising glory of the American flag,
and have merited all the effusions of gratitude which their country is
ever ready to bestow on the champions of its rights and of its safety.

Two smaller vessels of war have also become prizes to the enemy, but by
a superiority of force which sufficiently vindicates the reputation
of their commanders, whilst two others, one commanded by Captain
Warrington, the other by Captain Blakely, have captured British ships of
the same class with a gallantry and good conduct which entitle them and
their companions to a just share in the praise of their country.

In spite of the naval force of the enemy accumulated on our coasts, our
private cruisers also have not ceased to annoy his commerce and to bring
their rich prizes into our ports, contributing thus, with other proofs,
to demonstrate the incompetency and illegality of a blockade the
proclamation of which is made the pretext for vexing and discouraging
the commerce of neutral powers with the United States.

To meet the extended and diversified warfare adopted by the enemy, great
bodies of militia have been taken into service for the public defense,
and great expenses incurred. That the defense everywhere may be both
more convenient and more economical, Congress will see the necessity
of immediate measures for filling the ranks of the Regular Army and of
enlarging the provision for special corps, mounted and unmounted, to be
engaged for longer periods of service than are due from the militia. I
earnestly renew, at the same time, a recommendation of such changes in
the system of the militia as, by classing and disciplining for the most
prompt and active service the portions most capable of it, will give to
that great resource for the public safety all the requisite energy and
efficiency.

The moneys received into the Treasury during the nine months ending on
the 30th day of June last amounted to $32,000,000, of which near eleven
millions were the proceeds of the public revenue and the remainder
derived from loans. The disbursements for public expenditures during the
same period exceeded $34,000,000, and left in the Treasury on the 1st
day of July near $5,000,000. The demands during the remainder of the
present year already authorized by Congress and the expenses incident to
an extension of the operations of the war will render it necessary that
large sums should be provided to meet them.

From this view of the national affairs Congress will be urged to take
up without delay as well the subject of pecuniary supplies as that of
military force, and on a scale commensurate with the extent and the
character which the war has assumed. It is not to be disguised that the
situation of our country calls for its greatest efforts. Our enemy is
powerful in men and in money, on the land and on the water. Availing
himself of fortuitous advantages, he is aiming with his undivided force
a deadly blow at our growing prosperity, perhaps at our national
existence. He has avowed his purpose of trampling on the usages of
civilized warfare, and given earnests of it in the plunder and wanton
destruction of private property. In his pride of maritime dominion and
in his thirst of commercial monopoly he strikes with peculiar animosity
at the progress of our navigation and of our manufactures. His barbarous
policy has not even spared those monuments of the arts and models of
taste with which our country had enriched and embellished its infant
metropolis. From such an adversary hostility in its greatest force and
in its worst forms may be looked for. The American people will face it
with the undaunted spirit which in their revolutionary struggle defeated
his unrighteous projects. His threats and his barbarities, instead of
dismay, will kindle in every bosom an indignation not to be extinguished
but in the disaster and expulsion of such cruel invaders. In providing
the means necessary the National Legislature will not distrust the
heroic and enlightened patriotism of its constituents. They will
cheerfully and proudly bear every burden of every kind which the safety
and honor of the nation demand. We have seen them everywhere paying
their taxes, direct and indirect, with the greatest promptness and
alacrity. We see them rushing with enthusiasm to the scenes where danger
and duty call. In offering their blood they give the surest pledge that
no other tribute will be withheld.

Having forborne to declare war until to other aggressions had been added
the capture of nearly a thousand American vessels and the impressment of
thousands of American seafaring citizens, and until a final declaration
had been made by the Government of Great Britain that her hostile
orders against our commerce would not be revoked but on conditions as
impossible as unjust, whilst it was known that these orders would not
otherwise cease but with a war which had lasted nearly twenty years, and
which, according to appearances at that time, might last as many more;
having manifested on every occasion and in every proper mode a sincere
desire to arrest the effusion of blood and meet our enemy on the ground
of justice and reconciliation, our beloved country, in still opposing
to his persevering hostility all its energies, with an undiminished
disposition toward peace and friendship on honorable terms, must carry
with it the good wishes of the impartial world and the best hopes of
support from an omnipotent and kind Providence.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


SEPTEMBER 26, 1814.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to Congress, for their information, copies of a letter from
Admiral Cochrane, commanding His Britannic Majesty's naval forces on the
American station, to the Secretary of State, with his answer, and of a
reply from Admiral Cochrane.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _October 10, 1814_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress communications just received from the
plenipotentiaries of the United States charged with negotiating peace
with Great Britain, showing the conditions on which alone that
Government is willing to put an end to the war.

The instructions to those plenipotentiaries, disclosing the grounds on
which they were authorized to negotiate and conclude a treaty of peace,
will be the subject of another communication.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _October 13, 1814_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now transmit to Congress copies of the instructions to the
plenipotentiaries of the United States charged with negotiating a peace
with Great Britain, as referred to in my message of the 10th instant.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 1,  1814.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit, for the information of Congress, the communications last
received from the ministers extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the
United States at Ghent, explaining the course and actual state of their
negotiations with the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 15, 1815.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I have received from the American commissioners a treaty of peace and
amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America,
signed by those commissioners and by the commissioners of His Britannic
Majesty at Ghent on the 24th of December, 1814. The termination of
hostilities depends upon the time of the ratification of the treaty by
both parties. I lose no time, therefore, in submitting the treaty to the
Senate for their advice and approbation.

I transmit also a letter from the American commissioners, which
accompanied the treaty.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _February 18, 1815_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of the treaty of peace and amity between
the United States and His Britannic Majesty, which was signed by the
commissioners of both parties at Ghent on the 24th of December, 1814,
and the ratifications of which have been duly exchanged.

While performing this act I congratulate you and our constituents upon
an event which is highly honorable to the nation, and terminates with
peculiar felicity a campaign signalized by the most brilliant successes.

The late war, although reluctantly declared by Congress, had become a
necessary resort to assert the rights and independence of the nation. It
has been waged with a success which is the natural result of the wisdom
of the legislative councils, of the patriotism of the people, of the
public spirit of the militia, and of the valor of the military and naval
forces of the country. Peace, at all times a blessing, is peculiarly
welcome, therefore, at a period when the causes for the war have ceased
to operate, when the Government has demonstrated the efficiency of its
powers of defense, and when the nation can review its conduct without
regret and without reproach.

I recommend to your care and beneficence the gallant men whose
achievements in every department of the military service, on the land
and on the water, have so essentially contributed to the honor of the
American name and to the restoration of peace. The feelings of conscious
patriotism and worth will animate such men under every change of fortune
and pursuit, but their country performs a duty to itself when it bestows
those testimonials of approbation and applause which are at once the
reward and the incentive to great actions.

The reduction of the public expenditures to the demands of a peace
establishment will doubtless engage the immediate attention of Congress.
There are, however, important considerations which forbid a sudden and
general revocation of the measures that have been produced by the war.
Experience has taught us that neither the pacific dispositions of
the American people nor the pacific character of their political
institutions can altogether exempt them from that strife which appears
beyond the ordinary lot of nations to be incident to the actual period
of the world, and the same faithful monitor demonstrates that a certain
degree of preparation for war is not only indispensable to avert
disasters in the onset, but affords also the best security for the
continuance of peace. The wisdom of Congress will therefore, I am
confident, provide for the maintenance of an adequate regular force; for
the gradual advancement of the naval establishment; for improving all
the means of harbor defense; for adding discipline to the distinguished
bravery of the militia, and for cultivating the military art in its
essential branches, under the liberal patronage of Government.

The resources of our country were at all times competent to the
attainment of every national object, but they will now be enriched and
invigorated by the activity which peace will introduce into all the
scenes of domestic enterprise and labor. The provision that has been
made for the public creditors during the present session of Congress
must have a decisive effect in the establishment of the public credit
both at home and abroad. The reviving interests of commerce will
claim the legislative attention at the earliest opportunity, and such
regulations will, I trust, be seasonably devised as shall secure to the
United States their just proportion of the navigation of the world.
The most liberal policy toward other nations, if met by corresponding
dispositions, will in this respect be found the most beneficial policy
toward ourselves. But there is no subject that can enter with greater
force and merit into the deliberations of Congress than a consideration
of the means to preserve and promote the manufactures which have sprung
into existence and attained an unparalleled maturity throughout the
United States during the period of the European wars. This source of
national independence and wealth I anxiously recommend, therefore, to
the prompt and constant guardianship of Congress.

The termination of the legislative sessions will soon separate you,
fellow citizens, from each other, and restore you to your constituents.
I pray you to bear with you the expressions of my sanguine hope that
the peace which has been just declared will not only be the foundation
of the most friendly intercourse between the United States and Great
Britain, but that it will also be productive of happiness and harmony in
every section of our beloved country. The influence of your precepts and
example must be everywhere powerful, and while we accord in grateful
acknowledgments for the protection which Providence has bestowed upon
us, let us never cease to inculcate obedience to the laws and fidelity
to the Union as constituting the palladium of the national independence
and prosperity.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _February 22, 1815_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of two ratified treaties which were entered
into on the part of the United States, one on the 22d day of July, 1814,
with the several tribes of Indians called the Wyandots, Delawares,
Shawanees, Senakas, and Miamies; the other on the 9th day of August,
1814, with the Creek Nation of Indians.

It is referred to the consideration of Congress how far legislative
provisions may be necessary for carrying any part of these stipulations
into effect.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _February 23, 1815_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Congress will have seen by the communication from the consul-general of
the United States at Algiers laid before them on the 17th of November,
1812, the hostile proceedings of the Dey against that functionary. These
have been followed by acts of more overt and direct warfare against the
citizens of the United States trading in the Mediterranean, some of whom
are still detained in captivity, notwithstanding the attempts which have
been made to ransom them, and are treated with the rigor usual on the
coast of Barbary.

The considerations which rendered it unnecessary and unimportant to
commence hostile operations on the part of the United States being now
terminated by the peace with Great Britain, which opens the prospect of
an active and valuable trade of their citizens within the range of the
Algerine cruisers, I recommend to Congress the expediency of an act
declaring the existence of a state of war between the United States
and the Dey and Regency of Algiers, and of such provisions as may be
requisite for a vigorous prosecution of it to a successful issue.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _February 25, 1815_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Peace having happily taken place between the United States and Great
Britain, it is desirable to guard against incidents which during periods
of war in Europe might tend to interrupt it, and it is believed in
particular that the navigation of American vessels exclusively by
American seamen, either natives or such as are already naturalized,
would not only conduce to the attainment of that object, but also to
increase the number of our seamen, and consequently to render our
commerce and navigation independent of the service of foreigners who
might be recalled by their governments under circumstances the most
inconvenient to the United States. I recommend the subject, therefore,
to the consideration of Congress, and in deciding upon it I am persuaded
that they will sufficiently estimate the policy of manifesting to the
world a desire on all occasions to cultivate harmony with other nations
by any reasonable accommodations which do not impair the enjoyment
of any of the essential rights of a free and independent people. The
example on the part of the American Government will merit and may be
expected to receive a reciprocal attention from all the friendly powers
of Europe.

JAMES MADISON.




VETO MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _January 30, 1815_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Having bestowed on the bill entitled "An act to incorporate the
subscribers to the Bank of the United States of America" that full
consideration which is due to the great importance of the subject, and
dictated by the respect which I feel for the two Houses of Congress, I
am constrained by a deep and solemn conviction that the bill ought not
to become a law to return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with
my objections to the same.

Waiving the question of the constitutional authority of the Legislature
to establish an incorporated bank as being precluded in my judgment by
repeated recognitions under varied circumstances of the validity of such
an institution in acts of the legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of the Government, accompanied by indications, in different
modes, of a concurrence of the general will of the nation, the proposed
bank does not appear to be calculated to answer the purposes of reviving
the public credit, of providing a national medium of circulation, and of
aiding the Treasury by facilitating the indispensable anticipations of
the revenue and by affording to the public more durable loans.

1. The capital of the bank is to be compounded of specie, of public
stock, and of Treasury notes convertible into stock, with a certain
proportion of each of which every subscriber is to furnish himself.

The amount of the stock to be subscribed will not, it is believed, be
sufficient to produce in favor of the public credit any considerable or
lasting elevation of the market price, whilst this may be occasionally
depressed by the bank itself if it should carry into the market the
allowed proportion of its capital consisting of public stock in order to
procure specie, which it may find its account in procuring with some
sacrifice on that part of its capital.

Nor will any adequate advantage arise to the public credit from the
subscription of Treasury notes. The actual issue of these notes nearly
equals at present, and will soon exceed, the amount to be subscribed
to the bank. The direct effect of this operation is simply to convert
fifteen millions of Treasury notes into fifteen millions of 6 per cent
stock, with the collateral effect of promoting an additional demand for
Treasury notes beyond what might otherwise be negotiable.

Public credit might indeed be expected to derive advantage from the
establishment of a national bank, without regard to the formation of its
capital, if the full aid and cooperation of the institution were secured
to the Government during the war and during the period of its fiscal
embarrassments. But the bank proposed will be free from all legal
obligation to cooperate with the public measures, and whatever might be
the patriotic disposition of its directors to contribute to the removal
of those embarrassments, and to invigorate the prosecution of the war,
fidelity to the pecuniary and general interest of the institution
according to their estimate of it might oblige them to decline a
connection of their operations with those of the National Treasury
during the continuance of the war and the difficulties incident to it.
Temporary sacrifices of interest, though overbalanced by the future
and permanent profits of the charter, not being requirable of right in
behalf of the public, might not be gratuitously made, and the bank would
reap the full benefit of the grant, whilst the public would lose the
equivalent expected from it; for it must be kept in view that the sole
inducement to such a grant on the part of the public would be the
prospect of substantial aids to its pecuniary means at the present
crisis and during the sequel of the war. It is evident that the stock of
the bank will on the return of peace, if not sooner, rise in the market
to a value which, if the bank were established in a period of peace,
would authorize and obtain for the public a bonus to a very large
amount. In lieu of such a bonus the Government is fairly entitled to and
ought not to relinquish or risk the needful services of the bank under
the pressing circumstances of war.

2. The bank as proposed to be constituted can not be relied on during
the war to provide a circulating medium nor to furnish loans or
anticipations of the public revenue.

Without a medium the taxes can not be collected, and in the absence of
specie the medium understood to be the best substitute is that of notes
issued by a national bank. The proposed bank will commence and conduct
its operations under an obligation to pay its notes in specie, or be
subject to the loss of its charter. Without such an obligation the notes
of the bank, though not exchangeable for specie, yet resting on good
pledges and performing the uses of specie in the payment of taxes and in
other public transactions, would, as experience has ascertained, qualify
the bank to supply at once a circulating medium and pecuniary aids to
the Government. Under the fetters imposed by the bill it is manifest
that during the actual state of things, and probably during the war, the
period particularly requiring such a medium and such a resource for
loans and advances to the Government, notes for which the bank would be
compellable to give specie in exchange could not be kept in circulation.
The most the bank could effect, and the most it could be expected to
aim at, would be to keep the institution alive by limited and local
transactions which, with the interest on the public stock in the bank,
might yield a dividend sufficient for the purpose until a change from
war to peace should enable it, by a flow of specie into its vaults and
a removal of the external demand for it, to derive its contemplated
emoluments from a safe and full extension of its operations.

On the whole, when it is considered that the proposed establishment
will enjoy a monopoly of the profits of a national bank for a period of
twenty years; that the monopolized profits will be continually growing
with the progress of the national population and wealth; that the nation
will during the same period be dependent on the notes of the bank for
that species of circulating medium whenever the precious metals may
be wanted, and at all times for so much thereof as may be an eligible
substitute for a specie medium, and that the extensive employment of the
notes in the collection of the augmented taxes will, moreover, enable
the bank greatly to extend its profitable issues of them without the
expense of specie capital to support their circulation, it is as
reasonable as it is requisite that the Government, in return for these
extraordinary concessions to the bank, should have a greater security
for attaining the public objects of the institution than is presented in
the bill, and particularly for every practicable accommodation, both in
the temporary advances necessary to anticipate the taxes and in those
more durable loans which are equally necessary to diminish the resort
to taxes.

In discharging this painful duty of stating objections to a measure
which has undergone the deliberations and received the sanction of
the two Houses of the National Legislature I console myself with the
reflection that if they have not the weight which I attach to them they
can be constitutionally overruled, and with a confidence that in a
contrary event the wisdom of Congress will hasten to substitute a more
commensurate and certain provision for the public exigencies.

JAMES MADISON.




PROCLAMATIONS.


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

A PROCLAMATION.

The two Houses of the National Legislature having by a joint resolution
expressed their desire that in the present time of public calamity and
war a day may be recommended to be observed by the people of the United
States as a day of public humiliation and fasting and of prayer to
Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these States, His blessing on
their arms, and a speedy restoration of peace, I have deemed it proper
by this proclamation to recommend that Thursday, the 12th of January
next, be set apart as a day on which all may have an opportunity of
voluntarily offering at the same time in their respective religious
assemblies their humble adoration to the Great Sovereign of the
Universe, of confessing their sins and transgressions, and of
strengthening their vows of repentance and amendment. They will be
invited by the same solemn occasion to call to mind the distinguished
favors conferred on the American people in the general health which has
been enjoyed, in the abundant fruits of the season, in the progress of
the arts instrumental to their comfort, their prosperity, and their
security, and in the victories which have so powerfully contributed to
the defense and protection of our country, a devout thankfulness for all
which ought to be mingled with their supplications to the Beneficent
Parent of the Human Race that He would be graciously pleased to pardon
all their offenses against Him; to support and animate them in the
discharge of their respective duties; to continue to them the precious
advantages flowing from political institutions so auspicious to their
safety against dangers from abroad, to their tranquillity at home, and
to their liberties, civil and religious; and that He would in a special
manner preside over the nation in its public councils and constituted
authorities, giving wisdom to its measures and success to its arms
in maintaining its rights and in overcoming all hostile designs and
attempts against it; and, finally, that by inspiring the enemy with
dispositions favorable to a just and reasonable peace its blessings
may be speedily and happily restored.

[SEAL.]

Given at the city of Washington, the 16th day of November, 1814, and of
the Independence of the United States the thirty-eighth.

JAMES MADISON.




BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Among the many evils produced by the wars which with little intermission
have afflicted Europe and extended their ravages into other quarters
of the globe for a period exceeding twenty years, the dispersion or a
considerable portion of the inhabitants of different countries in sorrow
and in want has not been the least injurious to human happiness nor the
least severe in the trial of human virtue.

It had been long ascertained that many foreigners, flying from the
dangers of their own home, and that some citizens, forgetful of their
duty, had cooperated in forming an establishment on the island of
Barrataria, near the mouth of the river Mississippi, for the purposes
of a clandestine and lawless trade. The Government of the United States
caused the establishment to be broken up and destroyed, and having
obtained the means of designating the offenders of every description,
it only remained to answer the demands of justice by inflicting an
exemplary punishment.

But it has since been represented that the offenders have manifested a
sincere penitence; that they have abandoned the prosecution of the worse
cause for the support of the best, and particularly that they have
exhibited in the defense of New Orleans unequivocal traits of courage
and fidelity. Offenders who have refused to become the associates of the
enemy in the war upon the most seducing terms of invitation and who have
aided to repel his hostile invasion of the territory of the United
States can no longer be considered as objects of punishment, but as
objects of a generous forgiveness.

It has therefore been seen with great satisfaction that the general
assembly of the State of Louisiana earnestly recommend those offenders
to the benefit of a full pardon.

And in compliance with that recommendation, as well as in consideration
of all the other extraordinary circumstances of the case, I, James
Madison, President of the United States of America, do issue this
proclamation, hereby granting, publishing, and declaring a free and full
pardon of all offenses committed in violation of any act or acts of the
Congress of the said United States touching the revenue, trade, and
navigation thereof or touching the intercourse and commerce of the
United States with foreign nations at any time before the 8th day of
January, in the present year 1815, by any person or persons whomsoever
being inhabitants of New Orleans and the adjacent country or being
inhabitants of the said island of Barrataria and the places adjacent:
_Provided_, That every person claiming the benefit of this full
pardon in order to entitle himself thereto shall produce a certificate
in writing from the governor of the State of Louisiana stating that such
person has aided in the defense of New Orleans and the adjacent country
during the invasion thereof as aforesaid.

And I do hereby further authorize and direct all suits, indictments,
and prosecutions for fines, penalties, and forfeitures against any
person or persons who shall be entitled to the benefit of this full
pardon forthwith to be stayed, discontinued, and released; and all
civil officers are hereby required, according to the duties of their
respective stations, to carry this proclamation into immediate and
faithful execution.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 6th day of February, in the year
1815, and of the Independence of the United States the thirty-ninth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Acting as Secretary of State_.



[From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 7, p. 397.]


JAMES MADISON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

_To all and singular to whom these presents shall come, greeting_:

Whereas a treaty of peace and amity between the United States of America
and His Britannic Majesty was signed at Ghent on the 24th day of
December, 1814, by the plenipotentiaries respectively appointed for that
purpose; and the said treaty having been, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate of the United States, duly accepted, ratified, and
confirmed on the 17th day of February, 1815, and ratified copies thereof
having been exchanged agreeably to the tenor of the said treaty, which
is in the words following, to wit:

[Here follows the treaty.]

Now, therefore, to the end that the said treaty of peace and amity may
be observed with good faith on the part of the United States, I, James
Madison, President as aforesaid, have caused the premises to be made
public; and I do hereby enjoin all persons bearing office, civil or
military, within the United States and all others citizens or
inhabitants thereof or being within the same faithfully to observe and
fulfill the said treaty and every clause and article thereof.

[SEAL.]

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, this 18th day of February, A.D. 1815,
and of the Sovereignty and Independence of the United States the
thirty-ninth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Acting Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States have by a
joint resolution signified their desire that a day may be recommended to
be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity
as a day of thanksgiving and of devout acknowledgments to Almighty God
for His great goodness manifested in restoring to them the blessing of
peace.

No people ought to feel greater obligations to celebrate the goodness of
the Great Disposer of Events and of the Destiny of Nations than the
people of the United States. His kind providence originally conducted
them to one of the best portions of the dwelling place allotted for the
great family of the human race. He protected and cherished them under
all the difficulties and trials to which they were exposed in their
early days. Under His fostering care their habits, their sentiments, and
their pursuits prepared them for a transition in due time to a state of
independence and self-government. In the arduous struggle by which it
was attained they were distinguished by multiplied tokens of His benign
interposition. During the interval which succeeded He reared them into
the strength and endowed them with the resources which have enabled them
to assert their national rights and to enhance their national character
in another arduous conflict, which is now so happily terminated by a
peace and reconciliation with those who have been our enemies. And to
the same Divine Author of Every Good and Perfect Gift we are indebted
for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil,
which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.

It is for blessings such as these, and more especially for the
restoration of the blessing of peace, that I now recommend that the
second Thursday in April next be set apart as a day on which the people
of every religious denomination may in their solemn assemblies unite
their hearts and their voices in a freewill offering to their Heavenly
Benefactor of their homage of thanksgiving and of their songs of praise.

[SEAL.]

Given at the city of Washington on the 4th day of March, A.D. 1815, and
of the Independence of the United States the thirty-ninth.

JAMES MADISON.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that sundry persons citizens of
the United States or residents within the same, and especially within
the State of Louisiana, are conspiring together to begin and set on
foot, provide, and prepare the means for a military expedition or
enterprise against the dominions of Spain, with which the United States
are happily at peace; that for this purpose they are collecting arms,
military stores, provisions, vessels, and other means; are deceiving and
seducing honest and well-meaning citizens to engage in their unlawful
enterprises; are organizing, officering, and arming themselves for the
same contrary to the laws in such cases made and provided:

I have therefore thought fit to issue this my proclamation, warning and
enjoining all faithful citizens who have been led without due knowledge
or consideration to participate in the said unlawful enterprises to
withdraw from the same without delay, and commanding all persons
whatsoever engaged or concerned in the same to cease all further
proceedings therein, as they will answer the contrary at their peril.
And I hereby enjoin and require all officers, civil and military, of the
United States or of any of the States or Territories, all judges,
justices, and other officers of the peace, all military officers of the
Army or Navy of the United States, and officers of the militia, to be
vigilant, each within his respective department and according to his
functions, in searching out and bringing to punishment all persons
engaged or concerned in such enterprises, in seizing and detaining,
subject to the disposition of the law, all arms, military stores,
vessels, or other means provided or providing for the same, and, in
general, in preventing the carrying on such expedition or enterprise by
all the lawful means within their power. And I require all good and
faithful citizens and others within the United States to be aiding and
assisting herein, and especially in the discovery, apprehension, and
bringing to justice of all such offenders, in preventing the execution
of their unlawful combinations or designs, and in giving information
against them to the proper authorities.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States of
America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my
hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 1st day of September, A.D. 1815, and
of the Independence of the said United States of America the fortieth.

JAMES MADISON.




SEVENTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


WASHINGTON, _December 5, 1815_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I have the satisfaction on our present meeting of being able to
communicate to you the successful termination of the war which had been
commenced against the United States by the Regency of Algiers. The
squadron in advance on that service, under Commodore Decatur, lost not a
moment after its arrival in the Mediterranean in seeking the naval force
of the enemy then cruising in that sea, and succeeded in capturing two
of his ships, one of them the principal ship, commanded by the Algerine
admiral. The high character of the American commander was brilliantly
sustained on the occasion which brought his own ship into close action
with that of his adversary, as was the accustomed gallantry of all the
officers and men actually engaged. Having prepared the way by this
demonstration of American skill and prowess, he hastened to the port of
Algiers, where peace was promptly yielded to his victorious force. In
the terms stipulated the rights and honor of the United States were
particularly consulted by a perpetual relinquishment on the part of
the Dey of all pretensions to tribute from them. The impressions which
have thus been made, strengthened as they will have been by subsequent
transactions with the Regencies of Tunis and of Tripoli by the
appearance of the larger force which followed under Commodore
Bainbridge, the chief in command of the expedition, and by the judicious
precautionary arrangements left by him in that quarter, afford a
reasonable prospect of future security for the valuable portion of our
commerce which passes within reach of the Barbary cruisers.

It is another source of satisfaction that the treaty of peace with Great
Britain has been succeeded by a convention on the subject of commerce
concluded by the plenipotentiaries of the two countries. In this result
a disposition is manifested on the part of that nation corresponding
with the disposition of the United States, which it may be hoped will
be improved into liberal arrangements on other subjects on which the
parties have mutual interests, or which might endanger their future
harmony. Congress will decide on the expediency of promoting such a
sequel by giving effect to the measure of confining the American
navigation to American seamen--a measure which, at the same time that it
might have that conciliatory tendency, would have the further advantage
of increasing the independence of our navigation and the resources for
our maritime defense.

In conformity with the articles in the treaty of Ghent relating to the
Indians, as well as with a view to the tranquillity of our western and
northwestern frontiers, measures were taken to establish an immediate
peace with the several tribes who had been engaged in hostilities
against the United States. Such of them as were invited to Detroit
acceded readily to a renewal of the former treaties of friendship.
Of the other tribes who were invited to a station on the Mississippi
the greater number have also accepted the peace offered to them. The
residue, consisting of the more distant tribes or parts of tribes,
remain to be brought over by further explanations, or by such other
means as may be adapted to the dispositions they may finally disclose.

The Indian tribes within and bordering on the southern frontier, whom a
cruel war on their part had compelled us to chastise into peace, have
latterly shown a restlessness which has called for preparatory measures
for repressing it, and for protecting the commissioners engaged in
carrying the terms of the peace into execution.

The execution of the act for fixing the military peace establishment has
been attended with difficulties which even now can only be overcome by
legislative aid. The selection of officers, the payment and discharge of
the troops enlisted for the war, the payment of the retained troops and
their reunion from detached and distant stations, the collection and
security of the public property in the Quartermaster, Commissary, and
Ordnance departments, and the constant medical assistance required
in hospitals and garrisons rendered a complete execution of the
act impracticable on the 1st of May, the period more immediately
contemplated. As soon, however, as circumstances would permit, and as
far as it has been practicable consistently with the public interests,
the reduction of the Army has been accomplished; but the appropriations
for its pay and for other branches of the military service having proved
inadequate, the earliest attention to that subject will be necessary;
and the expediency of continuing upon the peace establishment the staff
officers who have hitherto been provisionally retained is also
recommended to the consideration of Congress.

In the performance of the Executive duty upon this occasion there has
not been wanting a just sensibility to the merits of the American Army
during the late war; but the obvious policy and design in fixing an
efficient military peace establishment did not afford an opportunity to
distinguish the aged and infirm on account of their past services nor
the wounded and disabled on account of their present sufferings. The
extent of the reduction, indeed, unavoidably involved the exclusion
of many meritorious officers of every rank from the service of their
country; and so equal as well as so numerous were the claims to
attention that a decision by the standard of comparative merit could
seldom be attained. Judged, however, in candor by a general standard of
positive merit, the Army Register will, it is believed, do honor to the
establishment, while the case of those officers whose names are not
included in it devolves with the strongest interest upon the legislative
authority for such provision as shall be deemed the best calculated to
give support and solace to the veteran and the invalid, to display the
beneficence as well as the justice of the Government, and to inspire a
martial zeal for the public service upon every future emergency.

Although the embarrassments arising from the want of an uniform national
currency have not been diminished since the adjournment of Congress,
great satisfaction has been derived in contemplating the revival of the
public credit and the efficiency of the public resources. The receipts
into the Treasury from the various branches of revenue during the nine
months ending on the 30th of September last have been estimated at
$12,500,000; the issues of Treasury notes of every denomination during
the same period amounted to the sum of $14,000,000, and there was also
obtained upon loan during the same period a sum of $9,000,000 of which
the sum of $6,000,000 was subscribed in cash and the sum of $3,000,000
in Treasury notes. With these means, added to the sum of $1,500,000,
being the balance of money in the Treasury on the 1st day of January,
there has been paid between the 1st of January and the 1st of October on
account of the appropriations of the preceding and of the present year
(exclusively of the amount of the Treasury notes subscribed to the loan
and of the amount redeemed in the payment of duties and taxes) the
aggregate sum of $33,500,000, leaving a balance then in the Treasury
estimated at the sum of $3,000,000. Independent, however, of the
arrearages due for military services and supplies, it is presumed that
a further sum of $5,000,000, including the interest on the public debt
payable on the 1st of January next, will be demanded at the Treasury
to complete the expenditures of the present year, and for which the
existing ways and means will sufficiently provide.

The national debt, as it was ascertained on the 1st of October last,
amounted in the whole to the sum of $120,000,000, consisting of
the unredeemed balance of the debt contracted before the late war
($39,000,000), the amount of the funded debt contracted in consequence
of the war ($64,000,000), and the amount of the unfunded and floating
debt, including the various issues of Treasury notes, $17,000,000, which
is in a gradual course of payment. There will probably be some addition
to the public debt upon the liquidation of various claims which are
depending, and a conciliatory disposition on the part of Congress may
lead honorably and advantageously to an equitable arrangement of the
militia expenses incurred by the several States without the previous
sanction or authority of the Government of the United States; but when
it is considered that the new as well as the old portion of the debt
has been contracted in the assertion of the national rights and
independence, and when it is recollected that the public expenditures,
not being exclusively bestowed upon subjects of a transient nature, will
long be visible in the number and equipments of the American Navy, in
the military works for the defense of our harbors and our frontiers, and
in the supplies of our arsenals and magazines the amount will bear a
gratifying comparison with the objects which have been attained, as well
as with the resources of the country.

The arrangements of the finances with a view to the receipts and
expenditures of a permanent peace establishment will necessarily enter
into the deliberations of Congress during the present session. It is
true that the improved condition of the public revenue will not only
afford the means of maintaining the faith of the Government with its
creditors inviolate, and of prosecuting successfully the measures of
the most liberal policy, but will also justify an immediate alleviation
of the burdens imposed by the necessities of the war. It is, however,
essential to every modification of the finances that the benefits of
an uniform national currency should be restored to the community. The
absence of the precious metals will, it is believed, be a temporary
evil, but until they can again be rendered the general medium of
exchange it devolves on the wisdom of Congress to provide a substitute
which shall equally engage the confidence and accommodate the wants of
the citizens throughout the Union. If the operation of the State banks
can not produce this result, the probable operation of a national bank
will merit consideration; and if neither of these expedients be deemed
effectual it may become necessary to ascertain the terms upon which the
notes of the Government (no longer required as an instrument of credit)
shall be issued upon motives of general policy as a common medium of
circulation.

Notwithstanding the security for future repose which the United States
ought to find in their love of peace and their constant respect for
the rights of other nations, the character of the times particularly
inculcates the lesson that, whether to prevent or repel danger, we ought
not to be unprepared for it. This consideration will sufficiently
recommend to Congress a liberal provision for the immediate extension
and gradual completion of the works of defense, both fixed and floating,
on our maritime frontier, and an adequate provision for guarding our
inland frontier against dangers to which certain portions of it may
continue to be exposed.

As an improvement in our military establishment, it will deserve the
consideration of Congress whether a corps of invalids might not be so
organized and employed as at once to aid in the support of meritorious
individuals excluded by age or infirmities from the existing
establishment, and to procure to the public the benefit of their
stationary services and of their exemplary discipline. I recommend also
an enlargement of the Military Academy already established, and the
establishment of others in other sections of the Union; and I can not
press too much on the attention of Congress such a classification and
organization of the militia as will most effectually render it the
safeguard of a free state. If experience has shewn in the recent
splendid achievements of militia the value of this resource for the
public defense, it has shewn also the importance of that skill in the
use of arms and that familiarity with the essential rules of discipline
which can not be expected from the regulations now in force. With this
subject is intimately connected the necessity of accommodating the laws
in every respect to the great object of enabling the political authority
of the Union to employ promptly and effectually the physical power of
the Union in the cases designated by the Constitution.

The signal services which have been rendered by our Navy and the
capacities it has developed for successful cooperation in the national
defense will give to that portion of the public force its full value in
the eyes of Congress, at an epoch which calls for the constant vigilance
of all governments. To preserve the ships now in a sound state, to
complete those already contemplated, to provide amply the imperishable
materials for prompt augmentations, and to improve the existing
arrangements into more advantageous establishments for the construction,
the repairs, and the security of vessels of war is dictated by the
soundest policy.

In adjusting the duties on imports to the object of revenue the
influence of the tariff on manufactures will necessarily present itself
for consideration. However wise the theory may be which leaves to the
sagacity and interest of individuals the application of their industry
and resources, there are in this as in other cases exceptions to the
general rule. Besides the condition which the theory itself implies of
a reciprocal adoption by other nations, experience teaches that so many
circumstances must concur in introducing and maturing manufacturing
establishments, especially of the more complicated kinds, that a country
may remain long without them, although sufficiently advanced and in some
respects even peculiarly fitted for carrying them on with success. Under
circumstances giving a powerful impulse to manufacturing industry it has
made among us a progress and exhibited an efficiency which justify the
belief that with a protection not more than is due to the enterprising
citizens whose interests are now at stake it will become at an early day
not only safe against occasional competitions from abroad, but a source
of domestic wealth and even of external commerce. In selecting the
branches more especially entitled to the public patronage a preference
is obviously claimed by such as will relieve the United States from a
dependence on foreign supplies, ever subject to casual failures, for
articles necessary for the public defense or connected with the primary
wants of individuals. It will be an additional recommendation of
particular manufactures where the materials for them are extensively
drawn from our agriculture, and consequently impart and insure to that
great fund of national prosperity and independence an encouragement
which can not fail to be rewarded.

Among the means of advancing the public interest the occasion is
a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great
importance of establishing throughout our country the roads and canals
which can best be executed under the national authority. No objects
within the circle of political economy so richly repay the expense
bestowed on them; there are none the utility of which is more
universally ascertained and acknowledged; none that do more honor to the
governments whose wise and enlarged patriotism duly appreciates them.
Nor is there any country which presents a field where nature invites
more the art of man to complete her own work for his accommodation and
benefit. These considerations are strengthened, moreover, by the
political effect of these facilities for intercommunication in bringing
and binding more closely together the various parts of our extended
confederacy. Whilst the States individually, with a laudable enterprise
and emulation, avail themselves of their local advantages by new
roads, by navigable canals, and by improving the streams susceptible
of navigation, the General Government is the more urged to similar
undertakings, requiring a national jurisdiction and national means, by
the prospect of thus systematically completing so inestimable a work;
and it is a happy reflection that any defect of constitutional authority
which may be encountered can be supplied in a mode which the
Constitution itself has providently pointed out.

The present is a favorable season also for bringing again into view the
establishment of a national seminary of learning within the District of
Columbia, and with means drawn from the property therein, subject to
the authority of the General Government. Such an institution claims
the patronage of Congress as a monument of their solicitude for the
advancement of knowledge, without which the blessings of liberty can
not be fully enjoyed or long preserved; as a model instructive in the
formation of other seminaries; as a nursery of enlightened preceptors,
and as a central resort of youth and genius from every part of their
country, diffusing on their return examples of those national feelings,
those liberal sentiments, and those congenial manners which contribute
cement to our Union and strength to the great political fabric of which
that is the foundation.

In closing this communication I ought not to repress a sensibility,
in which you will unite, to the happy lot of our country and to the
goodness of a superintending Providence, to which we are indebted for
it. Whilst other portions of mankind are laboring under the distresses
of war or struggling with adversity in other forms, the United States
are in the tranquil enjoyment of prosperous and honorable peace. In
reviewing the scenes through which it has been attained we can rejoice
in the proofs given that our political institutions, founded in human
rights and framed for their preservation, are equal to the severest
trials of war, as well as adapted to the ordinary periods of repose. As
fruits of this experience and of the reputation acquired by the American
arms on the land and on the water, the nation finds itself possessed of
a growing respect abroad and of a just confidence in itself, which are
among the best pledges for its peaceful career. Under other aspects of
our country the strongest features of its flourishing condition are seen
in a population rapidly increasing on a territory as productive as it is
extensive; in a general industry and fertile ingenuity which find their
ample rewards, and in an affluent revenue which admits a reduction of
the public burdens without withdrawing the means of sustaining the
public credit, of gradually discharging the public debt, of providing
for the necessary defensive and precautionary establishments, and of
patronizing in every authorized mode undertakings conducive to the
aggregate wealth and individual comfort of our citizens.

It remains for the guardians of the public welfare to persevere in that
justice and good will toward other nations which invite a return of
these sentiments toward the United States; to cherish institutions which
guarantee their safety and their liberties, civil and religious; and to
combine with a liberal system of foreign commerce an improvement of the
national advantages and a protection and extension of the independent
resources of our highly favored and happy country.

In all measures having such objects my faithful cooperation will be
afforded.

JAMES MADISON.





SPECIAL MESSAGES.


WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1815_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration and advice as to a
ratification, a treaty of peace with the Dey of Algiers concluded on
the 30th day of June, 1815, with a letter relating to the same from
the American commissioners to the Secretary of State.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 6, 1815.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration and advice as to a
ratification, a convention to regulate the commerce between the United
States and Great Britain, signed by their respective plenipotentiaries
on the 3d of July last, with letters relating to the same from the
American plenipotentiaries to the Secretary of State, and also the
declaration with which it is the intention of the British Government
to accompany the exchange of the ratification of the convention.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1815_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration and advice as to a
ratification, treaties which have been concluded with the following
Indian tribes, viz: Iaway tribe, Kickapoo tribe, Poutawatamie, Siouxs
of the Lakes, Piankeshaw tribe, Siouxs of the River St. Peters, Great
and Little Osage tribes, Yancton tribe, Mahas, Fox tribe, Teeton, Sac
Nation, Kanzas tribe, Chippewa, Ottawa, Potawatamie, Shawanoe, Wyandot,
Miami, Delaware, and Seneca.

I communicate also the letters from the commissioners on the part of
the United States relating to their proceedings on those occasions.

JAMES MADISON.



WASHINGTON, _December 11, 1815_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit the original of the convention between the United States and
Great Britain, as signed by their respective plenipotentiaries, on the
3d day of July last, a copy of which was laid before the Senate on the
5th instant.

I transmit also a copy of the late treaty of peace with Algiers, as
certified by one of the commissioners of the United States, an office
copy of which was laid before the Senate on the 5th instant, the
original of the treaty not having been received.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 23, 1815.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of a proclamation notifying the convention
concluded with Great Britain on the 3d day of July last, and that the
same has been duly ratified; and I recommend to Congress such
legislative provisions as the convention may call for on the part of the
United States.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 18, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The accompanying extract from the occurrences at Fort Jackson in August,
1814, during the negotiation of a treaty with the Indians shows that the
friendly Creeks, wishing to give to General Jackson, Benjamin Hawkins,
and others a national mark of their gratitude and regard, conveyed to
them, respectively, a donation of land, with a request that the grant
might be duly confirmed by the Government of the United States.

Taking into consideration the peculiar circumstances of the case, the
expediency of indulging the Indians in wishes which they associated with
the treaty signed by them, and that the case involves an inviting
opportunity for bestowing on an officer who has rendered such
illustrious services to his country a token of its sensibility to them,
the inducement to which can not be diminished by the delicacy and
disinterestedness of his proposal to transfer the benefit from himself,
I recommend to Congress that provision be made for carrying into effect
the wishes and request of the Indians as expressed by them.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 6, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

It is represented that the lands in the Michigan Territory designated by
law toward satisfying land bounties promised the soldiers of the late
army are so covered with swamps and lakes, or otherwise unfit for
cultivation, that a very inconsiderable proportion can be applied to the
intended grants. I recommend, therefore, that other lands be designated
by Congress for the purpose of supplying the deficiency.

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 5, 1816.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 2d instant, they
are informed that great losses having been sustained by citizens of
the United States from unjust seizures and confiscations of their
property by the late Government of Naples, it was deemed expedient
that indemnification should be claimed by a special mission for that
purpose. The occasion may be proper, also, for securing the use and
accommodations of the Neapolitan ports, which may at any time be needed
by the public ships of the United States, and for obtaining relief for
the American commerce from the disadvantageous and unequal regulations
now operating against it in that Kingdom,

JAMES MADISON.



MARCH 9, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United States
according to the latest returns received by the Department of War.

JAMES MADISON.



APRIL 11, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

With a view to the more convenient arrangement of the important and
growing business connected with the grant of exclusive rights to
inventors and authors, I recommend the establishment of a distinct
office within the Department of State to be charged therewith, under a
director with a salary adequate to his services, and with the privilege
of franking communications by mail from and to the office. I recommend
also that further restraints be imposed on the issue of patents to
wrongful claimants, and further guards provided against fraudulent
exactions of fees by persons possessed of patents.

JAMES MADISON.



APRIL 16, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of a convention concluded between the
United States and the Cherokee Indians on the 2d day of March last, as
the same has been duly ratified and proclaimed; and I recommend that
such provision be made by Congress as the stipulations therein contained
may require,

JAMES MADISON.



APRIL 17, 1816.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

It being presumed that further information may have changed the views
of the Senate relative to the importance and expediency of a mission to
Naples for the purpose of negotiating indemnities to our citizens for
spoliations committed by the Neapolitan Government, I nominate William
Pinkney, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Russia,
to be minister plenipotentiary to Naples, specially charged with that
trust.

JAMES MADISON.





PROCLAMATIONS.


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it has been represented that many uninformed or evil-disposed
persons have taken possession of or made a settlement on the public
lands of the United States which have not been previously sold, ceded,
or leased by the United States, or the claim to which lands by such
persons has not been previously recognized or confirmed by the United
States, which possession or settlement is by the act of Congress passed
on the 3d day of March, 1807, expressly prohibited; and

Whereas the due execution of the said act of Congress, as well as the
general interest, requires that such illegal practices should be
promptly repressed:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States,
have thought proper to issue my proclamation commanding and strictly
enjoining all persons who have unlawfully taken possession of or made
any settlement on the public lands as aforesaid forthwith to remove
therefrom; and I do hereby further command and enjoin the marshal,
or officer acting as marshal, in any State or Territory where such
possession shall have been taken or settlement made to remove, from
and after the 10th day of March, 1816, all or any of the said unlawful
occupants; and to effect the said service I do hereby authorize the
employment of such military force as may become necessary in pursuance
of the provisions of the act of Congress aforesaid, warning the
offenders, moreover, that they will be prosecuted in all such other ways
as the law directs.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States of
America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my
hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 12th day of December, A.D. 1815, and
of the Independence of the said United States of America the fortieth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
    _Secretary of State_.



[From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 10, p. 208.]


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by the act entitled "An act granting bounties in land and extra
pay to certain Canadian volunteers," passed the 5th March, 1816, it was
enacted that the locations of the land warrants of the said volunteers
should "be subject to such regulations as to priority of choice and
manner of location as the President of the United States shall direct:"

Wherefore I, James Madison, President of the United States, in
conformity with the provisions of the act before recited, do hereby make
known that the land warrants of the said Canadian volunteers may be
located agreeably to the said act at the land offices at Vincennes or
Jeffersonville, in the Indiana Territory, on the first Monday in June
next, with the registers of the said land offices; that the warrantees
may, in person or by their attorneys or other legal representatives, in
the presence of the register and receiver of the said land district,
draw lots for the priority of location; and that should any of the
warrants not appear for location on that day they may be located
afterwards, according to their priority of presentation, the locations
in the district of Vincennes to be made at Vincennes and the locations
in the district of Jeffersonville to be made at Jeffersonville.

Given under my hand the 1st day of May, 1816.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JOSIAH MEIGS,
    _Commissioner of the General Land Office_.





EIGHTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


DECEMBER 3, 1816.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In reviewing the present state of our country, our attention can not be
withheld from the effect produced by peculiar seasons which have very
generally impaired the annual gifts of the earth and threatened scarcity
in particular districts. Such, however, is the variety of soils, of
climates, and of products within our extensive limits that the aggregate
resources for subsistence are more than sufficient for the aggregate
wants. And as far as an economy of consumption, more than usual, may be
necessary, our thankfulness is due to Providence for what is far more
than a compensation, in the remarkable health which has distinguished
the present year.

Amidst the advantages which have succeeded the peace of Europe, and that
of the United States with Great Britain, in a general invigoration of
industry among us and in the extension of our commerce, the value of
which is more and more disclosing itself to commercial nations, it is
to be regretted that a depression is experienced by particular branches
of our manufactures and by a portion of our navigation. As the first
proceeds in an essential degree from an excess of imported merchandise,
which carries a check in its own tendency, the cause in its present
extent can not be of very long duration. The evil will not, however,
be viewed by Congress without a recollection that manufacturing
establishments, if suffered to sink too low or languish too long,
may not revive after the causes shall have ceased, and that in the
vicissitudes of human affairs situations may recur in which a dependence
on foreign sources for indispensable supplies may be among the most
serious embarrassments.

The depressed state of our navigation is to be ascribed in a material
degree to its exclusion from the colonial ports of the nation most
extensively connected with us in commerce, and from the indirect
operation of that exclusion.

Previous to the late convention at London between the United States
and Great Britain the relative state of the navigation laws of the two
countries, growing out of the treaty of 1794, had given to the British
navigation a material advantage over the American in the intercourse
between the American ports and British ports in Europe. The convention
of London equalized the laws of the two countries relating to those
ports, leaving the intercourse between our ports and the ports of the
British colonies subject, as before, to the respective regulations of
the parties. The British Government enforcing now regulations which
prohibit a trade between its colonies and the United States in American
vessels, whilst they permit a trade in British vessels, the American
navigation loses accordingly, and the loss is augmented by the advantage
which is given to the British competition over the American in the
navigation between our ports and British ports in Europe by the
circuitous voyages enjoyed by the one and not enjoyed by the other.

The reasonableness of the rule of reciprocity applied to one branch of
the commercial intercourse has been pressed on our part as equally
applicable to both branches; but it is ascertained that the British
cabinet declines all negotiation on the subject, with a disavowal,
however, of any disposition to view in an unfriendly light whatever
countervailing regulations the United States may oppose to the
regulations of which they complain. The wisdom of the Legislature will
decide on the course which, under these circumstances, is prescribed by
a joint regard to the amicable relations between the two nations and to
the just interests of the United States.

I have the satisfaction to state, generally, that we remain in amity with
foreign powers.

An occurrence has indeed taken place in the Gulf of Mexico which, if
sanctioned by the Spanish Government, may make an exception as to that
power. According to the report of our naval commander on that station,
one of our public armed vessels was attacked by an overpowering force
under a Spanish commander, and the American flag, with the officers and
crew, insulted in a manner calling for prompt reparation. This has been
demanded. In the meantime a frigate and a smaller vessel of war have
been ordered into that Gulf for the protection of our commerce. It would
be improper to omit that the representative of His Catholic Majesty in
the United States lost no time in giving the strongest assurances that
no hostile order could have emanated from his Government, and that it
will be as ready to do as to expect whatever the nature of the case and
the friendly relations of the two countries shall be found to require.

The posture of our affairs with Algiers at the present moment is not
known. The Dey, drawing pretexts from circumstances for which the United
States were not answerable, addressed a letter to this Government
declaring the treaty last concluded with him to have been annulled by
our violation of it, and presenting as the alternative war or a renewal
of the former treaty, which stipulated, among other things, an annual
tribute. The answer, with an explicit declaration that the United States
preferred war to tribute, required his recognition and observance of
the treaty last made, which abolishes tribute and the slavery of our
captured citizens. The result of the answer has not been received.
Should he renew his warfare on our commerce, we rely on the protection
it will find in our naval force actually in the Mediterranean.

With the other Barbary States our affairs have undergone no change.

The Indian tribes within our limits appear also disposed to remain
at peace. From several of them purchases of lands have been made
particularly favorable to the wishes and security of our frontier
settlements, as well as to the general interests of the nation. In some
instances the titles, though not supported by due proof, and clashing
those of one tribe with the claims of another, have been extinguished by
double purchases, the benevolent policy of the United States preferring
the augmented expense to the hazard of doing injustice or to the
enforcement of justice against a feeble and untutored people by means
involving or threatening an effusion of blood. I am happy to add that
the tranquillity which has been restored among the tribes themselves, as
well as between them and our own population, will favor the resumption
of the work of civilization which had made an encouraging progress among
some tribes, and that the facility is increasing for extending that
divided and individual ownership, which exists now in movable property
only, to the soil itself, and of thus establishing in the culture and
improvement of it the true foundation for a transit from the habits of
the savage to the arts and comforts of social life.

As a subject of the highest importance to the national welfare, I
must again earnestly recommend to the consideration of Congress a
reorganization of the militia on a plan which will form it into classes
according to the periods of life more or less adapted to military
services. An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the
Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.
The present organization of our militia is universally regarded as less
efficient than it ought to be made, and no organization can be better
calculated to give to it its due force than a classification which will
assign the foremost place in the defense of the country to that portion
of its citizens whose activity and animation best enable them to rally
to its standard. Besides the consideration that a time of peace is the
time when the change can be made with most convenience and equity, it
will now be aided by the experience of a recent war in which the militia
bore so interesting a part.

Congress will call to mind that no adequate provision has yet been made
for the uniformity of weights and measures also contemplated by the
Constitution. The great utility of a standard fixed in its nature and
founded on the easy rule of decimal proportions is sufficiently obvious.
It led the Government at an early stage to preparatory steps for
introducing it, and a completion of the work will be a just title to
the public gratitude.

The importance which I have attached to the establishment of a
university within this District on a scale and for objects worthy of
the American nation induces me to renew my recommendation of it to the
favorable consideration of Congress. And I particularly invite again
their attention to the expediency of exercising their existing powers,
and, where necessary, of resorting to the prescribed mode of enlarging
them, in order to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads and canals,
such as will have the effect of drawing more closely together every
part of our country by promoting intercourse and improvements and by
increasing the share of every part in the common stock of national
prosperity.

Occurrences having taken place which shew that the statutory provisions
for the dispensation of criminal justice are deficient in relation both
to places and to persons under the exclusive cognizance of the national
authority, an amendment of the law embracing such cases will merit the
earliest attention of the Legislature. It will be a seasonable occasion
also for inquiring how far legislative interposition maybe further
requisite in providing penalties for offenses designated in the
Constitution or in the statutes, and to which either no penalties are
annexed or none with sufficient certainty. And I submit to the wisdom
of Congress whether a more enlarged revisal of the criminal code be not
expedient for the purpose of mitigating in certain cases penalties which
were adopted into it antecedent to experiment and examples which justify
and recommend a more lenient policy.

The United States, having been the first to abolish within the extent
of their authority the transportation of the natives of Africa into
slavery, by prohibiting the introduction of slaves and by punishing
their citizens participating in the traffic, can not but be gratified
at the progress made by concurrent efforts of other nations toward a
general suppression of so great an evil. They must feel at the same
time the greater solicitude to give the fullest efficacy to their own
regulations. With that view, the interposition of Congress appears to
be required by the violations and evasions which it is suggested are
chargeable on unworthy citizens who mingle in the slave trade under
foreign flags and with foreign ports, and by collusive importations of
slaves into the United States through adjoining ports and territories.
I present the subject to Congress with a full assurance of their
disposition to apply all the remedy which can be afforded by an
amendment of the law. The regulations which were intended to guard
against abuses of a kindred character in the trade between the several
States ought also to be rendered more effectual for their humane object.

To these recommendations I add, for the consideration of Congress, the
expediency of a remodification of the judiciary establishment, and of
an additional department in the executive branch of the Government.

The first is called for by the accruing business which necessarily
swells the duties of the Federal courts, and by the great and widening
space within which justice is to be dispensed by them. The time seems to
have arrived which claims for members of the Supreme Court a relief from
itinerary fatigues, incompatible as well with the age which a portion of
them will always have attained as with the researches and preparations
which are due to their stations and to the juridical reputation of their
country. And considerations equally cogent require a more convenient
organization of the subordinate tribunals, which may be accomplished
without an objectionable increase of the number or expense of the
judges.

The extent and variety of executive business also accumulating with
the progress of our country and its growing population call for an
additional department, to be charged with duties now overburdening other
departments and with such as have not been annexed to any department.

The course of experience recommends, as another improvement in the
executive establishment, that the provision for the station of
Attorney-General, whose residence at the seat of Government, official
connections with it, and the management of the public business before
the judiciary preclude an extensive participation in professional
emoluments, be made more adequate to his services and his
relinquishments, and that, with a view to his reasonable accommodation
and to a proper depository of his official opinions and proceedings,
there be included in the provision the usual appurtenances to a public
office.

In directing the legislative attention to the state of the finances it
is a subject of great gratification to find that even within the short
period which has elapsed since the return of peace the revenue has far
exceeded all the current demands upon the Treasury, and that under any
probable diminution of its future annual products which the vicissitudes
of commerce may occasion it will afford an ample fund for the effectual
and early extinguishment of the public debt. It has been estimated that
during the year 1816 the actual receipts of revenue at the Treasury,
including the balance at the commencement of the year, and excluding
the proceeds of loans and Treasury notes, will amount to about the sum
of $47,000,000; that during the same year the actual payments at the
Treasury, including the payment of the arrearages of the War Department
as well as the payment of a considerable excess beyond the annual
appropriations, will amount to about the sum of $38,000,000, and that
consequently at the close of the year there will be a surplus in the
Treasury of about the sum of $9,000,000.

The operations of the Treasury continued to be obstructed by
difficulties arising from the condition of the national currency, but
they have nevertheless been effectual to a beneficial extent in the
reduction of the public debt and the establishment of the public credit.
The floating debt of Treasury notes and temporary loans will soon be
entirely discharged. The aggregate of the funded debt, composed of
debts incurred during the wars of 1776 and 1812, has been estimated
with reference to the 1st of January next at a sum not exceeding
$110,000,000. The ordinary annual expenses of the Government for the
maintenance of all its institutions, civil, military, and naval, have
been estimated at a sum less than $20,000,000, and the permanent revenue
to be derived from all the existing sources has been estimated at a sum
of about $25,000,000,

Upon this general view of the subject it is obvious that there is only
wanting to the fiscal prosperity of the Government the restoration of an
uniform medium of exchange. The resources and the faith of the nation,
displayed in the system which Congress has established, insure respect
and confidence both at home and abroad. The local accumulations of the
revenue have already enabled the Treasury to meet the public engagements
in the local currency of most of the States, and it is expected that the
same cause will produce the same effect throughout the Union; but for
the interests of the community at large, as well as for the purposes
of the Treasury, it is essential that the nation should possess a
currency of equal value, credit, and use wherever it may circulate.
The Constitution has intrusted Congress exclusively with the power of
creating and regulating a currency of that description, and the measures
which were taken during the last session in execution of the power
give every promise of success. The Bank of the United States has been
organized under auspices the most favorable, and can not fail to be an
important auxiliary to those measures.

For a more enlarged view of the public finances, with a view of the
measures pursued by the Treasury Department previous to the resignation
of the late Secretary, I transmit an extract from the last report of
that officer. Congress will perceive in it ample proofs of the solid
foundation on which the financial prosperity of the nation rests, and
will do justice to the distinguished ability and successful exertions
with which the duties of the Department were executed during a period
remarkable for its difficulties and its peculiar perplexities.

The period of my retiring from the public service being at little
distance, I shall find no occasion more proper than the present for
expressing to my fellow-citizens my deep sense of the continued
confidence and kind support which I have received from them. My grateful
recollection of these distinguished marks of their favorable regard can
never cease, and with the consciousness that, if I have not served my
country with greater ability, I have served it with a sincere devotion
will accompany me as a source of unfailing gratification.

Happily, I shall carry with me from the public theater other sources,
which those who love their country most will best appreciate. I shall
behold it blessed with tranquillity and prosperity at home and with
peace and respect abroad. I can indulge the proud reflection that the
American people have reached in safety and success their fortieth year
as an independent nation; that for nearly an entire generation they have
had experience of their present Constitution, the offspring of their
undisturbed deliberations and of their free choice; that they have found
it to bear the trials of adverse as well as prosperous circumstances:
to contain in its combination of the federate and elective principles
a reconcilement of public strength with individual liberty, of national
power for the defense of national rights with a security against wars of
injustice, of ambition, and of vainglory in the fundamental provision
which subjects all questions of war to the will of the nation itself,
which is to pay its costs and feel its calamities. Nor is it less a
peculiar felicity of this Constitution, so dear to us all, that it is
found to be capable, without losing its vital energies, of expanding
itself over a spacious territory with the increase and expansion of the
community for whose benefit it was established.

And may I not be allowed to add to this gratifying spectacle that I
shall read in the character of the American people, in their devotion
to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium, sure
presages that the destined career of my country will exhibit a
Government pursuing the public good as its sole object, and regulating
its means by the great principles consecrated in its charter and by
those moral principles to which they are so well allied; a Government
which watches over the purity of elections, the freedom of speech and
of the press, the trial by jury, and the equal interdict against
encroachments and compacts between religion and the state; which
maintains inviolably the maxims of public faith, the security of persons
and property, and encourages in every authorized mode that general
diffusion of knowledge which guarantees to public liberty its permanency
and to those who possess the blessing the true enjoyment of it; a
Government which avoids intrusions on the internal repose of other
nations, and repels them from its own; which does justice to all nations
with a readiness equal to the firmness with which it requires justice
from them; and which, whilst it refines its domestic code from every
ingredient not congenial with the precepts of an enlightened age and the
sentiments of a virtuous people, seeks by appeals to reason and by its
liberal examples to infuse into the law which governs the civilized
world a spirit which may diminish the frequency or circumscribe the
calamities of war, and meliorate the social and beneficent relations of
peace; a Government, in a word, whose conduct within and without may
bespeak the most noble of all ambitions---that of promoting peace on
earth and good will to man.

These contemplations, sweetening the remnant of my days, will animate my
prayers for the happiness of my beloved country, and a perpetuity of the
institutions under which it is enjoyed.

JAMES MADISON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 6, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The ninth section of the act passed at the last session of Congress "to
authorize the payment for property lost, captured, or destroyed by the
enemy while in the military service of the United States, and for other
purposes," having received a construction giving to it a scope of great
and uncertain extent, I thought it proper that proceedings relative to
claims under that part of the act should be suspended until Congress
should have an opportunity of defining more precisely the cases
contemplated by them. With that view I now recommend the subject to
their consideration. They will have an opportunity at the same time of
considering how far other provisions of the act may be rendered more
clear and precise in their import.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 10, 1816.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration and advice as to
a ratification, treaties concluded with the several Indian tribes
according to the following statement:

A LIST OF INDIAN TRIBES WITH WHOM TREATIES HAVE BEEN MADE SINCE THE LAST
SESSION OF CONGRESS.

_Weas and Kickapoos tribes of Indians_.--Treaty concluded at Fort
Harrison between Benjamin Parke and the chiefs and headmen of those
tribes the 4th June, 1816.

_Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowotomees_.--Treaty concluded at St. Louis
between Governors Clarke, Edwards, and Colonel Choteau and the chiefs
and headmen of those tribes on the 24th August, 1816.

_Winnebago tribes_.--Made by the same persons on part United States
and the headmen of this tribe at St. Louis 3d June, 1816.

_Sacks of Rock River_.--Made by same at St. Louis 13th May, 1816.

_Siouxs composing three tribes, the Siouxs of the Leaf, the Siouxs of
the Broad Leaf, and the Siouxs who Shoot on the Pine-tops_.--Made and
concluded by the same at St. Louis 1st June, 1816.

_Chickasaw tribe_.--Treaty made by General Jackson, David Merrewether,
esq., and Jesse Franklin, esq., and the headmen of that nation at
Chickasaw council house 20th September, 1816.

_Cherokee tribe_.--Treaty made by General Jackson, David Merrewether,
esq., and Jesse Franklin, esq., and the headmen of that nation at Turkey
Town on the 4th October, 1816.

_Choctaw tribe_.--Treaty made by General John Coffee, John Rhea, and
John McKee, esquires, and the headmen and warriors of that nation at
the Choctaw trading house on the 24th of October, 1816.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 13, 1816.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

A treaty of commerce between the United States and the King of Sweden
and Norway having been concluded and signed on the 4th day of September
last by their plenipotentiaries, I lay the same before the Senate for
their consideration and advice as to a ratification.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 21, 1816.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 6th instant, I transmit to them the proceedings of the commissioner
appointed under the act "to authorize the payment for property lost,
captured, or destroyed by the enemy while in the military service of the
United States, and for other purposes," as reported by the commissioner
to the Department of War.

JAMES MADISON.



DECEMBER 26, 1816.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

It is found that the existing laws have not the efficacy necessary to
prevent violations of the obligations of the United States as a nation
at peace toward belligerent parties and other unlawful acts on the high
seas by armed vessels equipped within the waters of the United States.

With a view to maintain more effectually the respect due to the laws, to
the character, and to the neutral and pacific relations of the United
States, I recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency of
such further legislative provisions as may be requisite for detaining
vessels actually equipped, or in a course of equipment, with a warlike
force within the jurisdiction of the United States, or, as the case may
be, for obtaining from the owners or commanders of such vessels adequate
securities against the abuse of their armaments, with the exceptions in
such provisions proper for the cases of merchant vessels furnished with
the defensive armaments usual on distant and dangerous expeditions, and
of a private commerce in military stores permitted by our laws, and
which the law of nations does not require the United States to prohibit.

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 25, 1817.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress copies of ratified treaties between the United
States and the following Indian tribes:

First. The Wea and Kickapoo.

Second. The united tribes of Ottawas, Chippawas, and Potowotomies
residing on the Illinois and Melwakee rivers and their waters and
on the southwestern parts of Lake Michigan.

Third. That portion of the Winnebago tribe or nation residing on the
Ouisconsin River,

Fourth. The Sacs of Rock River and the adjacent country.

Fifth. Eight bands of the Siouxs, composing the three tribes called the
Siouxs of the Leaf, the Siouxs of the Broad Leaf, and the Siouxs who
Shoot in the Pine Tops.

Sixth. The Chickasaw tribe of Indians.

Seventh. The Cherokee tribe of Indians.

Eighth. The Chactaw tribe of Indians.

Congress will take into consideration how far legislative provisions may
be necessary for carrying into effect stipulations contained in the said
treaties,

JAMES MADISON.



JANUARY 31, 1817.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of His Most
Christian Majesty having renewed, under special instructions from his
Government, the claim of the representative of Baron de Beaumarchais for
1,000,000 livres, which were debited to him in the settlement of his
accounts with the United States, I lay before Congress copies of the
memoir on that subject addressed by the said envoy to the Secretary of
State.

Considering that the sum of which the million of livres in question made
a part was a gratuitous grant from the French Government to the United
States, and the declaration of that Government that that part of the
grant was put into the hands of M. de Beaumarchais as its agent, not as
the agent of the United States, and was duly accounted for by him to
the French Government; considering also the concurring opinions of two
Attorneys-General of the United States that the said debit was not
legally sustainable in behalf of the United States, I recommend the case
to the favorable attention of the Legislature, whose authority alone can
finally decide on it.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 3, 1817.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The Government of Great Britain, induced by the posture of the relations
with the United States which succeeded the conclusion of the recent
commercial convention, issued an order on the 17th day of August, 1815,
discontinuing the discriminating duties payable in British ports on
American vessels and their cargoes. It was not until the 22d of December
following that a corresponding discontinuance of discriminating duties
on British vessels and their cargoes in American ports took effect under
the authority vested in the Executive by the act of March, 1816. During
the period between those two dates there was consequently a failure
of reciprocity or equality in the existing regulations of the two
countries. I recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency
of paying to the British Government the amount of the duties remitted
during the period in question to citizens of the United States, subject
to a deduction of the amount of whatever discriminating duties may have
commenced in British ports after the signature of that convention and
been collected previous to the 17th of August, 1815.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 6, 1817.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

On comparing the fourth section of the act of Congress passed March 31,
1814, providing for the indemnification of certain claimants of public
lands in the Mississippi Territory, with the article of agreement and
cession between the United States and State of Georgia, bearing date
April 30, 1802, it appears that the engagements entered into with the
claimants interfere with the rights and interests secured to that State.
I recommend to Congress that provision be made by law for payments to
the State of Georgia equal to the amount of Mississippi stock which
shall be paid into the Treasury until the stipulated sum of $1,250,000
shall be completed.

JAMES MADISON.




VETO MESSAGE.


MARCH 3, 1817.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act
to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,"
and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and
canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to
facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among
the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the
means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by
the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the
Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection
to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated
in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it
does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is
among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation
within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into
execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the
Government of the United States.

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not
include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the
navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure
such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the
ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences
which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common
defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and
consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful
enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper.
Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to
Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and
limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common
defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the
purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting
both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not
specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being
expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws
made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and
the judges of every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such
a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding
the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in
guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and
the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general
welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of
judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and
general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the
expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of
Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money
being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the
navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto,
be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode
provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which
the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of
Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the
improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National
Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage
to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly
given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from
any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and a
reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent
success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers
between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate
landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of
Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold
my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial
objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same
wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in
its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a
safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

JAMES MADISON.




PROCLAMATION.


[From Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, second session, 218.]

WASHINGTON, _January 1, 1817_.

_To the Senators of the United States, respectively_:

SIR: Objects interesting to the United States requiring that the Senate
should be in session on the 4th of March next to receive such
communications as may be made to it on the part of the Executive, your
attendance in the Senate Chamber in this city on that day is accordingly
requested.

JAMES MADISON.