The Statesman's Manual: An Enlarged and Revised Edition of the President's ...

THE pleasure I have in congratulating you upon your return to your constitutional duties is much heightened by the satisfaction which the condition of our beloved country at this period justly inspires. The Beneficent Author of all good has granted to us, during the present year, health, peace, and plenty, and numerous causes for joy in the wonderful success which attends the progress of our free institutions.

With a population unparalleled in its increase, and possessing a character which combines the hardihood of enterprise with the considerateness of wisdom, we see in every section of our happy country a steady improvement in the means of social intercourse, and correspondent effects upon the genius and laws of our extended republic.

The apparent exceptions to the harmony of the prospect are to be referred rather to the inevitable diversities in the various interests which enter into the composition of so extensive a whole, than to any want of attachment to the Union-interests whose collisions serve only, in the end, to foster the spirit of conciliation and patriotism, so essential to the preservation of that Union which I most devoutly hope is destined to prove imperishable.

In the midst of these blessings, we have recently witnessed changes in the condition of other nations which may, in their consequences, call for the utmost vigilance, wisdom, and unanimity, in our councils, and the exercise of all the moderation and patriotism of our people.

The important modifications of their government, effected with so much courage and wisdom by the people of France, afford a happy presage of their future course, and have naturally elicited from the kindred feelings of this nation that spontaneous and universal burst of applause in which you have participated. In congratulating you, my fellow-citizens, upon an event so auspicious to the dearest interests of mankind, I do no more than respond to the voice of my country, without transcending in the slightest degree that salutary maxim of the illustrious Washington, which enjoins an

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abstinence from all interference with the internal affairs of other nations. From a people exercising in the most unlimited degree the right of selfgovernment, and enjoying, as derived from this proud characteristic, under the favor of Heaven, much of the happiness with which they are blessed, a people who can point in triumph to their free institutions, and challenge comparison with the fruits they bear, as well as with the moderation, intelligence, and energy, with which they are administered; from such a people the deepest sympathy was to be expected in a struggle for the sacred principles of liberty conducted in a spirit every way worthy of the cause, and crowned by an heroic moderation which has disarmed revolution of its terrors. Notwithstanding the strong assurances which the man whom we so sincerely love and justly admire has given to the world of the high character of the present king of the French, and which, if sustained to the end, will secure to him the proud appellation of patriot king, it is not in his success, but in that of the great principle which has borne him to the throne-the paramount authority of the public will-that the American people rejoice.

I am happy to inform you that the anticipations which were indulged at the date of my last communication on the subject of our foreign affairs, have been fully realized in several important particulars.

An arrangement has been effected with Great Britain, in relation to the trade between the United States and her West India and North American colonies, which has settled a question that has for years afforded matter for contention and almost uninterrupted discussion, and has been the subject of no less than six negotiations, in a manner which promises results highly favorable to the parties.

The abstract right of Great Britain to monopolize the trade with her colonies, or to exclude us from a participation therein, has never been denied by the United States. But we have contended, and with reason, that if at any time Great Britain may desire the productions of this country as necessary to her colonies, they must be received upon principles of just reciprocity; and further, that it is making an invidious and unfriendly distinction to open her colonial ports to the vessels of other nations and close them against those of the United States.

Antecedently to 1794, a portion of our productions was admitted into the colonial islands of Great Britain, by particular concessions, limited to the term of one year, but renewed from year to year. In the transportation of these productions, however, our vessels were not allowed to engage; this being a privilege reserved to British shipping, by which alone our produce could be taken to the islands, and theirs brought to us in return. From Newfoundland and her continental possessions all our productions, as well as our vessels, were excluded, with occasional relaxations, by which, in seasons of distress, the former were admitted in British bottoms.

By the treaty of 1794 she offered to concede to us, for a limited time, the right of carrying to her West India possessions, in our vessels not exceeding seventy tons burden, and upon the same terms as British vessels, any productions of the United States which British vessels might import therefrom. But this privilege was coupled with conditions which are supposed to have led to its rejection by the senate; that is, that American vessels should land their return cargoes in the United States only; and moreover, that they should, during the continuance of the privilege, be precluded from carrying molasses, sugar, cocoa, or cotton, either from those islands or from the

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The Statesman's Manual: An Enlarged and Revised Edition of the ..., Volume 2