State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson >> State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson
With the nations of Europe in general our friendship and intercourse are
undisturbed, and from the Governments of the belligerent powers especially
we continue to receive those friendly manifestations which are justly due
to an honest neutrality and to such good offices consistent with that as we
have opportunities of rendering.
The activity and success of the small force employed in the Mediterranean
in the early part of the present year, the reenforcements sent into that
sea, and the energy of the officers having command in the several vessels
will, I trust, by the sufferings of war, reduce the barbarians of Tripoli
to the desire of peace on proper terms. Great injury, however, ensues to
ourselves, as well as to others interested, from the distance to which
prizes must be brought for adjudication and from the impracticability of
bringing hither such as are not sea worthy.
The Bey of Tunis having made requisitions unauthorized by our treaty, their
rejection has produced from him some expressions of discontent, but to
those who expect us to calculate whether a compliance with unjust demands
will not cost us less than a war we must leave as a question of calculation
for them also whether to retire from unjust demands will not cost them less
than a war. We can do to each other very sensible injuries by war, but the
mutual advantages of peace make that the best interest of both.
Peace and intercourse with the other powers on the same coast continue on
the footing on which they are established by treaty.
In pursuance of the act providing for the temporary government of
Louisiana, the necessary officers for the Territory of Orleans were
appointed in due time to commence the exercise of their functions on the
1st day of October. The distance, however, of some of them and
indispensable previous arrangements may have retarded its commencement in
some of its parts. The form of government thus provided having considered
but as temporary, and open to such future improvements as further
information of the circumstances of our brethren there might suggest, it
will of course be subject to your consideration.
In the district of Louisiana it has been thought best to adopt the division
into subordinate districts which had been established under its former
government. These being 5 in number, a commanding officer has been
appointed to each, according to the provisions of the law, and so soon as
they can be at their stations that district will also be in its due state
of organization. In the mean time, their places are supplied by the
officers before commanding there, and the function of the governor and
judges of Indiana having commenced, the government, we presume, is
proceeding in its new form. The lead mines in that district offer so rich a
supply of that metal as to merit attention. The report now communicated
will inform you of their state and of the necessity of immediate inquiry
into their occupation and titles.
With the Indian tribes established within our newly acquired limits, I have
deemed it necessary to open conferences for the purpose of establishing a
good understanding and neighborly relations between us. So far as we have
yet learned, we have reason to believe that their dispositions are
generally favorable and friendly; and with these dispositions on their
part, we have in our own hands means which can not fail us for preserving
their peace and friendship. by pursuing an uniform course of justice toward
them, by aiding them in all the improvements which may better their
condition, and especially by establishing a commerce on terms which shall
be advantageous to them and only not losing to us, and so regulated as that
no incendiaries of our own or any other nation may be permitted to disturb
the natural effects of our just and friendly offices, we may render
ourselves so necessary to their comfort and prosperity that the protection
of our citizens from their disorderly members will become their interest
and their voluntary care. Instead, therefore, of an augmentation of
military force proportioned to our extension of frontier, I propose a
moderate enlargement of the capital employed in that commerce as a more
effectual, economical, and humane instrument for preserving peace and good
neighborhood with them.
On this side of the Mississippi an important relinquishment of native title
has been received from the Delawares. That tribe, desiring to extinguish in
their people the spirit of hunting and to convert superfluous lands into
the means of improving what they retain, has ceded to us all the country
between the Wabash and Ohio south of and including the road from the rapids
toward Vincennes, for which they are to receive annuities in animals and
implements for agriculture and in other necessaries. This acquisition is
important, not only for its extent and fertility, but as fronting 300 miles
on the Ohio, and near half that on the Wabash. The produce of the settled
country descending those rivers will no longer pass in review of the Indian
frontier but in a small portion, and, with the cession heretofore made by
the Kaskaskias, nearly consolidates our possessions north of the Ohio, in a
very respectable breadth - from Lake Erie to the Mississippi. The
Piankeshaws having some claim to the country ceded by the Delawares, it has
been thought best to quiet that by fair purchase also. So soon as the
treaties on this subject shall have received their constitutional sanctions
they shall be laid before both houses.
The act of Congress of 1803 February 28, for building and employing a
number of gun boats, is now in a course of execution to the extent there
provided for. The obstacle to naval enterprise which vessels of this
construction offer for our sea port towns, their utility toward supporting
within our waters the authority of the laws, the promptness with which they
will be manned by the sea men and militia of the place in the moment they
are wanting, the facility of their assembling from different parts of the
coast to any point where they are required in greater force than ordinary,
the economy of their maintenance and preservation from decay when not in
actual service, and the competence of our finances to this defensive
provision without any new burthen are considerations which will have due
weight with Congress in deciding on the expediency of adding to their
number from year to year, as experience shall test their utility, until all
our important harbors, by these and auxiliary means, shall be secured
against insult and opposition to the laws.
No circumstance has arisen since your last session which calls for any
augmentation of our regular military force. Should any improvement occur in
the militia system, that will be always seasonable.
Accounts of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, with estimates
for the ensuing one, will as usual be laid before you.
The state of our finances continues to fulfill our expectations. $11.5M,
received in the course of the year ending the 30th of September last, have
enabled us, after meeting all the ordinary expenses of the year, to pay
upward of $3.6M of the public debt, exclusive of interest. This payment,
with those of the two preceding years, has extinguished up ward of $12M of
the principal and a greater sum of interest within that period, and by a
proportionate diminution of interest renders already sensible the effect of
the growing sum yearly applicable to the discharge of the principal.
It is also ascertained that the revenue accrued during the last year
exceeds that of the preceding, and the probably receipts of the ensuing
year may safely be relied on as sufficient, with the sum already in the
Treasury, to meet all the current demands of the year, to discharge upward
of $3.5M of the engagements incurred under the British and French
conventions, and to advance in the further redemption of the funded debt as
rapidly as had been contemplated.
These, fellow citizens, are the principal matters which I have thought it
necessary at this time to communicate for you consideration and attention.
Some others will be laid before you in the course of the session; but in
the discharge of the great duties confided to you by our country you will
take a broader view of the field of legislation.
Whether the great interests of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, or
navigation can within the pale of your constitutional powers be aided in
any of their relations; whether laws are provided in all cases where they
are wanting; whether those provided are exactly what they should be whether
any abuses take place in their administration, or in that of the public
revenues; whether the organization of the public agents or of the public
force is perfect in all its parts; in fine, whether anything can be done to
advance the general good, are questions within the limits of your functions
which will necessarily occupy your attention. In these and all other
matters which you in your wisdom may propose for the good of our country
you may count with assurance on my hearty cooperation and faithful
execution. TH. JEFFERSON
***
State of the Union Address
Thomas Jefferson
December 3, 1805
The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming against
each other, and when those with whom we have principal intercourse are
engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them
toward our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be unaffected
by what is passing on the general theater, a meeting of the representatives
of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually
desirable. Coming from every section of our country, they bring with them
the sentiments and the information of the whole, and will be enabled to
give a direction to the public affairs which the will and the wisdom of the
whole will approve and support.
In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place notice
the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever which in
latter times has occasionally visited our shores. Providence in His
goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened the
number of victims which have usually fallen before it. In the course of the
several visitations by this disease it has appeared that it is strictly
local, incident to cities and on the tide waters only, incommunicable in
the country either by persons under the disease or by goods carried from
diseased places; that its access is with the autumn and it disappears with
the early frosts.
These restrictions within narrow limits of time and space give security
even to our maritime cities during three quarter of the year, and to the
country always. Although from these facts it appears unnecessary, yet to
satisfy the fears of foreign nations and cautions on their part not to be
complained of in a danger whose limits are yet unknown to them I have
strictly enjoined on the officers at the head of the customs to certify
with exact truth for every vessel sailing for a foreign port the state of
health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she
sails. Under every motive from character and duty to certify the truth, I
have no doubt they have faithfully executed this injunction. Much real
injury has, however, been sustained from a propensity to identify with this
endemic and to call by the same name fevers of very different kinds, which
have been known at all times and in all countries, and never have been
placed among those deemed contagious.
As we advance in our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the source
from which individuals receive it, the State authorities charged with the
care of the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce,
will become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in
these departments. The burthen of quarantines is felt at home as well as
abroad; their efficacy merits examination. Although the health laws of the
States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet commerce
claims that their attention be ever awake to them.
Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has considerably
changed. Our coasts have been infested and our harbors watched by private
armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal
commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing practical acts
beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very
entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels
of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also. They have carried
them off under pretense of legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a
court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way or in
obscure places where no evidence could arise against them, maltreated the
crews, and abandoned them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores
without food or clothing. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any
control of their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to
cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions
found hovering on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to
bring the offenders in for trial as pirates.
The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors under color of
seeking enemies has been also carried on by public armed ships to the great
annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too, have been
interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in justice nor in the
usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these a belligerent takes
to itself a commerce with its own enemy which it denies to a neutral on the
ground of its aiding that enemy in the war; but reason revolts at such
inconsistency, and the neutral having equal right with the belligerent to
decide the question, the interests of our constituents and the duty of
maintaining the authority of reason, the only umpire between just nations,
impose on us the obligation of providing an effectual and determined
opposition to a doctrine so injurious to the rights of peaceable nations.
Indeed, the confidence we ought to have in the justice of others still
countenances the hope that a sounder view of those rights will of itself
induce from every belligerent a more correct observance of them.
With Spain our negotiations for a settlement of differences have not had a
satisfactory issue. Spoliations during a former war, for which she had
acknowledged herself responsible, have been refused to be compensated but
on conditions affecting other claims in no wise connected with them. Yet
the same practices are renewed in the present war and are already of great
amount. On the Mobile, our commerce passing through that river continues to
be obstructed by arbitrary duties and vexatious searches. Propositions for
adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana have not been acceded to.
While, however, the right is unsettled, we have avoided changing the state
of things by taking new posts or strengthening ourselves in the disputed
territories, in the hope that the other power would not by a contrary
conduct oblige us to meet their example and endanger conflicts of authority
the of which may not be easily controlled. But in this hope we have now
reason to lessen our confidence.
Inroads have been recently made into the Territories of Orleans and the
Mississippi, our citizens have been seized and their property plundered in
the very parts of the former which had been actually delivered up by Spain,
and this by the regular officers and soldiers of that Government. I have
therefore found it necessary at length to give orders to our troops on that
frontier to be in readiness to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms
any similar aggressions in future. Other details necessary for your full
information of the state of things between this country and that shall be
the subject of another communication.
In reviewing these injuries from some of the belligerent powers the
moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom of the Legislature will be called
into action. We ought still to hope that time and a more correct estimate
of interest as well as of character will produce the justice we are bound
to expect, but should any nation deceive itself by false calculations, and
disappoint that expectation, we must join in the unprofitable contest of
trying which party can do the other the most harm.
Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where that is
competent it is always the most desirable. But some of them are of a nature
to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it. I can not,
therefore, but recommend such preparations as circumstances call for.
The first object is to place our sea port towns out of the danger of
insult. Measures have been already taken for furnishing them with heavy
cannon for the service of such land batteries as may make a part of their
defense against armed vessels approaching them. In aid of these it is
desirable we should have a competent number of gun boats, and the number,
to be competent, must be considerable. If immediately begun, they may be in
readiness for service at the opening of the next season.
Whether it will be necessary to augment our land forces will be decided by
occurrences probably in the course of your session. In the mean time you
will consider whether it would not be expedient for a state of peace as
well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable us on
any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger portions,
unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward of 300,000
able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years, which the last census
shews we may now count within our limits, will furnish a competent # for
offense or defense in any point where they may be wanted, and will give
time for raising regular forces after the necessity of them shall become
certain; and the reducing to the early period of life all its active
service can not but be desirable to our younger citizens of the present as
well as future times, in as much as it engages to them in more advanced age
a quiet and undisturbed repose in the bosom of their families. I can not,
then, but earnestly recommend to your early consideration the expediency of
so modifying our militia system as, by a separation of the more active part
from that which is less so, we may draw from it when necessary an efficient
corps fit for real and active service, and to be called to it in regular
rotation.
Considerable provision has been made under former authorities from Congress
of material for the construction of ships of war of 74 guns. These
materials are on hand subject to the further will of the Legislature.
An immediate prohibition of the exportation of arms and ammunition is also
submitted to your determination.
Turning from these unpleasant views of violence and wrong, I congratulate
you on the liberation of our fellow citizens who were stranded on the coast
of Tripoli and made prisoners of war. In a government bottomed on the will
of all the life and liberty of every individual citizen become interesting
to all.
In the treaty, therefore, which has concluded our warfare with that State
an article for the ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation
by land by a small band of our country-men and others, engaged for the
occasion in conjunction with the troops of the ex-Bashaw of that country,
gallantly conducted by our late consul, Eaton, and their successful
enterprise on the city of Derne, contributed doubtless to the impression
which produced peace, and the conclusion of this prevented opportunities of
which the officers and men of our squadron destined for Tripoli would have
availed themselves to emulate the acts of valor exhibited by their brethren
in the attack of the last year. Reflecting with high satisfaction on the
distinguished bravery displayed whenever occasions permitted it in the late
Mediterranean service, I think it would be an useful encouragement as well
as a just reward to make an opening for some present promotion by enlarging
our peace establishment of captains and lieutenants.
With Tunis some misunderstandings have arisen not yet sufficiently
explained, but friendly discussions with their ambassador recently arrived
and a mutual disposition to do whatever is just and reasonable can not fail
of dissipating these, so that we may consider our peace on that coast,
generally, to be on as sound a footing as it has been at any preceding
time. Still, it will not be expedient to withdraw immediately the whole of
our force from that sea.
The law providing for a naval peace establishment fixes the number of
frigates which shall be kept in constant service in time of peace, and
prescribes that they shall be manned by not more than two-third of their
complement of sea men and ordinary sea men. Whether a frigate may be
trusted to two-third only of her proper complement of men must depend on
the nature of the service on which she is ordered; that may sometimes, for
her safety as well as to insure her object, require her fullest complement.
In adverting to this subject Congress will perhaps consider whether the
best limitation on the Executive discretion in this case would not be by
the # of sea men which may be employed in the whole service rather than by
the # of vessels. Occasions oftener arise for the employment of small than
of large vessels, and it would lessen risk as well as expense to be
authorized to employ them of preference. The limitation suggested by the #
of sea men would admit a selection of vessels best adapted to the service.
Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them with spirit, and others
beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household
manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields subsistence
with less labor and more certainty than the forest, and find it their
interest from time to time to dispose of parts of their surplus and waste
lands for the means of improving those they occupy and of subsisting their
families while they are preparing their farms. Since your last session the
Northern tribes have sold to us the lands between the Connecticut Reserve
and the former Indian boundary and those on the Ohio from the same boundary
to the rapids and for a considerable depth inland. The Chickasaws and
Cherokees have sold us the country between and adjacent to the two
districts of Tennessee, and the Creeks the residue of their lands in the
fork of the Ocmulgee up to the Ulcofauhatche. The three former purchases
are important, in as much as they consolidate disjoined parts of our
settled country and render their intercourse secure; and the second
particularly so, as, with the small point on the river which we expect is
by this time ceded by the Piankeshaws, it completes our possession of the
whole of both banks of the Ohio from its source to near its mouth, and the
navigation of that river is thereby rendered forever safe to our citizens
settled and settling on its extensive waters. The purchase from the Creeks,
too, has been for some time particularly interesting to the State of
Georgia.
The several treaties which have been mentioned will be submitted to both
Houses of Congress for the exercise of their respective functions.
Deputations now on their way to the seat of Government from various nations
of Indians inhabiting the Missouri and other parts beyond the Mississippi
come charged with assurances of their satisfaction with the new relations
in which they are placed with us, of their dispositions to cultivate our
peace and friendship, and their desire to enter into commercial intercourse
with us. A state of our progress in exploring the principal rivers of that
country, and of the information respecting them hitherto obtained, will be
communicated as soon as we shall receive some further relations which we
have reason shortly to expect.
The receipts of the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of
September last have exceeded the sum of $13M, which, with not quite $5M in
the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have enabled us after meeting
other demands to pay nearly $2M of the debt contracted under the British
treaty and convention, upward of $4M of principal of the public debt, and
$4M of interest. These payments, with those which had been made in 3 years
and a half preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly $18M of
principal. Congress by their act of 1803 November 10, authorized us to
borrow $1.75M toward meeting the claims of our citizens assumed by the
convention with France. We have not, however, made use of this authority,
because the sum of $4.5M, which remained in the Treasury on the same 30th
day of September last, with the receipts of which we may calculate on for
the ensuing year, besides paying the annual sum of $8M appropriated to the
funded debt and meeting all the current demands which may be expected, will
enable us to pay the whole sum of $3.75M assumed by the French convention
and still leave us a surplus of nearly $1M at our free disposal. Should you
concur in the provisions of arms and armed vessels recommended by the
circumstances of the times, this surplus will furnish the means of doing
so.