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State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant

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The report of the Commissioner of Agriculture accompanying this message
will be found one of great interest, marking, as it does, the great
progress of the last century in the variety of products of the soil;
increased knowledge and skill in the labor of producing, saving, and
manipulating the same to prepare them for the use of man; in the
improvements in machinery to aid the agriculturist in his labors, and in a
knowledge of those scientific subjects necessary to a thorough system of
economy in agricultural production, namely, chemistry, botany, entomology,
etc. A study of this report by those interested in agriculture and deriving
their support from it will find it of value in pointing out those articles
which are raised in greater quantity than the needs of the world require,
and must sell, therefore, for less than the cost of production, and those
which command a profit over cost of production because there is not an
overproduction.

I call special attention to the need of the Department for a new gallery
for the reception of the exhibits returned from the Centennial Exhibition,
including the exhibits donated by very many foreign nations, and to the
recommendations of the Commissioner of Agriculture generally.

The reports of the District Commissioners and the board of health are just
received--too late to read them and to make recommendations thereon--and
are herewith submitted.

The international exhibition held in Philadelphia this year, in
commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of American independence,
has proven a great success, and will, no doubt, be of enduring advantage to
the country. It has shown the great progress in the arts, sciences, and
mechanical skill made in a single century, and demonstrated that we are but
little behind older nations in any one branch, while in some we scarcely
have a rival. It has served, too, not only to bring peoples and products of
skill and labor from all parts of the world together, but in bringing
together people from all sections of our own country, which must prove a
great benefit in the information imparted and pride of country engendered.

It has been suggested by scientists interested in and connected with the
Smithsonian Institution, in a communication herewith, that the Government
exhibit be removed to the capital and a suitable building be erected or
purchased for its accommodation as a permanent exhibit. I earnestly
recommend this; and believing that Congress would second this view, I
directed that all Government exhibits at the Centennial Exhibition should
remain where they are, except such as might be injured by remaining in a
building not intended as a protection in inclement weather, or such as may
be wanted by the Department furnishing them, until the question of
permanent exhibition is acted on.

Although the moneys appropriated by Congress to enable the participation of
the several Executive Departments in the International Exhibition of 1876
were not sufficient to carry out the undertaking to the full extent at
first contemplated, it gives me pleasure to refer to the very efficient and
creditable manner in which the board appointed from these several
Departments to provide an exhibition on the part of the Government have
discharged their duties with the funds placed at their command. Without a
precedent to guide them in the preparation of such a display, the success
of their labors was amply attested by the sustained attention which the
contents of the Government building attracted during the period of the
exhibition from both foreign and native visitors.

I am strongly impressed with the value of the collection made by the
Government for the purposes of the exhibition, illustrating, as it does,
the mineral resources of the country, the statistical and practical
evidences of our growth as a nation, and the uses of the mechanical arts
and the applications of applied science in the administration of the
affairs of Government.

Many nations have voluntarily contributed their exhibits to the United
States to increase the interest in any permanent exhibition Congress may
provide for. For this act of generosity they should receive the thanks of
the people, and I respectfully suggest that a resolution of Congress to
that effect be adopted.

The attention of Congress can not be too earnestly called to the necessity
of throwing some greater safeguard over the method of choosing and
declaring the election of a President. Under the present system there seems
to be no provided remedy for contesting the election in any one State. The
remedy is partially, no doubt, in the enlightenment of electors. The
compulsory support of the free school and the disfranchisement of all who
can not read and write the English language, after a fixed probation, would
meet my hearty approval. I would not make this apply, however, to those
already voters, but I would to all becoming so after the expiration of the
probation fixed upon. Foreigners coming to this country to become citizens,
who are educated in their own language, should acquire the requisite
knowledge of ours during the necessary residence to obtain naturalization.
If they did not take interest enough in our language to acquire sufficient
knowledge of it to enable them to study the institutions and laws of the
country intelligently, I would not confer upon them the right to make such
laws nor to select those who do.

I append to this message, for convenient reference, a synopsis of
administrative events and of all recommendations to Congress made by me
during the last seven years. Time may show some of these recommendations
not to have been wisely conceived, but I believe the larger part will do no
discredit to the Administration. One of these recommendations met with the
united opposition of one political party in the Senate and with a strong
opposition from the other, namely, the treaty for the annexation of Santo
Domingo to the United States, to which I will specially refer, maintaining,
as I do, that if my views had been concurred in the country would be in a
more prosperous condition to-day, both politically and financially.

Santo Domingo is fertile, and upon its soil may be grown just those
tropical products of which the United States use so much, and which are
produced or prepared for market now by slave labor almost exclusively,
namely, sugar, coffee, dyewoods, mahogany, tropical fruits, tobacco, etc.
About 75 per cent of the exports of Cuba are consumed in the United States.
A large percentage of the exports of Brazil also find the same market.
These are paid for almost exclusively in coin, legislation, particularly in
Cuba, being unfavorable to a mutual exchange of the products of each
country. Flour shipped from the Mississippi River to Havana can pass by the
very entrance to the city on its way to a port in Spain, there pay a duty
fixed upon articles to be reexported, transferred to a Spanish vessel and
brought back almost to the point of starting, paying a second duty, and
still leave a profit over what would be received by direct shipment. All
that is produced in Cuba could be produced in Santo Domingo. Being a part
of the United States, commerce between the island and mainland would be
free. There would be no export duties on her shipments nor import duties on
those coming here. There would be no import duties upon the supplies,
machinery, etc., going from the States. The effect that would have been
produced upon Cuban commerce, with these advantages to a rival, is
observable at a glance. The Cuban question would have been settled long ago
in favor of "free Cuba." Hundreds of American vessels would now be
advantageously used in transporting the valuable woods and other products
of the soil of the island to a market and in carrying supplies and
emigrants to it. The island is but sparsely settled, while it has an area
sufficient for the profitable employment of several millions of people. The
soil would have soon fallen into the hands of United States capitalists.
The products are so valuable in commerce that emigration there would have
been encouraged; the emancipated race of the South would have found there a
congenial home, where their civil rights would not be disputed and where
their labor would be so much sought after that the poorest among them could
have found the means to go. Thus in cases of great oppression and cruelty,
such as has been practiced upon them in many places within the last eleven
years, whole communities would have sought refuge in Santo Domingo. I do
not suppose the whole race would have gone, nor is it desirable that they
should go. Their labor is desirable--indispensable almost--where they now
are. But the possession of this territory would have left the negro "master
of the situation," by enabling him to demand his rights at home on pain of
finding them elsewhere.

I do not present these views now as a recommendation for a renewal of the
subject of annexation, but I do refer to it to vindicate my previous action
in regard to it.

With the present term of Congress my official life terminates. It is not
probable that public affairs will ever again receive attention from me
further than as a citizen of the Republic, always taking a deep interest in
the honor, integrity, and prosperity of the whole land. U. S. GRANT

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