President[ Thomas Jefferson
Date[ December 3, 1805
The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming against
each other, and when those with whom we have principal intercourse are
engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them
toward our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be unaffected
by what is passing on the general theater, a meeting of the representatives
of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually
desirable. Coming from every section of our country, they bring with them
the sentiments and the information of the whole, and will be enabled to
give a direction to the public affairs which the will and the wisdom of the
whole will approve and support.
In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place notice
the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever which in
latter times has occasionally visited our shores. Providence in His
goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened the
number of victims which have usually fallen before it. In the course of the
several visitations by this disease it has appeared that it is strictly
local, incident to cities and on the tide waters only, incommunicable in
the country either by persons under the disease or by goods carried from
diseased places; that its access is with the autumn and it disappears with
the early frosts.
These restrictions within narrow limits of time and space give security
even to our maritime cities during three quarter of the year, and to the
country always. Although from these facts it appears unnecessary, yet to
satisfy the fears of foreign nations and cautions on their part not to be
complained of in a danger whose limits are yet unknown to them I have
strictly enjoined on the officers at the head of the customs to certify
with exact truth for every vessel sailing for a foreign port the state of
health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she
sails. Under every motive from character and duty to certify the truth, I
have no doubt they have faithfully executed this injunction. Much real
injury has, however, been sustained from a propensity to identify with this
endemic and to call by the same name fevers of very different kinds, which
have been known at all times and in all countries, and never have been
placed among those deemed contagious.
As we advance in our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the source
from which individuals receive it, the State authorities charged with the
care of the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce,
will become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in
these departments. The burthen of quarantines is felt at home as well as
abroad; their efficacy merits examination. Although the health laws of the
States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet commerce
claims that their attention be ever awake to them.
Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has considerably
changed. Our coasts have been infested and our harbors watched by private
armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal
commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing practical acts
beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very
entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels
of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also. They have carried
them off under pretense of legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a
court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way or in
obscure places where no evidence could arise against them, maltreated the
crews, and abandoned them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores
without food or clothing. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any
control of their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to
cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions
found hovering on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to
bring the offenders in for trial as pirates.
The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors under color of
seeking enemies has been also carried on by public armed ships to the great
annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too, have been
interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in justice nor in the
usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these a belligerent takes
to itself a commerce with its own enemy which it denies to a neutral on the
ground of its aiding that enemy in the war; but reason revolts at such
inconsistency, and the neutral having equal right with the belligerent to
decide the question, the interests of our constituents and the duty of
maintaining the authority of reason, the only umpire between just nations,
impose on us the obligation of providing an effectual and determined
opposition to a doctrine so injurious to the rights of peaceable nations.
Indeed, the confidence we ought to have in the justice of others still
countenances the hope that a sounder view of those rights will of itself
induce from every belligerent a more correct observance of them.
With Spain our negotiations for a settlement of differences have not had a
satisfactory issue. Spoliations during a former war, for which she had
acknowledged herself responsible, have been refused to be compensated but
on conditions affecting other claims in no wise connected with them. Yet
the same practices are renewed in the present war and are already of great
amount. On the Mobile, our commerce passing through that river continues to
be obstructed by arbitrary duties and vexatious searches. Propositions for
adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana have not been acceded to.
While, however, the right is unsettled, we have avoided changing the state
of things by taking new posts or strengthening ourselves in the disputed
territories, in the hope that the other power would not by a contrary
conduct oblige us to meet their example and endanger conflicts of authority,
the issue of which may not be easily controlled. But in this hope we
have now reason to lessen our confidence.
Inroads have been recently made into the Territories of Orleans and the
Mississippi, our citizens have been seized and their property plundered in
the very parts of the former which had been actually delivered up by Spain,
and this by the regular officers and soldiers of that Government. I have
therefore found it necessary at length to give orders to our troops on that
frontier to be in readiness to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms
any similar aggressions in future. Other details necessary for your full
information of the state of things between this country and that shall be
the subject of another communication.
In reviewing these injuries from some of the belligerent powers the
moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom of the Legislature will be called
into action. We ought still to hope that time and a more correct estimate
of interest as well as of character will produce the justice we are bound
to expect, but should any nation deceive itself by false calculations, and
disappoint that expectation, we must join in the unprofitable contest of
trying which party can do the other the most harm.
Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where that is
competent it is always the most desirable. But some of them are of a nature
to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it. I can not,
therefore, but recommend such preparations as circumstances call for.
The first object is to place our sea port towns out of the danger of
insult. Measures have been already taken for furnishing them with heavy
cannon for the service of such land batteries as may make a part of their
defense against armed vessels approaching them. In aid of these it is
desirable we should have a competent number of gun boats, and the number,
to be competent, must be considerable. If immediately begun, they may be in
readiness for service at the opening of the next season.
Whether it will be necessary to augment our land forces will be decided by
occurrences probably in the course of your session. In the mean time you
will consider whether it would not be expedient for a state of peace as
well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable us on
any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger portions,
unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward of three
hundred thousand able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years,
which the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will
furnish a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they
may be wanted, and will give time for raising regular forces after the
necessity of them shall become certain; and the reducing to the early
period of life all its active service can not but be desirable to our
younger citizens of the present as well as future times, in as much as it
engages to them in more advanced age a quiet and undisturbed repose in
the bosom of their families. I can not, then, but earnestly recommend to
your early consideration the expediency of so modifying our militia
system as, by a separation of the more active part from that which is
less so, we may draw from it when necessary an efficient corps fit for
real and active service, and to be called to it in regular rotation.
Considerable provision has been made under former authorities from Congress
of material for the construction of ships of war of 74 guns. These
materials are on hand subject to the further will of the Legislature.
An immediate prohibition of the exportation of arms and ammunition is also
submitted to your determination.
Turning from these unpleasant views of violence and wrong, I congratulate
you on the liberation of our fellow citizens who were stranded on the coast
of Tripoli and made prisoners of war. In a government bottomed on the will
of all the life and liberty of every individual citizen become interesting
to all.
In the treaty, therefore, which has concluded our warfare with that State
an article for the ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation
by land by a small band of our country-men and others, engaged for the
occasion in conjunction with the troops of the ex-Bashaw of that country,
gallantly conducted by our late consul, Eaton, and their successful
enterprise on the city of Derne, contributed doubtless to the impression
which produced peace, and the conclusion of this prevented opportunities of
which the officers and men of our squadron destined for Tripoli would have
availed themselves to emulate the acts of valor exhibited by their brethren
in the attack of the last year. Reflecting with high satisfaction on the
distinguished bravery displayed whenever occasions permitted it in the late
Mediterranean service, I think it would be an useful encouragement as well
as a just reward to make an opening for some present promotion by enlarging
our peace establishment of captains and lieutenants.
With Tunis some misunderstandings have arisen not yet sufficiently
explained, but friendly discussions with their ambassador recently arrived
and a mutual disposition to do whatever is just and reasonable can not fail
of dissipating these, so that we may consider our peace on that coast,
generally, to be on as sound a footing as it has been at any preceding
time. Still, it will not be expedient to withdraw immediately the whole of
our force from that sea.
The law providing for a naval peace establishment fixes the number of
frigates which shall be kept in constant service in time of peace, and
prescribes that they shall be manned by not more than two-thirds of their
complement of sea men and ordinary sea men. Whether a frigate may be
trusted to two-thirds only of her proper complement of men must depend on
the nature of the service on which she is ordered; that may sometimes, for
her safety as well as to insure her object, require her fullest complement.
In adverting to this subject Congress will perhaps consider whether the
best limitation on the Executive discretion in this case would not be by
the number of sea men which may be employed in the whole service rather
than by the number of vessels. Occasions oftener arise for the employment
of small than of large vessels, and it would lessen risk as well as
expense to be authorized to employ them of preference. The limitation
suggested by the number of sea men would admit a selection of vessels
best adapted to the service.
Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them with spirit, and others
beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household
manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields subsistence
with less labor and more certainty than the forest, and find it their
interest from time to time to dispose of parts of their surplus and waste
lands for the means of improving those they occupy and of subsisting their
families while they are preparing their farms. Since your last session the
Northern tribes have sold to us the lands between the Connecticut Reserve
and the former Indian boundary and those on the Ohio from the same boundary
to the rapids and for a considerable depth inland. The Chickasaws and
Cherokees have sold us the country between and adjacent to the two
districts of Tennessee, and the Creeks the residue of their lands in the
fork of the Ocmulgee up to the Ulcofauhatche. The three former purchases
are important, in as much as they consolidate disjoined parts of our
settled country and render their intercourse secure; and the second
particularly so, as, with the small point on the river which we expect is
by this time ceded by the Piankeshaws, it completes our possession of the
whole of both banks of the Ohio from its source to near its mouth, and the
navigation of that river is thereby rendered forever safe to our citizens
settled and settling on its extensive waters. The purchase from the Creeks,
too, has been for some time particularly interesting to the State of
Georgia.
The several treaties which have been mentioned will be submitted to both
Houses of Congress for the exercise of their respective functions.
Deputations now on their way to the seat of Government from various nations
of Indians inhabiting the Missouri and other parts beyond the Mississippi
come charged with assurances of their satisfaction with the new relations
in which they are placed with us, of their dispositions to cultivate our
peace and friendship, and their desire to enter into commercial intercourse
with us. A state of our progress in exploring the principal rivers of that
country, and of the information respecting them hitherto obtained, will be
communicated as soon as we shall receive some further relations which we
have reason shortly to expect.
The receipts of the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of
September last have exceeded the sum of $13 millions, which, with not
quite $5 millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have
enabled us after meeting other demands to pay nearly $2 millions of the
debt contracted under the British treaty and convention, upward of $4
millions of principal of the public debt, and $4 millions of interest.
These payments, with those which had been made in three years and a half
preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly $18 millions of
principal. Congress by their act of November 10th, 1803, authorized us to
borrow $1.75 millions toward meeting the claims of our citizens assumed by
the convention with France. We have not, however, made use of this
authority, because the sum of $4.5 millions, which remained in the
Treasury on the same 30th day of September last, with the receipts of
which we may calculate on for the ensuing year, besides paying the annual
sum of $8 millions appropriated to the funded debt and meeting all the
current demands which may be expected, will enable us to pay the whole
sum of $3.75 millions assumed by the French convention and still leave
us a surplus of nearly $1 million at our free disposal. Should you
concur in the provisions of arms and armed vessels recommended by the
circumstances of the times, this surplus will furnish the means of doing
so.
On this first occasion of addressing Congress since, by the choice of my
constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I embrace
the opportunity to give this public assurance that I will exert my best
endeavors to administer faithfully the executive department, and will
zealously cooperate with you in every measure which may tend to secure the
liberty, property, and personal safety of our fellow citizens, and to
consolidate the republican forms and principles of our Government.
In the course of your session you shall receive all the aid which I can
give for the dispatch of public business, and all the information necessary
for your deliberations, of which the interests of our own country and the
confidence reposed in us by others will admit a communication.
TH. JEFFERSON
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