Chapter 46 1826

Washington,
January 3, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d of last month, I communicate herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with the documents touching the treaty with the Cherokee Indians, ratified in 1819, by which the Cherokee title to a portion of lands within the limits of North Carolina was extinguished.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 9, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 3d instant, I communicate herewith, in confidence, a report from the Secretary of State, with translations of the conventions and documents, containing information of the nature referred to in the said resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 9, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit to the Senate, for their consideration and advice with regard to the ratification, the following treaties:

1. A treaty signed at the Poncar village at the mouth of White Point Creek, the first below the Qui Carre River, on the 9th of June, 1825, by Brigadier-General Henry Atkinson and Major Benjamin O'Fallon, commissioners on the part of the United States, and certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Poncar tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

2. A treaty signed at Fort Look-out, hear the Three Rivers of the Sioux Pass, on the 22d June, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Teton, Yancton, and Yanctonies bands of the Sioux tribe of Indians on the part of the said bands.

3. A treaty signed at the mouth of the Teton River on the 5th of July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Sione and Ogalla bands of Sioux Indians, and on the 12th of July, 1825, at Camp Hidden Creek, by chiefs and warriors of the Siounes of the Fireheart's band on the part of their respective bands.

4. A treaty signed at the mouth of the Teton River on the 6th of July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Chayenne tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

5. A treaty signed at the Auricara village on the 16th July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Hunkpapas band of the Sioux tribe of Indians on the part of said band.

6. A treaty signed at the Ricara village on the 18th July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Ricara tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

7. A treaty signed at the Mandan village on the 30th of July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs and warriors of the Mandan tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

8. A treaty signed at the lower Mandan village on the 30th of July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs and warriors of the Belantse Etea, or Minnetaree, tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

9. A treaty signed at the Mandan village on the 4th of August, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs and warriors of the Crow tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

10. A treaty signed at Fort Atkinson, Council Bluffs, on the 25th of September, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Ottoe and Missouri tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

11. A treaty signed at Fort Atkinson, Council Bluffs, on the 30th of September, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Pawnee tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

12. A treaty signed at Fort Atkinson, Council Bluffs, on the 6th of October, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Maha tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 10, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit to the Senate a treaty signed at Prairie des Chiens, in the Territory of Michigan, on the 19th of August, 1825, by William Clark and Lewis Cass, commissioners on the part of the United States, and certain chiefs and warriors of the Sioux, Chippeways, Socs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, Menominies, Ottoways, Potawatamies, and Ioway tribes of Indians on the part of said tribes, and I request the advice of the Senate with regard to its ratification.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 20, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d ultimo, I transmit herewith reports from the Secretary of War and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with the statements desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 23, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27th December last, requesting a statement of moneys paid out of the public Treasury to the late President of the United States as compensation for his services in various other offices which he has filled under the Government of the United States, and on other accounts, and also of claims for allowances made by him upon the Government which have been disallowed, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 24, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 12th December last, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Navy, with the documents and proceedings of the naval courts-martial in the cases of Captain Charles Stewart and of Lieutenants Joshua R. Sands and William M. Hunter.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 30, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration and advice with regard to their ratification-

1. A treaty concluded on the 10th day of August, 1825, at Council Grove by Benjamin H. Reeves, George C. Sibley, and Thomas Mather, commissioners on the part of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen of the Great and Little Osage tribes of Indians on the part of the said tribe.

2. A treaty concluded on the 16th day of August, 1825, at the Sora Kanzas Creek by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and certain chiefs and headmen of the Kanzas tribe or nation of Indians on the part of said tribe.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 31, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 18th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence with the British Government, relating to the boundary of the United States on the Pacific Ocean, desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
January 31, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration and advice with regard to its ratification, a treaty concluded by the Secretary of War, duly authorized thereto, with the chiefs and headmen of the Creek Nation, deputed by them, and now in this city.

It has been agreed upon, and is presented to the consideration of the Senate as a substitute for the treaty signed at the Indian Springs on the 12th of February last. The circumstances under which this received on the 3d of March last your advice and consent to its ratification are known to you. It was transmitted to me from the Senate on the 5th of March, and ratified in full confidence yielded to the advice and consent of the Senate, under a firm belief, founded on the journal of the commissioners of the United States and on the express statements in the letter of one of them of the 16th of February to the then Secretary of War, that it had been concluded with a large majority of the chiefs of the Creek Nation and with a reasonable prospect of immediate acquiescence by the remainder.

This expectation has not merely been disappointed. The first measures for carrying the treaty into execution had scarcely been taken when the two principal chiefs who had signed it fell victims to the exasperation of the great mass of the nation, and their families and dependents, far from being able to execute the engagements on their part, fled for life, safety, and subsistence from the territories which they had assumed to cede, to our own. Yet, in this fugitive condition, and while subsisting on the bounty of the United States, they have been found advancing pretensions to receive exclusively to themselves the whole of the sums stipulated by the commissioners of the United States in payment for all the lands of the Creek Nation which were ceded by the terms of the treaty. And they have claimed the stipulation of the eighth article, that the United States would "protect the emigrating party against the encroachments, hostilities, and impositions of the whites and of all others," as an engagement by which the United States were bound to become the instruments of their vengeance and to inflict upon the majority of the Creek Nation the punishment of Indian retribution to gratify the vindictive fury of an impotent and helpless minority of their own tribe.

In this state of things the question is not whether the treaty of the 12th of February last shall or shall not be executed. So far as the United States were or could be bound by it I have been anxiously desirous of carrying it into execution. But, like other treaties, its fulfillment depends upon the will not of one but of both the parties to it. The parties on the face of the treaty are the United States and the Creek Nation, and however desirous one of them may be to give it effect, this wish must prove abortive while the other party refuses to perform its stipulations and disavows its obligations. By the refusal of the Creek Nation to perform their part of the treaty the United States are absolved from all its engagements on their part, and the alternative left them is either to resort to measures of war to secure by force the advantages stipulated to them in the treaty or to attempt the adjustment of the interest by a new compact. In the preference dictated by the nature of our institutions and by the sentiments of justice and humanity which the occasion requires for measures of peace the treaty herewith transmitted has been concluded, and is submitted to the decision of the Senate. After exhausting every effort in our power to obtain the acquiescence of the Creek Nation to the treaty of the 12th of February, I entertained for some time the hope that their assent might at least have been given to a new treaty, by which all their lands within the State of Georgia should have been ceded. This has also proved impracticable, and although the excepted portion is of comparatively small amount and importance, I have assented to its exception so far as to place it before the Senate only from a conviction that between it and a resort to the forcible expulsion of the Creeks from their habitations and lands within the State of Georgia there was no middle term.

The deputation with which this treaty has been concluded consists of the principal chiefs of the nation-able not only to negotiate but to carry into effect the stipulations to which they have agreed. There is a deputation also here from the small party which undertook to contract for the whole nation at the treaty of the 12th of February, but the number of which, according to the information collected by General Gaines, does not exceed 400. They represent themselves, indeed, to be far more numerous, but whatever their number may be their interests have been provided for in the treaty now submitted. Their subscriptions to it would also have been received but for unreasonable pretensions raised by them after all the arrangements of the treaty had been agreed upon and it was actually signed. Whatever their merits may have been in the facility with which they ceded all the lands of their nation within the State of Georgia, their utter inability to perform the engagements which they so readily contracted and the exorbitancy of their demands when compared with the inefficiency of their own means of performance leave them with no claims upon the United States other than of impartial and rigorous justice.

In referring to the impressions under which I ratified the treaty of the 12th of February last, I do not deem it necessary to decide upon the propriety of the manner in which it was negotiated. Deeply regretting the recriminations and recriminations to which these events have given rise, I believe the public interest will best be consulted by discarding them altogether from the discussion of the subject. The great body of the Creek Nation inflexibly refuse to acknowledge or to execute that treaty. Upon this ground it will be set aside, should the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of that now communicated, without looking back to the means by which the other was effected. And in the adjustment of the terms of the present treaty I have been peculiarly anxious to dispense a measure of great liberality to both parties of the Creek Nation, rather than to extort from them a bargain of which the advantages on our part could only be purchased by hardship on theirs.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 1, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 50th ultimo, I communicate herewith, in confidence, a report from the Secretary of State, with the documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 7, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 15th of December last, I communicate herewith reports from the Secretaries of the Treasury and War and from the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with documents, relating to the lead mines and salt springs, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 14, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 12th ultimo, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Navy, with the statements relating to naval courts of inquiry and courts-martial since the 1st January, 1824, requested by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 15, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the late Secretary of War to the late President of the United States, with documents, containing information requested by a resolution of the House of April 10, 1824, relating to the purchases of real estate in behalf of the United States within the territorial limits of any State since the 4th July, 1776.

These papers were prepared during the last session of Congress, but by some accident were not then communicated to the House.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 16, 1826

To the Senate of the United States:

In answer to the two resolutions of the Senate of the 15th instant, marked executive, and which I have received, I state respectfully that all the communications from me to the Senate relating to the congress at Panama have been made, like all other communications upon executive business, in confidence. and most of them in compliance with a resolution of the Senate requesting them confidentially. Believing that the established usage of free confidential communication between the Executive and the Senate ought for the public interest to be preserved unimpaired, I deem it my indispensable duty to leave to the Senate itself the decision of a question involving a departure hitherto, so far as I am informed, without example from that usage, and upon the motives for which, not being informed of them, I do not feel myself competent to decide.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 17, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Navy, with a further document, prepared in compliance with a resolution of the House of the 10th of April, 1824, and containing information relating to purchasers of real estate in behalf of the United States within the territorial limits of any State since the 4th of July, 1776.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
February 17, 1826

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit herewith to both Houses of Congress a letter from the Secretary of War, with a report from the Ordnance Department, relating to the site of the arsenal of the United States at Augusta, in Georgia, and with regard to which the interposition of the legislative authority is submitted to your consideration as desirable.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 1, 1826

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I communicate to Congress a letter from the Secretary of War, together with a representation from Colonel Brooke, relating to the present condition of the Indians in Florida, and which I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 1, 1826

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

A resolution of the House of Representatives adopted at the first session of the Eighteenth Congress, and bearing date the 6th of May, 1824, requested the President of the United States to lay before the House at their then next session a detailed report of the system and plan of fortifications then contemplated and recommended by the Board of Engineers, with various particulars specified in the resolution; and on the 5th of January last a further resolution was adopted requesting similar information. I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with a letter from the Chief Engineer, and documents, containing, so far as it has been found practicable to obtain and compile it, the information requested by these resolutions.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 5, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I now submit to the consideration of Congress the propriety of making the appropriation for carrying into effect the appointment of a mission to the congress at Panama.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 7, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I communicate to both Houses of Congress a letter from the Secretary of War, together with copies of one to him from the Senators of the State of Maryland, and several other documents, relating to a claim of that State upon the Government of the United States for interest upon certain expenditures during the late war, which I the more readily recommend to the favorable and early consideration of Congress inasmuch as the principle upon which the claim is advanced appears to have been settled by the act of Congress of 3d March, 1825, authorizing the payment of interest due to the State of Virginia.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 8, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, with the proceedings of the court and marshal of the United States for the district of Alabama, and other documents, in relation to the cargoes of certain slave ships, the Constitution, Louisa. and Marino. containing the information requested by a resolution of the House of February 16, 1825.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 8, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 10th ultimo, requesting information relating to the proceedings of the joint commission of indemnities due under the award of the Emperor of Russia for slaves and other private property carried away by the British forces in violation of the treaty of Ghent, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and documents containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 15, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I communicate to Congress a letter from the Secretary of War and copies of a resolution of that legislature of the State of Georgia, with a correspondence of the governor of that State, relating to the running and establishing of the line between that State and Florida, which I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 15, 1826. To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of the 5th ultimo, requesting me to cause to be laid before the House so much of the correspondence between the Government of the United States and the new States of America, or their ministers, respecting the proposed congress or meeting of diplomatic agents at Panama, and such information respecting the general character of that expected congress as may be in my possession and as may, in my opinion, be communicated without prejudice to the public interest, and also to inform the House, so far as in my opinion the public interest may allow, in regard to what objects the agents of the United States are expected to take part in the deliberations of that congress, I now transmit to the House a report from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence and information requested by the resolution.

With regard to the objects in which the agents of the United States are expected to take part in the deliberations of that congress, I deem it proper to premise that these objects did not form the only, nor even the principal, motive for my acceptance of the invitation. My first and greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship an overture made in that spirit by three sister Republics of this hemisphere.

The great revolution in human affairs which has brought into existence, nearly at the same time, eight sovereign and independent nations in our own quarter of the globe has placed the United States in a situation not less novel and scarcely less interesting than that in which they had found themselves by their own transition from a cluster of colonies to a nation of sovereign States. The deliverance of the Southern American Republics from the oppression under which they had been so long afflicted was hailed with great unanimity by the people of this Union as among the most auspicious events of the age. On the 4th of May, 1822, an act of Congress made an appropriation of $100,000 "for such missions to the independent nations on the American continent as the President of the United States might deem proper." In exercising the authority recognized by this act my predecessor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate appointed successively ministers plenipotentiary to the Republics of Colombia, Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Mexico. Unwilling to raise among the fraternity of freedom questions of precedency and etiquette, which even the European monarchs had of late found it necessary in a great measure to discard, he dispatched these ministers to Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chili without exacting from those Republics, as by the ancient principles of political primogeniture he might have done, that the compliment of a plenipotentiary mission should have been paid first by them to the United States. The instructions, prepared under his direction, to Mr. Anderson, the first of our ministers to the southern continent, contain at much length the general principles upon which he thought it desirable that our relations, political and commercial, with these our new neighbors should be established for their benefit and ours and that of the future ages of our posterity. A copy of so much of these instructions as relates to these general subjects is among the papers now transmitted to the House. Similar instructions were furnished to the ministers appointed to Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Mexico, and the system of social intercourse which it was the purpose of those missions to establish from the first opening of our diplomatic relations with those rising nations is the most effective exposition of the principles upon which the invitation to the congress at Panama has been accepted by me, as well as of the objects of negotiation at that meeting, in which, it was that our plenipotentiaries should take part.

The House will perceive that even at the date of these instructions the first treaties between some of the southern Republics had been concluded, by which they had stipulated among themselves this diplomatic assembly at Panama. And it will be seen with what caution, so far as it might concern the policy of the United States, and at the same time with what frankness and good will toward those nations, he gave countenance to their design of inviting the United States to this high assembly for consultation upon American interests. It was not considered a conclusive reason for declining this invitation that the proposal for assembling such a Congress had not first been made by ourselves. It had sprung from the urgent, immediate, and momentous common interests of the great communities struggling for independence, and, as it were, quickening into life. From them the proposition to us appeared respectful and friendly; from us to them it could scarcely have been made without exposing ourselves to suspicions of purposes of ambition, if not of domination, more suited to rouse resistance and excite distrust than to conciliate favor and friendship. The first and paramount principle upon which it was deemed wise and just to lay the corner stone of all our future relations with them was disinterestedness; the next was cordial good will to them; the third was a claim of fair and equal reciprocity. Under these impressions when the invitation was formally and earnestly given, had it even been doubtful whether any of the objects proposed for consideration and discussion at the Congress were such as that immediate and important interests of the United States would be affected by the issue, I should, nevertheless, have determined so far as it depended upon me to have accepted the invitation and to have appointed ministers to attend the meeting. The proposal itself implied that the Republics by whom it was made believed that important interests of ours or of theirs rendered our attendance there desirable. They had given us notice that in the novelty of their situation and in the spirit of deference to our experience they would be pleased to have the benefit of our friendly counsel. To meet the temper with which this proposal was made with a cold repulse was not thought congenial to that warm interest in their welfare with which the people and Government of the Union had hitherto gone hand in hand through the whole progress of their revolution. To insult them by a refusal of their overture, and then invite them to a similar assembly to be called by ourselves, was an expedient which never presented itself to the mind. I would have sent ministers to the meeting had it been merely to give them such advice as they might have desired, even with reference to their own interests, not involving ours. I would have sent them had it been merely to explain and set forth to them our reasons for declining any proposal of specific measures to which they might desire our concurrence, but which we might deem incompatible with our interests or our duties. In the intercourse between nations temper is a missionary perhaps more powerful than talent. Nothing was ever lost by kind treatment. Nothing can be gained by sullen repulses and aspiring pretensions.

But objects of the highest importance, not only to the future welfare of the whole human race, but bearing directly upon the special interests of this Union, will engage the deliberations of the congress of Panama whether we are represented there or not. Others, if we are represented, may be offered by our plenipotentiaries for consideration having in view both these great results-our own interests and the improvement of the condition of man upon earth. It may be that in the lapse of many centuries no other opportunity so favorable will be presented to the Government of the United States to subserve the benevolent purposes of Divine Providence; to dispense the promised blessings of the Redeemer of Mankind; to promote the prevalence in future ages of peace on earth and good will to man, as will now be placed in their power by participating in the deliberations of this congress.

Among the topics enumerated in official papers published by the Republic of Colombia, and adverted to in the correspondence now communicated to the House, as intended to be presented for discussion at Panama, there is scarcely one in which the result of the meeting will not deeply affect the interests of the United States. Even those in which the belligerent States alone will take an active part will have a powerful effect upon the state of our relations with the American, and probably with the principal European, States. Were it merely that we might be correctly and speedily informed of the proceedings of the congress and of the progress and issue of their negotiations, I should hold it advisable that we should have an accredited agency with them, placed in such confidential relations with the other members as would insure the authenticity and the safe and early transmission of its reports. Of the same enumerated topics are the preparation of a manifesto setting forth to the world the justice of their cause and the relations they desire to hold with other Christian powers, and to form a convention of navigation and commerce applicable both to the confederated States and to their allies.

It will be within the recollection of the House that immediately after the close of the war of our independence a measure closely analogous to this congress of Panama was adopted by the Congress of our Confederation, and for purposes of precisely the same character. Three commissioners with plenipotentiary powers were appointed to negotiate treaties of amity, navigation, and commerce with all the principal powers of Europe. They met and resided for that purpose about one year at Paris, and the only result of their negotiations at that time was the first treaty between the United States and Prussia-memorable in the diplomatic annals of the world, and precious as a monument of the principles, in relation to commerce and maritime warfare, with which our country entered upon her career as a member of the great family of independent nations. This treaty, prepared in conformity with the instructions of the American plenipotentiaries, consecrated three fundamental principles of the foreign intercourse which the Congress of that period were desirous of establishing: First, equal reciprocity and the mutual stipulation of the privileges of the most favored nation in the commercial exchanges of peace; secondly, the abolition of private war upon the ocean, and thirdly, restrictions favorable to neutral commerce upon belligerent practices with regard to contraband of war and blockades. A painful, it may be said a calamitous, experience of more than forty years has demonstrated the deep importance of these same principles to the peace and prosperity of this nation and to the welfare of all maritime States, and has illustrated the profound wisdom with which they were assumed as cardinal points of the policy of the Union.

At that time in the infancy of their political existence, under the influence of those principles of liberty and of right so congenial to the cause in which they had just fought and triumphed, they were able but to obtain the sanction of one great and philosophical, though absolute, sovereign in Europe to their liberal and enlightened principles. They could obtain no more. Since then a political hurricane has gone over three-fourths of the civilized portions of the earth, the desolation of which it may with confidence be expected is passing away, leaving at least the American atmosphere purified and refreshed. And now at this propitious moment the new-born nations of this hemisphere, assembling by their representatives at the 1sthmus between its two continents to settle the principles of their future international intercourse with other nations and with us, ask in this great exigency for our advice upon those very fundamental maxims which we from our cradle at first proclaimed and partially succeeded to introduce into the code of national law.

Without recurring to that total prostration of all neutral and commercial rights which marked the progress of the late European wars, and which finally involved the United States in them, and adverting only to our political relations with these American nations, it is observable that while in all other respects those relations have been uniformly and without exception of the most friendly and mutually satisfactory character, the only causes of difference and dissension between us and them which ever have arisen originated in those never-failing fountains of discord and irritation-discriminations of commercial favor to other nations, licentious privateers, and paper blockades. I can not without doing injustice to the Republics of Buenos Ayres and Colombia forbear to acknowledge the candid and conciliatory spirit with which they have repeatedly yielded to our friendly representations and remonstrances on these subjects-in repealing discriminative laws which operated to our disadvantage and in revoking the commissions of their privateers, to which Colombia has added the magnanimity of making reparation for unlawful captures by some of her cruisers and of assenting in the midst of war to treaty stipulations favorable to neutral navigation. But the recurrence of these occasions of complaint has rendered the renewal of the discussions which result in the removal of them necessary, while in the meantime injuries are sustained by merchants and other individuals of the United States which can not be repaired, and the remedy lingers in overtaking the pernicious operation of the mischief. The settlement of general principles pervading with equal efficacy all the American States can alone put an end to these evils, and can alone be accomplished at the proposed assembly.

If it be true that the noblest treaty of peace ever mentioned in history is that by which the Carthagenians were bound to abolish the practice of sacrificing their own children because it was stipulated in favor of human nature. I can not exaggerate to myself the unfading glory with which these United States will go forth in the memory of future ages if by their friendly counsel, by their moral influence, by the power of argument and persuasion alone they can prevail upon the American nations at Panama to stipulate by general agreement among themselves, and so far as any of them may be concerned, the perpetual abolition of private war upon the ocean. And if we can not yet flatter ourselves that this may be accomplished, as advances toward it the establishment of the principle that the friendly flag shall cover the cargo, the curtailment of contraband of war, and the proscription of fictitious paper blockades-engagements which we may reasonably hope will not prove impracticable-will, if successfully inculcated, redound proportionally to our honor and drain the fountain of many a future sanguinary war.

The late President of the United States, in his message to Congress of the 2d December, 1823, while announcing the negotiation then pending with Russia, relating to the northwest coast of this continent, observed that the occasion of the discussions to which that incident had given rise had been taken for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States were involved that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they had assumed and maintained, were thenceforward not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power. The principle had first been assumed in that negotiation with Russia. It rested upon a course of reasoning equally simple and conclusive. With the exception of the existing European colonies, which it was in nowise intended to disturb, the two continents consisted of several sovereign and independent nations, whose territories covered their whole surface. By this their independent condition the United States enjoyed the right of commercial intercourse with every part of their possessions. To attempt the establishment of a colony in those possessions would be to usurp to the exclusion of others a commercial intercourse which was the common possession of all. It could not be done without encroaching upon existing rights of the United States. The Government of Russia has never disputed these positions nor manifested the slightest dissatisfaction at their having been taken. Most of the new American Republics have declared their entire assent to them, and they now propose, among the subjects of consultation at Panama, to take into consideration the means of making effectual the assertion of that principle, as well as the means of resisting interference from abroad with the domestic concerns of the American Governments.

In alluding to these means it would obviously be premature at this time to anticipate that which is offered merely as matter for consultation, or to pronounce upon those measures which have been or may be suggested. The purpose of this Government is to concur in none which would import hostility to Europe or justly excite resentment in any of her States. Should it be deemed advisable to contract any conventional engagement on this topic, our views would extend no further than to a mutual pledge of the parties to the compact to maintain the principle in application to its own territory, and to permit no colonial lodgments or establishment of European jurisdiction upon its own soil; and with respect to the obtrusive interference from abroad-if its future character may be inferred from that which has been and perhaps still is exercised in more than one of the new States-a joint declaration of its character and exposure of it to the world may be probably all that the occasion would require. Whether the United States should or should not be parties to such a declaration may justly form a part of the deliberation. That there is an evil to be remedied heeds little insight into the secret history of late years to know, and that this remedy may best be concerted at the Panama meeting deserves at least the experiment of consideration. A concert of measures having reference to the more effectual abolition of the African slave trade and the consideration of the light in which the political condition of the island of Hayti is to be regarded are also among the subjects mentioned by the minister from the Republic of Colombia as believed to be suitable for deliberation at the congress. The failure of the negotiations with that Republic undertaken during the late administration, for the suppression of that trade, in compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives, indicates the expediency of listening with respectful attention to propositions which may contribute to the accomplishment of the great end which was the purpose of that resolution, while the result of those negotiations will serve as admonition to abstain from pledging this Government to any arrangement which might be expected to fail of obtaining the advice and consent of the Senate by a constitutional majority to its ratification.

Whether the political condition of the island of Hayti shall be brought at all into discussion at the meeting may be a question for preliminary advisement. There are in the political constitution of Government of that people circumstances which have hitherto forbidden the acknowledgment of them by the Government of the United States as sovereign and independent. Additional reasons for withholding that acknowledgment have recently been seen in their acceptance of a nominal sovereignty by the grant of a foreign prince under conditions equivalent to the concession by them of exclusive commercial advantages to one nation, adapted altogether to the state of colonial vassalage and retaining little of independence but the name. Our plenipotentiaries will be instructed to present these views to the assembly at Panama, and should they not be concurred in to decline acceding to any arrangement which may be proposed upon different principles.

The condition of the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico is of deeper import and more immediate bearing upon the present interests and future prospects of our Union. The correspondence herewith transmitted will show how earnestly it has engaged the attention of this Government. The invasion of both those islands by the united forces of Mexico and Colombia is avowedly among the objects to be matured by the belligerent States at Panama. The convulsions to which, from the peculiar composition of their population, they would be liable in the event of such an invasion, and the danger therefrom resulting of their falling ultimately into the hands of some European power other than Spain, will not admit of our looking at the consequences to which the congress at Panama may lead with indifference. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon this topic or to say more than that all our efforts in reference to this interest will be to preserve the existing state of things, the tranquillity of the islands, and the peace and security of their inhabitants.

And lastly, the congress of Panama is believed to present a fair occasion for urging upon all the new nations of the south the just and liberal principles of religious liberty; not by any interference whatever in their internal concerns, but by claiming for our citizens whose occupations or interests may call them to occasional residence in their territories the inestimable privilege of worshipping their Creator according to the dictates of their own consciences. This privilege, sanctioned by the customary law of nations and secured by treaty stipulations in numerous national compacts, secured even to our own citizens in the treaties with Colombia and with the Federation of Central America, is yet to be obtained in the other South American States and Mexico. Existing prejudices are still struggling against it, which may, perhaps, be more successfully combated at this general meeting than at the separate seats of Government of each Republic.

I can scarcely deem it otherwise than superfluous to observe that the assembly will be in its nature diplomatic and not legislative; that nothing can be transacted there obligatory upon any one of the States to be represented at the meeting, unless with the express concurrence of its own representatives, nor even then, but subject to the ratification of its constitutional authority at home. The faith of the United States to foreign powers can not otherwise be pledged. I shall, indeed, in the first instance, consider the assembly as merely consultative; and although the plenipotentiaries of the United States will be empowered to receive and refer to the consideration of their Government any proposition from the other parties to the meeting, they will be authorized to conclude nothing unless subject to the definitive sanction of this Government in all its constitutional forms. It has therefore seemed to me unnecessary to insist that every object to be discussed at the meeting should be specified with the precision of a judicial sentence or enumerated with the exactness of a mathematical demonstration. The purpose of the meeting itself is to deliberate upon the great and common interests of several new and neighbouring nations. If the measure is new and without precedent, so is the situation of the parties to it. That the purposes of the meeting are somewhat indefinite, far from being an objection to it is among the cogent reasons for its adoption. It is not the establishment of principles of intercourse with one, but with seven or eight nations at once. That before they have had the means of exchanging ideas and communicating with one another in common upon these topics they should have definitively settled and arranged them in concert is to require that the effect should precede the cause; it is to exact as a preliminary to the meeting that for the accomplishment of which the meeting itself is designed.

Among the inquiries which were thought entitled to consideration before the determination was taken to accept the invitation was that whether the measure might not have a tendency to change the policy, hitherto invariably pursued by the United States, of avoiding all entangling alliances and all unnecessary foreign connections.

Mindful of the advice given by the father of our country in his Farewell Address, that the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible, and faithfully adhering to the spirit of that admonition, I can not overlook the reflection that the counsel of Washington in that instance, like all the counsels of wisdom, was founded upon the circumstances in which our country and the world around us were situated at the time when it was given; that the reasons assigned by him for his advice were that Europe had a set of primary interests which to us had none or a very remote relation; that hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the, causes of which were essentially foreign to our concerns; that our detached and distant situation invited and enabled us to pursue a different course; that by our union and rapid growth, with an efficient Government, the period was not far distant when we might defy material injury from external annoyance, when we might take such an attitude as would cause our neutrality to be respected, and, with reference to belligerent nations, might choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, should counsel.

Compare our situation and the circumstances of that time with those of the present day, and what, from the very words of Washington then, would be his counsels to his countrymen now? Europe has still her set of primary interests, with which we have little or a remote relation. Our distant and detached situation with reference to Europe remains the same. But we were then the only independent nation of this hemisphere, and we were surrounded by European colonies, with the greater part of which we had no more intercourse than with the inhabitants of another planet. Those colonies have now been transformed into eight independent nations, extending to our very borders, seven of them Republics like ourselves, with whom we have an immensely growing commercial, and must have and have already important political, connections; with reference to whom our situation is neither distant nor detached; whose political principles and systems of government, congenial with our own, must and will have an action and counteraction upon us and ours to which we can not be indifferent if we would.

The rapidity of our growth, and the consequent increase of our strength, has more than realized the anticipations of this admirable political legacy. Thirty years have nearly elapsed since it was written, and in the interval our population, our wealth, our territorial extension, our power-physical and moral-have nearly trebled. Reasoning upon this state of things from the sound and judicious principles of Washington, must we not say that the period which he predicted as then not far off has arrived; that America has a set of primary interests which have none or a remote relation to Europe; that the interference of Europe, therefore, in those concerns should be spontaneously withheld by her upon the same principles that we have never interfered with hers, and that if she should interfere, as she may, by measures which may have a great and dangerous recoil upon ourselves, we might be called in defense of our own altars and firesides to take an attitude which would cause our neutrality to be respected, and choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, should counsel.

The acceptance of this invitation, therefore, far from conflicting with the counsel or the policy of Washington, is directly deducible from and conformable to it. Nor is it less conformable to the views of my immediate predecessor as declared in his annual message to Congress of the 2d December, 1823, to which I have already adverted, and to an important passage of which I invite the attention of the House:

The citizens of the United States (said he) cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that (the European) side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of hecessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective Governments. And to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations subsisting between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere; but with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have on great consideration and on just principles acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purposes of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which in the judgment of the competent authorities of this Government shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security.

To the question which may be asked, whether this meeting and the principles which may be adjusted and settled by it as rules of intercourse between the American nations may not give umbrage to the holy league of European powers or offense to Spain, it is deemed a sufficient answer that our attendance at Panama can give no just cause of umbrage or offense to either, and that the United States will stipulate nothing there which can give such cause. Here the right of inquiry into our purposes and measures must stop. The holy league of Europe itself was formed without inquiring of the United States whether it would or would not give umbrage to them. The fear of giving umbrage to the holy league of Europe was urged as a motive for denying to the American nations the acknowledgment of their independence. That it would be viewed by Spain as hostility to her was not only urged, but directly declared by herself. The Congress and administration of that day consulted their rights and duties, and not their fears. Fully determined to give no heedless displeasure to any foreign power, the United States can estimate the probability of their giving it only by the right which any foreign state could have to take it from their measures. Neither the representation of the United States at Panama nor any measure to which their assent may be yielded there will give to the holy league or any of its members, nor to Spain, the right to take offense; for the rest the United States must still, as heretofore, take counsel from their duties rather than their fears.

Such are the objects in which it is expected that the plenipotentiaries of the United States, when commissioned to attend the meeting at the Isthmus, will take part, and such are the motives and purposes with which the invitation of the three Republics was accepted. It was, however, as the House will perceive from the correspondence, accepted only upon condition that the nomination of commissioners for the mission should receive the advice and consent of the Senate.

The concurrence of the House to the measure by the appropriations necessary for carrying it into effect is alike subject to its free determination and indispensable to the fulfillment of the intention.

That the congress at Panama will accomplish all, or even any, of the transcendent benefits to the human race which warmed the conceptions of its first proposer it were perhaps indulging too sanguine a forecast of events to promise. It is in its nature a measure speculative and experimental. The blessing of Heaven may turn it to the account of human improvement; accidents unforeseen and mischances not to be anticipated may baffle all its high purposes and disappoint its fairest expectations. But the design is great, is benevolent, is humane.

It looks to the melioration of the condition of man. It is congenial with that spirit which prompted the declaration of our independence, which inspired the preamble of our first treaty with France, which dictated our first treaty with Prussia and the instructions under which it was negotiated, which filled the hearts and fired the souls of the immortal founders of our Revolution.

With this unrestricted exposition of the motives by which I have been governed in this transaction, as well as of the objects to be discussed and of the ends, if possible, to be attained by our representation at the proposed congress, I submit the propriety of an appropriation to the candid consideration and enlightened patriotism of the Legislature.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 16, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

Some additional documents having relation to the objects of the mission to the congress at Panama, and received since the communication of those heretofore sent, are now transmitted to the Senate.

John Quincy Adams.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 10th instant, requesting information in possession of the Government relating to certain resolves of the Congress of the Confederation of the 21st of October, 1780, and the 21st March, 1783, concerning allowances to the officers of the Revolutionary army, and to the manner of carrying into effect those resolves, and other particulars appertaining thereto, I transmit reports from the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, and of War, with documents, comprising the information desired by the House.

John Quincy Adams.

MARCH 22, 1826.

Washington,
March 24, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th ultimo, requesting statements of the amount of compensation allowed to the paymaster and quartermaster of the Marine Corps for the two years preceding the 1st of January, 1826, and of other particulars relating to the same Corps, I communicate a report from the Secretary of the Navy, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 24, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 16th ultimo, requesting statements of the net amount of revenue derived from imports and tonnage received by the Treasury from the ports within the bay of Delaware, the bay of Chesapeake, the harbor of New York, and at Boston from the 1st of January, 1790, to the last of December, 1825, and of the amount of expenditures paid from the Treasury for forts, light-houses, beacons, and other public works erected to aid commerce or for the purposes of defense within the said bays and harbors during the said time, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, with several documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 29, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of the 227th instant, requesting a copy of such parts of the answer of the Secretary of State to Mr. Poinsett's letter to Mr. Clay, dated Mexico, 28th September, 1825, No. 22, as relates to the pledge of the United States therein mentioned; and also requesting me to inform the House whether the United States have in any manner made any pledge to the Governments of Mexico and South America that the United States would not permit the interference of any foreign power with the independence or form of government of these nations, and, if so, when, in what manner, and to what effect; and also to communicate to the House a copy of the communication from our minister at Mexico in which he informed the Government of the United States that the Mexican Government called upon this Government to fulfill the memorable pledge of the President of the United States in his message to Congress of December, 1823, I transmit to the House a report from the Secretary of State, with the documents containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 30, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

By the second article of the general convention of peace, amity, navigation, and commerce between the United States and the Republic of Colombia, concluded at Bogota on 3d of October, 1824, it was stipulated that the parties engaged mutually not to grant any particular favor to other nations in respect of commerce and navigation which should not immediately become common to the other party, who should enjoy the same freely if the concession was freely made, or on allowing the same compensation if the concession was conditional. And in the third article of the same convention it was agreed that the citizens of the United States might frequent all the coasts and countries of the Republic of Colombia, and reside and trade there in all sorts of produce, manufactures, and merchandise, and should pay no other or greater duties, charges, or fees whatsoever than the most favored nation should be obliged to pay, and should enjoy all the rights, privileges, and exemptions in navigation and commerce which the most favored nations should enjoy, submitting themselves, nevertheless, to the laws, decrees, and usages there established, and to which were submitted the subjects and citizens of the most favored nations; with a reciprocal stipulation in favor of the citizens of the Republic of Colombia in the United States. Subsequently to the conclusion of this convention a treaty was negotiated between the Republic of Colombia and Great Britain, by which it was stipulated that no other or higher duties on account of tonnage, light, or harbor dues should be imposed in the ports of Colombia on British vessels than those payable in the same ports by Colombian vessels, and that the same duties should be paid on the importation into the territories of Colombia of any article the growth, produce, or manufacture of His Britannic Majesty's dominions, whether such importations should be in Colombian or in British vessels, and that the same duties should be paid and the same discount (drawbacks) and bounties allowed on the exportation of any articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of Colombia to His Britannic Majesty's dominions, whether such exportations were in Colombian or in British vessels.

The minister of the United States to the Republic of Colombia having claimed, by virtue of the second and third articles of the convention between the two Republics, that the benefit of these subsequent stipulations should be alike extended to the citizens of the United States upon the condition of reciprocity provided for by the convention, the application of those engagements was readily acceded to by the Colombian Government, and a decree was issued by the executive authority of that Republic on the 30th of January last, a copy and translation of which are herewith communicated, securing to the citizens of the United States in the Republic of Colombia the same advantages in regard to commerce and navigation which had been conceded to British subjects in the Colombian treaty with Great Britain.

It remains for the Government of the United States to secure to the citizens of the Republic of Colombia the reciprocal advantages to which they are entitled by the terms of the convention, to commence from the 30th of January last, for the accomplishment of which I invite the favor-able consideration of the Legislature.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 31, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of the 21st instant, requesting information whether any, and what, measures have been taken to improve the navigation over the sand bars in the Ohio River according to the provisions of the act of the 24th of May, 1824, to improve the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and also whether the experiments mentioned in the proviso to the first section of the said act have been made, and, if so, what success has attended them, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 31, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

I communicate to the Senate herewith a supplementary article to the treaty with the chiefs and headmen of the Creek Nation, in behalf of that nation, which was transmitted to the Senate on the 31st of January last, and which I submit, together with and as a part of that treaty, for the constitutional advice of the Senate with regard to its ratification. A report of the Secretary of War accompanies the article, setting forth the reasons for which it has been concluded.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 1, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of the 13th ultimo, requesting a statement of all the expenditures incident or relating to internal improvement for the years 1824 and 1825, I transmit reports from the Secretaries of the Treasury and of War, with documents, containing the statement desired.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 1, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of the 7th ultimo, requesting information relative to the execution of an act of Congress of the 7th May, 1822, to authorize and empower the corporation of the city of Washington, in the district of Columbia, to drain the low grounds on and hear the public reservations, and to improve and ornament certain parts of such reservations, I transmit herewith a report from the commissioners appointed by the corporation of the city to carry into effect the provisions of the said act, together with sundry documents, exhibiting the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 5, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of the 30th ultimo, I transmit to the House a report from the Secretary of State, with the documents desired by the resolution; and also a copy of the letter from the Secretary of State to Mr. Poinsett acknowledging the receipt of his dispatch No. 22, accidentally overlooked in the answer to the resolution of the House of the 27th ultimo.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 11, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

On the 16th of January last I sent to the Senate a nomination of Daniel Bissell to be colonel of the Second Regiment of Artillery, and on the 3d of February I received from the Secretary of the Senate an attested copy of their proceedings in relation to that nomination, laid before me by their order, and closing with a resolution in these words:

Resolved. That in the opinion of the Senate Daniel Bissell is entitled to the place of colonel in the Army of the United States, taking rank as such from the 15th of August, 1812, with the brevet of brigadier-general from the 9th of March, 1814, and that the President of the United States may arrange him accordingly.

In the discharge of my own duties I am under the hecessity of stating respectfully to the Senate-

First. That I can not concur in these opinions.

Secondly. That the resolution of the Senate, having on its face no reference either to the nomination or to the office for which it was made, leaves me doubtful whether it was intended by the Senate as their decision upon the nomination or not. If intended as their decision, it imports that the Senate do not advise and consent to the appointment of Daniel Bissell as colonel in the Second Regiment of Artillery. If intended as a mere expression of their opinions, superseding in their judgment the hecessity of their immediate decision upon the nomination, it leaves the Senate still in possession of the nomination and free to act upon it when informed of my inability to carry those opinions into effect.

In this uncertainty I have thought it most respectful to the Senate to refer the subject again to them for their consideration. The delay in the transmission of this communication is attributable to the earnest desire which I have entertained of acceding to the opinions and complying with the wishes of the Senate, and to the long and repeated reconsideration of my own impressions with the view to make them, if possible, conform to theirs. A still higher duty now constrains me to invite their definitive decision upon the nomination.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 15, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 11th instant, I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State, and documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 25, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I now transmit to both Houses of Congress copies of a treaty with the Creek Nation of Indians, concluded on the 24th day of January last, with a supplementary article, signed on the 31st of last month, which have been, with the advice and consent of the Senate, duly ratified. I send at the same time copies of the treaty superseded by them, signed at the Indian Springs on the 12th of February, 1825. The treaty and supplementary article now ratified will require the aid of the Legislature for carrying them into effect. And I subjoin a letter from the Secretary of War, proposing an additional appropriation for the purpose of facilitating the removal of that portion of the Creek Nation which may be disposed to remove west of the Mississippi, recommending the whole subject to the favorable consideration of Congress.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 25, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of the 4th of January last, I now transmit reports from the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, and of War, and from the Postmaster-General, with the documents containing the list of appointments of members of Congress and other information relating thereto desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 28, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their advice concerning its ratification, a general convention of friendship, commerce, and navigation between the United States and His Majesty the King of Denmark, signed by the Secretary of State and the Danish minister on the 26th instant. A copy of the convention and a note from the Secretary of State, together with Mr. Pedersen's answer, respecting the claims of the citizens of the United States upon the Danish Government, are likewise communicated.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
April 29, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 26th instant, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, with a copy of the opinion of the Attorney-General referred to in the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
May 9, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 28th ultimo, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with a copy of the proceedings of the recent court-martial for the trial of Colonel Talbot Chambers, and other documents requested by the resolution or relating to the subject of it.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
May 15, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 23d of March last, requesting information concerning the official conduct of the collector and other revenue officers of the port of Philadelphia, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
May 16, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant, I communicate herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, with the documents desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
May 17, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I communicate to both Houses of Congress copies of treaties with Indian tribes which have been, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, duly ratified during the present session of Congress:

(1) With the Great and Little Osage tribes, concluded June 2, 1825; (2) Kansas, June 3, 1825; (3) Poncar, June 9, 1825; (4) Teton, Yancton, and Yanctonies, June 22, 1825; (5) Sioune and Ogallala, July 5 and 12, 1825; (6) Chayenne, July 6, 1825; (7) Hunkpapas, July 16, 1825; (8) Ricara, July 18, 1825; (9) Mandan, July 30, 1825; (10) Belantse-Etoa, or Minnetaree, July 30, 1825; (11) Crow, August 4, 1825; (12) Great and Little Osage, August 10, 1825; (13) Kansas, August 16, 1825; (14) Sioux, Chippewa, Sac and Fox, Menomenee, Ioway, Sioux, Winnebago, and a portion of the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Pottawatomie tribes, August 19, 1825; (15) Ottoe and Missouri, September 26, 1825; (16) Pawnee, September 30, 1825; (17) Maha, October 6, 1825; (18) Shawnee, November 7, 1825.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
May 19, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of the 16th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, containing the information thereby requested.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
May 20, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 5th of March, 1824, requesting copies of the several instructions to the ministers of the United States to the Government of France and of the correspondence between the said ministers and Government having reference to the spoliations committed by that power on the commerce of the United States anterior to the 30th of September, 1800, or so much thereof as can be communicated without prejudice to the public interest; also how far, if at all, the claim of indemnity from the Government of France for the spoliations aforesaid was affected by the convention entered into between the United States and France on the said 30th of September, 1800, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with the documents desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

EXECUTIVE ORDER.

Adjutant-General's Office,

Washington,
July 11, 1826

General Orders.

The General in Chief has received from the Department of War the following orders:

The President with deep regret announces to the Army that it has pleased the Disposer of All Human Events, in whose hands are the issues of life, to remove from the scene of earthly existence our illustrious and venerated fellow-citizen, Thomas Jefferson.

This dispensation of Divine Providence, afflicting to us, but the consummation of glory to him, occurred on the 4th of the present month on the fiftieth anniversary of that Independence the Declaration of which, emanating from his mind, at once proclaimed the birth of a free nation and offered motives of hope and consolation to the whole family of man. Sharing in the grief which every heart must feel for so heavy and afflicting a public loss, and desirous to express his high sense of the vast debt of gratitude which is due to the virtues, talents, and ever-memorable services of the illustrious deceased, the President directs that funeral honors be paid to him at all the military stations, and that the officers of the Army wear crape on the left arm, by way of mourning, for six months.

Major-General Brown will give the necessary orders for carrying into effect the foregoing directions.

J. Barbour.

It has become the painful duty of the Secretary of War to announce to the Army the death of another distinguished and venerated citizen. John Adams departed this life on the 4th of this month. Like his compatriot Jefferson, he aided in drawing and ably supporting the Declaration of Independence. With a prophetic eye he looked through the impending difficulties of the Revolution and foretold with what demonstrations of joy the anniversary of the birth of American freedom would be hailed. He was permitted to behold the verification of his prophecy, and died, as did Jefferson, on the day of the jubilee.

A coincidence of circumstances so wonderful gives confidence to the belief that the patriotic efforts of these illustrious men were Heaven directed, and furnishes a new seal to the hope that the prosperity of these States is under the special protection of a kind Providence.

The Secretary of War directs that the same funeral honors be paid by the Army to the memory of the deceased as by the order of the 7th (11th?) instant were directed to be paid to Thomas Jefferson, and the same token of mourning be worn.

Major-General Brown is charged with the execution of this order.

J. Barbour.

Never has it fallen to the lot of any commander to announce to an army such an event as now calls forth the mingled grief and astonishment of this Republic; never since history first wrote the record of time has one day thus mingled every triumphant with every tender emotion, and consecrated a nation's joy by blending it with the most sacred of sorrows. Yes, soldiers, in one day, almost in the same hour, have two of the Founders of the Republic, the Patriarchs of Liberty, closed their services to social man, after beholding them crowned with the richest and most unlimited success. United in their end as they had been in their highest aim, their toils completed, their hopes surpassed, their honors full, and the dearest wish of their bosoms gratified in death, they closed their eyes in patriot ecstasy, amidst the gratulations and thanksgivings of a people on all, on every individual, of whom they had conferred the best of all earthly benefits.

Such men heed no trophies; they ask no splendid mausolea. We are their monuments; their mausolea is their country, and her growing prosperity the amaranthine wreath that Time shall place over their dust. Well may the Genius of the Republic mourn. If she turns her eyes in one direction, she beholds the hall where Jefferson wrote the charter of her rights; if in another, she sees the city where Adams kindled the fires of the Revolution. To no period of our history, to no department of our affairs, can she direct her views and not meet the multiplied memorials of her loss and of their glory.

At the grave of such men envy dies, and party animosity blushes while she quenches her fires. If Science and Philosophy lament their enthusiastic votary in the halls of Monticello, Philanthropy and Eloquence weep with no less reason in the retirement of Quincy. And when hereafter the stranger performing his pilgrimage to the land of freedom shall ask for the monument of Jefferson, his inquiring eye may be directed to the dome of that temple of learning, the university of his native State the last labor of his untiring mind, the latest and the favorite gift of a patriot to his country.

Bereaved yet happy America! Mourning yet highly favored country! Too happy if every son whose loss shall demand thy tears can thus soothe thy sorrow by a legacy of fame.

The Army of the United States, devoted to the service of the country, and honoring all who are alike devoted, whether in the Cabihet or the field, will feel an honorable and a melancholy pride in obeying this order. Let the officers, then, wear the badge of mourning, the poor emblem of a sorrow which words can not express, but which freemen must ever feel while contemplating the graves of the venerated Fathers of the Republic.

Tuesday succeeding the arrival of this order at each military station shall be a day of rest.

The National flag shall wave at half-mast.

At early dawn thirteen guns shall be fired, and at intervals of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun a single cannon will be discharged, and at the close of the day twenty-four rounds.

By command of Major-General Brown:
 
R. JONES,
Adjutant-General

SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

Washington,
December 5, 1826.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The assemblage of the representatives of our Union in both Houses of the Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of All Good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations we have peace without and tranquillity within our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources, and whatever differences of opinion exist among us with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of Heaven to the improvement of our own condition, there is yet a spirit animating us all which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands to the advancement of the general good.

Of the subjects recommended to Congress at their last session, some were then definitively acted upon. Others, left unfinished, but partly matured, will recur to your attention without heeding a renewal of notice from me. The purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted.

In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding, qualified, however, in several important instances by collisions of interest and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable.

By the decease of the Emperor Alexander, of Russia, which occurred contemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of Congress, the United States have been deprived of a long-tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power and trained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch from his youth had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion and to be sensible that the interests of his own Government would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this Republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal commercial intercourse with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the Government of the United States upon the affairs of Southern America took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other Governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence of our southern neighbors, of which the example had by the United States already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States have suffered some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister residing here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances that the sentiments of the reigning Emperor toward the United States are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother, and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations which, founded in congenial interests, can not but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both.

Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by the operation of the convention of 24th of June, 1822, with that nation, in a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth as the rule of commercial intercourse which they would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States in the negotiation of that convention earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination so far as was found attainable it was agreed that at the expiration of two years from the 1st of October, 1822, when the convention was to go into effect, unless a notice of six months on either side should be given to the other that the convention itself must terminate, those duties should be reduced one-fourth, and that this reduction should be yearly repeated, until all discrimination should cease, while the convention itself should continue in force. By the effect of this stipulation three-fourths of the discriminating duties which had been levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports have already been removed; and on the 1st of next October, should the convention be still in force, the remaining fourth will be discontinued. French vessels laden with French produce will be received in our ports on the same terms as our own, and ours in return will enjoy the same advantages in the ports of France.

By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add that the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow-citizens, and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their condition remains unaltered.

With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment of discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both sides. The act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, abolished all discriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States upon the assurance given by the Government of the Netherlands that all such duties operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States in that Kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years when the discriminating principle was resumed by the Netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of 10 per cent in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of 7th January, 1824, all discriminating duties in the United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and commerce of the United States in any of the foreign countries referred to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the navigation of such foreign country should cease and all the provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in the United States should revive and be in full force with regard to that nation.

In the correspondence with the Government of the Netherlands upon this subject they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping by this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered as a discriminating duty; but it can not be denied that it produces all the same effects. Had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, such a bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been granted consistently with good faith. Yet as the act of Congress of 7th January, 1824, has not expressly authorized the Executive authority to determine what shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by a foreign government to the disadvantage of the United States, and as the retaliatory measure on our part, however just and necessary, may tend rather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate than to that concert to which we invite all commercial nations, as most conducive to their interest and our own, I have thought it more consistent with the spirit of our institutions to refer the subject again to the paramount authority of the Legislature to decide what measure the emergency may require than abruptly by proclamation to carry into effect the minatory provisions of the act of 1824.

During the last session of Congress treaties of amity, navigation, and commerce were negotiated and signed at this place with the Government of Denmark, in Europe, and with the Federation of Central America, in this hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutional sanction of the Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were accordingly ratified on the part of the United States, and during the recess of Congress have been also ratified by the other respective contracting parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they have been published by proclamations, copies of which are herewith communicated to Congress.

These treaties have established between the contracting parties the principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most liberal extent, each party admitting the vessels of the other into its ports, laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of the globe, upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost that are chargeable upon their own. They have further stipulated that the parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to any other nation which shall not upon the same terms be granted to each other, and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise the produce or manufacture of the other any other or higher duties than upon the like articles being the produce or manufacture of any other country. To these principles there is in the convention with Denmark an exception with regard to the colonies of that Kingdom in the arctic seas, but none with regard to her colonies in the West Indies.

In the course of the last summer the term to which our last commercial treaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is in the contemplation of the Swedish Government, and is believed to be desirable on the part of the United States. It has been proposed by the King of Sweden that pending the negotiation of renewal the expired treaty should be mutually considered as still in force, a measure which will require the sanction of Congress to be carried into effect on our part, and which I therefore recommend to your consideration.

With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and, in general, all the European powers between whom and the United States relations of friendly intercourse have existed their condition has not materially varied since the last session of Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of our commercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britain in America. Negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests have been for several years in discussion between the two Governments, and on the part of the United States have been invariably pursued in the spirit of candor and conciliation. Interests of great magnitude and delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818, while that of 1822, mediated by the late Emperor Alexander, had promised a satisfactory compromise of claims which the Government of the United States, in justice to the rights of a numerous class of their citizens, was bound to sustain. But with regard to the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British colonies in America, it has been hitherto found impracticable to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory to both. The relative geographical position and the respective products of nature cultivated by human industry had constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse between the United States and British America, insular and continental, important to the inhabitants of both countries; but it had been interdicted by Great Britain upon a principle heretofore practiced upon by the colonizing nations of Europe, of holding the trade of their colonies each in exclusive monopoly to herself. After the termination of the late war this interdiction had been revived, and the British Government declined including this portion of our intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of the convention of 1815. The trade was then carried on exclusively in British vessels till the act of Congress, concerning navigation, of 1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the United States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self-defense, were soon succeeded by an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports to the vessels of the United States coming directly from them, and to the importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened with heavy duties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our exports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels from the colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act of Parliament as in the relative position of the parties could be made, and a negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on our part that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the two countries between whom it must be carried on would ultimately bring the parties to a compromise with which both might be satisfied. With this view the Government of the United States had determined to sacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial arrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and to acquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves rather than to forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of this interest to the satisfaction of Great Britain herself. The negotiation, repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances, was, however, by mutual agreement and express assent, considered as pending and to be speedily resumed. In the meantime another act of Parliament, so doubtful and ambiguous in its import as to have been misunderstood by the officers in the colonies who were to carry it into execution, opens again certain colonial ports upon new conditions and terms, with a threat to close them against any nation which may not accept those terms as prescribed by the British Government. This act, passed in July, 1825, not communicated to the Government of the United States, not understood by the British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to be enforced, was nevertheless submitted to the consideration of Congress at their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress and pledges given of its resumption at an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result of that negotiation rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms the import of which was not clear and which the British authorities themselves in this hemisphere were not prepared to explain.

Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress one of our most distinguished citizens was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructions which we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this long-controverted interest upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon his arrival, and before he had delivered his letters of credence, he was met by an order of the British council excluding from and after the 1st of December now current the vessels of the United States from all the colonial British ports excepting those immediately bordering on our territories. In answer to his expostulations upon a measure thus unexpected he is informed that according to the ancient maxims of policy of European nations having colonies their trade is an exclusive possession of the mother country; that all participation in it by other nations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation, but to be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony; that the British Government therefore declines negotiating concerning it, and that as the United States did not forthwith accept purely and simply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, Great Britain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even upon the terms on which she has opened them to the navigation of other nations.

We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as a mere favor received; that under every circumstance we have given an ample equivalent. We have seen every other nation holding colonies negotiate with other nations and grant them freely admission to the colonies by treaty, and so far are the other colonizing nations of Europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their colonies that we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than one of them by treaty. The refusal, however, of Great Britain to negotiate leaves to the United States no other alternative than that of regulating or interdicting altogether the trade on their part, according as either measure may affect the interests of our own country, and with that exclusive object I would recommend the whole subject to your calm and candid deliberations.

It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious* effect upon the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments. Our northeastern and northwestern boundaries are still unadjusted. The commissioners under the seventh article of the treaty of Ghent have nearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the expectation, enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their report to the satisfaction or acquiescence of both parties. The commission for liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success. Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove satisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not of favors, which we neither ask nor desire, but of equal reciprocity and good will.

With the American Governments of this hemisphere we continue to maintain an intercourse altogether friendly, and between their nations and ours that commercial interchange of which mutual benefit is the source and mutual comfort and harmony the result is in a continual state of improvement. The war between Spain and them since the total expulsion of the Spanish military force from their continental territories has been little more than nominal, and their internal tranquillity, though occasionally menaced by the agitations which civil wars never fail to leave behind them, has not been affected by any serious calamity.

The congress of ministers from several of those nations which assembled at Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at a more favorable season in the neighbourhood of Mexico. The decease of one of our ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of the season, which delayed the departure of the other, deprived us of the advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress. There is, however, no reason to believe that any of the transactions of the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the United States or to require the interposition of our ministers had they been present. Their absence has, indeed, deprived us of the opportunity of possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which were concluded at Panama; and the whole result has confirmed me in the conviction of the expediency to the United States of being represented at the congress. The surviving member of the mission, appointed during your last session, has accordingly proceeded to his destination, and a successor to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated to the Senate. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the course of the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary at Mexico with the united states of that Confederacy, which will also be laid before the Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification.

In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is that they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the corresponding period of the last year. The severe shock so extensively sustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in Great Britain has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. A reduced importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to the Treasury at home. The net revenue of the present year will not equal that of the last, and the receipts of that which is to come will fall short of those in the current year. The diminution, however, is in part attributable to the flourishing condition of some of our domestic manufactures, and so far is compensated by an equivalent more profitable to the nation. It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the deficiency in the revenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations of the last year's estimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the application of more than eleven millions during the present year to the discharge of the principal and interest of the debt, nor the reduction of upward of seven millions of the capital of the debt itself. The balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January last was $5,201,650.43; the receipts from that time to the 30th of September last were $19,585,932.50; the receipts of the current quarter, estimated at $6,000,000. yield, with the sums already received, a revenue of about twenty-five millions and a half for the year; the expenditures for the three first quarters of the year have amounted to $18,714,226.66; the expenditures of the current quarter are expected, including the two millions of the principal of the debt to be paid, to balance the receipts; so that the expenses of the year, amounting to upward of a million less than its income, will leave a proportionally increased balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January, 1827, over that of the 1st of January last; instead of $5,200,000 there will be $6,400,000.

The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commencement of the year till September 30 is estimated at $21,250,000, and the amount that will probably accrue during the present quarter is estimated at $4,250,000, making for the whole year $25,500,000, from which the drawbacks being deducted will leave a clear revenue from the customs receivable in the year 1827 of about $20,400,000, which, with the sums to be received from the proceeds of public lands, the bank dividends, and other incidental receipts, will form an aggregate of about $23,000,000, a sum falling short of the whole expenses of the present year little more than the portion of those expenditures applied to the discharge of the public debt beyond the annual appropriation of $10,000,000 by the act of the 3d March, 1817. At the passage of that act the public debt amounted to $123,500,000. On the 1st of January next it will be short of $74,000,000. In the lapse of these ten years $50,000,000 of public debt, with the annual charge of upward of $3,000,000 of interest upon them, have been extinguished. At the passage of that act, of the annual appropriation of ten millions seven were absorbed in the payment of interest, and not more than three millions went to reduce the capital of the debt. Of the same ten millions, at this time scarcely four are applicable to the interest, and upward of six are effective in melting down the capital. Yet our experience has proved that a revenue consisting so largely of imposts and tonnage ebbs and flows to an extraordinary extent, with all the fluctuations incident to the general commerce of the world. It is within our recollection that even in the compass of the same last ten years the receipts of the Treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year, and that in two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans to meet the engagements of the nation. The returning tides of the succeeding years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun to feel the vicissitude of a decline. To produce these alternations of fullness and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful seasons, the regulations of foreign governments, political revolutions, the prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures, commercial speculations, and many other causes, not always to be traced, variously combine. We have found the alternate swells and diminutions embracing periods of from two to three years. The last period of depression to us was from 1819 to 1822. The corresponding revival was from 1823 to the commencement of the present year. Still, we have no cause to apprehend a depression comparable to that of the former period, or even to anticipate a deficiency which will intrench upon the ability to apply the annual ten millions to the reduction of the debt. It is well for us, however, to be admonished of the hecessity of abiding by the maxims of the most vigilant economy, and of resorting to all honorable and useful expedients for pursuing with steady and inflexible perseverance the total discharge of the debt.

Besides the seven millions of the loans of 1813 which will have been discharged in the course of the present year, there are nine millions which by the terms of the contracts would have been and are now redeemable. Thirteen millions more of the loan of 1814 will become redeemable from and after the expiration of the present month, and nine other millions from and after the close of the ensuing year. They constitute a mass of $31,000,000, all bearing an interest of 6 per cent, more than twenty millions of which will be immediately redeemable, and the rest within little more than a year. Leaving of this amount fifteen millions to continue at the interest of 6 per cent, but to be paid off as far as shall be found practicable in the years 1827 and 1828, there is scarcely a doubt that the remaining sixteen millions might within a few months be discharged by a loan at not exceeding 5 per cent, redeemable in the years 1829 and 1830. By this operation a sum of nearly half a million of dollars may be saved to the nation, and the discharge of the whole thirty-one millions within the four years may be greatly facilitated if not wholly accomplished.

By an act of Congress of 3d March, 1835,* a loan for the purpose now referred to, or a subscription to stock, was authorized, at an interest not exceeding 4-1/2 per cent. But at that time so large a portion of the floating capital of the country was absorbed in commercial speculations and so little was left for investment in the stocks that the measure was but partially successful. At the last session of Congress the condition of the funds was still unpropitious to the measure; but the change so soon afterwards occurred that, had the authority existed to redeem the nine millions now redeemable by an exchange of stocks or a loan at 5 per cent, it is morally certain that it might have been effected, and with it a yearly saving of $90,000.

With regard to the collection of the revenue of imposts, certain occurrences have within the last year been disclosed in one or two of our principal ports, which engaged the attention of Congress at their last session and may hereafter require further consideration. Until within a very few years the execution of the laws for raising the revenue, like that of all our other laws, has been insured more by the moral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution or by penal sanctions. Confiding in the exemplary punctuality and unsullied integrity of our importing merchants, a gradual relaxation from the provisions of the collection laws, a close adherence to which would have caused inconvenience and expense to them, had long become habitual, and indulgences had been extended universally because they had never been abused. It may be worthy of your serious consideration whether some further legislative provision may not be necessary to come in aid of this state of unguarded security.

From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will be discovered the present condition and administration of our military establishment on the land and on the sea. The organization of the Army having undergone no change since its reduction to the present peace establishment in 1821, it remains only to observe that it is yet found adequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in time of peace can be heeded or useful. It may be proper to add that, from a difference of opinion between the late President of the United States and the Senate with regard to the construction of the act of Congress of 2d March, 1821, to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of the United States, it remains hitherto so far without execution that no colonel has been appointed to command one of the regiments of artillery. A supplementary or explanatory act of the Legislature appears to be the only expedient practicable for removing the difficulty of this appointment.

In a period of profound peace the conduct of the mere military establishment forms but a very inconsiderable portion of the duties devolving upon the administration of the Department of War. It will be seen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army that every branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, and discipline; that from the commanding general through all the gradations of superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens before they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army must consist in the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and of patriotism, by which it is impelled. It may be confidently stated that the moral character of the Army is in a state of continual improvement, and that all the arrangements for the disposal of its parts have a constant reference to that end.

But to the War Department are attributed other duties, having, indeed, relation to a future possible condition of war, but being purely defensive, and in their tendency contributing rather to the security and permanency of peace-the erection of the fortifications provided for by Congress, and adapted to secure our shores from hostile invasion; the distribution of the fund of public gratitude and justice to the pensioners of the Revolutionary war; the maintenance of our relations of peace and of protection with the Indian tribes, and the internal improvements and surveys for the location of roads and canals, which during the last three sessions of Congress have engaged so much of their attention, and may engross so large a share of their future benefactions to our country.

By the act of the 30th of April, 1824, suggested and approved by my predecessor, the sum of $30,000 was appropriated for the purpose of causing to be made the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates of the routes of such roads and canals as the President of the United States might deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of the public mail. The surveys, plans, and estimates for each, when completed, will be laid before Congress.

In execution of this act a board of engineers was immediately instituted, and have been since most assiduously and constantly occupied in carrying it into effect. The first object to which their labors were directed, by order of the late President, was the examination of the country between the tide waters of the Potomac, the Ohio, and Lake Erie, to ascertain the practicability of a communication between them, to designate the most suitable route for the same, and to form plans and estimates in detail of the expense of execution.

On the 3d of February, 1825, they made their first report, which was immediately communicated to Congress, and in which they declared that having maturely considered the circumstances observed by them personally, and carefully studied the results of such of the preliminary surveys as were then completed, they were decidedly of opinion that the communication was practicable.

At the last session of Congress, before the board of engineers were enabled to make up their second report containing a general plan and preparatory estimate for the work, the Committee of the House of Representatives upon Roads and Canals closed the session with a report expressing the hope that the plan and estimate of the board of engineers might at this time be prepared, and that the subject be referred to the early and favorable consideration of Congress at their present session. That expected report of the board of engineers is prepared, and will forthwith be laid before you.

Under the resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to have prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system of exercise and instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militia of the United States, to be reported to Congress at the present session, a board of distinguished officers of the Army and of the militia has been convened, whose report will be submitted to you with that of the Secretary of War. The occasion was thought favorable for consulting the same board, aided by the results of a correspondence with the governors of the several States and Territories and other citizens of intelligence and experience, upon the acknowledged defective condition of our militia system, and of the improvements of which it is susceptible. The report of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration.

In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of $5,000,000 will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the Department of War. Less than two-fifths of this will be applicable to the maintenance and support of the Army. A million and a half, in the form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested in fortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement, provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the ages to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a magnitude burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their equivalents in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from engagements more burdensome than debt.

In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000. About one-half of these, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual service, and one-half constitutes a fund of national property, the pledge of our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year after the close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses and charges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the act of 29th April, 1816, appropriated $1,000,000 annually for eight years to the gradual increase of the Navy. At a subsequent period this annual appropriation was reduced to half a million for six years, of which the present year is the last. A yet more recent appropriation the last two years, for building ten sloops of war, has nearly restored the original appropriation of 1816 of a million for every year. The result is before us all. We have twelve line-of-battle ships, twenty frigates, and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a few months of preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications along the whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to set foot upon our shores. Combining with a system of fortifications upon the shores themselves, commenced about the same time under the auspices of my immediate predecessor, and hitherto systematically pursued, it has placed in our possession the most effective sinews of war and has left us at once an example and a lesson from which our own duties may be inferred. The gradual increase of the Navy was the principle of which the act of 29th April, 1816, was the first development. It was the introduction of a system to act upon the character and history of our country for an indefinite series of ages. It was a declaration of that Congress to their constituents and to posterity that it was the destiny and the duty of these confederated States to become in regular process of time and by no petty advances a great naval power. That which they proposed to accomplish in eight years is rather to be considered as the measure of their means than the limitation of their design. They looked forward for a term of years sufficient for the accomplishment of a definite portion of their purpose, and they left to their successors to fill up the canvas of which they had traced the large and prophetic outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in contemplation will be shortly completed. The time which they had allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for your consideration how their successors may contribute their portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradual increase of our Navy. There is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powers of the Federal Government which has given more general satisfaction to the people of the Union than this. The system has not been thus vigorously introduced and hitherto sustained to be now departed from or abandoned. In continuing to provide for the gradual increase of the Navy it may not be necessary or expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our ships; but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly appropriation of half a million to the same objects, it may be profitably expended in providing a supply of timber to be seasoned and other materials for future use in the construction of docks or in laying the foundations of a school for naval education, as to the wisdom of Congress either of those measures may appear to claim the preference.

Of the small portions of this Navy engaged in actual service during the peace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean, in the West India seas, and in the Mediterranean, to which has been added a small armament to cruise on the eastern coast of South America. In all they have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributed to make our country advantageously known to foreign nations, have honorably employed multitudes of our seamen in the service of their country, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The piracies with which the West India seas were for several years infested have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean they have increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the continued presence of our squadron would probably have been distressing to our own. The war which has unfortunately broken out between the Republic of Buenos Ayres and the Brazilian Government has given rise to very great irregularities among the naval officers of the latter, by whom principles in relation to blockades and to neutral navigation have been brought forward to which we can not subscribe and which our own commanders have found it necessary to resist. From the friendly disposition toward the United States constantly manifested by the Emperor of Brazil, and the very useful and friendly commercial intercourse between the United States and his dominions, we have reason to believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustained by several of our citizens from some of his officers will not be withheld. Abstracts from the recent dispatches of the commanders of our several squadrons are communicated with the report of the Secretary of the Navy to Congress.

A report from the Postmaster-General is likewise communicated, presenting in a highly satisfactory manner the result of a vigorous, efficient, and economical administration of that Department. The revenue of the office, even of the year including the latter half of 1824 and the first half of 1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more than $45,000. That of the succeeding year has been still more productive. The increase of the receipts in the year preceding the 1st of July last over that of the year before exceeds $136,000, and the excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year has swollen from $45,000 to nearly $80,000. During the same period contracts for additional transportation of the mail in stages for about 260,000 miles have been made, and for 70,000 miles annually on horseback. Seven hundred and fourteen new post-offices have been established within the year, and the increase of revenue within the last three years, as well as the augmentation of the transportation by mail, is more than equal to the whole amount of receipts and of mail conveyance at the commencement of the present century, when the seat of the General Government was removed to this place. When we reflect that the objects effected by the transportation of the mail are among the choicest comforts and enjoyments of social life, it is pleasing to observe that the dissemination of them to every corner of our country has outstripped in their increase even the rapid march of our population.

By the treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Louisiana and the Floridas to the United States, provision was made for the security of land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some progress has been made under the authority of various acts of Congress in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles, but claims to a very large extent remain unadjusted. The public faith no less than the just rights of individuals and the interest of the community itself appears to require further provision for the speedy settlement of those claims, which I therefore recommend to the care and attention of the Legislature.

In conformity with the provisions of the act of 20th May last, to provide for erecting a penitentiary in the district of Columbia, and for other purposes, three commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a penitentiary for the district, and also a site in the county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been effected. The building of the penitentiary has been commenced, and is in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of the next Congress. This consideration points to the expediency of maturing at the present session a system for the regulation and government of the penitentiary, and of defining the class of offenses which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice.

In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting at this place the fiftieth anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that solemn scene-the hand that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate-were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of mankind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!

John Quincy Adams.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

Washington,
December 7, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I now transmit a report from the Secretary of War, with that of the Board of Engineers of Internal Improvement, concerning the proposed Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 8, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of War, with sundry documents, containing the information requested by a resolution of the House of the 8th of May last, relating to the lead mines belonging to the United States in Illinois and Missouri.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 8, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of War, with several documents, containing information required by a resolution of the House of the 20th of May last, respecting certain proposed donations of land by Indian tribes to any agent or commissioner of the United States.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 12, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their advice with regard to their ratification, the following treaties with Indian tribes:

1. A treaty made and concluded at the Fond du Lac of Lake Superior, between Lewis Cass and Thomas L. McKenney, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the Chippewa tribe of Indians, on the 5th of August, 1826.

2. A treaty made and concluded hear the mouth of the Mississinewa, upon the Wabash, in the State of Indiana, between Lewis Cass, James B. Ray, and John Tipton, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Potawatamie tribe of Indians, on the 16th of October, 1826.

3. A treaty made and concluded hear the mouth of the Mississinewa, upon the Wabash, in the State of Indiana, between Lewis Cass, James B. Ray, and John Tipton, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Miami tribe of Indians, on the 23d of October, 1826.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 18, 1826.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to Congress extracts of a letter, received since the commencement of their session, from the minister of the United States at London, having relation to the late discussions with the Government of Great Britain concerning the trade between the United States and the British colonies in America.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 20, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States:

In the message to both Houses of Congress at the commencement of their present session it was intimated that the commission for liquidating the claims of our fellow-citizens to indemnity for slaves and other property carried away after the close of the late war with Great Britain in contravention to the first article of the treaty of Ghent had been sitting in this city with doubtful prospects of success, but that propositions had recently passed between the two Governments which it was hoped would lead to a satisfactory adjustment of that controversy.

I now transmit to the Senate, for their constitutional consideration and advice, a convention signed at London by the plenipotentiaries of the two Governments on the 13th of the last month, relating to this object. A copy of the convention is at the same time sent, together with a copy of the instructions under which it was negotiated and the correspondence relating to it. To avoid all delay these documents are now transmitted, consisting chiefly of original papers, the return of which is requested.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 22, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 12th instant, requesting information of the measures taken to carry into effect the act of Congress of 3d March, 1825, directing a road to be made from Little Rock to Cantonment Gibson, in the Territory of Arkansas, I transmit a report from the Secretary of War, with a letter from the Quartermaster-General, containing the information desired by the resolution.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
December 22, 1826.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I communicate to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, with a copy of the three articles requested by the resolution of the House of the 19th instant. The third of those articles relating to a subject upon which the negotiation between the two Governments is yet open, the communication of all the other documents relating to it is reserved to a future period, when it may be closed.

John Quincy Adams.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, with sundry documents, containing the information requested by two resolutions of the House of the 15th instant, relating to the proceedings of the congress of ministers which assembled last summer at Panama.

The occasion is taken to communicate at the same time two other dispatches, from the minister of the United States to the Mexican Confederation, one of which should have been communicated at the last session of Congress but that it was then accidentally mislaid, and the other having relation to the same subject.

John Quincy Adams.
 DECEMBER 26, 1826.