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A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 3: Thomas Jefferson

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Title: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 3: Thomas Jefferson

Editor: James D. Richardson


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS. VOLUME 1, PART 3: THOMAS JEFFERSON ***

A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS.

BY JAMES D. RICHARDSON


Thomas Jefferson

March 4, 1801, to March 4, 1809






Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., on April
2 (old style), 1743. He was the oldest son of Peter Jefferson, who died
in 1757. After attending private schools, he entered William and Mary
College in 1760. In 1767 began the practice of the law. In 1769 was
chosen to represent his county in the Virginia house of burgesses, a
station he continued to fill up to the period of the Revolution. He
married Mrs. Martha Skelton in 1772, she being a daughter of John
Wayles, an eminent lawyer of Virginia. On March 12, 1773, was chosen
a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the
Colonial legislature. Was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress
in 1775; was placed on the Committee of Five to prepare the Declaration
of Independence, and at the request of that committee he drafted the
Declaration, which, with slight amendments, was adopted July 4, 1776.
Resigned his seat in Congress and occupied one in the Virginia
legislature in October, 1776. Was elected governor of Virginia by the
legislature on June 1, 1779, to succeed Patrick Henry. Retired to
private life at the end of his term as governor, but was the same year
elected again to the legislature. Was appointed commissioner with others
to negotiate treaties with France in 1776, but declined. In 1782 he was
appointed by Congress minister plenipotentiary to act with others in
Europe in negotiating a treaty of peace with Great Britain. Was again
elected a Delegate to Congress in 1783, and as a member of that body
he advocated and had adopted the dollar as the unit and the present
system of coins and decimals. In May, 1784, was appointed minister
plenipotentiary to Europe to assist John Adams and Benjamin Franklin
in negotiating treaties of commerce. In March, 1785, was appointed by
Congress minister at the French Court to succeed Dr. Franklin, and
remained in France until September, 1789. On his arrival at Norfolk,
November 23, 1789, received a letter from Washington offering him the
appointment of Secretary of State in his Cabinet. Accepted and became
the first Secretary of State under the Constitution. December 31, 1793,
resigned his place in the Cabinet and retired to private life at his
home. In 1796 was brought forward by his friends as a candidate for
President, but Mr. Adams, receiving the highest number of votes, was
elected President, and Jefferson became Vice-President for four years
from March 4, 1797. In 1800 was again voted for by his party for
President. He and Mr. Burr received an equal number of electoral votes,
and under the Constitution the House of Representatives was called upon
to elect. Mr. Jefferson was chosen on the thirty-sixth ballot. Was
reelected in 1804, and retired finally from public life March 4, 1809.
He died on the 4th day of July, 1826, and was buried at Monticello, Va.





NOTIFICATION OF ELECTION.


Mr. Pinckney, from the committee instructed on the 18th instant to wait
on the President elect to notify him of his election, reported that the
committee had, according to order, performed that service, and addressed
the President elect in the following words, to wit:

The committee beg leave to express their wishes for the prosperity of
your Administration and their sincere desire that it may promote your
own happiness and the welfare of our country.

To which the President elect was pleased to make the following reply:

I receive, gentlemen, with profound thankfulness this testimony of
confidence from the great representative council of our nation. It fills
up the measure of that grateful satisfaction which had already been
derived from the suffrages of my fellow-citizens themselves, designating
me as one of those to whom they were willing to commit this charge, the
most important of all others to them. In deciding between the candidates
whom their equal vote presented to your choice, I am sensible that age
has been respected rather than more active and useful qualifications.

I know the difficulties of the station to which I am called, and feel
and acknowledge my incompetence to them. But whatsoever of
understanding, whatsoever of diligence, whatsoever of justice or of
affectionate concern for the happiness of man, it has pleased Providence
to place within the compass of my faculties shall be called forth for
the discharge of the duties confided to me, and for procuring to my
fellow-citizens all the benefits which our Constitution has placed under
the guardianship of the General Government.

Guided by the wisdom and patriotism of those to whom it belongs to
express the legislative will of the nation, I will give to that will
a faithful execution.

I pray you, gentlemen, to convey to the honorable body from which you
are deputed the homage of my humble acknowledgments and the sentiments
of zeal and fidelity by which I shall endeavor to merit these proofs of
confidence from the nation and its Representatives; and accept
yourselves my particular thanks for the obliging terms in which you have
been pleased to communicate their will.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 20, 1801.




LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ELECT.


The President laid before the Senate a letter from the President elect
of the United States, which was read, as follows:

WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1801_.

The PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE SENATE.

SIR: I beg leave through you to inform the honorable the Senate of the
United States that I propose to take the oath which the Constitution
prescribes to the President of the United States before he enters on the
execution of his office on Wednesday, the 4th instant, at 12 o'clock, in
the Senate Chamber.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,

TH. JEFFERSON.

(The same letter was sent to the House of Representatives.)




FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.


AT WASHINGTON, D.C.

_Friends and Fellow-Citizens_.

Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our
country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my
fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks
for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to
declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and
that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the
greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire.
A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all
the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in
commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly
to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye--when I contemplate these
transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of
this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this
day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the
magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not
the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high
authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of
wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties.
To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of
legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement
for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety
the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements
of a troubled world.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation
of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might
impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write
what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation,
announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of
course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in
common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this
sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases
to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the
minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and
to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite
with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that
harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but
dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land
that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and
suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political
intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody
persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world,
during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and
slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation
of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that
this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and
should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of
opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different
names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all
Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this
Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest
men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this
Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the
full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so
far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this
Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to
preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the
strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every
man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and
would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.
Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have
we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer
this question.

Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and
Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the
exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to
endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with
room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth
generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of
our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and
confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from
our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion,
professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them
inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;
acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its
dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and
his greater happiness hereafter--with all these blessings, what more is
necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing
more, fellow-citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which shall
restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free
to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the
sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our
felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which
comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should
understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and
consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will
compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the
general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice
to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their
rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns
and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the
preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional
vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a
jealous care of the right of election by the people--a mild and safe
corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where
peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the
decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which
is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of
despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and
for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the
supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the
public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment
of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement
of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of
information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public
reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person
under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries
impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation
which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of
revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our
heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed
of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by
which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from
them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps
and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With
experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties
of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely
fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the
reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to
that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary
character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place
in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the
volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give
firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall
often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be
thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the
whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never
be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may
condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation
implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and
my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who
have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them
all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and
freedom of all.

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with
obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become
sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may
that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our
councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace
and prosperity.

MARCH 4, 1801.




PROCLAMATION.


[From the National Intelligencer, March 13, 1801.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Whereas by the first article of the terms and conditions declared by the
President of the United States on the iyth day of October, 1791, for
regulating the materials and manner of buildings and improvements on the
lots in the city of Washington, it is provided "that the outer and party
walls of all houses in the said city shall be built of brick or stone;"
and by the third article of the same terms and conditions it is declared
"that the wall of no house shall be higher than 40 feet to the roof in
any part of the city, nor shall any be lower than 35 feet in any of the
avenues;" and

Whereas the above-recited articles were found to impede the settlement
in the city of mechanics and others whose circumstances did not admit of
erecting houses authorized by the said regulations, for which cause the
President of the United States, by a writing under his hand, bearing
date the 25th day of June, 1796, suspended the operation of the said
articles until the first Monday of December, 1800, and the beneficial
effects arising from such suspension having been experienced, it is
deemed proper to revive the same:

Wherefore I, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, do
declare that the operation of the first and third articles above recited
shall be, and the same is hereby, suspended until the ist day of
January, 1802, and that all the houses which shall be erected in the
said city of Washington previous to the said 1st day of January, 1802,
conformable in other respects to the regulations aforesaid, shall be
considered as lawfully erected, except that no wooden house shall be
erected within 24 feet of any brick or stone house.

Given under my hand this 11th day of March, 1801.

TH. JEFFERSON.




In communicating his first message to Congress, President Jefferson
addressed the following letter to the presiding officer of each branch
of the National Legislature:


DECEMBER 8, 1801.

The Honorable the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE.

SIR: The circumstances under which we find ourselves at this place
rendering inconvenient the mode heretofore practiced of making by
personal address the first communications between the legislative and
executive branches, I have adopted that by message, as used on all
subsequent occasions through the session. In doing this I have had
principal regard to the convenience of the Legislature, to the economy
of their time, to their relief from the embarrassment of immediate
answers on subjects not yet fully before them, and to the benefits
thence resulting to the public affairs. Trusting that a procedure
founded in these motives will meet their approbation, I beg leave
through you, sir, to communicate the inclosed message, with the
documents accompanying it, to the honorable the Senate, and pray you
to accept for yourself and them the homage of my high respect and
consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.




FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.


DECEMBER 8, 1801.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

It is a circumstance of sincere gratification to me that on meeting the
great council of our nation I am able to announce to them on grounds of
reasonable certainty that the wars and troubles which have for so many
years afflicted our sister nations have at length come to an end, and
that the communications of peace and commerce are once more opening
among them. Whilst we devoutly return thanks to the beneficent Being who
has been pleased to breathe into them the spirit of conciliation and
forgiveness, we are bound with peculiar gratitude to be thankful to Him
that our own peace has been preserved through so perilous a season, and
ourselves permitted quietly to cultivate the earth and to practice and
improve those arts which tend to increase our comforts. The assurances,
indeed, of friendly disposition received from all the powers with whom
we have principal relations had inspired a confidence that our peace
with them would not have been disturbed. But a cessation of
irregularities which had affected the commerce of neutral nations and of
the irritations and injuries produced by them can not but add to this
confidence, and strengthens at the same time the hope that wrongs
committed on unoffending friends under a pressure of circumstances will
now be reviewed with candor, and will be considered as founding just
claims of retribution for the past and new assurance for the future.

Among our Indian neighbors also a spirit of peace and friendship
generally prevails, and I am happy to inform yon that the continued
efforts to introduce among them the implements and the practice of
husbandry and of the household arts have not been without success; that
they are becoming more and more sensible of the superiority of this
dependence for clothing and subsistence over the precarious resources of
hunting and fishing, and already we are able to announce that instead of
that constant diminution of their numbers produced by their wars and
their wants, some of them begin to experience an increase of population.

To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only
exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States,
had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact,
and had permitted itself to denounce war on our failure to comply before
a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a
small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean, with assurances to
that power of our sincere desire to remain in peace, but with orders to
protect our commerce against the threatened attack. The measure was
seasonable and salutary. The Bey had already declared war. His cruisers
were out. Two had arrived at Gibraltar.

Our commerce in the Mediterranean was blockaded and that of the Atlantic
in peril. The arrival of our squadron dispelled the danger. One of the
Tripolitan cruisers having fallen in with and engaged the small schooner
_Enterprise_, commanded by Lieutenant Sterret, which had gone as a
tender to our larger vessels, was captured, after a heavy slaughter of
her men, without the loss of a single one on our part. The bravery
exhibited by our citizens on that element will, I trust, be a testimony
to the world that it is not the want of that virtue which makes us seek
their peace, but a conscientious desire to direct the energies of our
nation to the multiplication of the human race, and not to its
destruction. Unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of
Congress, to go beyond the line of defense, the vessel, being disabled
from committing further hostilities, was liberated with its crew. The
Legislature will doubtless consider whether, by authorizing measures of
offense also, they will place our force on an equal footing with that of
its adversaries. I communicate all material information on this subject,
that in the exercise of this important function confided by the
Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form
itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight.

I wish I could say that our situation with all the other Barbary States
was entirely satisfactory. Discovering that some delays had taken place
in the performance of certain articles stipulated by us, I thought it my
duty, by immediate measures for fulfilling them, to vindicate to
ourselves the right of considering the effect of departure from
stipulation on their side. From the papers which will be laid before you
you will be enabled to judge whether our treaties are regarded by them
as fixing at all the measure of their demands or as guarding from the
exercise of force our vessels within their power, and to consider how
far it will be safe and expedient to leave our affairs with them in
their present posture.

I lay before you the result of the census lately taken of our
inhabitants, to a conformity with which we are now to reduce the ensuing
ratio of representation and taxation. You will perceive that the
increase of numbers during the last ten years, proceeding in geometrical
ratio, promises a duplication in little more than twenty-two years. We
contemplate this rapid growth and the prospect it holds up to us, not
with a view to the injuries it may enable us to do others in some future
day, but to the settlement of the extensive country still remaining
vacant within our limits to the multiplication of men susceptible of
happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government,
and valuing its blessings above all price.

Other circumstances, combined with the increase of numbers, have
produced an augmentation of revenue arising from consumption in a ratio
far beyond that of population alone; and though the changes in foreign
relations now taking place so desirably for the whole world may for a
season affect this branch of revenue, yet weighing all probabilities of
expense as well as of income, there is reasonable ground of confidence
that we may now safely dispense with all the internal taxes,
comprehending excise, stamps, auctions, licenses, carriages, and refined
sugars, to which the postage on newspapers may be added to facilitate
the progress of information, and that the remaining sources of revenue
will be sufficient to provide for the support of Government, to pay the
interest of the public debts, and to discharge the principals within
shorter periods than the laws or the general expectation had
contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward events may change this prospect
of things and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but
sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our
fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not
when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but from the temptations
offered by that treasure.

These views, however, of reducing our burthens are formed on the
expectation that a sensible and at the same time a salutary reduction
may take place in our habitual expenditures. For this purpose those of
the civil Government, the Army, and Navy will need revisal.

When we consider that this Government is charged with the external, and
mutual relations only of these States; that the States themselves have
principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation,
constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt
whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether
offices and officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily and
sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to promote. I will
cause to be laid before you an essay toward a statement of those who,
under public employment of various kinds, draw money from the Treasury
or from our citizens. Time has not permitted a perfect enumeration, the
ramifications of office being too multiplied and remote to be completely
traced in a first trial. Among those who are dependent on Executive
discretion I have begun the reduction of what was deemed unnecessary.
The expenses of diplomatic agency have been considerably diminished. The
inspectors of internal revenue who were found to obstruct the
accountability of the institution have been discontinued. Several
agencies created by Executive authority, on salaries fixed by that also,
have been suppressed, and should suggest the expediency of regulating
that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative
inspection and sanction. Other reformations of the same kind will be
pursued with that caution which is requisite in removing useless things,
not to injure what is retained. But the great mass of public offices is
established by law, and therefore by law alone can be abolished. Should
the Legislature think it expedient to pass this roll in review and try
all its parts by the test of public utility, they may be assured of
every aid and light which Executive information can yield. Considering
the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies and to
increase expense to the ultimate term of burthen which the citizen can
bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents
itself for taking off the surcharge, that it never may be seen here that
after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it
can subsist, Government shall itself consume the whole residue of what
it was instituted to guard.

In our care, too, of the public contributions intrusted to our direction
it would be prudent to multiply barriers against their dissipation by
appropriating specific sums to every specific purpose susceptible of
definition; by disallowing all applications of money varying from the
appropriation in object or transcending it in amount; by reducing the
undefined field of contingencies and thereby circumscribing
discretionary powers over money, and by bringing back to a single
department all accountabilities for money, where the examinations may be
prompt, efficacious, and uniform.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, as
prepared by the Secretary of the Treasury, will, as usual, be laid
before you. The success which has attended the late sales of the public
lands shews that with attention they may be made an important source of
receipt. Among the payments those made in discharge of the principal and
interest of the national debt will shew that the public faith has been
exactly maintained. To these will be added an estimate of appropriations
necessary for the ensuing year. This last will, of course, be affected
by such modifications of the system of expense as you shall think proper
to adopt.

A statement has been formed by the Secretary of War, on mature
consideration, of all the posts and stations where garrisons will be
expedient and of the number of men requisite for each garrison. The
whole amount is considerably short of the present military
establishment. For the surplus no particular use can be pointed out. For
defense against invasion their number is as nothing, nor is it conceived
needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace
for that purpose. Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular point
in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only
force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them is
the body of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these,
collected from the parts most convenient in numbers proportioned to the
invading force, it is best to rely not only to meet the first attack,
but if it threatens to be permanent to maintain the defense until
regulars may be engaged to relieve them. These considerations render it
important that we should at every session continue to amend the defects
which from time to time shew themselves in the laws for regulating the
militia until they are sufficiently perfect. Nor should we now or at any
time separate until we can say we have done everything for the militia
which we could do were an enemy at our door.

The provision of military stores on hand will be laid before you, that
you may judge of the additions still requisite.

With respect to the extent to which our naval preparations should be
carried some difference of opinion may be expected to appear, but just
attention to the circumstances of every part of the Union will doubtless
reconcile all. A small force will probably continue to be wanted for
actual service in the Mediterranean. Whatever annual sum beyond that you
may think proper to appropriate to naval preparations would perhaps be
better employed in providing those articles which may be kept without
waste or consumption, and be in readiness when any exigence calls them
into use. Progress has been made, as will appear by papers now
communicated, in providing materials for 74-gun ships as directed by
law.

How far the authority given by the Legislature for procuring and
establishing sites for naval purposes has been perfectly understood and
pursued in the execution admits of some doubt. A statement of the
expenses already incurred on that subject is now laid before you. I have
in certain cases suspended or slackened these expenditures, that the
Legislature might determine whether so many yards are necessary as have
been contemplated. The works at this place are among those permitted to
go on, and five of the seven frigates directed to be laid up have been
brought and laid up here, where, besides the safety of their position,
they are under the eye of the Executive Administration, as well as of
its agents, and where yourselves also will be guided by your own view in
the legislative provisions respecting them which may from time to time
be necessary. They are preserved in such condition, as well the vessels
as whatever belongs to them, as to be at all times ready for sea on a
short warning. Two others are yet to be laid up so soon as they shall
have received the repairs requisite to put them also into sound
condition. As a superintending officer will be necessary at each yard,
his duties and emoluments, hitherto fixed by the Executive, will be a
more proper subject for legislation. A communication will also be made
of our progress in the execution of the law respecting the vessels
directed to be sold.

The fortifications of our harbors, more or less advanced, present
considerations of great difficulty. While some of them are on a scale
sufficiently proportioned to the advantages of their position, to the
efficacy of their protection, and the importance of the points within
it, others are so extensive, will cost so much in their first erection,
so much in their maintenance, and require such a force to garrison them
as to make it questionable what is best now to be done. A statement of
those commenced or projected, of the expenses already incurred, and
estimates of their future cost, as far as can be foreseen, shall be laid
before you, that you may be enabled to judge whether any alteration is
necessary in the laws respecting this subject.

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of
our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual
enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may
sometimes be seasonably interposed. If in the course of your
observations or inquiries they should appear to need any aid within the
limits of our constitutional powers, your sense of their importance is a
sufficient assurance they will occupy your attention. We can not,
indeed, but all feel an anxious solicitude for the difficulties under
which our carrying trade will soon be placed. How far it can be
relieved, otherwise than by time, is a subject of important
consideration.

The judiciary system of the United States, and especially that portion
of it recently erected, will of course present itself to the
contemplation of Congress, and, that they may be able to judge of the
proportion which the institution bears to the business it has to
perform, I have caused to be procured from the several States and now
lay before Congress an exact statement of all the causes decided since
the first establishment of the courts, and of those which were depending
when additional courts and judges were brought in to their aid.

And while on the judiciary organization it will be worthy your
consideration whether the protection of the inestimable institution of
juries has been extended to all the cases involving the security of our
persons and property. Their impartial selection also being essential to
their value, we ought further to consider whether that is sufficiently
secured in those States where they are named by a marshal depending on
Executive will or designated by the court or by officers dependent on
them.

I can not omit recommending a revisal of the laws on the subject of
naturalization. Considering the ordinary chances of human life, a denial
of citizenship under a residence of fourteen years is a denial to a
great proportion of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from
their first settlement by many of these States, and still believed of
consequence to their prosperity; and shall we refuse to the unhappy
fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the
wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall
oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The Constitution indeed
has wisely provided that for admission to certain offices of important
trust a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and
design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a
citizen be safely communicated to everyone manifesting a bona fide
purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us, with
restrictions, perhaps, to guard against the fraudulent usurpation of our
flag, an abuse which brings so much embarrassment and loss on the
genuine citizen and so much danger to the nation of being involved in
war that no endeavor should be spared to detect and suppress it?

These, fellow-citizens, are the matters respecting the state of the
nation which I have thought of importance to be submitted to your
consideration at this time. Some others of less moment or not yet ready
for communication will be the subject of separate messages. I am happy
in this opportunity of committing the arduous affairs of our Government
to the collected wisdom of the Union. Nothing shall be wanting on my
part to inform as far as in my power the legislative judgment, nor to
carry that judgment into faithful execution. The prudence and temperance
of your discussions will promote within your own walls that conciliation
which so much befriends rational conclusion, and by its example will
encourage among our constituents that progress of opinion which is
tending to unite them in object and in will. That all should be
satisfied with any one order of things is not to be expected; but I
indulge the pleasing persuasion that the great body of our citizens will
cordially concur in honest and disinterested efforts which have for
their object to preserve the General and State Governments in their
constitutional form and equilibrium; to maintain peace abroad, and order
and obedience to the laws at home; to establish principles and practices
of administration favorable to the security of liberty and property, and
to reduce expenses to what is necessary for the useful purposes of
Government.

TH. JEFFERSON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 11, 1801.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

Early in the last month I received the ratification by the First Consul
of France of the convention between the United States and that nation.
His ratification not being pure and simple in the ordinary form, I have
thought it my duty, in order to avoid all misconception, to ask a second
advice and consent of the Senate before I give it the last sanction by
proclaiming it to be a law of the land.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 22, 1801.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

The States of Georgia and Tennessee being peculiarly interested in our
carrying into execution the two acts passed by Congress on the 19th of
February, 1799 (chapter 115), and 13th May, 1800 (chapter 62),
commissioners were appointed early in summer and other measures taken
for the purpose. The objects of these laws requiring meetings with the
Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, the inclosed instructions
were prepared for the proceedings with the three first nations. Our
applications to the Cherokees failed altogether. Those to the Chickasaws
produced the treaty now laid before you for your advice and consent,
whereby we obtained permission to open a road of communication with the
Mississippi Territory. The commissioners are probably at this time in
conference with the Choctaws. Further information having been wanting
when these instructions were, formed to enable us to prepare those
respecting the Creeks, the commissioners were directed to proceed with
the others. We have now reason to believe the conferences with the
Creeks can not take place till the spring.

The journals and letters of the commissioners relating to the subject of
the treaty now inclosed accompany it.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 22, 1801.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I now inclose sundry documents supplementary to those communicated to
you with my message at the commencement of the session. Two others of
considerable importance--the one relating to our transactions with the
Barbary Powers, the other presenting a view of the offices of the
Government--shall be communicated as soon as they can be completed.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 23, 1801.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

Another return of the census of the State of Maryland is just received
from the marshal of that State, which he desires may be substituted as
more correct than the one first returned by him and communicated by me
to Congress. This new return, with his letter, is now laid before you.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 11, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_.

I now communicate to you a memorial of the commissioners of the city of
Washington, together with a letter of later date, which, with their
memorial of January 28, 1801, will possess the Legislature fully of the
state of the public interests and of those of the city of Washington
confided to them. The moneys now due, and soon to become due, to the
State of Maryland on the loan guaranteed by the United States call for
an early attention. The lots in the city which are chargeable with the
payment of these moneys are deemed not only equal to the indemnification
of the public, but to insure a considerable surplus to the city to be
employed for its improvement, provided they are offered for sale only in
sufficient numbers to meet the existing demand. But the act of 1796
requires that they shall be positively sold in such numbers as shall be
necessary for the punctual payment of the loans. Nine thousand dollars
of interest are lately become due, $3,000 quarter yearly will continue
to become due, and $50,000, an additional loan, are reimbursable on the
1st day of November next. These sums would require sales so far beyond
the actual demand of the market that it is apprehended that the whole
property may be thereby sacrificed, the public security destroyed, and
the residuary interest of the city entirely lost. Under these
circumstances I have thought it my duty before I proceed to direct a
rigorous execution of the law to submit the subject to the consideration
of the Legislature. Whether the public interest will be better secured
in the end and that of the city saved by offering sales commensurate
only to the demand at market, and advancing from the Treasury in the
first instance what these may prove deficient, to be replaced by
subsequent sales, rests for the determination of the Legislature. If
indulgence for the funds can be admitted, they will probably form a
resource of great and permanent value; and their embarrassments have
been produced only by overstrained exertions to provide accommodations
for the Government of the Union

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 12, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

I now communicate to you a letter from the Secretary of State inclosing
an estimate of the expenses which appear at present necessary for
carrying into effect the convention between the United States of America
and the French Republic, which has been prepared at the request of the
House of Representatives.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 27, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I lay before you the accounts of our Indian trading houses, as rendered
up to the 1st day of January, 1801, with a report of the Secretary of
War thereon, explaining the effects and the situation of that commerce
and the reasons in favor of its further extension. But it is believed
that the act authorizing this trade expired so long ago as the 3d of
March, 1799. Its revival, therefore, as well as its extension, is
submitted to the consideration of the Legislature.

The act regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes will
also expire on the 3d day of March next. While on the subject of its
continuance it will be worthy the consideration of the Legislature
whether the provisions of the law inflicting on Indians, in certain
cases, the punishment of death by hanging might not permit its
commutation into death by military execution, the form of the punishment
in the former way being peculiarly repugnant to their ideas and
increasing the obstacles to the surrender of the criminal.

These people are becoming very sensible of the baneful effects produced
on their morals, their health, and existence by the abuse of ardent
spirits, and some of them earnestly desire a prohibition of that article
from being carried among them. The Legislature will consider whether the
effectuating that desire would not be in the spirit of benevolence and
liberality which they have hitherto practiced toward these our
neighbors, and which has had so happy an effect toward conciliating
their friendship. It has been found, too, in experience that the same
abuse gives frequent rise to incidents tending much to commit our peace
with the Indians.

It is now become necessary to run and mark the boundaries between them
and us in various parts. The law last mentioned has authorized this to
be done, but no existing appropriation meets the expense.

Certain papers explanatory of the grounds of this communication are
herewith inclosed.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 2, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I now lay before you--

1. A return of ordnance, arms, and military stores the property of the
United States.

2. Returns of muskets and bayonets fabricated at the armories of the
United States at Springfield and Harpers Ferry, and of the expenditures
at those places; and

3. An estimate of expenditures which may be necessary for fortifications
and barracks for the present year.

Besides the permanent magazines established at Springfield, West Point,
and Harpers Ferry, it is thought one should be established in some point
convenient for the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia. Such a point will probably be found near the border of the
Carolinas, and some small provision by the Legislature preparatory to
the establishment will be necessary for the present year.

We find the United States in possession of certain iron mines and works
in the county of Berkeley and State of Virginia, purchased, as is
presumable, on the idea of establishing works for the fabrication of
cannon and other military articles by the public. Whether this method of
supplying what may be wanted will be most advisable or that of
purchasing at market where competition brings everything to its proper
level of price and quality is for the Legislature to decide, and if the
latter alternative be preferred, it will rest for their further
consideration in what way the subjects of this purchase may be best
employed or disposed of. The Attorney-General's opinion on the subject
of the title accompanies this.

There are in various parts of the United States small parcels of land
which have been purchased at different times for cantonments and other
military purposes. Several of them are in situations not likely to be
accommodated to future purposes. The loss of the records prevents a
detailed statement of these until they can be supplied by inquiry. In
the meantime, one of them, containing 88 acres, in the county of Essex,
in New Jersey, purchased in 1799 and sold the following year to
Cornelius Vermule and Andrew Codmas, though its price has been received,
can not be conveyed without authority from the Legislature.

I inclose herewith a letter from the Secretary of War on the subject of
the islands in the lakes and rivers of our northern boundary, and of
certain lands in the neighborhood of some of our military posts, on
which it may be expedient for the Legislature to make some provisions.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 16, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I now transmit a statement of the expenses incurred by the United States
in their transactions with the Barbary Powers, and a roll of the persons
having office or employment under the United States, as was proposed in
my messages of December 7 and 22. Neither is as perfect as could have
been wished, and the latter not so much so as further time and inquiry
may enable us to make it.

The great volume of these communications and the delay it would produce
to make out a second copy will, I trust, be deemed a sufficient reason
for sending one of them to the one House, and the other to the other,
with a request that they may be interchanged for mutual information
rather than to subject both to further delay.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 18, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In a message of the 2d instant I inclosed a letter from the Secretary of
War on the subject of certain lands in the neighborhood of our military
posts on which it might be expedient for the Legislature to make some
provisions. A letter recently received from the governor of Indiana
presents some further views of the extent to which such provision may be
needed, I therefore now transmit it for the information of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 24, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I communicate to both Houses of Congress a report of the Secretary of
the Treasury on the subject of our marine hospitals, which appear to
require legislative attention.

As connected with the same subject, I also inclose information
respecting the situation of our seamen and boatmen frequenting the port
of New Orleans and suffering there from sickness and the want of
accommodation. There is good reason to believe their numbers greater
than stated in these papers. When we consider how great a proportion of
the territory of the United States must communicate with that port
singly, and how rapidly that territory is increasing its population and
productions, it may perhaps be thought reasonable to make hospital
provisions there of a different order from those at foreign ports
generally.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 25, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

No occasion having arisen since the last account rendered by my
predecessor of making use of any part of the moneys heretofore granted
to defray the contingent charges of the Government, I now transmit to
Congress an official statement thereof to the 31st day of December last,
when the whole unexpended balance, amounting to $20,911.80, was carried
to the credit of the surplus fund, as provided for by law, and this
account consequently becomes finally closed,

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 26, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

Some statements have been lately received of the causes decided or
depending in the courts of the Union in certain States, supplementary or
corrective of those from which was formed the general statement
accompanying my message at the opening of the session. I therefore
communicate them to Congress, with a report of the Secretary of State
noting their effect on the former statement and correcting certain
errors in it which arose partly from inexactitude in some of the returns
and partly in analyzing, adding, and transcribing them while hurried in
preparing the other voluminous papers accompanying that message.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 1, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I transmit for the information of Congress letters recently received
from our consuls at Gibraltar and Algiers, presenting the latest view of
the state of our affairs with the Barbary Powers. The sums due to the
Government of Algiers are now fully paid up, and of the gratuity which
had been promised to that of Tunis, and was in a course of preparation,
a small portion only remains still to be finished and delivered.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 9, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

The governor of New York has desired that, in addition to the
negotiations with certain Indians already authorized under the
superintendence of John Taylor, further negotiations should be held with
the Oneidas and other members of the Confederacy of the Six Nations for
the purchase of lands in and for the State of New York, which they are
willing to sell, as explained in the letter from the Secretary of War
herewith sent. I have therefore thought it better to name a commissioner
to superintend the negotiations specified with the Six Nations
generally, or with any of them.

I do accordingly nominate John Taylor, of New York, to be commissioner
for the United States, to hold a convention or conventions between the
State of New York and the Confederacy of the Six Nations of Indians, or
any of the nations composing it.

This nomination, if advised and consented to by the Senate, will
comprehend and supersede that of February 1 of the same John Taylor so
far as it respected the Seneca Indians,

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 10, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

I now submit for the ratification of the Senate a treaty entered into
by the commissioners of the United States with the Choctaw Nation of
Indians, and I transmit therewith so much of the instructions to the
commissioners as related to the Choctaws, with the minutes of their
proceedings and the letter accompanying them.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 29, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

The Secretary of State, charged with the civil affairs of the several
Territories of the United States, has received from the marshal of
Columbia a statement of the condition, unavoidably distressing, of the
persons committed to his custody on civil or criminal process and the
urgency for some legislative provisions for their relief. There are
other important cases wherein the laws of the adjoining States under
which the Territory is placed, though adapted to the purposes of those
States, are insufficient for those of the Territory from the dissimilar
or defective organization of its authorities. The letter and statement
of the marshal and the disquieting state of the Territory generally are
now submitted to the wisdom and consideration of the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 29, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the sixth
article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the
United States and His Britannic Majesty having differed in opinion as to
the objects of that article and discontinued their proceedings, the
Executive of the United States took early measures, by instructions to
our minister at the British Court, to negotiate explanations of that
article. This mode of resolving the difficulty, however, proved
unacceptable to the British Government, which chose rather to avoid all
further discussion and expense under that article by fixing at a given
sum the amount for which the United States should be held responsible
under it. Mr. King was consequently authorized to meet this proposition,
and a settlement in this way has been effected by a convention entered
into with the British Government, and now communicated for your advice
and consent, together with the instructions and correspondence relating
to it. The greater part of these papers being originals, the return of
them is requested at the convenience of the Senate.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 30, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

The Secretary of War has prepared an estimate of expenditures for the
Army of the United States during the year 1802, conformably to the act
fixing the military peace establishment, which estimate, with his letter
accompanying and explaining it, I now transmit to both Houses of
Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 31, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

According to the desire expressed in your resolution of the 23d instant,
I now transmit a report of the Secretary of State, with the letters it
refers to, shewing the proceedings which have taken place under the
resolution of Congress of the 16th of April, 1800. The term prescribed
for the execution of the resolution having elapsed before the person
appointed had sat out on the service, I did not deem it justifiable to
commence a course of expenditure after the expiration of the resolution
authorizing it. The correspondence which has taken place, having regard
to dates, will place this subject properly under the view of the House
of Representatives.

TH. JEFFERSON.



APRIL, 8, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

In order to satisfy as far as it is in my power the desire expressed in
your resolution of the 6th instant, I now transmit you a letter from
John Read, agent for the United States before the board of commissioners
under the sixth article of the treaty with Great Britain, to the
Attorney-General, bearing date the 25th of April, 1801, in which he
gives a summary view of the proceedings of those commissioners and of
the principles established or insisted on by a majority of them.

Supposing it might be practicable for us to settle by negotiation with
Great Britain the principles which ought to govern the decisions under
the treaty, I caused instructions to be given to Mr. Read to analyze
the claims before the board of commissioners, to class them under the
principles on which they respectively depended, and to state the sum
depending on each principle or the amount of each description of debt.
The object of this was that we might know what principles were most
important for us to contend for and what others might be conceded
without much injury. He performed this duty, and gave in such a
statement during the last summer, but the chief clerk of the Secretary
of State's office being absent on account of sickness, and the only
person acquainted with the arrangement of the papers of the office, this
particular document can not at this time be found. Having, however,
been myself in possession of it a few days after its receipt, I then
transcribed from it for my own use the recapitulation of the amount of
each description of debt. A copy of this transcript I shall subjoin
hereto, with assurances that it is substantially correct, and with the
hope that it will give a view of the subject sufficiently precise to
fulfill the wishes of the Senate. To save them the delay of waiting till
a copy of the agent's letter could be made, I send the original, with
the request that it may be returned at the convenience of the Senate.

TH. JEFFERSON.



APRIL 15, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

I now transmit the papers desired in your resolution of the 6th
instant. Those respecting the _Berceau_ will sufficiently explain
themselves. The officer charged with her repairs states in his letter,
received August 27, 1801, that he had been led by circumstances, which
he explains, to go considerably beyond his orders. In questions between
nations, who have no common umpire but reason, something must often be
yielded of mutual opinion to enable them to meet in a common point.

The allowance which had been proposed to the officers of that vessel
being represented as too small for their daily necessities, and still
more so as the means of paying before their departure debts contracted
with our citizens for subsistence, it was requested on their behalf that
the daily pay of each might be the measure of their allowance.

This being solicited and reimbursement assumed by the agent of their
nation, I deemed that the indulgence would have a propitious effect in
the moment of returning friendship. The sum of $870.83 was accordingly
furnished them for the five months of past captivity and a proportional
allowance authorized until their embarkation.

TH. JEFFERSON.



APRIL 20, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

I transmit you a report from the Secretary of State, with the
information desired by the House of Representatives, of the 8th of
January, relative to certain spoliations and other proceedings therein
referred to.

TH. JEFFERSON.



APRIL 26, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In pursuance of the act entitled "An act supplemental to the act
entitled 'An act for an amicable settlement of limits with the State
of Georgia, and authorizing the establishment of a government in the
Mississippi Territory,'" James Madison, Secretary of State, Albert
Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, and Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General
of the United States, were appointed commissioners to settle by
compromise with the commissioners appointed by the State of Georgia the
claims and cession to which the said act has relation.

Articles of agreement and cession have accordingly been entered into and
signed by the said commissioners of the United States and of Georgia,
which, as they leave a right to Congress to act upon them legislatively
at any time within six months after their date, I have thought it my
duty immediately to communicate to the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.



APRIL 27, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the sixth
article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the
United States and Great Britain having differed in their construction
of that article, and separated in consequence of that difference, the
President of the United States took immediate measures for obtaining
conventional explanations of that article for the government of the
commissioners. Finding, however, great difficulties opposed to a
settlement in that way, he authorized our minister at the Court of
London to meet a proposition that the United States by the payment of a
fixed sum should discharge themselves from their responsibility for such
debts as can not be recovered from the individual debtors. A convention
has accordingly been signed, fixing the sum to be paid at £600,000 in
three equal and annual installments, which has been ratified by me with
the advice and consent of the Senate.

I now transmit copies thereof to both Houses of Congress, trusting that
in the free exercise of the authority which the Constitution has given
them on the subject of public expenditures they will deem it for the
public interest to appropriate the sums necessary for carrying this
convention into execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.




SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.


DECEMBER 15, 1802

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

When we assemble together, fellow-citizens, to consider the state of our
beloved country, our just attentions are first drawn to those pleasing
circumstances which mark the goodness of that Being from whose favor
they flow and the large measure of thankfulness we owe for His bounty.
Another year has come around, and finds us still blessed with peace and
friendship abroad; law, order, and religion at home; good affection and
harmony with our Indian neighbors; our burthens lightened, yet our
income sufficient for the public wants, and the produce of the year
great beyond example. These, fellow-citizens, are the circumstances
under which we meet, and we remark with special satisfaction those which
under the smiles of Providence result from the skill, industry, and
order of our citizens, managing their own affairs in their own way and
for their own use, unembarrassed by too much regulation, unoppressed by
fiscal exactions.

On the restoration of peace in Europe that portion of the general
carrying trade which had fallen to our share during the war was abridged
by the returning competition of the belligerent powers. This was to
be expected, and was just. But in addition we find in some parts of
Europe monopolizing discriminations, which in the form of duties tend
effectually to prohibit the carrying thither our own produce in our own
vessels. From existing amities and a spirit of justice it is hoped that
friendly discussion will produce a fair and adequate reciprocity. But
should false calculations of interest defeat our hope, it rests with the
Legislature to decide whether they will meet inequalities abroad with
countervailing inequalities at home, or provide for the evil in any
other way.

It is with satisfaction I lay before you an act of the British
Parliament anticipating this subject so far as to authorize a mutual
abolition of the duties and countervailing duties permitted under the
treaty of 1794. It shows on their part a spirit of justice and friendly
accommodation which it is our duty and our interest to cultivate with
all nations. Whether this would produce a due equality in the navigation
between the two countries is a subject for your consideration.

Another circumstance which claims attention as directly affecting the
very source of our navigation is the defect or the evasion of the law
providing for the return of seamen, and particularly of those belonging
to vessels sold abroad. Numbers of them, discharged in foreign ports,
have been thrown on the hands of our consuls, who, to rescue them from
the dangers into which their distresses might plunge them and save them
to their country, have found it necessary in some cases to return them
at the public charge.

The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisiana to France, which took
place in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make
a change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless
have just weight in any deliberations of the Legislature connected with
that subject.

There was reason not long since to apprehend that the warfare in which
we were engaged with Tripoli might be taken up by some other of the
Barbary Powers. A reenforcement, therefore, was immediately ordered to
the vessels already there. Subsequent information, however, has removed
these apprehensions for the present. To secure our commerce in that sea
with the smallest force competent, we have supposed it best to watch
strictly the harbor of Tripoli. Still, however, the shallowness of their
coast and the want of smaller vessels on our part has permitted some
cruisers to escape unobserved, and to one of these an American vessel
unfortunately fell a prey. The captain, one American seaman, and two
others of color remain prisoners with them unless exchanged under an
agreement formerly made with the Bashaw, to whom, on the faith of that,
some of his captive subjects had been restored.

The convention with the State of Georgia has been ratified by their
legislature, and a repurchase from the Creeks has been consequently made
of a part of the Talasscee country. In this purchase has been also
comprehended a part of the lands within the fork of Oconee and Oakmulgee
rivers. The particulars of the contract will be laid before Congress so
soon as they shall be in a state for communication.

In order to remove every ground of difference possible with our Indian
neighbors, I have proceeded in the work of settling with them and
marking the boundaries between us. That with the Choctaw Nation is fixed
in one part and will be through the whole within a short time. The
country to which their title had been extinguished before the Revolution
is sufficient to receive a very respectable population, which Congress
will probably see the expediency of encouraging so soon as the limits
shall be declared. We are to view this position as an outpost of the
United States, surrounded by strong neighbors and distant from its
support; and how far that monopoly which prevents population should
here be guarded against and actual habitation made a condition of
the continuance of title will be for your consideration. A prompt
settlement, too, of all existing rights and claims within this territory
presents itself as a preliminary operation.

In that part of the Indiana Territory which includes Vincennes the lines
settled with the neighboring tribes fix the extinction of their title
at a breadth of 24 leagues from east to west and about the same length
parallel with and including the Wabash. They have also ceded a tract of
4 miles square, including the salt springs near the mouth of that river.

In the Department of Finance it is with pleasure I inform you that the
receipts of external duties for the last twelve months have exceeded
those of any former year, and that the ratio of increase has been also
greater than usual. This has enabled us to answer all the regular
exigencies of Government, to pay from the Treasury within one year
upward of $8,000,000, principal and interest, of the public debt,
exclusive of upward of one million paid by the sale of bank stock, and
making in the whole a reduction of nearly five millions and a half of
principal, and to have now in the Treasury $4,500,000, which are in a
course of application to the further discharge of debt and current
demands. Experience, too, so far, authorizes us to believe, if no
extraordinary event supervenes, and the expenses which will be actually
incurred shall not be greater than were contemplated by Congress
at their last session, that we shall not be disappointed in the
expectations then formed. But nevertheless, as the effect of peace
on the amount of duties is not yet fully ascertained, it is the more
necessary to practice every useful economy and to incur no expense which
may be avoided without prejudice.

The collection of the internal taxes having been completed in some of
the States, the officers employed in it are of course out of commission.
In others they will be so shortly. But in a few, where the arrangements
for the direct tax had been retarded, it will be some time before the
system is closed. It has not yet been thought necessary to employ the
agent authorized by an act of the last session for transacting business
in Europe relative to debts and loans. Nor have we used the power
confided by the same act of prolonging the foreign debt by reloans, and
of redeeming instead thereof an equal sum of the domestic debt. Should,
however, the difficulties of remittance on so large a scale render it
necessary at any time, the power shall be executed and the money thus
unemployed abroad shall, in conformity with that law, be faithfully
applied here in an equivalent extinction of domestic debt. When effects
so salutary result from the plans you have already sanctioned; when
merely by avoiding false objects of expense we are able, without a
direct tax, without internal taxes, and without borrowing to make large
and effectual payments toward the discharge of our public debt and
the emancipation of our posterity from that mortal canker, it is an
encouragement, fellow-citizens, of the highest order to proceed as we
have begun in substituting economy for taxation, and in pursuing what is
useful for a nation placed as we are, rather than what is practiced by
others under different circumstances. And whensoever we are destined to
meet events which shall call forth all the energies of our countrymen,
we have the firmest reliance on those energies and the comfort of
leaving for calls like these the extraordinary resources of loans and
internal taxes. In the meantime, by payments of the principal of our
debt, we are liberating annually portions of the external taxes and
forming from them a growing fund still further to lessen the necessity
of recurring to extraordinary resources.

The usual account of receipts and expenditures for the last year, with
an estimate of the expenses of the ensuing one, will be laid before you
by the Secretary of the Treasury.

No change being deemed necessary in our military establishment, an
estimate of its expenses for the ensuing year on its present footing,
as also of the sums to be employed in fortifications and other objects
within that department, has been prepared by the Secretary of War, and
will make a part of the general estimates which will be presented you.

Considering that our regular troops are employed for local purposes,
and that the militia is our general reliance for great and sudden
emergencies, you will doubtless think this institution worthy of a
review, and give it those improvements of which you find it susceptible.

Estimates for the Naval Department, prepared by the Secretary of the
Navy, for another year will in like manner be communicated with the
general estimates. A small force in the Mediterranean will still be
necessary to restrain the Tripoline cruisers, and the uncertain tenure
of peace with some other of the Barbary Powers may eventually require
that force to be augmented. The necessity of procuring some smaller
vessels for that service will raise the estimate, but the difference
in their maintenance will soon make it a measure of economy.

Presuming it will be deemed expedient to expend annually a convenient
sum toward providing the naval defense which our situation may require,
I can not but recommend that the first appropriations for that purpose
may go to the saving what we already possess. No cares, no attentions,
can preserve vessels from rapid decay which lie in water and exposed
to the sun. These decays require great and constant repairs, and will
consume, if continued, a great portion of the moneys destined to naval
purposes. To avoid this waste of our resources it is proposed to add
to our navy-yard here a dock within which our present vessels may be
laid up dry and under cover from the sun. Under these circumstances
experience proves that works of wood will remain scarcely at all
affected by time. The great abundance of running water which this
situation possesses, at heights far above the level of the tide, if
employed as is practiced for lock navigation, furnishes the means for
raising and laying up our vessels on a dry and sheltered bed. And should
the measure be found useful here, similar depositories for laying up as
well as for building and repairing vessels may hereafter be undertaken
at other navy-yards offering the same means. The plans and estimates
of the work, prepared by a person of skill and experience, will be
presented to you without delay, and from this it will be seen that
scarcely more than has been the cost of one vessel is necessary to save
the whole, and that the annual sum to be employed toward its completion
may be adapted to the views of the Legislature as to naval expenditure.

To cultivate peace and maintain commerce and navigation in all their
lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries as nurseries of navigation
and for the nurture of man, and protect the manufactures adapted to our
circumstances; to preserve the faith of the nation by an exact discharge
of its debts and contracts, expend the public money with the same care
and economy we would practice with our own, and impose on our citizens
no unnecessary burthens; to keep in all things within the pale of our
constitutional powers, and cherish the federal union as the only rock
of safety--these, fellow-citizens, are the landmarks by which we are to
guide our selves in all our proceedings. By continuing to make these the
rule of our action we shall endear to our countrymen the true principles
of their Constitution and promote an union of sentiment and of action
equally auspicious to their happiness and safety. On my part, you may
count on a cordial concurrence in every measure for the public good and
on all the information I possess which may enable you to discharge to
advantage the high functions with which you are invested by your
country.

TH. JEFFERSON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 22, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

I now transmit a report from the Secretary of State with the information
requested in your resolution of the 17th instant.

In making this communication I deem it proper to observe that I was led
by the regard due to the rights and interests of the United States and
to the just sensibility of the portion of our fellow-citizens more
immediately affected by the irregular proceeding at New Orleans to lose
not a moment in causing every step to be taken which the occasion
claimed from me, being equally aware of the obligation to maintain in
all cases the rights of the nation and to employ for that purpose those
just and honorable means which belong to the character of the United
States.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 23, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_.

In pursuance of the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 3d
of May last, desiring a statement of expenditures from January 1, 1797,
by the Quartermaster-General and the navy agents, for the contingencies
of the naval and military establishments and the navy contracts for
timber and stores, I now transmit such statements from the offices of
the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and Navy, where alone these
expenditures are entered.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 27, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

I lay before you a treaty, which has been agreed to by commissioners
duly authorized on the part of the United States and the Creek Nation
of Indians, for the extinguishment of the native title to lands in the
Talassee County, and others between the forks of Oconce and Oakmulgee
rivers, in Georgia, in pursuance of the convention with that State,
together with the documents explanatory thereof; and it is submitted
to your determination whether you will advise and consent to the
ratification thereof.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 27, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

I lay before you a treaty, which has been concluded between the State of
New York and the Oneida Indians, for the purchase of lands within that
State.

One other, between the same State and the Seneca Indians, for the
purchase of other lands within the same State.

One other, between certain individuals styled the Holland Company with
the Senecas, for the exchange of certain lands in the same State.

And one other, between Oliver Phelps, a citizen of the United States,
and the Senecas, for the exchange of lands in the same State; with
sundry explanatory papers, all of them conducted under the
superintendence of a commissioner on the part of the United States, who
reports that they have been adjusted with the fair and free consent
and understanding of the parties. It is therefore submitted to your
determination whether you will advise and consent to their respective
ratifications.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 27, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In my message of the 15th instant I mentioned that plans and estimates
of a dry dock for the preservation of our ships of war, prepared by a
person of skill and experience, should be laid before you without delay.
These are now transmitted, the report and estimates by duplicates; but
the plans being single only, I must request an intercommunication of
them between the Houses and their return when they shall no longer be
wanting for their consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 30, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

In addition to the information accompanying my message of the 22d
instant, I now transmit the copy of a letter on the same subject,
recently received.

TH. JEFFERSON.



WASHINGTON, _December 30, 1802_.

The SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

SIR: Although an informal communication to the public of the substance
of the inclosed letter may be proper for quieting the public mind, yet I
refer to the consideration of the House of Representatives whether the
publication of it in form might not give dissatisfaction to the writer
and tend to discourage the freedom and confidence of communications
between the agents of the two Governments. Accept assurances of my high
consideration and respect.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NATCHEZ, _November 25, 1802_.

The Honorable the Secretary of State,

_Washington_.

SIR: I have the honor to inclose you an original copy of a communication
(together with a translation thereof) which I this morning received
from the governor-general of the Province of Louisiana in answer to my
letters of the 28th ultimo.

I am, sir, with respect and esteem, your humble servant,

WILLIAM C.C. CLAIBORNE.



[Translation.]

New Orleans, _November 15, 1802_.

His Excellency WILLIAM C.C. CLAIBORNE.

Most Excellent Sir: I received a few days past your excellency's
esteemed letter of the 28th ultimo, in which your excellency, referring
to the twenty-second article of the treaty of friendship, navigation,
and limits agreed upon between the King, my master, and the United
States of America, has been pleased to inquire, after transcribing the
literal text of said article (which you find so explicit as not to
require any comment nor to admit of dubious construction), if His
Majesty has been pleased to designate any other position on the banks
of the Mississippi, and where that is, if his royal pleasure does not
continue the permission stipulated by the said treaty which entitled the
citizens of the United States to deposit their merchandise and effects
in the port of New Orleans; and you request at the same time that, as
the affair is so interesting to the commerce of the United States and
to the welfare of its citizens, I may do you the favor to send you an
answer as early as possible. I can now assure your excellency that His
Catholic Majesty has not hitherto issued any order for suspending the
deposit, and consequently has not designated any other position on the
banks of the Mississippi for that purpose. But I must inform you, in
answer to your inquiry, that the intendant of these provinces (who
in the affairs of his own department is independent of the general
Government), at the same time that, in conformity with the royal
commands (the peace in Europe having been published since the 4th of May
last), he suspended the commerce of neutrals, also thought proper to
suspend the tacit prolongation which continued, and to put a stop to
the infinite abuses which resulted from the deposit, contrary to the
interest of the State and of the commerce of these colonies, in
consequence of the experience he acquired of the frauds which have been
committed and which it has been endeavored to excuse under the pretext
of ignorance, as is manifested by the number of causes which now await
the determination of His Majesty, as soon as they can be brought to his
royal knowledge, besides many others which have been dropt because the
individuals have absconded who introduced their properties into the
deposit and did not extract them, thus defrauding the royal interests.

It might appear on the first view that particular cases like these ought
not to operate against a general privilege granted by a solemn treaty,
and it is an incontestable principle that the happiness of nations
consists in a great measure in maintaining a good harmony and
correspondence with their neighbors by respecting their rights, by
supporting their own, without being deficient in what is required by
humanity and civil intercourse; but it is also indubitable that for a
treaty, although solemn, to be entirely valid it ought not to contain
any defect; and if it be pernicious and of an injurious tendency,
although it has been effectuated with good faith but without a knowledge
of its bad consequence, it will be necessary to undo it, because
treaties ought to be viewed like other acts of public will, in which
more attention ought to be paid to the intention than to the words in
which they are expressed; and thus it will not appear so repugnant
that the term of three years fixed by the twenty-second article being
completed without the King's having granted a prolongation, the
intendancy should not, after putting a stop to the commerce of neutrals,
take upon itself the responsibility of continuing that favor without the
express mandate of the King, a circumstance equally indispensable for
designating another place on the banks of the Mississippi.

From the foregoing I trust that you will infer that as it is the duty of
the intendant, who conducts the business of his ministry with a perfect
independence of the Government, to have informed the King of what he has
done in fulfillment of what has been expressly stipulated, it is to be
hoped that His Majesty will take the measures which are convenient to
give effect to the deposit, either in this capital, if he should not
find it prejudicial to the interests of Spain, or in the place on
the banks of the Mississippi which it may be his royal pleasure to
designate; as it ought to be confided that the justice and generosity
of the King will not refuse to afford to the American citizens all
the advantages they can desire, a measure which does not depend upon
discretion, nor can an individual chief take it upon himself. Besides
these principles on which the regulation of the intendant is founded, I
ought at the same time to inform you that I myself opposed on my part,
as far as I reasonably could, the measure of suspending the deposit,
until the reasons adduced by the intendant brought it to my view; that
as all events can not be prevented, and as with time and different
circumstances various others occur which can not be foreseen, a just
and rational interpretation is always necessary. Notwithstanding the
foregoing, the result of my own reflections, I immediately consulted on
the occasion with my captain-general, whose answer, which can not be
long delayed, will dissipate every doubt that may be raised concerning
the steps which are to be taken, By all means your excellency may live
in the firm persuasion that as there has subsisted, and does subsist,
the most perfect and constant good harmony between the King, my master,
and the United States of America, I will spare no pains to preserve it
by all the means in my power, being assured of a reciprocity of equal
good offices in observing the treaty with good faith, ever keeping it in
view that the felicity and glory of nations are deeply concerned in the
advantages of a wise and prudently conducted commerce.

I have the honor to assure your excellency of the respect and high
consideration which I profess for you; and I pray the Most High to
preserve your life many years.

I kiss your excellency's hands.

Your most affectionate servant,

MANUEL DE SALCEDO.



JANUARY 5, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

Agreeably to the request of the House of Representatives, I now transmit
a statement of the militia of those States from which any returns have
been made to the War Office. They are, as you will perceive, but a small
proportion of the whole. I send you also the copy of a circular letter
written some time since for the purpose of obtaining returns from all
the States. Should any others in consequence of this be made during the
session of Congress, they shall be immediately communicated.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 7, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

I submit for your approbation and consent a convention entered into with
the Choctaw Nation of Indians for ascertaining and marking the limits of
the territory ceded to our nation while under its former government, and
lying between the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers on the east and the
Chickasawhay River on the west.

We are now engaged in ascertaining and marking in like manner the limits
of the former cessions of the Choctaws from the river Yazoo to our
southern boundary, which will be the subject of another convention,
and we expect to obtain from the same nation a new cession of lands
of considerable extent between the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers.

These several tracts of country will compose that portion of the
Mississippi Territory which, so soon as certain individual claims are
arranged, the United States will be free to sell and settle immediately.

TH. JEFFERSON



JANUARY 11, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisiana to France, and perhaps
of the Floridas, and the late suspension of our right of deposit at New
Orleans are events of primary interest to the United States. On both
occasions such measures were promptly taken as were thought most
likely amicably to remove the present and to prevent future causes of
inquietude. The objects of these measures were to obtain the territory
on the left bank of the Mississippi and eastward of that, if
practicable, on conditions to which the proper authorities of our
country would agree, or at least to prevent any changes which might
lessen the secure exercise of our rights. While my confidence in our
minister plenipotentiary at Paris is entire and undiminished, I still
think that these objects might be promoted by joining with him a person
sent from hence directly, carrying with him the feelings and sentiments
of the nation excited on the late occurrence, impressed by full
communications of all the views we entertain on this interesting
subject, and thus prepared to meet and to improve to an useful result
the counter propositions of the other contracting party, whatsoever form
their interests may give to them, and to secure to us the ultimate
accomplishment of our object.

I therefore nominate Robert R. Livingston to be minister plenipotentiary
and James Monroe to be minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary, with
full powers to both jointly, or to either on the death of the other, to
enter into a treaty or convention with the First Consul of France for
the purpose of enlarging and more effectually securing our rights and
interests in the river Mississippi and in the Territories eastward
thereof.

But as the possession of these provinces is still in Spain, and the
course of events may retard or prevent the cession to France being
carried into effect, to secure our object it will be expedient to
address equal powers to the Government of Spain also, to be used only
in the event of its being necessary.

I therefore nominate Charles Pinckney to be minister plenipotentiary,
and James Monroe, of Virginia, to be minister extraordinary and
plenipotentiary, with full powers to both jointly, or to either on the
death of the other, to enter into a treaty or convention with His
Catholic Majesty for the purpose of enlarging and more effectually
securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi and in the
Territories eastward thereof.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 11, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

The spoliations and irregularities committed on our commerce during
the late war by subjects of Spain or by others deemed within her
responsibility having called for attention, instructions were
accordingly given to our minister at Madrid to urge our right to just
indemnifications, and to propose a convention for adjusting them. The
Spanish Government listened to our proposition with an honorable
readiness and agreed to a convention, which I now submit for your advice
and consent. It does not go to the satisfaction of all our claims, but
the express reservation of our right to press the validity of the
residue has been made the ground of further instructions to our minister
on the subject of an additional article, which it is to be hoped will
not be without effect.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 18, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

As the continuance of the act for establishing trading houses with the
Indian tribes will be under the consideration of the Legislature at its
present session, I think it my duty to communicate the views which have
guided me in the execution of that act, in order that you may decide
on the policy of continuing it in the present or any other form, or
discontinue it altogether if that shall, on the whole, seem most for
the public good.

The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States
have for a considerable time been growing more and more uneasy at the
constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by
their own voluntary sales, and the policy has long been gaining strength
with them of refusing absolutely all further sale on any conditions,
insomuch that at this time it hazards their friendship and excites
dangerous jealousies and perturbations in their minds to make any
overture for the purchase of the smallest portions of their land. A
very few tribes only are not yet obstinately in these dispositions. In
order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs and to provide an
extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call
for, two measures are deemed expedient. First. To encourage them to
abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture, and
domestic manufacture, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and
labor will maintain them in this better than in their former mode of
living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life will then
become useless, and they will see advantage in exchanging them for
the means of improving their farms and of increasing their domestic
comforts. Secondly. To multiply trading houses among them, and place
within their reach those things which will contribute more to their
domestic comfort than the possession of extensive but uncultivated
wilds. Experience and reflection will develop to them the wisdom of
exchanging what they can spare and we want for what we can spare and
they want. In leading them thus to agriculture, to manufactures, and
civilization; in bringing together their and our sentiments, and
in preparing them ultimately to participate in the benefits of our
Government, I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good.
At these trading houses we have pursued the principles of the act of
Congress which directs that the commerce shall be carried on liberally,
and requires only that the capital stock shall not be diminished. We
consequently undersell private traders, foreign and domestic, drive them
from the competition, and thus, with the good will of the Indians, rid
ourselves of a description of men who are constantly endeavoring to
excite in the Indian mind suspicions, fears, and irritations toward us.
A letter now inclosed shows the effect of our competition on the
operations of the traders, while the Indians, perceiving the advantage
of purchasing from us, are soliciting generally our establishment
of trading houses among them. In one quarter this is particularly
interesting. The legislature, reflecting on the late occurrences on
the Mississippi, must be sensible how desirable it is to possess a
respectable breadth of country on that river, from our southern limit to
the Illinois, at least, so that we may present as firm a front on that
as on our eastern border. We possess what is below the Yazoo, and can
probably acquire a certain breadth from the Illinois and Wabash to the
Ohio; but between the Ohio and Yazoo the country all belongs to the
Chickasaws, the most friendly tribe within our limits, but the most
decided against the alienation of lands. The portion of their country
most important for us is exactly that which they do not inhabit. Their
settlements are not on the Mississippi, but in the interior country.
They have lately shown a desire to become agricultural, and this leads
to the desire of buying implements and comforts. In the strengthening
and gratifying of these wants I see the only prospect of planting on the
Mississippi itself the means of its own safety. Duty has required me to
submit these views to the judgment of the Legislature, but as their
disclosure might embarrass and defeat their effect, they are committed
to the special confidence of the two Houses.

While the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes may
deprive of that source of profit such of our citizens as are engaged
in it, it might be worthy the attention of Congress in their care of
individual as well as of the general interest to point in another
direction the enterprise of these citizens, as profitably for themselves
and more usefully for the public. The river Missouri and the Indians
inhabiting it are not as well known as is rendered desirable by their
connection with the Mississippi, and consequently with us. It is,
however, understood that the country on that river is inhabited by
numerous tribes, who furnish great supplies of furs and peltry to the
trade of another nation, carried on in a high latitude through an
infinite number of portages and lakes shut up by ice through a long
season. The commerce on that line could bear no competition with that of
the Missouri, traversing a moderate climate, offering, according to the
best accounts, a continued navigation from its source, and possibly with
a single portage from the Western Ocean, and finding to the Atlantic a
choice of channels through the Illinois or Wabash, the Lakes and Hudson,
through the Ohio and Susquehanna, or Potomac or James rivers, and
through the Tennessee and Savannah rivers. An intelligent officer,
with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise and willing to
undertake it, taken from our posts where they may be spared without
inconvenience, might explore the whole line, even to the Western
Ocean, have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial
intercourse, get admission among them for our traders as others are
admitted, agree on convenient deposits for an interchange of articles,
and return with the information acquired in the course of two summers.
Their arms and accouterments, some instruments of observation, and light
and cheap presents for the Indians would be all the apparatus they could
carry, and with an expectation of a soldier's portion of land on their
return would constitute the whole expense. Their pay would be going on
whether here or there. While other civilized nations have encountered
great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge by undertaking
voyages of discovery, and for other literary purposes, in various parts
and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same object, as well
as to its own interests, to explore this the only line of easy
communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own
part of it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within
the constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should
incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent
can not but be an additional gratification. The nation claiming the
territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which it is in the
habit of permitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view
it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did
not render it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of $2,500 "for
the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States,"
while understood and considered by the Executive as giving the
legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice and
prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise
previously prepare in its way.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 18, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I inclose a report of the Secretary of War, stating the trading houses
established in the Indian territories, the progress which has been made
in the course of the last year in settling and marking boundaries with
the different tribes, the purchases of lands recently made from them,
and the prospect of further progress in marking boundaries and in new
extinguishments of title in the year to come, for which some
appropriations of money will be wanting.

To this I have to add that when the Indians ceded to us the salt springs
on the Wabash they expressed a hope that we would so employ them as to
enable them to procure there the necessary supplies of salt. Indeed, it
would be the most proper and acceptable form in which the annuity could
be paid which we propose to give them for the cession. These springs
might at the same time be rendered eminently serviceable to our Western
inhabitants by using them as the means of counteracting the monopolies
of supplies of salt and of reducing the price in that country to a just
level. For these purposes a small appropriation would be necessary to
meet the first expenses, after which they should support themselves and
repay those advances. These springs are said to possess the advantage of
being accompanied with a bed of coal.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 19, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I now lay before Congress the annual account of the fund established
for defraying the contingent charges of Government. A single article of
$1,440, paid for bringing home 72 seamen discharged in foreign ports
from vessels sold abroad, is the only expenditure from that fund,
leaving an unexpended balance of $18,560 in the Treasury.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 24. 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I transmit a report by the superintendent of the city of Washington on
the affairs of the city committed to his care. By this you will perceive
that the resales of lots prescribed by an act of the last session of
Congress did not produce a sufficiency to pay the debt to Maryland
to which they are appropriated, and as it was evident that the sums
necessary for the interest and installments due to that State could not
be produced by a sale of the other public lots without an unwarrantable
sacrifice of the property, the deficiencies were of necessity drawn from
the Treasury of the United States.

The office of the surveyor for the city, created during the former
establishment, being of indispensable necessity, it has been continued,
and to that of the superintendent, substituted instead of the board of
commissioners at the last session of Congress, no salary was annexed by
law. These offices being permanent, I have supposed it more agreeable to
principle that their salaries should be fixed by the Legislature, and
therefore have assigned them none. Their services to be compensated are
from the 1st day of June last.

The marshal of the District of Columbia has, as directed by law, caused
a jail to be built in the city of Washington. I inclose his statements
of the expenses already incurred and of what remains to be finished. The
portion actually completed has rendered the situation of the persons
confined much more comfortable and secure than it has been heretofore.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 3, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

The inclosed letter and affidavits exhibiting matter of complaint against
John Pickering, district judge of New Hampshire, which is not within
Executive cognizance, I transmit them to the House of Representatives,
to whom the Constitution has confided a power of instituting proceedings
of redress, if they shall be of opinion that the case calls for them.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 14, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In obedience to the ordinance for the government of the Territories of
the United States requiring that the laws adopted by the governor and
judges thereof shall be reported to Congress from time to time, I now
transmit those which have been adopted in the Indiana Territory from
January, 1801, to February, 1802, as forwarded to the office of the
Secretary of State.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 21, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

The Tuscarora Indians, having an interest in some lands within the State
of North Carolina, asked the superintendence of the Government of the
United States over a treaty to be held between them and the State of
North Carolina respecting these lands. William Richardson Davie was
appointed a commissioner for this purpose, and a treaty was concluded
under his superintendence. This, with his letter on the subject, is now
laid before the Senate for their advice and consent whether it shall be
ratified.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 23, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I lay before you a report of the Secretary of State on the case of
the Danish brigantine _Henrick_, taken by a French privateer in 1799,
retaken by an armed vessel of the United States, carried into a British
island, and there adjudged to be neutral, but under allowance of such
salvage and costs as absorbed nearly the whole amount of sales of
the vessel and cargo. Indemnification for these losses occasioned
by our officers is now claimed by the sufferers, supported by the
representations of their Government. I have no doubt the legislature
will give to the subject that just attention and consideration which
it is useful as well as honorable to practice in our transactions with
other nations, and particularly with one which has observed toward us
the most friendly treatment and regard.

TH. JEFFERSON.





PROCLAMATION.


[From the National Intelligencer, July 18, 1803.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.


Whereas great and weighty matters claiming the consideration of the
Congress of the United States form an extraordinary occasion for
convening them, I do by these presents appoint Monday, the 17th day
of October next, for their meeting at the city of Washington, hereby
requiring their respective Senators and Representatives then and there
to assemble in Congress, in order to receive such communications as may
then be made to them and to consult and determine on such measures as in
their wisdom may be deemed meet for the welfare of the United States.

[SEAL.]

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, the 16th day of July, A.D. 1803, and
in the twenty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
    _Secretary_.




THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.


OCTOBER 17, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In calling you together, fellow-citizens, at an earlier day than was
contemplated by the act of the last session of Congress, I have not been
insensible to the personal inconveniences necessarily resulting from
an unexpected change in your arrangements. But matters of great public
concernment have rendered this call necessary, and the interests you
feel in these will supersede in your minds all private considerations.

Congress witnessed at their late session the extraordinary agitation
produced in the public mind by the suspension of our right of deposit at
the port of New Orleans, no assignment of another place having been made
according to treaty. They were sensible that the continuance of that
privation would be more injurious to our nation than any consequences
which could flow from any mode of redress, but reposing just confidence
in the good faith of the Government whose officer had committed the
wrong, friendly and reasonable representations were resorted to, and
the right of deposit was restored.

Previous, however, to this period we had not been unaware of the danger
to which our peace would be perpetually exposed whilst so important a
key to the commerce of the Western country remained under foreign power.
Difficulties, too, were presenting themselves as to the navigation of
other streams which, arising within our territories, pass through those
adjacent. Propositions had therefore been authorized for obtaining on
fair conditions the sovereignty of New Orleans and of other possessions
in that quarter interesting to our quiet to such extent as was deemed
practicable, and the provisional appropriation of $2,000,000 to be
applied and accounted for by the President of the United States,
intended as part of the price, was considered as conveying the sanction
of Congress to the acquisition proposed. The enlightened Government of
France saw with just discernment the importance to both nations of such
liberal arrangements as might best and permanently promote the peace,
friendship, and interests of both, and the property and sovereignty of
all Louisiana which had been restored to them have on certain conditions
been transferred to the United States by instruments bearing date the
30th of April last. When these shall have received the constitutional
sanction of the Senate, they will without delay be communicated to the
Representatives also for the exercise of their functions as to those
conditions which are within the powers vested by the Constitution in
Congress.

Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters
secure an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States
and an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from
collision with other powers and the dangers to our peace from that
source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise
in due season important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for
our posterity, and a wide spread for the blessings of freedom and
equal laws.

With the wisdom of Congress it will rest to take those ulterior measures
which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and temporary
government of the country; for its incorporation into our Union; for
rendering the change of government a blessing to our newly adopted
brethren; for securing to them the rights of conscience and of property;
for confirming to the Indian inhabitants their occupancy and
self-government, establishing friendly and commercial relations with
them, and for ascertaining the geography of the country acquired. Such
materials, for your information, relative to its affairs in general as
the short space of time has permitted me to collect will be laid before
you when the subject shall be in a state for your consideration.

Another important acquisition of territory has also been made since the
last session of Congress. The friendly tribe of Kaskaskia Indians, with
which we have never had a difference, reduced by the wars and wants of
savage life to a few individuals unable to defend themselves against the
neighboring tribes, has transferred its country to the United States,
reserving only for its members what is sufficient to maintain them in an
agricultural way. The considerations stipulated are that we shall extend
to them our patronage and protection and give them certain annual
aids in money, in implements of agriculture, and other articles of
their choice. This country, among the most fertile within our limits,
extending along the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois to and up
the Ohio, though not so necessary as a barrier since the acquisition of
the other bank, may yet be well worthy of being laid open to immediate
settlement, as its inhabitants may descend with rapidity in support of
the lower country should future circumstances expose that to foreign
enterprise. As the stipulations in this treaty also involve matters
within the competence of both Houses only, it will be laid before
Congress as soon as the Senate shall have advised its ratification.

With many of the other Indian tribes improvements in agriculture
and household manufacture are advancing, and with all our peace and
friendship are established on grounds much firmer than heretofore.
The measure adopted of establishing trading houses among them and of
furnishing them necessaries in exchange for their commodities at such
moderate prices as leave no gain, but cover us from loss, has the most
conciliatory and useful effect on them, and is that which will best
secure their peace and good will.

The small vessels authorized by Congress with a view to the
Mediterranean service have been sent into that sea, and will be able
more effectually to confine the Tripoline cruisers within their harbors
and supersede the necessity of convoy to our commerce in that quarter.
They will sensibly lessen the expenses of that service the ensuing year.

A further knowledge of the ground in the northeastern and northwestern
angles of the United States has evinced that the boundaries established
by the treaty of Paris between the British territories and ours in those
parts were too imperfectly described to be susceptible of execution.
It has therefore been thought worthy of attention for preserving and
cherishing the harmony and useful intercourse subsisting between the
two nations to remove by timely arrangements what unfavorable incidents
might otherwise render a ground of future misunderstanding. A convention
has therefore been entered into which provides for a practicable
demarcation of those limits to the satisfaction of both parties.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the year ending the 30th
of September last, with the estimates for the service of the ensuing
year, will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury so soon
as the receipts of the last quarter shall be returned from the more
distant States. It is already ascertained that the amount paid into the
Treasury for that year has been between $11,000,000 and $12,000,000, and
that the revenue accrued during the same term exceeds the sum counted on
as sufficient for our current expenses and to extinguish the public debt
within the period heretofore proposed.

The amount of debt paid for the same year is about $3,100,000, exclusive
of interest, and making, with the payment of the preceding year, a
discharge of more than $8,500,000 of the principal of that debt,
besides the accruing interest; and there remain in the Treasury nearly
$6,000,000. Of these, $880,000 have been reserved for payment of the
first installment due under the British convention of January 8, 1802,
and two millions are what have been before mentioned as placed by
Congress under the power and accountability of the President toward the
price of New Orleans and other territories acquired, which, remaining
untouched, are still applicable to that object and go in diminution of
the sum to be funded for it.

Should the acquisition of Louisiana be constitutionally confirmed and
carried into effect, a sum of nearly $13,000,000 will then be added to
our public debt, most of which is payable after fifteen years, before
which term the present existing debts will all be discharged by the
established operation of the sinking fund. When we contemplate the
ordinary annual augmentation of impost from increasing population and
wealth, the augmentation of the same revenue by its extension to the new
acquisition, and the economies which may still be introduced into our
public expenditures, I can not but hope that Congress in reviewing their
resources will find means to meet the intermediate interest of this
additional debt without recurring to new taxes, and applying to this
object only the ordinary progression of our revenue. Its extraordinary
increase in times of foreign war will be the proper and sufficient fund
for any measures of safety or precaution which that state of things may
render necessary in our neutral position.

Remittances for the installments of our foreign debt having been found
practicable without loss, it has not been thought expedient to use the
power given by a former act of Congress of continuing them by reloans,
and of redeeming instead thereof equal sums of domestic debt, although
no difficulty was found in obtaining that accommodation.

The sum of $50,000 appropriated by Congress for providing gunboats
remains unexpended. The favorable and peaceable turn of affairs on the
Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary,
and time was desirable in order that the institution of that branch of
our force might begin on models the most approved by experience, The
same issue of events dispensed with a resort to the appropriation of
$1,500,000, contemplated for purposes which were effected by happier
means.

We have seen with sincere concern the flames of war lighted up again
in Europe, and nations with which we have the most friendly and useful
relations engaged in mutual destruction. While we regret the miseries
in which we see others involved, let us bow with gratitude to that
kind Providence which, inspiring with wisdom and moderation our late
legislative councils while placed under the urgency of the greatest
wrongs, guarded us from hastily entering into the sanguinary contest and
left us only to look on and to pity its ravages. These will be heaviest
on those immediately engaged. Yet the nations pursuing peace will not
be exempt from all evil. In the course of this conflict let it be our
endeavor, as it is our interest and desire, to cultivate the friendship
of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of innocent
kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospitality from the
distresses of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to none;
to establish in our harbors such a police as may maintain law and order;
to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which
their country takes no part; to punish severely those persons, citizen
or alien, who shall usurp the cover of our flag for vessels not entitled
to it, infecting thereby with suspicion those of real Americans and
committing us into controversies for the redress of wrongs not our
own; to exact from every nation the observance toward our vessels and
citizens of those principles and practices which all civilized people
acknowledge; to merit the character of a just nation, and maintain
that of an independent one, preferring every consequence to insult and
habitual wrong. Congress will consider whether the existing laws enable
us efficaciously to maintain this course with our citizens in all places
and with others while within the limits of our jurisdiction, and will
give them the new modifications necessary for these objects. Some
contraventions of right have already taken place, both within our
jurisdictional limits and on the high seas. The friendly disposition of
the Governments from whose agents they have proceeded, as well as their
wisdom and regard for justice, leave us in reasonable expectation that
they will be rectified and prevented in future, and that no act will
be countenanced by them which threatens to disturb our friendly
intercourse. Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe
and from the political interests which entangle them together, with
productions and wants which render our commerce and friendship useful to
them and theirs to us, it can not be the interest of any to assail us,
nor ours to disturb them. We should be most unwise, indeed, were we to
cast away the singular blessings of the position in which nature has
placed us, the opportunity she has endowed us with of pursuing, at a
distance from foreign contentions, the paths of industry, peace, and
happiness, of cultivating general friendship, and of bringing collisions
of interest to the umpirage of reason rather than of force. How
desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its
citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct
which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those
passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to
embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe. Confident,
fellow-citizens, that you will duly estimate the importance of neutral
dispositions toward the observance of neutral conduct, that you will
be sensible how much it is our duty to look on the bloody arena spread
before us with commiseration indeed, but with no other wish than to see
it closed, I am persuaded you will cordially cherish these dispositions
in all discussions among yourselves and in all communications with your
constituents; and I anticipate with satisfaction the measures of wisdom
which the great interests now committed to you will give _you_ an
opportunity of providing, and _myself_ that of approving and of
carrying into execution with the fidelity I owe to my country,

TH. JEFFERSON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


OCTOBER 17, 1803.

_Gentlemen of the Senate_:

In my message of this day to both Houses of Congress I explained the
circumstances which had led to the conclusion of conventions with France
for the cession of the Province of Louisiana to the United States. Those
conventions are now laid before you with such communications relating to
them as may assist in deciding whether you will advise and consent to
their ratification.

The ratification of the First Consul of France is in the hands of his
chargé d'affaires here, to be exchanged for that of the United States
whensoever, before the 30th instant, it shall be in readiness.

TH. JEFFERSON.



OCTOBER 21, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In my communication to you of the 17th instant I informed you that
conventions had been entered into with the Government of France for the
cession of Louisiana to the United States. These, with the advice and
consent of the Senate, having now been ratified and my ratification
exchanged for that of the First Consul of France in due form, they are
communicated to you for consideration in your legislative capacity. You
will observe that some important conditions can not be carried into
execution but with the aid of the Legislature, and that time presses
a decision on them without delay.

The ulterior provisions, also suggested in the same communication,
for the occupation and government of the country will call for early
attention. Such information relative to its government as time and
distance have permitted me to obtain will be ready to be laid before you
within a few days; but as permanent arrangements for this object may
require time and deliberation, it is for your consideration whether you
will not forthwith make such temporary provisions for the preservation
in the meanwhile of order and tranquillity in the country as the case
may require.

TH. JEFFERSON.



OCTOBER 24, 1803.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before you the convention signed on the 12th day of May last
between the United States and Great Britain for settling their
boundaries in the northeastern and northwestern parts of the United
States, which was mentioned in my general message of the 17th instant,
together with such papers relating thereto as may enable you to
determine whether you will advise and consent to its ratification.

TH. JEFFERSON.



OCTOBER 31, 1803.

_To the Senate of the United States of America_:

I now lay before you the treaty mentioned im my general message at the
opening of the session as having been concluded with the Kaskaskia
Indians for the transfer of their country to us under certain
reservations and conditions.

Progress having been made in the demarcation of Indian boundaries, I am
now able to communicate, to you a treaty with the Delawares, Shawanese,
Potawatamies, Miamis, Eel-rivers, Weeas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and
Kaskaskias, establishing the boundaries of the territory around St.
Vincennes.

Also a supplementary treaty with the Eel-rivers, Wyandots, Piankeshaws,
Kaskaskias, and Kickapoos, in confirmation of the fourth article of the
preceding treaty.

Also a treaty with the Choctaws, describing and establishing our
demarcation of boundaries with them.

Which several treaties are accompanied by the papers relating to them,
and are now submitted to the Senate for consideration whether they will
advise and consent to their ratification.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 4, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

By the copy now communicated of a letter from Captain Bainbridge, of
the _Philadelphia_ frigate, to our consul at Gibraltar, you will learn
that an act of hostility has been committed on a merchant vessel of the
United States by an armed ship of the Emperor of Morocco. This conduct
on the part of that power is without cause and without explanation. It
is fortunate that Captain Bainbridge fell in with and took the capturing
vessel and her prize, and I have the satisfaction to inform you that
about the date of this transaction such a force would be arriving in
the neighborhood of Gibraltar, both from the east and from the west,
as leaves less to be feared for our commerce from the suddenness of
the aggression.

On the 4th of September the _Constitution_ frigate, Captain Preble,
with Mr. Lear on board, was within two days' sail of Gibraltar, where
the _Philadelphia_ would then be arrived with her prize, and such
explanations would probably be instituted as the state of things
required, and as might perhaps arrest the progress of hostilities.

In the meanwhile it is for Congress to consider the provisional
authorities which may be necessary to restrain the depredations of
this power should they be continued,

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 14, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now communicate a digest of the information I have received relative
to Louisiana, which may be useful to the Legislature in providing for
the government of the country. A translation of the most important laws
in force in that province, now in press, shall be the subject of a
supplementary communication, with such further and material information
as may yet come to hand.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 24, 1803.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

In conformity with the desire expressed in the resolution of the House
of Representatives of the 15th instant, I now lay before them copies of
such documents as are in possession of the Executive relative to the
arrest and confinement of Zachariah Cox by officers in the service of
the United States in the year 1798. From the nature of the transaction
some documents relative to it might have been expected from the War
Office; but if any ever existed there they were probably lost when the
office and its papers were consumed by fire.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 25, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians being ratified with the advice
and consent of the Senate, it is now laid before both Houses in their
legislative capacity. It will inform them of the obligations which the
United States thereby contract, and particularly that of taking the
tribe under their future protection, and that the ceded country is
submitted to their immediate possession and disposal.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 29, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now communicate an appendix to the information heretofore given on
the subject of Louisiana. You will be sensible, from the face of these
papers, as well as of those to which they are a sequel, that they
are not and could not be official, but are furnished by different
individuals as the result of the best inquiries they had been able
to make, and now given as received from them, only digested under
heads to prevent repetitions.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 5, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the act of hostility
mentioned in my message of the 4th of November to have been committed by
a cruiser of the Emperor of Morocco on a vessel of the United States has
been disavowed by the Emperor. All differences in consequence thereof
have been amicably adjusted, and the treaty of 1786 between this country
and that has been recognized and confirmed by the Emperor, each party
restoring to the other what had been detained or taken. I inclose the
Emperor's orders given on this occasion.

The conduct of our officers generally who have had a part in these
transactions has merited entire approbation.

The temperate and correct course pursued by our consul, Mr. Simpson, the
promptitude and energy of Commodore Preble, the efficacious cooperation
of Captains Rodgers and Campbell, of the returning squadron, the proper
decision of Captain Bainbridge that a vessel which had committed an open
hostility was of right to be detained for inquiry and consideration,
and the general zeal of the other officers and men are honorable facts
which I make known with pleasure. And to these I add what was indeed
transacted in another quarter--the gallant enterprise of Captain Rodgers
in destroying on the coast of Tripoli a corvette of that power of 22
guns.

I recommend to the consideration of Congress a just indemnification
for the interest acquired by the captors of the _Mishouda_ and
_Mirboha_, yielded by them for the public accommodation.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 5, 1803,

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the desire of the Senate expressed in their
resolution of the 22d of November, on the impressment of seamen in
the service of the United States by the agents of foreign nations,
I now lay before the Senate a letter from the Secretary of State with
a specification of the cases of which information has been received.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 21, 1803.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

On the 11th of January last I laid before the Senate, for their
consideration and advice, a convention with Spain on the subject of
indemnities for spoliations on our commerce committed by her subjects
during the late war, which convention is still before the Seriate. As
this instrument did not embrace French seizures and condemnations of
our vessels in the ports of Spain, for which we deemed the latter power
responsible, our minister at that Court was instructed to press for
an additional article, comprehending that branch of wrongs. I now
communicate what has since passed on that subject. The Senate will judge
whether the prospect it offers will justify a longer suspension of
that portion of indemnities conceded by Spain should she now take no
advantage of the lapse of the period for ratification. As the settlement
of the boundaries of Louisiana will call for new negotiations on our
receiving possession of that Province, the claims not obtained by the
convention now before the Senate may be incorporated into those
discussions.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 31, 1803.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now lay before Congress the annual account of the fund established
for defraying the contingent charges of Government. No occasion having
arisen for making use of any part of it in the present year, the balance
of $18,560 unexpended at the end of the last year remains now in the
Treasury.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 16, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In execution of the act of the present session of Congress for taking
possession of Louisiana, as ceded to us by France, and for the temporary
government thereof, Governor Claiborne, of the Mississippi Territory,
and General Wilkinson were appointed commissioners to receive
possession. They proceeded with such regular troops as had been
assembled at Fort Adams from the nearest posts and with some militia of
the Mississippi Territory to New Orleans, To be prepared for anything
unexpected which might arise out of the transaction, a respectable
body of militia was ordered to be in readiness in the States of Ohio,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, and a part of those of Tennessee was moved
on to the Natchez. No occasion, however, arose for their sendees. Our
commissioners, on their arrival at New Orleans, found the Province
already delivered by the commissioners of Spain to that of France, who
delivered it over to them on the 20th day of December, as appears by
their declaratory act accompanying this. Governor Claiborne, being
duly invested with the powers heretofore exercised by the governor and
intendant of Louisiana, assumed the government on the same day, and for
the maintenance of law and order immediately issued the proclamation and
address now communicated.

On this important acquisition, so favorable to the immediate interests
of our Western citizens, so auspicious to the peace and security of the
nation in general, which adds to our country territories so extensive
and fertile and to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessings
of freedom and self-government, I offer to Congress and our country my
sincere congratulations,

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 24, 1804.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I communicate for your information a letter just received from Governor
Claiborne, which may throw light on the subject of the government of
Louisiana, under contemplation of the Legislature. The paper being
original, a return is asked.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 16, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Information having been received some time ago that the public lands in
the neighborhood of Detroit required particular attention, the agent
appointed to transact business with the Indians in that quarter was
instructed to inquire into and report the situation of the titles
and occupation of the lands, private and public, in the neighboring
settlements. His report is now communicated, that the Legislature may
judge how far its interposition is necessary to quiet the legal titles,
confirm the equitable, to remove the past and prevent future intrusions
which have neither law nor justice for the basis.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 22, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress, for their information, a report of the
surveyor of the public buildings at Washington, stating what has been
done under the act of the last session concerning the city of Washington
on the Capitol and other public buildings, and the highway between them.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 29, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate, for the information of Congress, a letter stating certain
fraudulent practices for monopolizing lands in Louisiana, which may
perhaps require legislative provisions.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 20, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate to Congress a letter received from Captain Bainbridge,
commander of the _Philadelphia_ frigate, informing us of the wreck
of that vessel on the coast of Tripoli, and that himself, his officers
and men, had fallen into the hands of the Tripolitans. This accident
renders it expedient to increase our force and enlarge our expenses
in the Mediterranean beyond what the last appropriation for the naval
service contemplated. I recommend, therefore, to the consideration of
Congress such an addition to that appropriation as they may think the
exigency requires.

TH. JEFFERSON.



MARCH 22, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I lay before Congress the last returns of the militia of the United
States. Their incompleteness is much to be regretted, and its remedy
may at some future time be a subject worthy the attention of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.




PROCLAMATION.


[From Annals of Congress, Eighth Congress, second session, 1234.]

_To all whom these presents shall come_:

Whereas by an act of Congress authority has been given to the President
of the United States, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to erect the
shores, waters, and inlets of the bay and river of Mobile, and of the
other rivers, creeks, inlets, and bays emptying into the Gulf of Mexico
east of the said river Mobile and west thereof to the Pascagoula,
inclusive, into a separate district for the collection of duties on
imports and tonnage; and to establish such place within the same as he
shall deem it expedient to be the port of entry and delivery for such
district; and to designate such other places within the same district,
not exceeding two, to be ports of delivery only:

Now know ye that I, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States,
do hereby decide that all the above-mentioned shores, waters, inlets,
creeks, and rivers lying within the boundaries of the United States
shall constitute and form a separate district, to be denominated "the
district of Mobile;" and do also designate Fort Stoddert, within the
district aforesaid, to be the port of entry and delivery for the said
district.

Given under my hand this 20th day of May, 1804.

TH. JEFFERSON.




FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


NOVEMBER 8, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

To a people, fellow-citizens, who sincerely desire the happiness and
prosperity of other nations; to those who justly calculate that their
own well-being is advanced by that of the nations with which they have
intercourse, it will be a satisfaction to observe that the war which
was lighted up in Europe a little before our last meeting has not yet
extended its flames to other nations, nor been marked by the calamities
which sometimes stain the footsteps of war. The irregularities, too, on
the ocean, which generally harass the commerce of neutral nations, have,
in distant parts, disturbed ours less than on former occasions; but in
the American seas they have been greater from peculiar causes, and even
within our harbors and jurisdiction infringements on the authority of
the laws have been committed which have called for serious attention.
The friendly conduct of the Governments from whose officers and subjects
these acts have proceeded, in other respects and in places more under
their observation and control, gives us confidence that our
representations on this subject will have been properly regarded.

While noticing the irregularities committed on the ocean by others,
those on our own part should not be omitted nor left unprovided for.
Complaints have been received that persons residing within the United
States have taken on themselves to arm merchant vessels and to force a
commerce into certain ports and countries in defiance of the laws of
those countries. That individuals should undertake to wage private war,
independently of the authority of their country, can not be permitted in
a well-ordered society. Its tendency to produce aggression on the laws
and rights of other nations and to endanger the peace of our own is so
obvious that I doubt not you will adopt measures for restraining it
effectually in future.

Soon after the passage of the act of the last session authorizing the
establishment of a district and port of entry on the waters of the
Mobile we learnt that its object was misunderstood on the part of
Spain. Candid explanations were immediately given and assurances
that, reserving our claims in that quarter as a subject of discussion
and arrangement with Spain, no act was meditated in the meantime
inconsistent with the peace and friendship existing between the two
nations, and that conformably to these intentions would be the execution
of the law. That Government had, however, thought proper to suspend the
ratification of the convention of 1802; but the explanations which would
reach them soon after, and still more the confirmation of them by
the tenor of the instrument establishing the port and district, may
reasonably be expected to replace them in the dispositions and views
of the whole subject which originally dictated the convention.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the objections which had
been urged by that Government against the validity of our title to the
country of Louisiana have been withdrawn, its exact limits, however,
remaining still to be settled between us; and to this is to be added
that, having prepared and delivered the stock created in execution of
the convention of Paris of April 30, 1803, in consideration of the
cession of that country, we have received from the Government of France
an acknowledgment, in due form, of the fulfillment of that stipulation.

With the nations of Europe in general our friendship and intercourse
are undisturbed, and from the Governments of the belligerent powers
especially we continue to receive those friendly manifestations which
are justly due to an honest neutrality and to such good offices
consistent with that as we have opportunities of rendering.

The activity and success of the small force employed in the
Mediterranean in the early part of the present year, the reenforcements
sent into that sea, and the energy of the officers having command in
the several vessels will, I trust, by the sufferings of war, reduce the
barbarians of Tripoli to the desire of peace on proper terms. Great
injury, however, ensues to ourselves, as well as to others interested,
from the distance to which prizes must be brought for adjudication and
from the impracticability of bringing hither such as are not seaworthy.

The Bey of Tunis having made requisitions unauthorized by our treaty,
their rejection has produced from him some expressions of discontent.
But to those who expect us to calculate whether a compliance with unjust
demands will not cost us less than a war we must leave as a question of
calculation for them also whether to retire from unjust demands will
not cost them less than a war. We can do to each other very sensible
injuries by war, but the mutual advantages of peace make that the best
interest of both.

Peace and intercourse with the other powers on the same coast continue
on the footing on which they are established by treaty.

In pursuance of the act providing for the temporary government of
Louisiana, the necessary officers for the Territory of Orleans were
appointed in due time to commence the exercise of their functions on
the 1st day of October. The distance, however, of some of them and
indispensable previous arrangements may have retarded its commencement
in some of its parts. The form of government thus provided having been
considered but as temporary, and open to such future improvements as
further information of the circumstances of our brethren there might
suggest, it will of course be subject to your consideration.

In the district of Louisiana it has been thought best to adopt the
division into subordinate districts which had been established under its
former government. These being five in number, a commanding officer has
been appointed to each, according to the provisions of the law, and so
soon as they can be at their stations that district will also be in its
due state of organization. In the meantime their places are supplied by
the officers before commanding there. And the functions of the governor
and judges of Indiana having commenced, the government, we presume, is
proceeding in its new form. The lead mines in that district offer so
rich a supply of that metal as to merit attention. The report now
communicated will inform you of their state and of the necessity of
immediate inquiry into their occupation and titles.

With the Indian tribes established within our newly acquired limits,
I have deemed it necessary to open conferences for the purpose of
establishing a good understanding and neighborly relations between us.
So far as we have yet learned, we have reason to believe that their
dispositions are generally favorable and friendly; and with these
dispositions on their part, we have in our own hands means which can
not fail us for preserving their peace and friendship. By pursuing
an uniform course of justice toward them, by aiding them in all the
improvements which may better their condition, and especially by
establishing a commerce on terms which shall be advantageous to them and
only not losing to us, and so regulated as that no incendiaries of our
own or any other nation may be permitted to disturb the natural effects
of our just and friendly offices, we may render ourselves so necessary
to their comfort and prosperity that the protection of our citizens
from their disorderly members will become their interest and their
voluntary care. Instead, therefore, of an augmentation of military
force proportioned to our extension of frontier, I propose a moderate
enlargement of the capital employed in that commerce as a more
effectual, economical, and humane instrument for preserving peace and
good neighborhood with them.

On this side the Mississippi an important relinquishment of native title
has been received from the Delawares. That tribe, desiring to extinguish
in their people the spirit of hunting and to convert superfluous lands
into the means of improving what they retain, has ceded to us all the
country between the Wabash and Ohio south of and including the road from
the rapids toward Vincennes, for which they are to receive annuities in
animals and implements for agriculture and in other necessaries. This
acquisition is important, not only for its extent and fertility, but as
fronting 300 miles on the Ohio, and near half that on the Wabash. The
produce of the settled country descending those rivers will no longer
pass in review of the Indian frontier but in a small portion, and, with
the cession heretofore made by the Kaskaskias, nearly consolidates our
possessions north of the Ohio, in a very respectable breadth--from
Lake Erie to the Mississippi. The Piankeshaws having some claim to the
country ceded by the Delawares, it has been thought best to quiet that
by fair purchase also. So soon as the treaties on this subject shall
have received their constitutional sanctions they shall be laid before
both Houses.

The act of Congress of February 28, 1803, for building and employing
a number of gunboats, is now in a course of execution to the extent
there provided for. The obstacle to naval enterprise which vessels of
this construction offer for our seaport towns, their utility toward
supporting within our waters the authority of the laws, the promptness
with which they will be manned by the seamen and militia of the place
in the moment they are wanting, the facility of their assembling from
different parts of the coast to any point where they are required in
greater force than ordinary, the economy of their maintenance and
preservation from decay when not in actual service, and the competence
of our finances to this defensive provision without any new burthen are
considerations which will have due weight with Congress in deciding
on the expediency of adding to their number from year to year, as
experience shall test their utility, until all our important harbors,
by these and auxiliary means, shall be secured against insult and
opposition to the laws.

No circumstance has arisen since your last session which calls for any
augmentation of our regular military force. Should any improvement occur
in the militia system, that will be always seasonable.

Accounts of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, with
estimates for the ensuing one, will as usual be laid before you.

The state of our finances continues to fulfill our expectations. Eleven
millions and a half of dollars, received in the course of the year
ending the 30th of September last, have enabled us, after meeting all
the ordinary expenses of the year, to pay upward of $3,600,000 of the
public debt, exclusive of interest. This payment, with those of the
two preceding years, has extinguished upward of twelve millions of the
principal and a greater sum of interest within that period, and by a
proportionate diminution of interest renders already sensible the effect
of the growing sum yearly applicable to the discharge of the principal.

It is also ascertained that the revenue accrued during the last year
exceeds that of the preceding, and the probable receipts of the ensuing
year may safely be relied on as sufficient, with the sum already in the
Treasury, to meet all the current demands of the year, to discharge
upward of three millions and a half of the engagements incurred under
the British and French conventions, and to advance in the further
redemption of the funded debt as rapidly as had been contemplated.
These, fellow-citizens, are the principal matters which I have thought
it necessary at this time to communicate for your consideration and
attention. Some others will be laid before you in the course of the
session; but in the discharge of the great duties confided to you by
our country you will take a broader view of the field of legislation.
Whether the great interests of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, or
navigation can within the pale of your constitutional powers be aided
in any of their relations; whether laws are provided in all cases where
they are wanting; whether those provided are exactly what they should
be; whether any abuses take place in their administration, or in that of
the public revenues; whether the organization of the public agents or of
the public force is perfect in all its parts; in fine, whether anything
can be done to advance the general good, are questions within the limits
of your functions which will necessarily occupy your attention. In these
and all other matters which you in your wisdom may propose for the good
of our country you may count with assurance on my hearty cooperation and
faithful execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


November 15, 1804.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I now lay before you a treaty, entered into on the 18th day of August of
the present year, between the United States on one part and the Delaware
Indians on the other, for the extinguishment of their title to a tract
of country between the Ohio and Wabash rivers.

And another of the 27th day of the same month, between the United States
and the Piankeshaws, for a confirmation of the same by the latter,
together with a letter from Governor Harrison on the same subject; which
treaties are submitted for your advice and consent.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 15, 1804.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Agreeably to your resolution of the 9th instant, I now lay before you a
statement of the circumstances attending the destruction of the frigate
_Philadelphia_, with the names of the officers and the number of men
employed on the occasion, to which I have to add that Lieutenant Decatur
was thereupon advanced to be a captain in the Navy of the United States.

TH. JEFFERSON.



NOVEMBER 30, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now lay before you copies of the treaties concluded with the Delaware
and Piankeshaw Indians for the extinguishment of their title to the
lands therein described, and I recommend to the consideration of
Congress the making provision by law for carrying them into execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 13. 1804.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I present for your advice a treaty entered into on behalf of the United
States with the Creek Indians for the extinguishment of their right in
certain lands in the forks of Oconee and Okmulgee rivers, within the
State of Georgia. For the purpose of enabling you to form a satisfactory
judgment on the subject, it is accompanied with the instructions of
1802, April 12, to James Wilkinson, Benjamin Hawkins, and Andrew
Pickens, commissioners; those of 1803, May 5, to James Wilkinson,
Benjamin Hawkins, and Robert Anderson, commissioners, and those of 1804,
April 2, to Benjamin Hawkins, sole commissioner. The negotiations for
obtaining the whole of the lands between the Oconee and Okmulgee have
now been continued through three successive seasons under the original
instructions and others supplementary to them given from time to time,
as circumstances required, and the unity of the negotiation has been
preserved not only by the subject, but by continuing Colonel Hawkins
always one of the commissioners, and latterly the sole one. The extent
of the cession to be obtained being uncertain, the limitation of price
was what should be thought _reasonable according to the usual rate of
compensation_. The commissioner has been induced to go beyond this
limit probably by the just attentions due to the strong interest which
the State of Georgia feels in making this particular acquisition, and by
a despair of procuring it on more reasonable terms from a tribe which
is one of those most fixed in the policy of holding fast their lands.
To this may be added that if, by an alteration in the first article,
instead of giving them stock which may be passed into other hands and
render them the prey of speculators, an annuity shall be paid them in
this case, as has hitherto been practiced in all similar cases, the
price of these lands will become a pledge and guaranty for our future
peace with this important tribe, and eventually an indemnity for the
breach of it.

On the whole, I rest with entire satisfaction on the wisdom and counsel
of those whose sanctions the Constitution has rendered necessary to the
final validity of this act.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 31, 1804.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The inclosed letter, written from Malta by Richard O'Brien, our late
consul at Algiers, giving some details of transactions before Tripoli,
is communicated for the information of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 31, 1804.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Most of the Indians residing within our northern boundary on this
side of the Mississippi receiving from us annual aids in money and
necessaries, it was a subject of complaint with the Sacs that they
received nothing and were connected with us by no treaty. As they owned
the country in the neighborhood of our settlements of Kaskaskia and St.
Louis, it was thought expedient to engage their friendship, and Governor
Harrison was accordingly instructed in June last to propose to them an
annuity of $500 or $600, stipulating in return an adequate cession of
territory and an exact definition of boundaries. The Sacs and Foxes
acting generally as one nation, and coming forward together, he found
it necessary to add an annuity for the latter tribe also, enlarging
proportionably the cession of territory, which was accordingly done by
the treaty now communicated, of November the 3d, with those two tribes.

This cession, giving us a perfect title to such a breadth of country on
the eastern side of the Mississippi, with a command of the Ouisconsin,
strengthens our means of retaining exclusive commerce with the Indians
on the western side of the Mississippi--a right indispensable to the
policy of governing those Indians by commerce rather than by arms.

The treaty is now submitted to the Senate for their advice and consent.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 31, 1805.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

In compliance with the desire of the House of Representatives, expressed
in their resolution of yesterday, I have to inform them that by a letter
of the 30th of May last from the Secretary of War to Samuel Hammond, a
member of the House, it was proposed to him to accept a commission of
colonel-commandant for the district of Louisiana when the new government
there should commence. By a letter of the 30th of June he signified a
willingness to accept, but still more definitively by one of October 26,
a copy of which is therefore now communicated. A commission had been
made out for him bearing date the ist day of October last, and forwarded
before the receipt of his letter of October 26. No later communication
has been received from him, nor is anything later known of his
movements.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 1, 1805.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

For some weeks past I have had reason to expect by every mail from New
Orleans information which would have fully met the views of the House of
Representatives, expressed in their resolution of December 31, on the
subject of a post-road from the city of Washington to New Orleans; but
this being not yet received, I think it my duty without further delay to
communicate to the House the information I possess, however imperfect.

Isaac Briggs, one of the surveyors-general of the United States, being
about to return in July last to his station at Natchez, and apprised of
the anxiety existing to have a practicable road explored for forwarding
the mail to New Orleans without crossing the mountains, offered his
services voluntarily to return by the route contemplated, taking as
he should go such observations of longitude and latitude as would
enable him to delineate it exactly, and by protraction to show of what
shortenings it would admit, The offer was accepted and he was furnished
with an accurate sextant for his observations. The route proposed was
from Washington by Fredericksburg, Cartersville, Lower Sauratown,
Salisbury, Franklin Court-House in Georgia, Tuckabachee, Fort Stoddert,
and the mouth of Pearl River to New Orleans. It is believed he followed
this route generally, deviating at times only for special purposes, and
returning again into it. His letters, herewith communicated, will
shew his opinion to have been, after completing his journey, that the
practicable distance between Washington and New Orleans will be a little
over 1,000 miles. He expected to forward his map and special report
within one week from the date of his last letter, but a letter of
December 10, from another person, informs me he had been unwell, but
would forward them within a week from that time. So soon as they shall
be received they shall be communicated to the House of Representatives.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 5, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The Secretary of State has lately received a note from the Danish chargé
d'affaires, claiming, _in the name of his Government_, restitution
in the case of the brig _Henrich_, communicated to Congress at a
former session, in which note were transmitted sundry documents chiefly
relating to the value and neutral character of the vessel, and to the
question whether the judicial proceedings were instituted and conducted
without the concurrence of the captain of the _Henrich_. As these
documents appear to form a necessary appendage to those already before
Congress, and throw additional light on the subject, I transmit copies
of them herewith.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 13, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In the message to Congress at the opening of the present session I
informed them that treaties had been entered into with the Delaware and
Piankeshaw Indians for the purchase of their right to certain lands on
the Ohio. I have since received another, entered into with the Sacs and
Foxes, for a portion of country on both sides of the river Mississippi.
These treaties, having been advised and consented to by the Senate, have
accordingly been ratified, but as they involve conditions which require
legislative provision, they are now submitted to both branches for
consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 20, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I communicate, for the information of Congress, a letter of September 18
from Commodore Preble, giving a detailed account of the transactions of
the vessels under his command from July the 9th to the 10th of September
last past.

The energy and judgment displayed by this excellent officer through the
whole course of the service lately confided to him and the zeal and
valor of his officers and men in the several enterprises executed by
them can not fail to give high satisfaction to Congress and their
country, of whom they have deserved well.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 28, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States, according to the returns last received from the several States.
It will be perceived that some of these are not of recent dates, and
that from the States of Maryland, Delaware, and Tennessee no returns are
stated. As far as appears from our records, none were ever rendered from
either of these States.

TH. JEFFERSON.



FEBRUARY 28, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now render to Congress the account of the fund established by the act
of May 1, 1802, for defraying the contingent charges of Government. No
occasion having arisen for making use of any part of the balance of
$18,560 unexpended on the 31st day of December, 1803, when the last
account was rendered by message, that balance has been carried to the
credit of the surplus fund.

TH. JEFFERSON.




SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.


Proceeding, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the
Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again conferred
on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new
proof of confidence from my fellow-citizens at large, and the zeal with
which it inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just
expectations.

On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the principles
on which I believed it my duty to administer the affairs of our
Commonwealth. My conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted
up to that declaration according to its obvious import and to the
understanding of every candid mind.

In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to
cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of those with
which we have the most important relations. We have clone them justice
on all occasions, favored where favor was lawful, and cherished mutual
interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly
convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with
individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found
inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the
fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had
to armaments and wars to bridle others.

At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or
ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments
and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These,
covering our land with officers and opening our doors to their
intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which
once entered is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively
every article of property and produce. If among these taxes some minor
ones fell which had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount
would not have paid the officers who collected them, and because, if
they had any merit, the State authorities might adopt them instead of
others less approved.

The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid
chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic
comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and,
incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be
the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what
mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States?
These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the
Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the
native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to
apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their
final redemption, and that redemption once effected the revenue thereby
liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a
corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied _in time
of peace_ to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education,
and other great objects within each State. _In time of war_, if
injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased
as the same revenue will be by increased population and consumption, and
aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within
the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights
of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War
will then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state
of peace a return to the progress of improvement.

I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had enabled us to
extend our limits, but that extension may possibly pay for itself before
we are called on, and in the meantime may keep down the accruing
interest; in all events, it will replace the advances we shall have
made. I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by
some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory
would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the
federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association
the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not
better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by
our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? With
which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly
intercourse?

In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is
placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General
Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe
the religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the
Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the
church or state authorities acknowledged by the several religious
societies.

The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the
commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the
rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and
occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the
stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on
these shores; without power to divert or habits to contend against
it, they have been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it;
now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity
enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage
them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their
place in existence and to prepare them in time for that state of society
which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We
have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry
and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of
first necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of the law against
aggressors from among ourselves.

But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their
present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow
its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances
have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits
of their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the
influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel
themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become
nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence
for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be
done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance
under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is
perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made
them, ignorance being safety and knowledge full of danger; in short,
my friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of
good sense and of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who
find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread
reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of
habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates.

In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to
myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place, to
the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of
public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due
to the sound discretion with which they select from among themselves
those to whom they confide the legislative duties. It is due to the zeal
and wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of
public happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains
for others, and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose
patriotism has associated them with me in the executive functions.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it,
the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with
whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of
an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be
regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap
its safety. They might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome
punishments reserved to and provided by the laws of the several States
against falsehood and defamation, but public duties more urgent press on
the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left
to find their punishment in the public indignation.

Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be
fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power,
is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth--whether
a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution,
with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling
the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and
defamation. The experiment has been tried: you have witnessed the scene;
our fellow-citizens looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent
source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their
public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the
decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those
who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who believes
that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs.

No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States
against false and defamatory publications should not be enforced; he
who has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity
in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but
the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth and reason have
maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false
facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint;
the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a
full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn
between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing
licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would
not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public
opinion.

Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally as
auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to our
country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet rallied to
the same point the disposition to do so is gaining strength; facts are
piercing through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren
will at length see that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they
can not yet resolve to act as to principles and measures, think as they
think and desire what they desire; that our wish as well as theirs is
that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good,
that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law
and order preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state of
property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own
industry or that of his father's. When satisfied of these views it is
not in human nature that they should not approve and support them. In
the meantime let us cherish them with patient affection, let us do them
justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of interest, and we
need not doubt that truth, reason, and their own interests will at
length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, and
will complete that entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the
blessing of harmony and the benefit of all its strength.

I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have again
called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which
they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me
astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from
the path of justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits
of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes
injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence
which I have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of
it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need, too,
the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as
Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country
flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered
our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and
power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with
me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their
councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall
result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship,
and approbation of all nations.

MARCH 4, 1805.




FIFTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.


DECEMBER 3, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_.

At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming
against each other, and when those with whom we have principal
intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance
of some of them toward our peaceable country threatens that even that
may not be unaffected by what is passing on the general theater, a
meeting of the representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress
has become more than usually desirable. Coming from every section of our
country, they bring with them the sentiments and the information of the
whole, and will be enabled to give a direction to the public affairs
which the will and the wisdom of the whole will approve and support.

In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place
notice the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever
which in latter times has occasionally visited our shores. Providence in
His goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened
the number of victims which have usually fallen before it. In the course
of the several visitations by this disease it has appeared that it
is strictly local, incident to cities and on the tide waters only,
incommunicable in the country either by persons under the disease or by
goods carried from diseased places; that its access is with the autumn
and it disappears with the early frosts. These restrictions within
narrow limits of time and space give security even to our maritime
cities during three-fourths of the year, and to the country always.
Although from these facts it appears unnecessary, yet to satisfy the
fears of foreign nations and cautions on their part not to be complained
of in a danger whose limits are yet unknown to them I have strictly
enjoined on the officers at the head of the customs to certify with
exact truth for every vessel sailing for a foreign port the state of
health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she
sails. Under every motive from character and duty to certify the truth,
I have no doubt they have faithfully executed this injunction. Much real
injury has, however, been sustained from a propensity to identify with
this endemic and to call by the same name fevers of very different
kinds, which have been known at all times and in all countries, and
never have been placed among those deemed contagious. As we advance in
our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the source from which
individuals receive it, the State authorities charged with the care of
the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce, will
become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in these
departments. The burthen of quarantines is felt at home as well as
abroad; their efficacy merits examination. Although the health laws of
the States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet
commerce claims that their attention be ever awake to them.

Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has
considerably changed. Our coasts have been infested and our harbors
watched by private armed vessels, some of them without commissions,
some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but
committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their commissions.
They have captured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as
on the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade
with us, but our own also. They have carried them off under pretense of
legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a court of justice, they
have plundered and sunk them by the way or in obscure places where no
evidence could arise against them, maltreated the crews, and abandoned
them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores without food or
covering. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any control of
their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within
our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering
on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to bring the
offenders in for trial as pirates.

The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors under color of
seeking enemies has been also carried on by public armed ships to the
great annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too,
have been interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in
justice nor the usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these
a belligerent takes to itself a commerce with its own enemy which it
denies to a neutral on the ground of its aiding that enemy in the war;
but reason revolts at such an inconsistency, and the neutral having
equal right with the belligerent to decide the question, the interests
of our constituents and the duty of maintaining the authority of reason,
the only umpire between just nations, impose on us the obligation of
providing an effectual and determined opposition to a doctrine so
injurious to the rights of peaceable nations. Indeed, the confidence
we ought to have in the justice of others still countenances the hope
that a sounder view of those rights will of itself induce from every
belligerent a more correct observance of them.

With Spain our negotiations for a settlement of differences have not
had a satisfactory issue. Spoliations during a former war, for which
she had formally acknowledged herself responsible, have been refused
to be compensated but on conditions affecting other claims in no wise
connected with them. Yet the same practices are renewed in the present
war and are already of great amount. On the Mobile, our commerce passing
through that river continues to be obstructed by arbitrary duties and
vexatious searches. Propositions for adjusting amicably the boundaries
of Louisiana have not been acceded to. While, however, the right is
unsettled, we have avoided changing the state of things by taking new
posts or strengthening ourselves in the disputed territories, in the
hope that the other power would not by a contrary conduct oblige us to
meet their example and endanger conflicts of authority the issue of
which may not be easily controlled. But in this hope we have now reason
to lessen our confidence. Inroads have been recently made into the
Territories of Orleans and the Mississippi, our citizens have been
seized and their property plundered in the very parts of the former
which had been actually delivered up by Spain, and this by the regular
officers and soldiers of that Government. I have therefore found it
necessary at length to give orders to our troops on that frontier to be
in readiness to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms any similar
aggressions in future. Other details necessary for your full information
of the state of things between this country and that shall be the
subject of another communication.

In reviewing these injuries from some of the belligerent powers the
moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom of the Legislature will all be
called into action. We ought still to hope that time and a more correct
estimate of interest as well as of character will produce the justice
we are bound to expect. But should any nation deceive itself by false
calculations, and disappoint that expectation, we must join in the
unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other the most
harm. Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where
that is competent it is always the most desirable. But some of them are
of a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it.
I can not, therefore, but recommend such preparations as circumstances
call for. The first object is to place our seaport towns out of the
danger of insult. Measures have been already taken for furnishing them
with heavy cannon for the service of such land batteries as may make a
part of their defense against armed vessels approaching them. In aid of
these it is desirable we should have a competent number of gunboats, and
the number, to be competent, must be considerable. If immediately begun,
they may be in readiness for service at the opening of the next season.
Whether it will be necessary to augment our land forces will be decided
by occurrences probably in the course of your session. In the meantime
you will consider whether it would not be expedient for a state of peace
as well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable
us on any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger
portions, unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward
of 300,000 able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years, which
the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will furnish
a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they may
be wanted, and will give time for raising regular forces after the
necessity of them shall become certain; and the reducing to the early
period of life all its active service can not but be desirable to our
younger citizens of the present as well as future times, inasmuch as it
engages to them in more advanced age a quiet and undisturbed repose in
the bosom of their families. I can not, then, but earnestly recommend
to your early consideration the expediency of so modifying our militia
system as, by a separation of the more active part from that which is
less so, we may draw from it when necessary an efficient corps fit for
real and active service, and to be called to it in regular rotation.

Considerable provision has been made under former authorities from
Congress of materials for the construction of ships of war of 74 guns.
These materials are on hand subject to the further will of the
Legislature.

An immediate prohibition of the exportation of arms and ammunition is
also submitted to your determination.

Turning from these unpleasant views of violence and wrong, I
congratulate you on the liberation of our fellow-citizens who were
stranded on the coast of Tripoli and made prisoners of war. In a
government bottomed on the will of all the life and liberty of every
individual citizen become interesting to all. In the treaty, therefore,
which has concluded our warfare with that State an article for the
ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation by land by a
small band of our countrymen and others, engaged for the occasion in
conjunction with the troops of the ex-Bashaw of that country, gallantly
conducted by our late consul, Eaton, and their successful enterprise
on the city of Derne, contributed doubtless to the impression which
produced peace, and the conclusion of this prevented opportunities of
which the officers and men of our squadron destined for Tripoli would
have availed themselves to emulate the acts of valor exhibited by
their brethren in the attack of the last year. Reflecting with high
satisfaction on the distinguished bravery displayed whenever occasions
permitted in the late Mediterranean service, I think it would be an
useful encouragement as well as a just reward to make an opening for
some present promotion by enlarging our peace establishment of captains
and lieutenants.

With Tunis some misunderstandings have arisen not yet sufficiently
explained, but friendly discussions with their ambassador recently
arrived and a mutual disposition to do whatever is just and reasonable
can not fail of dissipating these, so that we may consider our peace on
that coast, generally, to be on as sound a footing as it has been at any
preceding time. Still, it will not be expedient to withdraw immediately
the whole of our force from that sea.

The law providing for a naval peace establishment fixes the number of
frigates which shall be kept in constant service in time of peace, and
prescribes that they shall be manned by not more than two-thirds of
their complement of seamen and ordinary seamen. Whether a frigate may
be trusted to two-thirds only of her proper complement of men must
depend on the nature of the service on which she is ordered; that may
sometimes, for her safety as well as to insure her object, require her
fullest complement. In adverting to this subject Congress will perhaps
consider whether the best limitation on the Executive discretion in
this case would not be by the number of seamen which may be employed in
the whole service rather than by the number of the vessels. Occasions
oftener arise for the employment of small than of large vessels, and it
would lessen risk as well as expense to be authorized to employ them of
preference. The limitation suggested by the number of seamen would admit
a selection of vessels best adapted to the service.

Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them with spirit, and
others beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household
manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields
subsistence with less labor and more certainty than the forest, and find
it their interest from time to time to dispose of parts of their surplus
and waste lands for the means of improving those they occupy and of
subsisting their families while they are preparing their farms. Since
your last session the Northern tribes have sold to us the lands between
the Connecticut Reserve and the former Indian boundary and those on the
Ohio from the same boundary to the rapids and for a considerable depth
inland. The Chickasaws and Cherokees have sold us the country between
and adjacent to the two districts of Tennessee, and the Creeks the
residue of their lands in the fork of Ocmulgee up to the Ulcofauhatche.
The three former purchases are important, inasmuch as they consolidate
disjoined parts of our settled country and render their intercourse
secure; and the second particularly so, as, with the small point on
the river which we expect is by this time ceded by the Piankeshaws, it
completes our possession of the whole of both banks of the Ohio from its
source to near its mouth, and the navigation of that river is thereby
rendered forever safe to our citizens settled and settling on its
extensive waters. The purchase from the Creeks, too, has been for some
time particularly interesting to the State of Georgia.

The several treaties which have been mentioned will be submitted to both
Houses of Congress for the exercise of their respective functions.

Deputations now on their way to the seat of Government from various
nations of Indians inhabiting the Missouri and other parts beyond the
Mississippi come charged with assurances of their satisfaction with the
new relations in which they are placed with us, of their dispositions
to cultivate our peace and friendship, and their desire to enter into
commercial intercourse with us. A state of our progress in exploring the
principal rivers of that country, and of the information respecting them
hitherto obtained, will be communicated so soon as we shall receive some
further relations which we have reason shortly to expect.

The receipts at the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of
September last have exceeded the sum of $13,000,000, which, with not
quite five millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have
enabled us after meeting other demands to pay nearly two millions of the
debt contracted under the British treaty and convention, upward of four
millions of principal of the public debt, and four millions of interest.
These payments, with those which had been made in three years and a half
preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly eighteen millions
of principal. Congress by their act of November 10, 1803, authorized us
to borrow $1,750,000 toward meeting the claims of our citizens assumed
by the convention with France. We have not, however, made use of this
authority, because the sum of four millions and a half, which remained
in the Treasury on the same 30th day of September last, with the
receipts which we may calculate on for the ensuing year, besides paying
the annual sum of $8,000,000 appropriated to the funded debt and meeting
all the current demands which may be expected, will enable us to pay
the whole sum of $3,750,000 assumed by the French convention and still
leave us a surplus of nearly $1,000,000 at our free disposal. Should
you concur in the provisions of arms and armed vessels recommended by
the circumstances of the times, this surplus will furnish the means of
doing so.

On this first occasion of addressing Congress since, by the choice of
my constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I
embrace the opportunity to give this public assurance that I will exert
my best endeavors to administer faithfully the executive department,
and will zealously cooperate with you in every measure which may
tend to secure the liberty, property, and personal safety of our
fellow-citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms and principles
of our Government.

In the course of your session you shall receive all the aid which I
can give for the dispatch of public business, and all the information
necessary for your deliberations, of which the interests of our own
country and the confidence reposed in us by others will admit a
communication.

TH. JEFFERSON.




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


DECEMBER 6, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The depredations which had been committed on the commerce of the United
States during a preceding war by persons under the authority of Spain
are sufficiently known to all. These made it a duty to require from that
Government indemnifications for our injured citizens. A convention was
accordingly entered into between the minister of the United States at
Madrid and the minister of that Government for foreign affairs, by which
it was agreed that spoliations committed by Spanish subjects and carried
into ports of Spain should be paid for by that nation, and that those
committed by French subjects and carried into Spanish ports should
remain for further discussion. Before this convention was returned
to Spain with our ratification the transfer of Louisiana by France to
the United States took place, an event as unexpected as disagreeable
to Spain. From that moment she seemed to change her conduct and
dispositions toward us. It was first manifested by her protest against
the right of France to alienate Louisiana to us, which, however, was
soon retracted and the right confirmed. Then high offense was manifested
at the act of Congress establishing a collection district on the Mobile,
although by an authentic declaration immediately made it was expressly
confined to our acknowledged limits; and she now refused to ratify the
convention signed by her own minister under the eye of his Sovereign
unless we would consent to alterations of its terms which would have
affected our claims against her for the spoliations by French subjects
carried into Spanish ports.

To obtain justice as well as to restore friendship I thought a special
mission advisable, and accordingly appointed James Monroe minister
extraordinary and plenipotentiary to repair to Madrid, and in
conjunction with our minister resident there to endeavor to procure a
ratification of the former convention and to come to an understanding
with Spain as to the boundaries of Louisiana. It appeared at once that
her policy was to reserve herself for events, and in the meantime to
keep our differences in an undetermined state. This will be evident
from the papers now communicated to you. After nearly five months of
fruitless endeavor to bring them to some definite and satisfactory
result, our ministers ended the conferences without having been able to
obtain indemnity for spoliations of any description or any satisfaction
as to the boundaries of Louisiana, other than a declaration that we had
no rights eastward of the Iberville, and that our line to the west was
one which would have left us but a string of land on that bank of the
river Mississippi. Our injured citizens were thus left without any
prospect of retribution from the wrongdoer, and as to boundary each
party was to take its own course. That which they have chosen to pursue
will appear from the documents now communicated. They authorize the
inference that it is their intention to advance on our possessions until
they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress
alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our
condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their
authority for using force in any degree which could be avoided. I have
barely instructed the officers stationed in the neighborhood of the
aggressions to protect our citizens from violence, to patrol within the
borders actually delivered to us, and not to go out of them but when
necessary to repel an inroad or to rescue a citizen or his property; and
the Spanish officers remaining at New Orleans are required to depart
without further delay. It ought to be noted here that since the late
change in the state of affairs in Europe Spain has ordered her cruisers
and courts to respect our treaty with her.

The conduct of France and the part she may take in the misunderstandings
between the United States and Spain are too important to be
unconsidered. She was prompt and decided in her declarations that our
demands on Spain for French spoliations carried into Spanish ports were
included in the settlement between the United States and France. She
took at once the ground that she had acquired no right from Spain, and
had meant to deliver us none eastward of the Iberville, her silence as
to the western boundary leaving us to infer her opinion might be against
Spain in that quarter. Whatever direction she might mean to give to
these differences, it does not appear that she has contemplated their
proceeding to actual rupture, or that at the date of our last advices
from Paris her Government had any suspicion of the hostile attitude
Spain had taken here; on the contrary, we have reason to believe that
she was disposed to effect a settlement on a plan analogous to what our
ministers had proposed, and so comprehensive as to remove as far as
possible the grounds of future collision and controversy on the eastern
as well as western side of the Mississippi.

The present crisis in Europe is favorable for pressing such a
settlement, and not a moment should be lost in availing ourselves of
it. Should it pass unimproved, our situation would become much more
difficult. Formal war is not necessary--it is not probable it will
follow; but the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our
country require that force should be interposed to a certain degree it
will probably contribute to advance the object of peace,

But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which
it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I
communicate every fact material for their information and the documents
necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then,
I look for the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal
that which they shall approve.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 11, 1805.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I now lay before the Senate the several treaties and conventions
following, which have been entered into on the part of the United
States since their last session:

1. A treaty of peace and amity between the United States of America
and the Bashaw, Bey, and subjects of Tripoli, in Barbary.

2. A treaty between the United States and the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa,
Munsee, and Delaware, Shawnee, and Potawatamie nations of Indians.

3. A treaty between the United States and the agents of the Connecticut
Land Companies on one part and the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee,
and Delaware, Shawnee, and Potawatamie nations of Indians.

4. A treaty between the United States and the Delawares, Potawatamies,
Miamis, Eel-rivers, and Weeas.

5. A treaty between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation of
Indians.

6. A treaty between the United States of America and the Cherokee
Indians.

7. A convention between the United States and the Creek Nation of
Indians; with the several documents necessary for their explanation.

The Senate having dissented to the ratification of the treaty with the
Creeks submitted to them at their last session, which gave a sum of
$200,000 for the country thereby conveyed, it is proper now to observe
that instead of that sum, which was equivalent to a perpetual annuity of
$12,000, the present purchase gives them an annuity of $12,000 for eight
years only and of $11,000 for ten years more, the payments of which
would be effected by a present sum of $130,000 placed at an annual
interest of 6 per cent. If from this sum we deduct the reasonable
value of the road ceded through the whole length of their country from
Ocmulgee toward New Orleans, a road of indispensable necessity to us,
the present convention will be found to give little more than the half
of the sum which was formerly proposed to be given. This difference is
thought sufficient to justify the presenting this subject a second time
to the Senate. On these several treaties I have to request that the
Senate will advise whether I shall ratify them or not.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DECEMBER 23, 1805.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The governor and presiding judge of the Territory of Michigan have made
a report to me of the state of that Territory, several matters in which
being within the reach of the legislative authority only, I lay the
report before Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.



DEC

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