The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE. |
 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
On our present meeting it is my first duty to invite your
attention to the providential favors which our country has
experienced in the unusual degree of health dispensed to its
inhabitants, and in the rich abundance with which the earth
has rewarded the labors bestowed on it. In the successful
cultivation of other branches of industry, and in the progress
of general improvement favorable to the national prosperity,
there is just occasion also for our mutual congratulations and
thankfulness.
With these blessings are necessarily mingled the pressures
and vicissitudes incident to the state of war into which the
United States have been forced by the perseverance of a foreign
power in its system of injustice and aggression.
Previous to its declaration it was deemed proper, as a
measure of precaution and forecast, that a considerable force
should be placed in the Michigan Territory with a general view
to its security, and, in the event of war, to such operations
in the uppermost Canada as would intercept the hostile
influence of Great Britain over the savages, obtain the command
of the lake on which that part of Canada borders, and
maintain coöperating relations with such forces as might be
most conveniently employed against other parts. Brigadier-General
Hull was charged with this provisional service, having
under his command a body of troops composed of regulars and
of volunteers from the State of Ohio. Having reached his
destination after his knowledge of the war, and possessing
discretionary authority to act offensively, he passed into the
neighboring territory of the enemy with a prospect of easy
and victorious progress. The expedition, nevertheless, terminated
unfortunately, not only in a retreat to the town and
fort of Detroit, but in the surrender of both and of the gallant
corps commanded by that officer. The causes of this painful
reverse will be investigated by a military tribunal.
A distinguishing feature in the operations which preceded
and followed this adverse event is the use made by the enemy
of the merciless savages under their influence. Whilst the
benevolent policy of the United States invariably recommended
peace and promoted civilization among that wretched portion
of the human race, and was making exertions to dissuade them
from taking either side in the war, the enemy has not scrupled
to call to his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horror
of those instruments of carnage and torture which are known
to spare neither age nor sex. In this outrage against the laws
of honorable war and against the feelings sacred to humanity
the British commanders can not resort to a plea of retaliation,
for it is committed in the face of our example. They can not
mitigate it by calling it a self-defense against men in arms,
for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless
families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable
with a knowledge, and even with menaces, that their fury
could not be controlled. Such is the spectacle which the
deputed authorities of a nation boasting its religion and
morality have not been restrained from presenting to an
enlightened age.
The misfortune at Detroit was not, however, without a consoling
effect. It was followed by signal proofs that the national
spirit rises according to the pressure on it. The loss of an
important post and of the brave men surrendered with it
inspired everywhere new ardor and determination. In the
States and districts least remote it was no sooner known
than every citizen was ready to fly with his arms at once to
protect his brethren against the blood-thirsty savages let
loose by the enemy on an extensive frontier, and to convert
a partial calamity into a course of invigorated efforts. This
patriotic zeal, which it was necessary rather to limit than
excite, has embodied an ample force from the States of
Kentucky and Ohio and from parts of Pennsylvania and
Virginia. It is placed, with the addition of a few regulars,
under the command of Brigadier-General Harrison, who possesses
the entire confidence of his fellow-soldiers, among whom
are citizens, some of them volunteers in the ranks, not less
distinguished by their political stations than by their personal
merits.
The greater portion of this force is proceeding on its destination
toward the Michigan Territory, having succeeded in
relieving an important frontier post, and in several incidental
operations against hostile tribes of savages, rendered indispensable
by the subserviency into which they had been seduced by
the enemy—a seduction the more cruel as it could not fail
to impose a necessity of precautionary severities against those
who yielded to it.
At a recent date an attack was made on a post of the enemy
near Niagara by a detachment of the regular and other forces
under the command of Major-General Van Rensselaer, of the
ordered in compliance with the ardor of the troops, who
executed it with distinguished gallantry, and were for a time
victorious; but not receiving the expected support, they
were compelled to yield to reenforcements of British regulars
and savages. Our loss has been considerable, and is deeply
to be lamented. That of the enemy, less ascertained, will
be the more felt, as it includes among the killed the commanding
general, who was also the governor of the Province, and
was sustained by veteran troops from unexperienced soldiers,
who must daily improve in the duties of the field.
Our expectation of gaining the command of the Lakes by
the invasion of Canada from Detroit having been disappointed,
measures were instantly taken to provide on them a naval
force superior to that of the enemy. From the talents and
activity of the officer charged with this object everything
that can be done may be expected. Should the present season
not admit of complete success, the progress made will insure
for the next a naval ascendency where it is essential to our
permanent peace with and control over the savages.
Among the incidents to the measures of the war I am constrained
to advert to the refusal of the governors of Massachusetts
and Connecticut to furnish the required detachments
of militia toward the defense of the maritime frontier. The
refusal was founded on a novel and unfortunate exposition
of the provisions of the Constitution relating to the militia.
The correspondences which will be laid before you contain the
requisite information on the subject. It is obvious that if
the authority of the United States to call into service and
command the militia for the public defense can be thus frustrated,
even in a state of declared war and of course under
apprehensions of invasion preceding war, they are not one
nation for the purpose most of all requiring it, and that the
public safety may have no other resource than in those large
and permanent military establishments which are forbidden
by the principles of our free government, and against the
bulwark.
On the coasts and on the ocean the war has been as successful
as circumstances inseparable from its early stages could
promise. Our public ships and private cruisers, by their
activity, and, where there was occasion, by their intrepidity,
have made the enemy sensible of the difference between a
reciprocity of captures and the long confinement of them
to their side. Our trade, with little exception, has safely
reached our ports, having been much favored in it by the course
pursued by a squadron of our frigates under the command
of Commodore Rodgers, and in the instance in which skill
and bravery were more particularly tried with those of the
enemy the American flag had an auspicious triumph. The
frigate Constitution, commanded by Captain Hull, after a
close and short engagement completely disabled and captured
a British frigate, gaining for that officer and all on board a
praise which can not be too liberally bestowed, not merely
for the victory actually achieved, but for that prompt and
cool exertion of commanding talents which, giving to courage
its highest character, and to the force applied its full effect,
proved that more could have been done in a contest requiring
more.
Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war can
not be exempt, I lost no time after it was declared in conveying
to the British Government the terms on which its progress
might be arrested, without awaiting the delays of a formal and
final pacification, and our chargé d'affaires at London was
at the same time authorized to agree to an armistice founded
upon them. These terms required that the orders in council
should be repealed as they affected the United States, without
a revival of blockades violating acknowledged rules, and that
there should be an immediate discharge of American seamen
from British ships, and a stop to impressment from American
ships, with an understanding that an exclusion of the seamen
of each nation from the ships of the other should be stipulated,
and comprehensive adjustment of depending controversies.
Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations
meeting the views of this Government had taken place before
this pacific advance was communicated to that of Great
Britain, the advance was declined from an avowed repugnance
to a suspension of the practice of impressments during the
armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement
proposed with respect to seamen would be accepted. Whether
the subsequent communications from this Government, affording
an occasion for reconsidering the subject on the part of
Great Britain, will be viewed in a more favorable light or
received in a more accommodating spirit remains to be known.
It would be unwise to relax our measures in any respect on a
presumption of such a result.
The documents from the Department of State which relate
to this subject will give a view also of the propositions
for an armistice which have been received here, one of them
from the authorities at Halifax and in Canada, the other from
the British Government itself through Admiral Warren, and
of the grounds on which neither of them could be accepted.
Our affairs with France retain the posture which they held
at my last communications to you. Notwithstanding the
authorized expectations of an early as well as favorable
issue to the discussions on foot, these have been procrastinated
to the latest date. The only intervening occurrence meriting
attention is the promulgation of a French decree purporting
to be a definitive repeal to the Berlin and Milan decrees. This
proceeding, although made the ground of the repeal of the
British orders in council, is rendered by the time and manner
of it liable to many objections.
The final communications from our special minister to
Denmark afford further proofs of the good effects of his
mission, and of the amicable disposition of the Danish Government.
From Russia we have the satisfaction to receive assurances
of continued friendship, and that it will not be affected
Sweden also professes sentiments favorable to the subsisting
harmony.
With the Barbary Powers, excepting that of Algiers, our
affairs remain on the ordinary footing. The consul-general
residing with that Regency has suddenly and without cause
been banished, together with all the American citizens found
there. Whether this was the transitory effect of capricious
despotism or the first act of predetermined hostility is not
ascertained. Precautions were taken by the consul on the
latter supposition.
The Indian tribes not under foreign instigations remain at
peace, and receive the civilizing attentions which have proved
so beneficial to them.
With a view to that vigorous prosecution of the war to
which our national faculties are adequate, the attention of
Congress will be particularly drawn to the insufficiency of
existing provisions for filling up the military establishment.
Such is the happy condition of our country, arising from the
facility of subsistence and the high wages for every species of
occupation, that notwithstanding the augmented inducements
provided at the last session, a partial success only has
attended the recruiting service. The deficiency has been
necessarily supplied during the campaign by other than
regular troops, with all the inconveniences and expense incident
to them. The remedy lies in establishing more favorably for
the private soldier the proportion between this recompense and
the term of his enlistment, and it is a subject which can not
too soon or too seriously be taken into consideration.
The same insufficiency has been experienced in the provisions
for volunteers made by an act of the last session.
The recompense for the service required in this case is still
less attractive than in the other, and although patriotism
alone has sent into the field some valuable corps of that
description, those alone who can afford the sacrifice can be
reasonably expected to yield to that impulse.
It will merit consideration also whether as auxiliary to the
security of our frontier corps may not be advantageously
organized with a restriction of their services to particular
districts convenient to them, and whether the local and occasional
services of mariners and others in the seaport towns
under a similar organization would not be a provident addition
to the means of their defense.
I recommend a provision for an increase of the general
officers of the Army, the deficiency of which has been illustrated
by the number and distance of separate commands
which the course of the war and the advantage of the service
have required.
And I cannot press too strongly on the earliest attention
of the Legislature the importance of the reorganization of the
staff establishment with a view to render more distinct and
definite the relations and responsibilities of its several departments.
That there is room for improvements which will
materially promote both economy and success in what appertains
to the Army and the war is equally inculcated by the
examples of other countries and by the experience of our
own.
A revision of the militia laws for the purpose of rendering
them more systematic and better adapting them to emergencies
of the war is at this time particularly desirable.
Of the additional ships authorized to be fitted for service,
two will be shortly ready to sail, a third is under repair, and
delay will be avoided in the repair of the residue. Of the
appropriations for the purchase of materials for shipbuilding,
the greater part has been applied to that object and the
purchase will be continued with the balance.
The enterprising spirit which has characterized our naval
force and its success, both in restraining insults and depredations
on our coasts and in reprisals on the enemy, will not fail
to recommend an enlargement of it.
There being reason to believe that the act prohibiting the
acceptance of British licences is not a sufficient guard against
views of the enemy, further provisions on that subject are
highly important. Nor is it less so that penal enactments
should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious intercourse
with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet
embraced by any statutory provisions.
A considerable number of American vessels which were in
England when the revocation of the orders in council took
place were laden with British manufactures under the erroneous
impression that the nonimportation act would immediately
cease to operate, and have arrived in the United States. It did
not appear proper to exercise on unforeseen cases of such
magnitude the ordinary powers vested in the Treasury Department
to mitigate forfeitures without previously affording
to Congress an opportunity of making on the subject such
provision as they may think proper. In their decision they
will doubtless equally consult what is due to equitable considerations
and to the public interest.
The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending
on the 30th of September last have exceeded $16,500,000,
which have been sufficient to defray all the demands on the
Treasury to that day, including a necessary reimbursement
of near three millions of the principal of the public debt.
In these receipts is included a sum of near $5,850,000, received
on account of the loans authorized by the acts of the last session;
the whole sum actually obtained on loan amounts to
$11,000,000, the residue of which, being receivable subsequent
to the 30th of September last, will, together with the current
revenue, enable us to defray all the expenses of this year.
The duties on the late unexpected importations of British
manufactures will render the revenue of the ensuing year
more productive than could have been anticipated.
The situation of our country, fellow-citizens, is not without
its difficulties, though it abounds in animating considerations,
of which the view here presented of our pecuniary resources
is an example. With more than one nation we have serious
means and habits of war, we are at war. The spirit and
strength of the nation are nevertheless equal to the support
of all its rights, and to carry it through all its trials. They
can be met in that confidence. Above all, we have the inestimable
consolation of knowing that the war in which we
are actually engaged is a war neither of ambition nor of
vainglory; that it is waged not in violation of the rights of
others, but in the maintenance of our own; that it was preceded
by a patience without example under wrongs accumulating
without end, and that it was finally not declared
until every hope of averting it was extinguished by the transfer
of the British scepter into new hands clinging to former
councils, and until declarations were reiterated to the last
hour, through the British envoy here, that the hostile edicts
against our commercial rights and our maritime independence
would not be revoked; nay, that they could not be revoked
without violating the obligations of Great Britain to other
powers, as well as to her own interests. To have shrunk
under such circumstances from manly resistance would
have been a degradation blasting our best and proudest
hopes; it would have struck us from the high rank where
the virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and have
betrayed the magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for
future generations. It would have acknowledged that on
the element which forms three-fourths of the globe we inhabit,
and where all independent nations have equal and common
rights, the American people were not an independent people,
but colonists and vassals. It was at this moment and with
such an alternative that war was chosen. The nation felt the
necessity of it, and called for it. The appeal was accordingly
made, in a just cause, to the Just and All-powerful Being
who holds in His hand the chain of events and the destiny
of nations. It remains only that, faithful to ourselves,
entangled in no connections with the views of other powers,
and ever ready to accept peace from the hand of justice,
ample faculties of the nation until peace be so obtained and
as the only means under the Divine blessing of speedily
obtaining it.
| The writings of James Madison, | |