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