Message of the President of the United States to the Twentieth Congress.Second Session. Fellow Citizens of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives: If the enjoyment in profusion of the bounties of Providence forms a suitable subject of mutual gratulation and grateful acknowledgment, we are admonished, at this return of the season, when the representatives of the nation are assembled to deliberate upon their concerns, to offer up the tribute of fervent and grateful hearts, for the neverfailing mercies of Him who ruleth over all. He has again favoured us with healthful seasons, and abundant harvests. He has sustained us in peace with foreign countries, and in tranquillity within our borders. He has preserved us in the quiet and undisturbed possession of civil and religious liberty. He has crowned the year with his goodness, imposing on us no other conditions than of improving for our own happiness the blessings bestowed by his hands; and in the fruition of all his favours, of devoting the faculties with which we have been endowed by him, to his glory, and to our own temporal and eternal welfare. In the relations of our federal Union with our brethren of the human race, the changes which have occurred since the close of your last session, have generally tended to the preservation of peace, and to the cultivation of harmony. Before your last separation, a war had unhappily been kindled between the empire of Russia, one of those with which our intercourse has been no other than a constant exchange of good offices, and that of the Ottoman Porte, a nation from which geographical distance, religious opinions, and maxims of government on their part, little suited to the formation of those bonds of mutual benevolence which result from the benefits of commerce, had kept us in a state, perhaps too much prolonged, of cold. ness and alienation. The extensive, fertile, and populous domi. nions of the Sultan, belong rather to the Asiatic, than the European division of the human family. They enter but partially into the system of Europe; nor have their wars with Russia and Austria, the European states upon which they border, for more than a century past, disturbed the pacific relations of those states with the other great powers of Europe. Neither France, nor Prussia, nor Great Britain, has ever taken part in them, nor is it to be expected that they will at this time. The declaration of war by Russia has received the approbation or acquiescence of her allies, and we may indulge the hope that its progress and termination will be signalized by the moderation and forbearance, no less than by the energy of the Emperor Nicholas, and that it will afford the opportunity for such collateral agency in behalf of the suffering Greeks, as will secure to them ultimately the triumph of humanity, and of freedom. The state of our particular relations with France has scarcely varied in the course of the present year. The commercial intercourse between the two countries has con tinued to increase for the mutual benefit of both. The claims of indemnity to numbers of our fellow citizens for depredations upon their property, heretofore committed, during the revolutionary governments, still remain unadjusted, and still form the subject of earnest representation and remonstrance. Recent advices from the minister of the United States at Paris, encourage the expectation that the appeal to the justice of the French government will ere long receive a favourable consideration. The last friendly expedient has been resorted to for the decision of the controversy with Great Britain, relating to the northeastern boundary of the United States. By an agreement with the British govern. ment, carrying into effect the provisions of the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, and the convention of 20th September, 1827, his majesty, the king of the Netherlands, has, by common consent, been selected as the umpire between the parties. The proposal to him to accept the designation for the performance of this friendly office, will be made at an early day, and the United States, relying upon the justice of their cause, will cheerfully commit the arbitrament of it to a prince equally distinguished for the independence of his spirit, his indefatigable assiduity to the duties of his station, and his inflexible personal probity. Our commercial relations with Great Britain will deserve the serious consideration of Congress, and the exercise of a conciliatory and forbearing spirit in the policy of both governments. The state of them has been materially changed by the act of Congress passed at their last session, in alte ration of the several aets imposing duties on imports, and by acts of more recent date of the British Parliament. The effect of the interdiction of direct trade, commenced by Great Britain and reciprocated by the United States, has been, as was to be foreseen, only to substitute different channels for an exchange of commodities indispensable to the colonies, and profitable to a numerous class of our fellow citizens. The exports, the revenue, the navigation of the United States, have suffered no diminution by our exclusion from direct access to the British colonies. The colonies pay more dearly for the necessaries of life, which their government burdens with the charges of double voyages, freight, insurance, and commission, and the profits of our exports are somewhat impaired, and more injuriously transferred from one portion of our citizens to another. The resumption of this old, and otherwise exploded system of colonial exclusion, has not secured to the shipping interest of Great Britain, the relief which, at the expense of the distant colonies, and of the United States, it was expect. ed to afford. Other measures have been resorted to, more pointedly bearing upon the navigation of the United States, and which, unless modified by the construction given to the recent acts of Parliament, will be manifestly incompatible with the positive stipulations of the commercial convention existing between the two countries. That convention, however, may be terminated with twelve months' notice, at the option of either party. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce, between the United States and his majesty the empe ror of Austria, king of Hungary and Bohemia, has been prepared for signature by the Secretary of State, and by the Baron de Lederer, intrusted with full powers of the Austrian government. Indepen. dently of the new and friendly relations which may be thus com. menced with one of the most eminent and powerful nations of the earth, the occasion has been taken in it, as in other recent treaties concluded by the United States, to extend those principles of liberal intercourse, and of fair reciprocity, which intertwine with the exchanges of commerce the principles of justice, and the feelings of mutual benevolence. This system, first proclaimed to the world in the first commercial treaty ever concluded by the United States, that of 6th of February, 1778, with France, has been invariably the cherished policy of our Union. It is by treaties of commerce alone that it can be made ultimately to prevail as the established system of all civilized nations. With this principle our fathers extended the hand of friendship to every nation of the globe, and to this policy our country has ever since adheredwhatever of regulation in our laws has ever been adopted unfavoura. ble to the interest of any foreign nation, has been essentially defensive and counteracting to similar regulations of theirs operating against us. Immediately after the close of the war of independence, commissioners were appointed by the Congress of the confederation, authorized to conclude treaties with every nation of Europe disposed to adopt them. Before the wars of the French revolution, such treaties had been consummated with the United Netherlands, Sweden, and Prussia. During those wars, treaties with Great Britain and Spain had been effected, and those with Prussia and France renewed. In all these, some concessions to . the liberal principles of intercourse proposed by the United States had been obtained; but as in all the negotiations they came occasionally in collision with previous internal regulations, or exclusive aud excluding compacts of monopoly, with which the other parties had been trammelled, the advances made in them towards the freedom of trade were partial and imperfect. Colonial establishments, chartered companies, and ship-building influence, pervaded and encumbered the legislation of all the great commercial states; and the United States, in offering free trade, and equal privilege to all, were compelled to acquiesce in many exceptions with each of the parties to their treaties, accommodated to their existing laws and anterior engagements. The colonial system, by which this whole hemisphere was bound, has fallen into ruins. Totally abolished by revolutions, converting colonies into independent nations, throughout the two American continents, excepting a portion of territory chiefly at the northern extremity of our own, and confined to the remnants of dominion retained by Great Britain over the insular Archipelago, geographically the appendages of our part of the globe. With all the rest we have free trade-even with the insular colonies of all the European nations except Great Britain. Her government had also manifested approaches to the adoption of a free and liberal intercourse be tween her colonies and other na. tions, though, by a sudden and scarcely explained revulsion, the spirit of exclusion has been revived for operation upon the United States alone. The conclusion of our last treaty. of peace with Great Britain was shortly afterwards followed by a commercial convention, placing the direct intercourse between the two countries upon a footing of more equal reciprocity than had ever before been admitted. The same principle has since been much farther extended, by treaties with France, Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic cities, Prussia in Eu. rope, and with the republics of Colombia, and of Central America, in this hemisphere. The mutual abolition of discriminating duties and charges, upon the navigation and commercial intercourse between the parties, is the general maxim which characterizes them all. There is reason to expect that it will, at no distant period, be adopted by other nations, both of Europe and America, and to hope that, by its universal prevalence, one of the fruitful sources of wars of commercial competition will be extinguished. Among the nations upon whose governments many of our fellow citizens have had long pending claims of indemnity, for depredations upon their property during a period when the rights of neutral commerce were disregarded, was that of Denmark. They were, soon after the events occurred, the subject of a special mission from the United States, at the close of which the assurance was given, by his Danish majesty, that, at a pe riod of more tranquillity, and of less distress, they would be consi dered, examined, and decided upon, in a spirit of determined purpose for the dispensation of justice. I have much pleasure in informing Congress that the fulfilment of this honourable promise is now in progress; that a small portion of the claims has already been settled to the satisfaction of the claimants; and that we have reason to hope that the remainder will shortly be placed in a train of equitable adjustment. This result has always been confidently expected, from the character of personal integrity and of benevolence which the sovereign of the Danish dominions has, through every vicissitude of fortune, maintained. The general aspect of the affairs of our neighbouring American nations of the south, has been rather of approaching than of settled tranquillity. Internal disturbances have been more frequent among them than their common friends would have desired. Our intercourse with all has continued to be that of friendship, and of mutual good will. Treaties of commerce and of boundaries with the United Mexican states have been negotiated, but, from various successive obstacles, not yet brought to a final conclu. sion. The civil war which unfortunately still prevails in the repub. lic of Central America, has been unpropitious to the cultivation of our commercial relations with them; and the dissentions and revolutionary changes in the republics of Colombia and of Peru, have been seen with cordial regret by us, who would gladly contribute to the happiness of both. It is with great satisfaction, however, that we have witnessed the recent conclusion of a peace between the governments of Buenos Ayres and Brazil; and it is equally gratifying to observe that indemnity has been obtained for some of the injuries which our fellow citizens had sustained in the latter of those countries. The rest are in a train of negotiation, which we hope may terminate to mutual satisfaction, and that it may be succeeded by a treaty of commerce and navigation, upon liberal principles, propitious to a great and growing commerce, al. ready important to the interests of our country. The condition and prospects of the revenue are more favourable than our most sanguine expectations had anticipated. The balance in the treasury, on the first of January last, exclusive of the moneys received under the convention of 13th November, 1826, with Great Britain, was five millions eight hundred and sixty-one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two dollars and eighty-three cents. The receipts into the treasury from the first of January to the 30th of September last, so far as they have been ascertained to form the basis of an estimate, amount to eighteen millions six hundred and thirtythree thousand nine hundred and eighty dollars and twenty-seven cents, which, with the receipts of the present quarter, estimated at five millions four hundred and sixty-one thousand two hundred and eighty-three dollars and forty cents, form an aggregate of receipts during the year of twentyfour millions and ninety-four thousand eight hundred and sixty-three dollars and sixty-seven cents. The expenditures of the year may probably amount to twenty-five millions six hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred and eleven dollars and sixty-three cents; and leave in the treasury, on the first of January next, the sum of five millions one hundred and twentyfive thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars, fourteen cents. The receipts of the present year have amounted to near two millions more than was anticipated at the commencement of the last session of Congress. The amount of duties secured on importations from the first of January to the 30th of September, was about twenty-two millions nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand, and that of the estimated accruing revenue is five millions; leaving an aggregate for the year of near twenty-eight millions. This is one million more than the esti mate made last December for the accruing revenue of the present year, which, with allowances for drawbacks and contingent defi ciencies, was expected to produce an actual revenue of twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars. Had these only been realized, the expenditures of the year would have been also proportionally reduced. For of these twentyfour millions received, upwards of nine millions have been applied to the extinction of public debt bearing an interest of six per cent. a year, and of course reducing the burden of interest annually paya. ble in future, by the amount of more than half a million. The payments on account of interest during the current year, exceed three millions of dollars; presenting an aggregate of more than twelve millions applied during the year to the discharge of the public debt, the whole of which remaining due on the first of January next, will amount only to eight millions three hundred and sixty |