We must join in the unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other the most harm.

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.

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

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.

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…

Other details necessary for your full information of the state of things between this country and that shall be the subject of another communication.

Providence in His goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened the number of victims which have usually fallen before it.

I can not, then, but earnestly recommend to your early consideration the expediency of so modifying our militia system.

In all events, it will replace the advances we shall have made.

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…

The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes.

We have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry and household use.

In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General Government.

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.

I know that the acquisition of Louisiana had been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union.

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.

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.

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.