Ulysses S. Grant

The number engaged in the late rebellion yet laboring under disabilities is very small, but enough to keep up a constant irritation.

I renew my previous recommendation to Congress for general amnesty.

If alternate sections are retained by the Government, I would suggest that the retained sections be thrown open to entry under the homestead laws, or sold to actual settlers for a very low price.

An irrigating canal would make productive a belt as wide as the supply of water could be made to spread over across this entire country, and would secure a cordon of settlements connecting the present population of the mountain and mining…

As a rule I am opposed to further donations of public lands for internal improvements owned and controlled by private corporations, but in this instance I would make an exception.

In connection with this I would also recommend the encouragement of a canal for purposes of irrigation from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri River.

It possesses all the elements of a prosperous State, agricultural and mineral, and, I believe, has a population now to justify such admission.

I would recommend for your favorable consideration the passage of an enabling act for the admission of Colorado as a State in the Union.

Proper rules will protect Congress, as well as the Executive, from much needless persecution, and will prove of great value to the public at large.

To have any rules effective they must have the acquiescence of Congress as well as of the Executive.

I would suggest to Congress the propriety of promoting the establishment in this District of an institution of learning, or university of the highest class, by the donation of lands.

Every citizen visiting the capital feels a pride in its growing beauty, and that he too is part owner in the investments made here.

The Government having large reservations in the city, and the nation at large having an interest in their capital, I recommend a liberal policy toward the District of Columbia, and that the Government should bear its just share of the…

I recommend that so much of said act as provides for involuntary bankruptcy on account of the suspension of payment be repealed.

People are now so easily alarmed as to monetary matters that the mere filing of a petition in bankruptcy by an unfriendly creditor will necessarily embarrass, and oftentimes accomplish the financial ruin, of a responsible business man.

Proper armament is of vastly more importance than fortifications.

While inviting your general attention to all the recommendations made by the Secretary of War, there are two which I would especially invite you to consider: First, the importance of preparing for war in time of peace by providing proper…

Such an exploration would cost but little; it can do no harm, and may result in establishing a trade of value to both nations.

In attempting to regain our lost commerce and carrying trade I have heretofore called attention to the States south of us offering a field where much might be accomplished.

The experience of the present panic has proven that the currency of the country, based, as it is, upon the credit of the country, is the best that has ever been devised.

I do not doubt that Congress shares with me the hope that it will soon be made to disappear, and that peace and prosperity may follow its abolition.

In taking leave of this subject for the present I wish to renew the expression of my conviction that the existence of African slavery in Cuba is a principal cause of the lamentable condition of the island.

In the interests of humanity, of civilization, and of progress, it is to be hoped that this evil influence may be soon averted.

Unhappily, however, this baneful influence has thus far succeeded in defeating the efforts of all liberal-minded men in Spain to abolish slavery in Cuba, and in preventing the promised reform in that island.

All these liberal steps were taken in the face of a violent opposition directed by the reactionary slave-holders of Havana, who are vainly striving to stay the march of ideas which has terminated slavery in Christendom, Cuba only excepted.