xchange it devolves on the wisdom of Congress to provide a substitute
which shall equally engage the confidence and accommodate the wants of
the citizens throughout the Union. If the operation of the State banks
can not produce this result, the probable operation of a national bank
will merit consideration; and if neither of these expedients be deemed
effectual it may become necessary to ascertain the terms upon which the
notes of the Government (no longer required as an instrument of credit)
shall be issued upon motives of general policy as a common medium of
circulation.

Notwithstanding the security for future repose which the United States
ought to find in their love of peace and their constant respect for
the rights of other nations, the character of the times particularly
inculcates the lesson that, whether to prevent or repel danger, we ought
not to be unprepared for it. This consideration will sufficiently
recommend to Congress a liberal provision for the immediate extension
and gradual completion of the works of defense, both fixed and floating,
on our maritime frontier, and an adequate provision for guarding our
inland frontier against dangers to which certain portions of it may
continue to be exposed.

As an improvement in our military establishment, it will deserve the
consideration of Congress whether a corps of invalids might not be so
organized and employed as at once to aid in the support of meritorious
individuals excluded by age or infirmities from the existing
establishment, and to procure to the public the benefit of their
stationary services and of their exemplary discipline. I recommend also
an enlargement of the Military Academy already established, and the
establishment of others in other sections of the Union; and I can not
press too much on the attention of Congress such a classification and
organization of the militia as will most effectually render it the
safeguard of a free state. If experience has shewn in the recent
splendid achievements of militia the value of this resource for the
public defense, it has shewn also the importance of that skill in the
use of arms and that familiarity with the essential rules of discipline
which can not be expected from the regulations now in force. With this
subject is intimately connected the necessity of accommodating the laws
in every respect to the great object of enabling the political authority
of the Union to employ promptly and effectually the phy