anded by the
crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and expectations.

I recommend, accordingly, that adequate provision be made for filling
the ranks and prolonging the enlistments of the regular troops; for an
auxiliary force to be engaged for a more limited term; for the
acceptance of volunteer corps, whose patriotic ardor may court a
participation in urgent services; for detachments as they may be wanted
of other portions of the militia, and for such a preparation of the
great body as will proportion its usefulness to its intrinsic
capacities. Nor can the occasion fail to remind you of the importance of
those military seminaries which in every event will form a valuable and
frugal part of our military establishment.

The manufacture of cannon and small arms has proceeded with due success,
and the stock and resources of all the necessary munitions are adequate
to emergencies. It will not be inexpedient, however, for Congress to
authorize an enlargement of them.

Your attention will of course be drawn to such provisions on the subject
of our naval force as may be required for the services to which it may
be best adapted. I submit to Congress the seasonableness also of an
authority to augment the stock of such materials as are imperishable in
their nature, or may not at once be attainable.

In contemplating the scenes which distinguish this momentous epoch, and
estimating their claims to our attention, it is impossible to overlook
those developing themselves among the great communities which occupy the
southern portion of our own hemisphere and extend into our neighborhood.
An enlarged philanthropy and an enlightened forecast concur in imposing
on the national councils an obligation to take a deep interest in their
destinies, to cherish reciprocal sentiments of good will, to regard the
progress of events, and not to be unprepared for whatever order of
things may be ultimately established.

Under another aspect of our situation the early attention of Congress
will be due to the expediency of further guards against evasions and
infractions of our commercial laws. The practice of smuggling, which is
odious everywhere, and particularly criminal in free governments, where,
the laws being made by all for the good of all, a fraud is committed on
every individual as well as on the state, attains its utmost guilt when
it blends with a pursuit of ignominious gain a treacherous subserviency,
in the transgressors,