rs has had a necessary tendency to check and embarrass trade and to
depress prices throughout all commercial nations, but notwithstanding
these causes, the United States, with their abundant products, have felt
their effects less severely than any other country, and all our great
interests are still prosperous and successful.

In reviewing the great events of the past year and contrasting the
agitated and disturbed state of other countries with our own tranquil
and happy condition, we may congratulate ourselves that we are the most
favored people on the face of the earth. While the people of other
countries are struggling to establish free institutions, under which man
may govern himself, we are in the actual enjoyment of them--a rich
inheritance from our fathers. While enlightened nations of Europe are
convulsed and distracted by civil war or intestine strife, we settle all
our political controversies by the peaceful exercise of the rights of
freemen at the ballot box.

The great republican maxim, so deeply engraven on the hearts of our
people, that the will of the majority, constitutionally expressed, shall
prevail, is our sure safeguard against force and violence. It is a
subject of just pride that our fame and character as a nation continue
rapidly to advance in the estimation of the civilized world.

To our wise and free institutions it is to be attributed that while
other nations have achieved glory at the price of the suffering,
distress, and impoverishment of their people, we have won our honorable
position in the midst of an uninterrupted prosperity and of an
increasing individual comfort and happiness.

I am happy to inform you that our relations with all nations are
friendly and pacific. Advantageous treaties of commerce have been
concluded within the last four years with New Granada, Peru, the Two
Sicilies, Belgium, Hanover, Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Pursuing our example, the restrictive system of Great Britain, our
principal foreign customer, has been relaxed, a more liberal commercial
policy has been adopted by other enlightened nations, and our trade has
been greatly enlarged and extended. Our country stands higher in the
respect of the world than at any former period. To continue to occupy
this proud position, it is only necessary to preserve peace and
faithfully adhere to the great and fundamental principle of our foreign
policy of noninterference in the domestic concerns of other nations.