on it which the importance of the
subject requires and experience justifies.

If a system of universal and permanent peace could be established, or
if in war the belligerent parties would respect the rights of neutral
powers, we should have no occasion for a navy or an army. The expense
and dangers of such establishments might be avoided. The history of all
ages proves that this can not be presumed; on the contrary, that at
least one-half of every century, in ancient as well as modern times,
has been consumed in wars, and often of the most general and desolating
character. Nor is there any cause to infer, if we examine the condition
of the nations with which we have the most intercourse and strongest
political relations, that we shall in future be exempt from that
calamity within any period to which a rational calculation may be
extended. And as to the rights of neutral powers, it is sufficient to
appeal to our own experience to demonstrate how little regard will be
paid to them whenever they come in conflict with the interests of the
powers at war while we rely on the justice of our cause and on argument
alone. The amount of the property of our fellow-citizens which was
seized and confiscated or destroyed by the belligerent parties in the
wars of the French Revolution, and of those which followed before we
became a party to the war, is almost incalculable.

The whole movement of our Government from the establishment of our
independence has been guided by a sacred regard for peace. Situated as
we are in the new hemisphere, distant from Europe and unconnected with
its affairs, blessed with the happiest Government on earth, and having
no objects of ambition to gratify, the United States have steadily
cultivated the relations of amity with every power; and if in any
European wars a respect for our rights might be relied on, it was
undoubtedly in those to which I have adverted. The conflict being vital,
the force being nearly equally balanced, and the result uncertain, each
party had the strongest motives of interest to cultivate our good will,
lest we might be thrown into the opposite scale. Powerful as this
consideration usually is, it was nevertheless utterly disregarded
in almost every stage of and by every party to those wars. To these
encroachments and injuries our regard for peace was finally forced
to yield.

In the war to which at length we became a party our whole coast from St.
Croix to the Mississippi was eit