quire expenditures beyond their
resources. The public lots which are still for sale would, it is not
doubted, be more than adequate to these purposes.

From the view above presented it is manifest that the situation of the
United States is in the highest degree prosperous and happy. There is no
object which as a people we can desire which we do not possess or which
is not within our reach. Blessed with governments the happiest which the
world ever knew, with no distinct orders in society or divided interests
in any portion of the vast territory over which their dominion extends,
we have every motive to cling together which can animate a virtuous and
enlightened people. The great object is to preserve these blessings,
and to hand them down to the latest posterity. Our experience ought to
satisfy us that our progress under the most correct and provident policy
will not be exempt from danger. Our institutions form an important epoch
in the history of the civilized world. On their preservation and in
their utmost purity everything will depend. Extending as our interests
do to every part of the inhabited globe and to every sea to which our
citizens are carried by their industry and enterprise, to which they are
invited by the wants of others, and have a right to go, we must either
protect them in the enjoyment of their rights or abandon them in certain
events to waste and desolation. Our attitude is highly interesting as
relates to other powers, and particularly to our southern neighbors. We
have duties to perform with respect to all to which we must be faithful.
To every kind of danger we should pay the most vigilant and unceasing
attention, remove the cause where it may be practicable, and be prepared
to meet it when inevitable.

Against foreign danger the policy of the Government seems to be already
settled. The events of the late war admonished us to make our maritime
frontier impregnable by a well-digested chain of fortifications, and
to give efficient protection to our commerce by augmenting our Navy
to a certain extent, which has been steadily pursued, and which it is
incumbent upon us to complete as soon as circumstances will permit.
In the event of war it is on the maritime frontier that we shall be
assailed. It is in that quarter, therefore, that we should be prepared
to meet the attack. It is there that our whole force will be called
into action to prevent the destruction of our towns and the desolation
and pilla