here has arisen among the inhabitants of the
earth, with whom our intercourse, commercial and political, would of
itself furnish occupation to an active and industrious department. The
constitution of the judiciary, experimental and imperfect as it was even
in the infancy of our existing Government, is yet more inadequate to the
administration of national justice at our present maturity. Nine years
have elapsed since a predecessor in this office, now not the last, the
citizen who, perhaps, of all others throughout the Union contributed
most to the formation and establishment of our Constitution, in his
valedictory address to Congress, immediately preceding his retirement
from public life, urgently recommended the revision of the judiciary and
the establishment of an additional executive department. The exigencies
of the public service and its unavoidable deficiencies, as now in
exercise, have added yearly cumulative weight to the considerations
presented by him as persuasive to the measure, and in recommending it to
your deliberations I am happy to have the influence of his high
authority in aid of the undoubting convictions of my own experience.

The laws relating to the administration of the Patent Office are
deserving of much consideration and perhaps susceptible of some
improvement. The grant of power to regulate the action of Congress upon
this subject has specified both the end to be obtained and the means by
which it is to be effected, "to promote the progress of science and
useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the
exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." If an
honest pride might be indulged in the reflection that on the records of
that office are already found inventions the usefulness of which has
scarcely been transcended in the annals of human ingenuity, would not
its exultation be allayed by the inquiry whether the laws have
effectively insured to the inventors the reward destined to them by the
Constitution--even a limited term of exclusive right to their
discoveries?

On the 24th of December, 1799, it was resolved by Congress that a marble
monument should be erected by the United States in the Capitol at the
city of Washington; that the family of General Washington should be
requested to permit his body to be deposited under it, and that the
monument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of his
military and political life. In reminding Congre