A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
Monroe, James, 1758-1831; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
all were engaged, with their sudden transition to a state of peace,
presenting in the first instance unusual encouragement to our commerce
and withdrawing it in the second even within its wonted limit, could not
fail to be sensibly felt here. The station, too, which we had to support
through this long conflict, compelled as we were finally to become
a party to it with a principal power, and to make great exertions,
suffer heavy losses, and to contract considerable debts, disturbing
the ordinary course of affairs by augmenting to a vast amount the
circulating medium, and thereby elevating at one time the price of
every article above a just standard and depressing it at another below
it, had likewise its due effect.
It is manifest that the pressures of which we complain have proceeded
in a great measure from these causes. When, then, we take into view
the prosperous and happy condition of our country in all the great
circumstances which constitute the felicity of a nation--every
individual in the full enjoyment of all his rights, the Union blessed
with plenty and rapidly rising to greatness under a National Government
which operates with complete effect in every part without being felt
in any except by the ample protection which it affords, and under
State governments which perform their equal share, according to
a wise distribution of power between them, in promoting the public
happiness--it is impossible to behold so gratifying, so glorious a
spectacle without being penetrated with the most profound and grateful
acknowledgments to the Supreme Author of All Good for such manifold and
inestimable blessings. Deeply impressed with these sentiments, I can not
regard the pressures to which I have adverted otherwise than in the
light of mild and instructive admonitions, warning us of dangers to
be shunned in future, teaching us lessons of economy corresponding
with the simplicity and purity of our institutions and best adapted
to their support, evincing the connection and dependence which the
various parts of our happy Union have on each other, thereby augmenting
daily our social incorporation and adding by its strong ties new strength
and vigor to the political; opening a wider range, and with new
encouragement, to the industry and enterprise of our fellow-citizens at
home and abroad, and more especially by the multiplied proofs which it
has accumulated of the great perfection of our most excellent system of
government, the powerful instrument in the hands of our All-merciful
Creator in securing to us these blessings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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