I may be permitted, I trust, at this time, without a suspicion of the most remote desire to throw off censure from the Executive or to point it to any other department or branch of the Government, to refer to the want of effective preparation in which our country was found at the late crisis. From the nature of our institutions the movements of the Government in preparation for hostilities must ever be too slow for the exigencies of unexpected war. I submit it, then, to you whether the first duty we owe to the people who have confided to us their power is not to place our country in such an attitude as always to be so amply supplied with the means of self-defense as to afford no inducements to other nations to presume upon our forbearance or to expect important advantages from a sudden assault, either upon our commerce, our seacoast, or our interior frontier. In case of the commencement of hostilities during the recess of Congress, the time inevitably elapsing before that body could be called together, even under the most favorable circumstances, would be pregnant with danger; and if we escaped without signal disaster or national dishonor, the hazard of both unnecessarily incurred could not fail to excite a feeling of deep reproach. I earnestly recommend to you, therefore, to make such provisions that in no future time shall we be found without ample means to repel aggression, even although it may come upon us without a note of warning. We are now, fortunately, so situated that the expenditure for this purpose will not be felt, and if it were it would be approved by those from whom all its means are derived, and for whose benefit only it should be used with a liberal economy and an enlightened forecast. In behalf of these suggestions I can not forbear repeating the wise precepts of one whose counsels can not be forgotten: ... The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other nation abounds. There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war. ANDREW JACKSON. WASHINGTON, _January 27, 1836_.