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gress of 1787; an assembly elected by the people, and a legislative council. (See Ordinance of 1787.] And the inhabitants, when they should number 60,000, might form a state constitution and be admitted into the union.

The district of Louisiana, formerly under the jurisdiction of Indiana, was formed into a separate district with a government of its own, and called the territory of Louisiana; the governor to be appointed by the president, and the legislative power to be vested in the governor and judges, with power also to establish courts.

On the 4th of March, 1805, Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated the second time as president of the United States. In his inaugural address, he alluded, in general terms, to the policy of his administration towards foreign nations. “ Justice had been done them on all occasions; and mutual interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms had been cherished.” Respecting his domestic policy he said : " The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation, which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.

The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles, is paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts; being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer, ever sees a tax-gatherer in the United States ? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts, as places at a short day their redemption, and that redemption once effected, the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition among the states, and a corresponding amendment of the constitution, be applied, in time of peace, to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each state. In time of war ... aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within the year all the expenses of the year, without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burdening them with the debts of the past.”

In reference to the acquisition of Louisiana he said, it “has been disapproved by some, from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger

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He congratulated the country on “the union of sentiment now manifested so generally, as arguing harmony and happiness to our future course."

Others would rally to the same point; “facts were piercing through the veil drawn over them;" and the “ doubting would at length think and act with the mass of their fellow-citizens."

The 9th congress commenced its 1st session the 2ả of December, 1805. The message of the president was chiefly devoted to our foreign relations, which it represented as being in an unfavorable condition. He said: “Our coasts have been infested and our harbors watched by private armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as in the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also.” Allusion was herein made to the French and Spanish cruisers who infested our southern coast, annoying our commerce with the West Indies.

He referred also to the unsettled difficulties with Spain. She still refused to ratify the treaty which provided compensation for spoliations during the former European war; and had renewed the same practice since the renewal of that war. Op the Mobile, our commerce was obsstructed by arbitrary duties and vexatious searches; and she had rejected propositions for adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana. Inroads had been made into the territories of Orleans and the Mississippi, and our citizens plundered in the very ports which had been delivered up by Spain : and he had found it necessary to order troops to the frontier to protect our citizens and repel future aggressions. Other details would be the subject of another communication. The message also noticed the conduct of Great Britain.

« The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors under color of seeking enemies has been also carried on by public armed ships, to the great annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too, have beeu interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in justice nor the usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these, a belligerent takes to himself a commerce with its own enemy which it denies to a neutral, on the ground of its aiding that enemy in the war. But reason revolts at such an inconsistency, and the neutral having equal right with the belligerent to decide the question, the interest of our constituents and the duty of maintaining the authority of reason, the only umpire between just nations, impose on us the obligation of providing an effectual and determined opposition to a doctrine so injurious to the rights of peaceable nations."

In the new European war, France, Holland, and Spain were allied against Great Britain. The exposure to capture of the merchant vessels of the belligerent nations, had caused their withdrawal from the ocean : and the United States and other neutral maritime nations were enjoying an immensely profitable carrying trade, not only with the colonies of the belligerents, but with their mother countries, and on principles recognized by Great Britain herself. It was an established rule of national law, that the goods of a neutral, consisting of articles not contraband of war, in neutral vessels, employed in a direct trade between a neutral and a belligerent country, are protected, except in ports invested or blockaded. In conformity to this principle, a direct trade was carried on with the enemies of Great Britain and their colonies, and chiefly by American vessels ; and many of the goods imported by our merchants from those colonies, were reëxported to their parent countries. Not well pleased to see American merchants so rapidly amassing fortunes, and her enemies receiving by American vessels the productions of their own colonies, without the hazard which would attend the transportation in their own vessels, Great Britain ordered the capture of our vessels, alleging that the trade was unlawful, on the principle, that a trade from a colony to its parent country, not being permitted to other nations in a time of peace, can not be made lawful in a time of war; that is to say, because these countries, in time of peace, monopolize the trade with their colonies, the United States might not avail themselves of the advantages of a participation in this trade tendered to them in time of

It was alleged, also, that the voyage was unbroken by the landing of the goods in a port of the United States, and paying duties there, and, therefore, that the cargo was subject to condemnation, even under the British regulation of 1798, which so far relaxed the general principle as to allow a direct trade between a belligerent colony and a neutral country carrying on such a trade.

These were the "new principles” which the president said “had been interpolated into the law of nations." The general principle, that a neutral nation is disallowed, in time of war, a trade not allowed in time of peace, was of modern date, assumed by Great Britain for her own special interest, and maintained by no other nation. It was contrary also to the practice of Great Britain herself. She had invariably relaxed her navigation laws in time of war, so as to admit neutrals to trade where they were not allowed to trade in time of peace, particularly with her colonies. She had, by law and by orders in council,

her own subjects to trade directly with her enemies. And it alleged that American vessels and cargoes, after having been conmned by British courts under pretense of unlawful commerce, were ent, on British account, to the enemies of Great Britain !

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These depredations upon American commerce produced great excitement and alarm among the merchants in commercial places. Memorials from merchants in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and other places were sent to the president and to congress, on the subject, praying for the interposition of the government. The number of captures was large, and had been made principally by the British, a few by the French and Spanish privateers. Of the vessels captured, which had been insured in the Philadelphia insurance offices alone, there were more than seventy. The Philadelphia memorial pointed out the inconsistency of Great Britain. In 1801, it was held by her ministry and her courts," that the produce of the colonies of the enemy may be imported by a neutral into his own country, and be reëxported thence, even to the mother country of such colony;" and, " that landing the goods and paying the duties in the neutral country, breaks the continuity of the voyage, and is such an importation as legalizes the trade, although the goods be reshipped in the same vessel, and on account of the same neutral proprietors, and forwarded for sale to the mother country.” Now, in 1805, it is decided that the landing and paying duties does not break the continuity of the voyage.

On the 17th of January, 1806, the president communicated the memorials to congress, with a message in which he stated, that the right of a neutral to carry on commercial intercourse with every part of the dominions of a belligerent permitted by the laws of the country, (except blockaded ports and contraband of war,) had been recognized by Great Britain in the actual payment of damages awarded to the United States for the infraction of that right, in which award her own commissioners had concurred. He also noticed the impressment of our seamen by Great Britain.

In answer to a resolution of the senate, Mr. Madison, secretary of state, communicated a statement of the various principles interpolated into the law of nations by Great Britain and France. Among those introduced by the latter, was a decree, that every privateer, of which twothirds of the crew should not be either natives of England, or subjects of a power the enemy of France, should be considered as pirates; and another, that every foreigner found on board the vessels of war or of commerce of the enemy, was to be treated as a prisoner of war, and could have no right to the protection of the diplomatic and commercial agents of his nation. Other unjustifiable innovations on the law of nations were found in a decree issued from St. Domingo, against our trade with the revolted blacks of that island. The secretary mentioned, as an unjustifiable measure, the mode of search practiced by British ships, and by the cruisers of France and Spain. Instead of remaining at a proper

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