STATE PAPERS. 
plies, ever subject to casual failures, 
for articles necessary for the public 
defence, or connected with the 
primary wants of individuals. It 
will be an additional recommenda- 
tion of particular manufactures, 
where the maierials for them are 
exclusively drawn from our agri- 
culture, and consequently impart 
and ensure to that great fund of 
national prosperity and indepen- 
dence, an encouragement which 
cannot fail to be rewarded. 
Among the means of advancing 
the public interest, the occasion is 
a proper one for recalling the at- 
tention of Congress to the great 
importance of establishing through- 
out our country the roadsand canals 
which can best be executed under 
the national authority. No objects 
within the circle of political eco- 
nomy so richly repay the expense 
bestowed on them: there are none, 
the utility of which is more univer- 
sally ascertained and acknowledg- 
ed: none that do more honour to 
the Government, whose wise and 
enlarged patriotism duly appre- 
ciates them. Nor is there any 
country which presents a field, 
where nature invites more the art 
of man, to complete her own work 
for his accommodation and benefit. 
These considerations are strength- 
ened, moreover, by the political 
effect of these facilities for inter- 
communication, in bringing and 
binding more closely together the 
various parts of our extended con- 
federacy. Whilst the States, indi- 
vidually, with a laudable enter- 
prise and emulation avail them- 
selves of their local advantages, by 
new roads, by navigable canals, 
and by improving the streams sus- 
ceptible of navigation, the general 
Government is the more urged to 
427 
similar undertakings, requiring a 
national jurisdiction, and national 
means, by the prospect of thus 
systematically completing so in- 
estimable a work. And it is a 
happy reflection, that any defect 
of constitutional authority which 
may be encountered, can be sup- 
plied in a mode which the consti- 
tution itself has providently pointed 
out. 
The present is a favourable 
season also for bringing again into 
view the establishment of a national 
seminary of learning within the 
district of Columbia, and with 
means drawn from the property 
therein subject to the authority of 
the general government. Such an 
institution claims the patronage of 
Congress, as a monument of their 
solicitude for the advancement of 
knowledge, without which the 
blessings of liberty cannot be fully 
enjoyed, or long preserved; as a 
model instructive in the formation 
of other seminaries; as a nursery 
of enlightened preceptors; as a cen- 
tral resort of youth and genius from 
every part of their country, diffus- 
ing on their return examples of 
those national feelings, those liberal 
sentiments, and those congenial 
manners, which contribute cement 
to our union, and strength to the 
great political fabric, of which that 
is the formation. 
In closing this communication, 
I ought not to repress a sensibility, 
in which you will unite, to the 
happy lot of our country, and to 
the goodness of a superintending 
Providence to which we are in- 
debted for it. Whilst other por- 
tions of mankind are labouring 
under the distresses of war, or 
struggling with adversity in other 
forms, the United States are 
the 
