I can not, indeed, view without peculiar satisfaction the
evidences afforded by the past season of the benefits that spring from
the steady devotion of the husbandman to his honorable pursuit. No
means of individual comfort is more certain and no source of national
prosperity is so sure. Nothing can compensate a people for a dependence
upon others for the bread they eat, and that cheerful abundance on which
the happiness of everyone so much depends is to be looked for nowhere
with such sure reliance as in the industry of the agriculturist and the
bounties of the earth.
With foreign countries our relations exhibit the same favorable aspect
which was presented in my last annual message, and afford continued
proof of the wisdom of the pacific, just, and forbearing policy adopted
by the first Administration of the Federal Government and pursued by its
successors. The extraordinary powers vested in me by an act of Congress
for the defense of the country in an emergency, considered so far
probable as to require that the Executive should possess ample means to
meet it, have not been exerted.
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