Few, if any, remain insensible to
the value of our friendship or ignorant of the terms on which it can
be acquired and by which it can alone be preserved.
A series of questions of long standing, difficult in their adjustment
and important in their consequences, in which the rights of our citizens
and the honor of the country were deeply involved, have in the course of
a few years (the most of them during the successful Administration of my
immediate predecessor) been brought to a satisfactory conclusion; and
the most important of those remaining are, I am happy to believe, in a
fair way of being speedily and satisfactorily adjusted.
With all the powers of the world our relations are those of honorable
peace. Since your adjournment nothing serious has occurred to interrupt
or threaten this desirable harmony. If clouds have lowered above the
other hemisphere, they have not cast their portentous shadows upon our
happy shores. Bound by no entangling alliances, yet linked by a common
nature and interest with the other nations of mankind, our aspirations
are for the preservation of peace, in whose solid and civilizing
triumphs all may participate with a generous emulation.
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