The occurrences which preceded the war and those which attended it were alike replete with useful instruction as to our future policy.  Those which marked the first epoch demonstrate clearly that in the wars of other powers we can rely only on force for the protection of our neutral rights.  Those of the second demonstrate with equal certainty that in any war in which we may be engaged hereafter with a strong naval power the expense, waste, and other calamities attending it, considering the vast extent of our maritime frontier, can not fail, unless it be defended by adequate fortifications and a suitable naval force, to correspond with those which were experienced in the late war.  Two great objects are therefore to be regarded in the establishment of an adequate naval force:  The first, to prevent war so far as it may be practicable; the second, to diminish its calamities when it may be inevitable.  Hence the subject of defense becomes intimately connected in all its parts in war and in peace, for the land and at sea.  No government will be disposed in its wars with other powers to violate our rights if it knows we have the means, are prepared and resolved to defend them.  The motive will also be diminished if it knows that our defenses by land are so well planned and executed that an invasion of our coast can not be productive of the evils to which we have heretofore been exposed.

It was under a thorough conviction of these truths, derived from the admonitions of the late war, that Congress, as early as the year 1816, during the term of my enlightened and virtuous predecessor, under whom the war had been declared, prosecuted, and terminated, digested and made provision for the defense of our country and support of its rights, in peace as well as in war, by acts which authorized and enjoined the augmentation of our Navy to a prescribed limit, and the construction of suitable fortifications throughout the whole extent of our maritime frontier and wherever else they might be deemed necessary.  It is to the execution of these works, both land and naval, and under a thorough conviction that by hastening their completion I should render the best service to my country and give the most effectual support to our free republican system of government that my humble faculties would admit of, that I have devoted so much of my time and labor to this great system of national policy since I came into this office, and shall continue to do it until my retirement from it at the end of your next session.

The Navy is the arm from which our Government will always derive most aid in support of our neutral rights.  Every power engaged in war will know the strength of our naval force, the number of our ships of each class, their condition, and the promptitude with which we may bring them into service, and will pay due consideration to that argument.  Justice will always have great weight in the cabinets of Europe; but in long and destructive wars exigencies often occur which press