The very liberal treaty which was entered into last year by the United States and Nicaragua has been ratified by the latter Republic.

Costa Rica, with the earnestness of a sincerely friendly neighbor, solicits a reciprocity of trade, which I commend to the consideration of Congress.

The convention created by treaty between the United States and Venezuela in July, 1865, for the mutual adjustment of claims, has been held, and its decisions have been received at the Department of State.  The heretofore-recognized Government of the United States of Venezuela has been subverted.  A provisional government having been instituted under circumstances which promise durability, it has been formally recognized.

I have been reluctantly obliged to ask explanation and satisfaction for national injuries committed by the President of Hayti.  The political and social condition of the Republics of Hayti and St. Domingo is very unsatisfactory and painful.  The abolition of slavery, which has been carried into effect throughout the island of St. Domingo and the entire West Indies, except the Spanish islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, has been followed by a profound popular conviction of the rightfulness of republican institutions and an intense desire to secure them.  The attempt, however, to establish republics there encounters many obstacles, most of which may be supposed to result from long-indulged habits of colonial supineness and dependence upon European monarchical powers.  While the United States have on all occasions professed a decided unwillingness that any part of this continent or of its adjacent islands shall be made a theater for a new establishment of monarchical power, too little has been done by us, on the other hand, to attach the communities by which we are surrounded to our own country, or to lend even a moral support to the efforts they are so resolutely and so constantly making to secure republican institutions for themselves.  It is indeed a question of grave consideration whether our recent and present example is not calculated to check the growth and expansion of free principles, and make those communities distrust, if not dread, a government which at will consigns to military domination States that are integral parts of our Federal Union, and, while ready to resist any attempts by other nations to extend to this hemisphere the monarchical institutions of Europe, assumes to establish over a large portion of its people a rule more absolute, harsh, and tyrannical than any known to civilized powers.

The acquisition of Alaska was made with the view of extending national jurisdiction and republican principles in the American hemisphere.  Believing that a further step could be taken in the same direction, I last year entered into a treaty with the King of Denmark for the purchase of the islands of St. Thomas and St. John, on the best terms then attainable, and with the express consent of the people of those islands.  This treaty still remains under consideration in the Senate.  A new convention has been entered into with Denmark, enlarging the time fixed for final ratification of the original treaty.