A squadron has been maintained, as heretofore, in the Mediterranean, by means whereof peace has been preserved with the Barbary Powers.  This squadron has been reduced the present year to as small a force as is compatible with the fulfillment of the object intended by it.  From past experience and the best information respecting the views of those powers it is distinctly understood that should our squadron be withdrawn they would soon recommence their hostilities and depredations upon our commerce.  Their fortifications have lately been rebuilt and their maritime force increased.

It has also been found necessary to maintain a naval force on the Pacific for the protection of the very important interests of our citizens engaged in commerce and the fisheries in that sea.  Vessels have likewise been employed in cruising along the Atlantic coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, and in the neighboring seas.  In the latter many piracies have been committed on our commerce, and so extensive was becoming the range of those unprincipled adventurers that there was cause to apprehend, without a timely and decisive effort to suppress them, the worst consequences would ensue.  Fortunately, a considerable check has been given to that spirit by our cruisers, who have succeeded in capturing and destroying several of their vessels.  Nevertheless, it is considered an object of high importance to continue these cruises until the practice is entirely suppressed.

Like success has attended our efforts to suppress the slave trade.  Under the flag of the United States and the sanction of their papers the trade may be considered as entirely suppressed, and if any of our citizens are engaged in it under the flags and papers of other powers, it is only from a respect of those powers that these offenders are not seized and brought home to receive the punishment which the laws inflict.  If every other power should adopt the same policy and pursue the same vigorous means for carrying it into effect, the trade could no longer exist.

Deeply impressed with the blessings which we enjoy, and of which we have such manifold proofs, my mind is irresistibly drawn to that Almighty Being, the great source from whence they proceed and to whom our most grateful acknowledgments are due.

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State of the Union Address
James Monroe
December 3, 1822

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: 

Many causes unite to make your present meeting peculiarly interesting to out constituents.  The operation of our laws on the various subjects to which they apply, with the amendments which they occasionally require, imposes annually an important duty on the representatives of a free people.

Our system has happily advanced to such maturity that I am not aware that your cares in that respect will be augmented.  Other causes exist which are highly interesting to the whole civilized world and to no portion of it more so, in certain views, than to the United States.  Of these causes and of their bearing on the interests of our Union I shall communicate the sentiments which I have formed with that freedom which a sense of duty dictates.  It is proper, however, to invite your attention in the first instance to those concerns respecting which legislative provision is thought to be particularly urgent.