The successful use of steam navigation on the ocean has been followed by the introduction of war steamers in great and increasing numbers into the navies of the principal maritime powers of the world.  A due regard to our own safety and to an efficient protection to our large and increasing commerce demands a corresponding increase on our part.  No country has greater facilities for the construction of vessels of this description than ours, or can promise itself greater advantages from their employment.  They are admirably adapted to the protection of our commerce, to the rapid transmission of intelligence, and to the coast defense.  In pursuance of the wise policy of a gradual increase of our Navy, large supplies of live-oak timber and other materials for shipbuilding have been collected and are now under shelter and in a state of good preservation, while iron steamers can be built with great facility in various parts of the Union.  The use of iron as a material, especially in the construction of steamers which can enter with safety many of the harbors along our coast now inaccessible to vessels of greater draft, and the practicability of constructing them in the interior, strongly recommend that liberal appropriations should be made for this important object.  Whatever may have been our policy in the earlier stages of the Government, when the nation was in its infancy, our shipping interests and commerce comparatively small, our resources limited, our population sparse and scarcely extending beyond the limits of the original thirteen States, that policy must be essentially different now that we have grown from three to more than twenty millions of people, that our commerce, carried in our own ships, is found in every sea, and that our territorial boundaries and settlements have been so greatly expanded.  Neither our commerce nor our long line of coast on the ocean and on the Lakes can be successfully defended against foreign aggression by means of fortifications alone.  These are essential at important commercial and military points, but our chief reliance for this object must be on a well-organized, efficient navy.  The benefits resulting from such a navy are not confined to the Atlantic States.  The productions of the interior which seek a market abroad are directly dependent on the safety and freedom of our commerce.  The occupation of the Balize below New Orleans by a hostile force would embarrass, if not stagnate, the whole export trade of the Mississippi and affect the value of the agricultural products of the entire valley of that mighty river and its tributaries.

It has never been our policy to maintain large standing armies in time of peace.  They are contrary to the genius of our free institutions, would impose heavy burdens on the people and be dangerous to public liberty.  Our reliance for protection and defense on the land must be mainly on our citizen soldiers, who will be ever ready, as they ever have been ready in times past, to rush with alacrity, at the call of their country, to her defense.  This description of force, however, can not defend our coast, harbors, and inland seas, nor protect our commerce on the ocean or the Lakes.  These must be protected by our Navy.