State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson
The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***
Dates of addresses by Thomas Jefferson in this eBook:
December 8, 1801
December 15, 1802
October 17, 1803
November 8, 1804
December 3, 1805
December 2, 1806
October 27, 1807
November 8, 1808
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State of the Union Address
Thomas Jefferson
December 8, 1801
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
It is a circumstance of sincere gratification to me that on meeting thegreat council of our nation I am able to announce to them on grounds ofreasonable certainty that the wars and troubles which have for so manyyears afflicted our sister nations have at length come to an end, and thatthe communications of peace and commerce are once more opening among them.Whilst we devoutly return thanks to the beneficent Being who has beenpleased to breathe into them the spirit of conciliation and forgiveness, weare bound with peculiar gratitude to be thankful to Him that our own peacehas been preserved through so perilous a season, and ourselves permittedquietly to cultivate the earth and to practice and improve those arts whichtend to increase our comforts. The assurances, indeed, of friendlydisposition received from all the powers with whom we have principlerelations had inspired a confidence that our peace with them would not havebeen disturbed. But a cessation of irregularities which had affected thecommerce of neutral nations and of the irritations and injuries produced bythem can not but add to this confidence, and strengthens at the same timethe hope that wrongs committed on unoffending friends under a pressure ofcircumstances will now be reviewed with candor, and will be considered asfounding just claims of retribution for the past and new assurance for thefuture.
Among our Indian neighbors also a spirit of peace and friendship generallyprevails, and I am happy to inform you that the continued efforts tointroduce among them the implements and the practice of husbandry and thehousehold arts have not been without success; that they are becoming moreand more sensible of the superiority of this dependence for clothing andsubsistence over the precarious resources of hunting and fishing, andalready we are able to announce that instead of that constant diminution oftheir numbers produced by their wars and their wants, some of them begin toexperience an increase of population.
To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one onlyexception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States,had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, andhad permitted itself to denounce war on our failure to comply before agiven day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer.
I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean, with assurancesto that power of our sincere desire to remain in peace, but with orders toprotect our commerce against the threatened attack. The measure wasseasonable and salutary. The Bey had already declared war. His cruiserswere out. Two had arrived at Gibraltar. Our commerce in the Mediterraneanwas blockaded and that of the Atlantic in peril.
The arrival of our squadron dispelled the danger. One of the Tripo