fficiently outweigh the
privations and sacrifices inseparable from a state of war. But it
is a reflection, moreover, peculiarly consoling, that, whilst wars
are generally aggravated by their baneful effects on the internal
improvements and permanent prosperity of the nations engaged in them,
such is the favored situation of the United States that the calamities
of the contest into which they have been compelled to enter are
mitigated by improvements and advantages of which the contest itself
is the source.

If the war has increased the interruptions of our commerce, it has at
the same time cherished and multiplied our manufactures so as to make us
independent of all other countries for the more essential branches for
which we ought to be dependent on none, and is even rapidly giving them
an extent which will create additional staples in our future intercourse
with foreign markets.

If much treasure has been expended, no inconsiderable portion of it has
been applied to objects durable in their value and necessary to our
permanent safety.

If the war has exposed us to increased spoliations on the ocean and to
predatory incursions on the land, it has developed the national means of
retaliating the former and of providing protection against the latter,
demonstrating to all that every blow aimed at our maritime independence
is an impulse accelerating the growth of our maritime power.

By diffusing through the mass of the nation the elements of military
discipline and instruction; by augmenting and distributing warlike
preparations applicable to future use; by evincing the zeal and valor
with which they will be employed and the cheerfulness with which every
necessary burden will be borne, a greater respect for our rights and a
longer duration of our future peace are promised than could be expected
without these proofs of the national character and resources.

The war has proved moreover that our free Government, like other free
governments, though slow in its early movements, acquires in its
progress a force proportioned to its freedom, and that the union of
these States, the guardian of the freedom and safety of all and of each,
is strengthened by every occasion that puts it to the test.

In fine, the war, with all its vicissitudes, is illustrating the
capacity and the destiny of the United States to be a great, a
flourishing, and a powerful nation, worthy of the friendship which it
is disposed to cultivate with all o