agement
which can not fail to be rewarded.

Among the means of advancing the public interest the occasion is
a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great
importance of establishing throughout our country the roads and canals
which can best be executed under the national authority. No objects
within the circle of political economy so richly repay the expense
bestowed on them; there are none the utility of which is more
universally ascertained and acknowledged; none that do more honor to the
governments whose wise and enlarged patriotism duly appreciates them.
Nor is there any country which presents a field where nature invites
more the art of man to complete her own work for his accommodation and
benefit. These considerations are strengthened, moreover, by the
political effect of these facilities for intercommunication in bringing
and binding more closely together the various parts of our extended
confederacy. Whilst the States individually, with a laudable enterprise
and emulation, avail themselves of their local advantages by new
roads, by navigable canals, and by improving the streams susceptible
of navigation, the General Government is the more urged to similar
undertakings, requiring a national jurisdiction and national means, by
the prospect of thus systematically completing so inestimable a work;
and it is a happy reflection that any defect of constitutional authority
which may be encountered can be supplied in a mode which the
Constitution itself has providently pointed out.

The present is a favorable season also for bringing again into view the
establishment of a national seminary of learning within the District of
Columbia, and with means drawn from the property therein, subject to
the authority of the General Government. Such an institution claims
the patronage of Congress as a monument of their solicitude for the
advancement of knowledge, without which the blessings of liberty can
not be fully enjoyed or long preserved; as a model instructive in the
formation of other seminaries; as a nursery of enlightened preceptors,
and as a central resort of youth and genius from every part of their
country, diffusing on their return examples of those national feelings,
those liberal sentiments, and those congenial manners which contribute
cement to our Union and strength to the great political fabric of which
that is the foundation.

In closing this communication I ought not to repress a sensibil