s have been
preserved, our commerce has been protected, and our rights respected.
The augmentation of our Navy is advancing with a steady progress toward
the limit contemplated by law.

I communicate with great satisfaction the accession of another State
(Illinois) to our Union, because I perceive from the proof afforded by
the additions already made the regular progress and sure consummation of
a policy of which history affords no example, and of which the good
effect can not be too highly estimated. By extending our Government on
the principles of our Constitution over the vast territory within our
limits, on the Lakes and the Mississippi and its numerous streams, new
life and vigor are infused into every part of our system. By increasing
the number of the States the confidence of the State governments in
their own security is increased and their jealousy of the National
Government proportionally diminished. The impracticability of one
consolidated government for this great and growing nation will be more
apparent and will be universally admitted. Incapable of exercising local
authority except for general purposes, the General Government will
no longer be dreaded. In those cases of a local nature and for all
the great purposes for which it was instituted its authority will be
cherished. Each government will acquire new force and a greater freedom
of action within its proper sphere. Other inestimable advantages will
follow. Our produce will be augmented to an incalculable amount in
articles of the greatest value for domestic use and foreign commerce.
Our navigation will in like degree be increased, and as the shipping of
the Atlantic States will be employed in the transportation of the vast
produce of the Western country, even those parts of the United States
which are most remote from each other will be further bound together by
the strongest ties which mutual interest can create.

The situation of this District, it is thought, requires the attention of
Congress. By the Constitution the power of legislation is exclusively
vested in the Congress of the United States. In the exercise of this
power, in which the people have no participation, Congress legislate in
all cases directly on the local concerns of the District. As this is a
departure, for a special purpose, from the general principles of our
system, it may merit consideration whether an arrangement better adapted
to the principles of our Government and to the p