very important duty I shall endeavor to place before
you on its merits every subject that is thought to be entitled to your
particular attention in as distinct and clear a light as I may be able.

By an act of the 3d of March, 1815, so much of the several acts as
imposed higher duties on the tonnage of foreign vessels and on the
manufactures and productions of foreign nations when imported into the
United States in foreign vessels than when imported in vessels of the
United States were repealed so far as respected the manufactures and
productions of the nation to which such vessels belonged, on the
condition that the repeal should take effect only in favor of any
foreign nation when the Executive should be satisfied that such
discriminating duties to the disadvantage of the United States had
likewise been repealed by such nation. By this act a proposition was
made to all nations to place our commerce with each on a basis which it
was presumed would be acceptable to all. Every nation was allowed to
bring its manufactures and productions into our ports and to take the
manufactures and productions of the United States back to their ports in
their own vessels on the same conditions that they might be transported
in vessels of the United States, and in return it was required that a
like accommodation should be granted to the vessels of the United States
in the ports of other powers. The articles to be admitted or prohibited
on either side formed no part of the proposed arrangement. Each party
would retain the right to admit or prohibit such articles from the other
as it thought proper, and on its own conditions.

When the nature of the commerce between the United States and every
other country was taken into view, it was thought that this proposition
would be considered fair, and even liberal, by every power. The exports
of the United States consist generally of articles of the first
necessity and of rude materials in demand for foreign manufactories, of
great bulk, requiring for their transportation many vessels, the return
for which in the manufactures and productions of any foreign country,
even when disposed of there to advantage, may be brought in a single
vessel. This observation is the more especially applicable to those
countries from which manufactures alone are imported, but it applies in
a great extent to the European dominions of every European power and in
a certain extent to all the colonies of those powers. By