tates and Territories and other citizens of intelligence
and experience, upon the acknowledged defective condition of our militia
system, and of the improvements of which it is susceptible. The report
of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration.

In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of
$5,000,000 will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the
Department of War. Less than two-fifths of this will be applicable to
the maintenance and support of the Army. A million and a half, in the
form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services
and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested in
fortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement,
provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the ages
to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of
another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the
presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a magnitude
burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their equivalents
in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from engagements
more burdensome than debt.

In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department
will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000. About one-half of
these, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual
service, and one-half constitutes a fund of national property, the
pledge of our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year
after the close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses and
charges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the
act of 29th April, 1816, appropriated $1,000,000 annually for eight
years to the _gradual increase of the Navy_. At a subsequent period this
annual appropriation was reduced to half a million for six years, of
which the present year is the last. A yet more recent appropriation the
last two years, for building ten sloops of war, has nearly restored the
original appropriation of 1816 of a million for every year. The result
is before us all. We have twelve line-of-battle ships, twenty frigates,
and sloops of war in proportion, which, with a few months of
preparation, may present a line of floating fortifications along the
whole range of our coast ready to meet any invader who might attempt to
set foot upon our shores. Combining with a system of for