This candid and liberal experiment having thus failed, and no other
event having occurred on which a suspension of the embargo by the
Executive was authorized, it necessarily remains in the extent
originally given to it. We have the satisfaction, however, to reflect
that in return for the privations imposed by the measure, and which
our fellow-citizens in general have borne with patriotism, it has had
the important effects of saving our mariners and our vast mercantile
property, as well as of affording time for prosecuting the defensive and
provisional measures called for by the occasion. It has demonstrated to
foreign nations the moderation and firmness which govern our councils,
and to our citizens the necessity of uniting in support of the laws
and the rights of their country, and has thus long frustrated those
usurpations and spoliations which, if resisted, involved war; if
submitted to, sacrificed a vital principle of our national independence.

Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which, in defiance of
laws which consecrate the rights of neutrals, overspread the ocean with
danger, it will rest with the wisdom of Congress to decide on the course
best adapted to such a state of things; and bringing with them, as they
do, from every part of the Union the sentiments of our constituents, my
confidence is strengthened that in forming this decision they will, with
an unerring regard to the essential rights and interests of the nation,
weigh and compare the painful alternatives out of which a choice is to
be made. Nor should I do justice to the virtues which on other occasions
have marked the character of our fellow-citizens if I did not cherish an
equal confidence that the alternative chosen, whatever it may be, will
be maintained with all the fortitude and patriotism which the crisis
ought to inspire.

The documents containing the correspondences on the subject of the
foreign edicts against our commerce, with the instructions given to
our ministers at London and Paris, are now laid before you.

The communications made to Congress at their last session explained the
posture in which the close of the discussions relating to the attack
by a British ship of war on the frigate _Chesapeake_ left a subject on
which the nation had manifested so honorable a sensibility. Every view
of what had passed authorized a belief that immediate steps would be
taken by the British Government for redressing a wrong which the m