their appointments, be defined by law, and
a competent fund designated for defraying the expenses incident to the
conduct of our foreign affairs.

Various considerations also render it expedient that the terms on which
foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens should be speedily
ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.

Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States
is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly
attended to.

The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures by all proper
means will not, I trust, need recommendation; but I can not forbear
intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as
well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad as
to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home, and of
facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country
by a due attention to the post-office and post-roads.

Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion that
there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the
promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country
the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of
government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of
the community as in ours it is proportionably essential. To the security
of a free constitution it contributes in various ways--by convincing
those who are intrusted with the public administration that every
valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened
confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves
to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against
invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary
exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a
disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable
exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that
of licentiousness--cherishing the first, avoiding the last--and uniting
a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an
inviolable respect to the laws.

Whether this desirable object will be best promoted by affording aids
to seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a
national university, or by any other expedients will be well worthy of
a place in the deliberations of the Legislature.

_Gentlemen of the House of Repr