sts which we have at stake without one single point where
a ship, if dependent upon the United States fortifications, would be
safe from the attacks of a frigate--these and the consideration that
little, comparatively, has yet been done for Maine seem to our view to
constitute irresistible reasons why Maine should no longer be forgotten
or neglected in the common defense of the country.

Through all the long-protracted struggles, difficulties, and
embarrassments of our infant Republic this portion of our Union has
never been urgent or importunate in pressing its claims, but has
submitted patiently to the force of circumstances which rendered it
necessary to defer them.

But in the present altered condition of the country--the national debt
paid off at a season of universal peace and unexampled prosperity, with
an overburthened Treasury, and when it is deemed necessary to dispose
of it to resort to measures which many eminent statesmen consider
unwarranted by the Constitution and which a great portion of the people
of the Union consider of doubtful policy--at such a period and under
such circumstances it is difficult to perceive the justice of longer
withholding suitable appropriations for the defense of Maine, and to
our view it can only be withheld by doing violence to the principles
of equal rights and by neglecting a plain constitutional duty.

Your committee therefore submit the following resolutions.

STEPHEN C. FOSTER,

_Chairman_.

STATE OF MAINE.

RESOLVE relating to the fortification of frontier States.

_Resolved_, That the obligation of the Federal Government, under
the Constitution, when it has the means to erect suitable fortifications
for the defense of the frontier of the States, is a practical duty not
justly to be denied, evaded, neglected, or delayed.

_Resolved_, That our Senators in Congress be instructed and our
Representatives requested to use their influence to obtain liberal
appropriations for the defense of Maine and the Union.

_Resolved_, That the governor be requested to transmit copies of
the above report and resolutions to the President and Vice-President,
the Secretaries of State, Navy, and War, and to each of our Senators
and Representatives in Congress.

[Passed by both Houses and approved March 30, 1837.]

STATE OF MAINE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

_Augusta, April 30, 1837_.

His Excellency MARTIN VAN BUREN,

_President of the United States_.

SIR: In compliance w