e activity
always characteristic of our people has already in a great degree
resumed its usual and profitable channels.

The condition of our foreign relations has not materially changed since
the last annual message of my predecessor. We remain at peace with all
nations, and no efforts on my part consistent with the preservation of
our rights and the honor of the country shall be spared to maintain a
position so consonant to our institutions. We have faithfully sustained
the foreign policy with which the United States, under the guidance of
their first President, took their stand in the family of nations--that
of regulating their intercourse with other powers by the approved
principles of private life; asking and according equal rights and equal
privileges; rendering and demanding justice in all cases; advancing
their own and discussing the pretensions of others with candor,
directness, and sincerity; appealing at all times to reason, but never
yielding to force nor seeking to acquire anything for themselves by
its exercise.

A rigid adherence to this policy has left this Government with scarcely
a claim upon its justice for injuries arising from acts committed by
its authority. The most imposing and perplexing of those of the United
States upon foreign governments for aggressions upon our citizens were
disposed of by my predecessor. Independently of the benefits conferred
upon our citizens by restoring to the mercantile community so many
millions of which they had been wrongfully divested, a great service
was also rendered to his country by the satisfactory adjustment of so
many ancient and irritating subjects of contention; and it reflects no
ordinary credit on his successful administration of public affairs that
this great object was accomplished without compromising on any occasion
either the honor or the peace of the nation.

With European powers no new subjects of difficulty have arisen, and
those which were under discussion, although not terminated, do not
present a more unfavorable aspect for the future preservation of that
good understanding which it has ever been our desire to cultivate.

Of pending questions the most important is that which exists with the
Government of Great Britain in respect to our northeastern boundary. It
is with unfeigned regret that the people of the United States must look
back upon the abortive efforts made by the Executive, for a period of
more than half a century, to determine