otes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.

I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on financial
questions during a long service in Congress, and to say that time and
experience have strengthened the opinions I have so often expressed on
these subjects.

The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be
possible for my Administration to prevent.

The interests of agriculture deserve more attention from the Government
than they have yet received. The farms of the United States afford homes
and employment for more than one-half our people, and furnish much the
largest part of all our exports. As the Government lights our coasts
for the protection of mariners and the benefit of commerce, so it should
give to the tillers of the soil the best lights of practical science and
experience.

Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially independent,
and are opening to capital and labor new and profitable fields of
employment. Their steady and healthy growth should still be matured.
Our facilities for transportation should be promoted by the continued
improvement of our harbors and great interior waterways and by the
increase of our tonnage on the ocean.

The development of the world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for
shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing ship
canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the continents.
Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need
consideration, but none of them has been sufficiently matured to warrant
the United States in extending pecuniary aid. The subject, however, is
one which will immediately engage the attention of the Government with
a view to a thorough protection to American interests. We will urge
no narrow policy nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges in any
commercial route; but, in the language of my predecessor, I believe it
to be the right "and duty of the United States to assert and maintain
such supervision and authority over any interoceanic canal across
the isthmus that connects North and South America as will protect our
national interest."

The Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Congress is
prohibited from making any law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Territories of the United
States are subject to the direct legislative authority of Congress, and
hence the General Government is responsib