resorted to the Chincha Islands for it and the Peruvian authorities
stationed there. Redress for the outrages committed by the latter was
promptly demanded by our minister at Lima. This subject is now under
consideration, and there is reason to believe that Peru is disposed to
offer adequate indemnity to the aggrieved parties.

We are thus not only at peace with all foreign countries, but, in regard
to political affairs, are exempt from any cause of serious disquietude
in our domestic relations.

The controversies which have agitated the country heretofore are passing
away with the causes which produced them and the passions which they had
awakened; or, if any trace of them remains, it may be reasonably hoped
that it will only be perceived in the zealous rivalry of all good
citizens to testify their respect for the rights of the States, their
devotion to the Union, and their common determination that each one of
the States, its institutions, its welfare, and its domestic peace, shall
be held alike secure under the sacred aegis of the Constitution.

This new league of amity and of mutual confidence and support into which
the people of the Republic have entered happily affords inducement and
opportunity for the adoption of a more comprehensive and unembarrassed
line of policy and action as to the great material interests of the
country, whether regarded in themselves or in connection with the powers
of the civilized world.

The United States have continued gradually and steadily to expand
through acquisitions of territory, which, how much soever some of them
may have been questioned, are now universally seen and admitted to have
been wise in policy, just in character, and a great element in the