appropriation for the completion of the work which had advanced to the
point which made it effective against shipping, but left still liable
to be carried by land attack. He was not of those who thought it
necessary to raise walls wherever an enemy might land and march, for
he would say that henceforward there would remain to an invading army
but to choose between captivity and a grave. To protect commercial
ports against naval assault forts are needful and should be completed
so as to render them defensible by small garrisons, and to save those
garrisons as far as possible from the sacrifice of life. Our people
require no wall to separate them from other countries, unless it be
needful for our own restraint. Our policy is peace, and the fact
shines brightly on the pages of our history that not one acre of its
extensive acquisitions have been claimed as the spoil of the sword.
Unpeopled deserts have been purchased, and on its own application a
community has been admitted to our family of states. But we have
offered to the world the singular example of conquered territory
returned to the vanquished.

Permit me in this connection, whilst ever mindful of the just relation
and necessity for concurrent action between the civil and military
departments of government, to bear testimony to the value of the
militia for the purposes of peace. The principle of self-government
and the spirit of independence are so deep rooted in the American mind
that our people would illy brook the enforcement of law by any
extraneous power, and it is to be hoped we never will see a case in
which the people of a State will not be able to maintain the civil
authority, and vindicate offended law against all opposers whomsoever.
To give energy and activity to such popular action the organization of
the militia will be most convenient whenever force shall be needful.
It is not a little remarkable that though the first Presidents in