The present consideration of a national establishment for education
particularly is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if
Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible
to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to
endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the
necessary income. This foundation would have the advantage of being
independent of war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring
for its own purposes the resources destined for them.
This, fellow-citizens, is the state of the public interests at the
present moment and according to the information now possessed. But such
is the situation of the nations of Europe and such, too, the predicament
in which we stand with some of them that we can not rely with certainty
on the present aspect of our affairs, that may change from moment
to moment during the course of your session or after you shall have
separated. Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are and
to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to
be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never
should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted
on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for
what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, pace in
preparations for the defense of our seaport towns and waters; an early
settlement of the most exposed and vulnerable parts of our country; a
militia so organized that its effective portions can be called to any
point in the Union, or volunteers instead of them to serve a sufficient
time, are means which may always be ready, yet never preying on our
resources until actually called into use.
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