PART OF WASHINGTON'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS.

First Draft by Hamilton.

December 7th, 1796.

That, among the objects of labor and industry, agriculture, considered with reference either to individual or national welfare, is first in importance, may safely be affirmed, without derogating from the just and real value of any other branch. It is, indeed, the best basis of the prosperity of every other. In proportion as nations progress in population and other circumstances of maturity, this truth forces itself more and more upon the conviction of rulers, and makes the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage and care. Institutions for promoting it sooner or later grow up, supported by the public purse -and the full fruits of them, when judiciously conceived and directed, have fully justified the undertaking.

Among these, none have been found of greater utility than BOARDS, composed of proper characters, charged with collecting and communicating information, and enabled to stimulate enterprise and experiment by premiums and honorary rewards. These have been found very cheap instruments of immense benefits. They serve to excite a general spirit of discovery and improvement, to stimulate invention, to excite new and useful experiments—and accumulating in one centre the skill and improvement of every part of the nation, they spread it thence over the whole nation, at the same time promoting new discovery, and diffusing generally, the knowledge of all the discoveries which

are made.

In the United States, hitherto, no such institution has been essayed, though perhaps no country has stronger motives to it.

Agriculture among us is certainly in a very imperfect state. In much of those parts where there have been early settlements, the soil, impoverished by an unskilful tillage, yields but a scanty reward for the labor bestowed upon it, and leaves its possessors

under strong temptation to abandon it, and emigrate to distant regions, more fertile, because they are newer, and have not yet been exhausted by an unskilful use. This is every way an evil. The undue dislocation of our population from this cause, promotes neither the strength, the opulence, nor the happiness of our country. It strongly admonishes our national councils to apply as far as may be practical, by natural and salutary means, an adequate remedy. Nothing appears to be so unexceptionable, and likely to be more efficacious, than the institution of a Board of Agriculture, with the views I have mentioned, and with a moderate fund towards executing them. After mature reflection, I am persuaded it is difficult to render our country a more precious and general service, than by such an institution.

I will, however, observe, that if it be thought expedient, the objects of the Board may be still more comprehensive. It may embrace the encouragement of the mechanic and manufacturing arts by means analogous to those for the improvement of agriculture, and with an eye to the introduction, from abroad, of useful machinery, &c. Or there may be separate Boards, one charged with one object, the other with the other.

I have, heretofore, suggested the expediency of establishing a National University, and a Military Academy. The vast utility of both these measures presses so seriously and so constantly upon my mind, that I cannot forbear with earnestness to repeat the recommendation.

The assembly to which I address myself, will not doubt that the extension of science and knowledge is an object primarily interesting to our national welfare. To effect this, is most naturally the care of the particular local jurisdictions into which our country is subdivided, as far as regards those branches of instruction which ought to be universally diffused, and it gives pleasure to observe that new progress is continually making in the means employed for this end. But, can it be doubted that the general government would with peculiar propriety occupy itself in affording nutriment to those higher branches of science, which, though not within the reach of general acquisition, are in their consequences and relations productive of general advantage?

Or can it be doubted that this great object would be materially advanced by a university erected on that broad basis to which the national resources are most adequate, and so liberally endowed, as to command the ablest professors in the several branches of liberal knowledge? It is true, and to the honor of our country, that it offers many colleges and academies, highly respectable and useful-but the funds upon which they are established are too narrow to permit any of them to be an adequate substitute for such an institution as is contemplated, and to which they would be excellent auxiliaries. Amongst the motives to such an institution, the assimilation of the principles, opinions, manners, and habits of our countrymen, by drawing from all quarters our youth to participate in a common education, well deserves the attention of government. To render the people of this country as homogeneous as possible, must tend as much as any other circumstance to the permanency of their union and prosperity.

The eligibleness of a military academy depends on that evident maxim of policy, which requires every nation to be prepared for war, while cultivating peace, and warns it against suffering the military spirit and military knowledge wholly to decay. However particular instances, superficially viewed, may seem exceptions, it will not be doubted by any who have attentively considered the subject, that the military art is of a complicated and comprehensive nature; that it demands much previous study, as well as practice, and that the possession of it in its most improved state, is always of vast importance to the security of a nation. It ought, therefore, to be a principal care of every government, however pacific its general policy, to preserve and cultivate-indeed, in proportion as the policy of a country is pacific, and it is little liable to be called to practice the rules of the military art, does it become the duty of the government to take care, by proper institutions, that it be not lost. A military academy instituted on proper principles, would serve to secure to our country, though within a narrow sphere, a solid fund of military information which would always be ready for national emergencies, and would facilitate the diffusion of military knowledge as those emergencies might require.

A systematic plan for the creation of a moderate navy appears to me recommended by very weighty considerations. An active external commerce demands a naval power to protect it, besides the dangers from wars, in which a state is a party. It is a truth, which our own experience has confirmed, that the most equitable and sincere neutrality is not sufficient to exempt a state from the depredations of other nations at war with each other. It is essential to induce them to respect that neutrality, that there shall be an organized force ready to vindicate the national flag. This may even prevent the necessity of going into war by discouraging from those insults and infractions of right, which sometimes proceed to an extreme that leaves no alternative. The United States abound in materials. Their commerce, fast increasing, must proportionably augment the number of their seamen, and give us rapidly the means of a naval power, respectable, if not great. Our relative situation, likewise, for obvious. reasons, would render a moderate force very influential, more so, perhaps, than a much greater in the hands of any other power. It is submitted as well deserving consideration, whether it will not be prudent immediately and gradually to provide and lay up magazines of ship-timber, and to build and equip annually, one or more ships of force, as the development of resources shall render convenient and practicable, so that a future war in Europe, if we escape the present storm, may not find our commerce in the defenceless situation in which the present found it.

There is a subject which has dwelt long and much upon my mind, which I cannot omit this opportunity of suggesting. It is the compensation to our public officers, especially those in the most important stations. Every man acquainted with the expense, even of the most frugal plan of living in our great cities, must be sensible of their inadequateness. The impolicy of such defective provisions seems not to have been sufficiently weighed.

No plan of governing is well founded, which does not regard man as a compound of selfish and virtuous passions. To expect him to be wholly guided by the latter, would be as great an error as to suppose him wholly destitute of them. Hence the necessity of adequate rewards for those services of which the

public stand in need. Without them, the affairs of a nation are likely to get sooner or later into incompetent or unfaithful hands. If their own private wealth is to supply in the candidates for public office the deficiency of public liberality, then the sphere of those who can be candidates, especially in a country like ours, is much narrowed, and the chance of a choice of able as well as upright men, much lessened. Besides that, it would be repug nant to the first principles of our government to exclude men from the public trusts, because their talents and virtues, however conspicuous, are unaccompanied by wealth. If the rewards of the government are scanty, those who have talents without wealth, and are too virtuous to abuse their stations, cannot accept public offices without a sacrifice of interest; which, in ordinary times, may hardly be justified by their duty to themselves and their families. If they have talents without virtue, they may, indeed, accept offices to make a dishonest and improper use of them. The tendency then is to transfer the management of public affairs to wealthy, but incapable hands, or to hands which, if capable, are as destitute of integrity as of wealth. For a time, particular circumstances may prevent such a course of things, and hitherto the inference has not been verified in our experience. But it is not the less probable, that time will prove it to be well founded. In some governments men have many allurements to office, exclusive of pecuniary rewards-but from the nature of our government, pecuniary reward is the only aliment to the interested passions which public men who are not vicious can expect. If, then, it be essential to the prosperous course of every government, that it shall be able to command the services of its most able and most virtuous citizens of every class, it follows, that the compensations which our government allows, ought to be revised and materially increased. The character and success of republican government appear absolutely to depend on this policy.

Congress have repeatedly directed their attention to the encouragement of manufactures, and have no doubt promoted them in several branches. The object is of too much importance not to assure a continance of their efforts in every way