Non-fiction: Annual Message to Congress, 1817 (State of the Union)

Overview
James Monroe’s first Annual Message to Congress in December 1817 sets a confident, conciliatory tone at the outset of the Era of Good Feelings. He reports a nation at peace, enjoying rising revenues, expanding population, and growing commerce after the War of 1812. The message balances celebration of this prosperity with a sober program: strengthen coastal defenses, professionalize the Army and Navy, secure borders through diplomacy, enforce neutrality amid hemispheric revolutions, reduce the national debt, and bind the Union through roads and canals while respecting constitutional limits.

Foreign Relations
Monroe highlights a broadly favorable international outlook. With Great Britain, commissions under the Treaty of Ghent are quietly settling boundary questions, and the Rush-Bagot arrangement is demilitarizing the Great Lakes, reducing the risk of renewed conflict. With Spain, negotiations continue over boundaries and the unsettled situation in Florida. Monroe underscores strict neutrality toward the Spanish American revolutions, acknowledging their significance while insisting the United States will neither abet nor obstruct them in violation of international law.

He dwells on two flashpoints, Amelia Island off East Florida and activities at Galveston on the Texas coast, where adventurers and privateers used nominal revolutionary flags to cloak smuggling, piracy, and slave trading. The administration moved to suppress these establishments and to prevent U.S. territory and waters from being used against friendly powers, presenting the actions as enforcement of laws and neutrality rather than as territorial aggrandizement. Monroe asks Congress for stronger legal tools to curb such violations and to better police the illicit slave trade.

Defense and Security
The President outlines a long-term coastal defense plan centered on permanent fortifications at key harbors and approaches, supported by a well-organized, modest peacetime Army and a Navy capable of protecting commerce and deterring predators. He reports progress in professional military education and engineering, urging continued investment to ensure readiness without maintaining a large standing force. Naval squadrons will safeguard U.S. trade routes and suppress piracy, especially in the Caribbean and Gulf.

Economy, Revenue, and Debt
Monroe reports healthy revenues under the postwar tariff and a steady reduction of the national debt through the Sinking Fund. With the Second Bank of the United States in operation, he anticipates a more uniform currency and improved fiscal administration. Agriculture, commerce, and manufactures are all advancing; he favors policies that nurture domestic industry without neglecting the nation’s commercial character. Prudence remains the watchword: maintain credit, meet obligations promptly, and avoid unnecessary expenditures.

Internal Improvements and National Cohesion
Calling internal communications vital to defense, commerce, and national unity, Monroe urges a comprehensive system of roads and canals to link the Atlantic seaboard with the interior and the West. He signals constitutional caution, suggesting that if Congress’s power over such improvements is uncertain, an amendment would be the proper course. The objective is practical: facilitate troop movement, lower transport costs, open markets, and knit together distant regions in peace as effectively as in war.

Public Lands, Territories, and Native Affairs
Rapid settlement across the West and Southwest drives queries of land surveys, sales, and governance. Monroe emphasizes orderly surveys, fair disposition of public lands, and support for emerging states and territories, noting the swift approach of statehood for regions like Mississippi. He describes ongoing treaties with Native nations to extinguish titles where compatible with justice and the public interest, paired with efforts to encourage agriculture, education, and what he presents as a civilizing policy, while averting conflict along the frontier.

Spirit and Aims
Throughout, the message projects calm strength: consolidate peace, pay down the debt, complete defenses, refine administration, and invest in the connective infrastructure of a continent-sized republic. Monroe frames these measures not as partisan ambitions but as shared national tasks, suited to a moment of unity and expansion and to a people confident enough to temper power with law and prudence.