US Presidency
1815

In the performance of the Executive duty upon this occasion there has not been wanting a just sensibility to the merits of the American Army during the late war, but the obvious policy and design in fixing an efficient military peace establishment did not afford an opportunity to distinguish the aged and infirm on account of their past services nor the wounded and disabled on account of their present sufferings The extent of the reduction, indeed, unavoidably involved the exclusion of many meritorious officers of every rank from the service of their country, and so equal as well as so numerous were the claims to attention that a decision by the standard of comparative merit could seldom be attained Judged, how ever, in candor by a general standard of positive merit, the Army register will, it is believed, do honor to the establish ment, while the case of those officers whose names are not in eluded in it devolves with the strongest interest upon the legislative authority for such provision as shall be deemed the best calculated to give support and solace to the veteran and the invalid, to display the beneficence as well as the justice of the Government, and to inspire a martial zeal for the public service upon every future emergency.