US Presidency
1804

That individuals should undertake to wage private war, independently of the authority of their country, can not be permitted in a well ordered society. Its tendency to produce aggression on the laws and rights of other nations and to endanger the peace of our own is so oblivious that I doubt not you will adopt measures for restraining it effectually in future. Soon after the passage of the act of the last session authorizing the establishment of a district and a port of entry on the waters of the Mobile we learnt that its object was misunderstood on the part of Spain. Candid explanations were immediately given and assurances that, reserving our claims in that quarter as a subject of discussion and arrangement with Spain, no act was mediated in the meantime inconsistent with peace and friendship existing between the two nations, and that conformably to these intentions would be the execution of the law.