US Presidency
1850

For further suggestions on this subject and others connected with ourdomestic interests and the defense of our frontier, I refer you to thereports of the Secretary of the Interior and of the Secretary of War. I commend also to your favorable consideration the suggestion containedin the last-mentioned report and in the letter of the General in Chiefrelative to the establishment of an asylum for the relief of disabled anddestitute soldiers. This subject appeals so strongly to your sympathiesthat it would be superfluous in me to say anything more than barely toexpress my cordial approbation of the proposed object. The Navy continues to give protection to our commerce and other nationalinterests in the different quarters of the globe, and, with the exceptionof a single steamer on the Northern lakes, the vessels in commission aredistributed in six different squadrons. The report of the head of that Department will exhibit the servicesof these squadrons and of the several vessels employed in each during thepast year.