A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 3: Franklin Pierce

On the 28th of May, 1798, an act was passed for the employment of the Navy of the United States against "armed vessels of the Republic of France," and authorized their capture i...

In expressing briefly my views upon an important subject which has recently agitated the nation to almost a fearful degree, I am moved by no other impulse than a most earnest de...

If the systematic reservation of a definite portion of the public lands (the sixteenth sections) in the States for the purposes of education and occasional grants for similar pu...

The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall assemble annually on the first Monday of December, and it has been usual for the President to make no communic...

In connection with this subject I recommend a change in the laws, which recent experience has shown to be essential to the protection of the Government. There is no express prov...

Here is the most distinct and categorical declaration of the two Governments that the matters of claim in the second article of the convention of 1800 had not been ceded away, r...

Of the circumstances of local condition, interest, and rights in which a portion of the States, constituting one great section of the Union, differed from the rest and from anot...

I herewith transmit to you a copy of a treaty between the United States and Great Britain, negotiated at Washington on the 5th of June last. It has been concurred in by the Sena...

While, however, rejecting this proposition and insisting on the right of free transit into and from the Baltic, I have expressed to Denmark a willingness on the part of the Unit...

I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, the following-described Indian treaties, negotiated by George W. Manypenny and Henry C. Gilbert, as comm...

It has been my earnest desire to maintain friendly intercourse with the Governments upon this continent and to aid them in preserving good understanding among themselves. With M...

The other expressions of the clause in question confirm this conclusion, since the jurisdiction is given as to places purchased for certain enumerated objects or purposes. Of th...

In doing this they have at the same time emphatically condemned the idea of organizing in these United States mere geographical parties, of marshaling in hostile array toward ea...

The subject of internal improvements, claiming alike the interest and good will of all, has, nevertheless, been the basis of much political discussion and has stood as a deep-gr...

Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, do warn all persons against connecting themselves with any such enterprise or undertaking, as being contrary...

If an appropriation for improving the navigability of a river or deepening or protecting a harbor have reference to military or naval purposes, then its rightfulness, whether in...

France was the early and efficient ally of the United States in their struggle for independence. From that time to the present, with occasional slight interruptions, cordial rel...

In the meantime, intervening between the Republic of New Granada and the Mexican Republic lie the States of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, the several...

While the question was in this position the representatives of Russia, France, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, and Turkey, assembled at Paris, took into consideration...

In reply to a resolution of the Senate of May 23, requesting a "detailed statement of the sums which have been paid to newspapers published in Washington for advertisements or o...

I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty for the free navigation of the rivers Parana and Uruguay between the United States and the...

I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, two treaties, one made on the 18th day of November, 1854, by Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs, on...

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 13th instant, requesting a confidential communication of information touching the expedition under the authority of this Governm...

I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a convention for regulating the right of inheriting and acquiring property, concluded in this city o...

The inflammatory agitation, of which the present is but a part, has for twenty years produced nothing save unmitigated evil, North and South. But for it the character of the dom...

It affords me unmingled satisfaction thus to announce the peaceful condition of things in Kansas, especially considering the means to which it was necessary to have recourse for...

Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsboro, N.H., November 23, 1804. Was the fourth son of Benjamin and Anna Pierce. His father was a citizen of Massachusetts; was a soldier in the W...

In further compliance with resolution of the House of Representatives of the 22d ultimo, calling upon me for "statements of the amounts of money paid and liabilities incurred fo...