US Presidency
1836

Each state will then support its own government and contribute its due share toward the support of the general government. There would be no surplus to cramp and lessen the resources of individual wealth and enterprise, and the banks would be left to their ordinary means. Whatever agitations and fluctuations might arise from our unfortunate paper system, they could never be attributed, justly or unjustly, to the action of the federal government. There would be some guaranty that the spirit of wild speculation which seeks to convert the surplus revenue into banking capital would be effectually checked, and that the scenes of demoralization which are now so prevalent through the land would disappear. Without desiring to conceal that the experience and observation of the last two years have operated a partial change in my views upon this interesting subject, it is never the less regretted that the suggestions made by me in my annual messages of 1829 and 1830 have been greatly misunderstood.