US Presidency
1842

But the condition was plainly expressed in the message and was inserted in terms equally plain in the law itself, and amidst the embarrassments which surround the country on all sides and beset both the General and the State Governments it appears to me that the object first and highest in importance is to establish the credit of this Government and to place it on durable foundations, and thus afford the most effectual support to the credit of the States, equal at least to what it would receive from a direct distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. When the distribution law was passed there was reason to anticipate that there soon would be a real surplus to distribute. On that assumption it was in my opinion a wise, a just, and a beneficent measure.