US Presidency
1832

To avert the consequences which may be apprehended from this cause, to pub an end for ever to all partial and interested legislation on the subject, and to afford to every American citizen of enterprise the opportunity of securing an independent freehold, it seems to me, therefore, best to abandon the idea of raising a future revenue out of the public lands. In former messages I have expressed my conviction that the Constitution does not warrant the application of the funds of the general government to objects of internal improvement which are not national in their character, and, both as a means of doing justice to all interests and putting an end to a course of legislation calculated to destroy the purity of the government, have urged the necessity of reducing the whole subject to some fixed and certain rule. As there never will occur a period, perhaps, more propitious than the present to the accomplishment of this object, I beg leave to press the subject again upon your attention.