The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-13 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1?341.

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

The following is the Message of the President
of the United States to the two Houses of Con-
gress, at the commencement of the Second Session
of the Twenty-Sixth Congress :

FELLOW-CITIZENS O➢ rue SENATE,
♦ND HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES,--
Our devout gratitude is due to the Supreme Being for
having graciously continued to our beloved country,
through the vicissitudes of another year, the invaluable
blessings of health, plenty, and peace. Seldom has this
favoured land been so generally exempted from the ravages
of disease, or the labour of the husbandman 'More amply
rewarded ; and never before have our relations with other
couetrits been placed on a more favourable basis thin that
which they so happily occupy at this critical conjuncture in
the affairs of the world. A rigid and persevering ab-
stinence from all interference with the domestic and
political relations of other States, alike due to the
genius and distinctive character of our Government
and to the principles by which it is directed; a faithful
observance, in the management of our foreign rela-
tions, of the practice of speaking plainly, dealing
justly, and requiring truth and justice in return, as
the best conservatives of the peace of nations; a
strict impartiality in our manifestations of friendship, in the
commercial privileges we concede, and those we require
from others—these, accompanied by a disposition as prompt
to maintain, in every emergency, our 'own rights, as we are
from principle averse to the invasion of those of others,
have given to our country and Government a standing in
the great family of nations of which we have just cause to
be pird, and, the advantages of,whlch are e.7ste.rieneed by
tsar Citizens throughout every poitie; :!If the otiith to which
their enterprising and adventarous :pirit may carry them.
Few, if any, remain inseasible to the value of our friendship,
or ignorant of the terms on which it can be acquired, and
by which it can alone be preserved.
A series of questions of long standing, difficult in their
adjustment, and important in their consequences, in which
the rights of our citizens and the honour of the country
were deeply involved, have, in the course of a few years
the most of them during the successful administration of
my immediate predecessor), been brought to a satisfactory
conclusion, and the most of those remaining are, I an,
appy to believe, in a fair way of being speedily and satis-
factorily adjusted.
With all the Powers of the world our relations are those
of honourable peace. Since your adjournment nothing
serious has occurred to interrupt or threaten this desirable
harmony. If clouds have lowered above the other hemis-
phere, they have not cast their portentous shadows upon
our happy shores. Bound by no entangling alliances, yet
linked by a common nature and interest with the other na-
tions of mankind, our aspirations are for the preservation
of peace, in whose solid and civilizing triumphs all may
participate with a generous emulation. Yet it behoves us
to be prepared for any event, and to be always ready to
maintain those just and enlightened principles of national
intercourse, for which this Government has ever contended,
In the shock of contending empires it is only by assuming a
resolute bearing, and clothing themselves with defensive
armour, that neutral nations can maintain their independent
rights.
The excitement which grew out of the territorial contro-
versy between the United States and Great Britain having
in a great measure subsided, it is hoped that a favourable
period is approaching for its final settlement. Both Go-
vernments must now be convinced of the dangers with which
the question is fraught; and it must be their desire, as it
is their interest, that this perpetual cause of irritation
should be removed as speedily as practicable. In my last
annual Message you were informed that the proposi-
tion for a commission of exploration and survey pro-
mised by Great Britain had been received, and that a
counter project, including also a provision for the certain
and final adjustment of the limits in dispute, was then be-
fore the British Government for its consideration. The
answer of that Government, accompanied by additional
propositions of its own, was received, through its Mi-
nister here, since your separation. These were promptly
considered ; such as were deemed correct in principle,
and consistent with a due regard to the just rights of the
United States and of the State of Maine, concurred in ;
and the reasons for dissenting from the residue, with an
additional suggestion on our part, communicated by the
Secretary of State to Mr. Fox. That Minister, not feel-
ing himself sufficiently instructed upon some of the points
raised in the discussion, felt it to be his duty to refer the
matter to his own Government for its farther decision.
Having now been for some time under its advisement, a
speedy answer may be confidently expected. From the
character of the points still in difference, and the un-
doubted disposition of both parties to bring the matter to
an early conclusion, I look with entire confidence to a
prompt and satisfactory termination of the negotiation.
Three Commissioners were appointed shortly after the ad-
j-airement of Congress, under the Act of last Session
providing fur the exploration and survey of the line which
separates the States of Maine and New Hampshire from
the British provinces; they have been actively employed
until their progress was interrupted by the inclemency of
the season, and will resume their labours as soon as prac-
ticable in the ensuing year.

It is understood that their respective examinations will
throw new light upon the subject in controversy, and serve
to remove any erroneous impressions which may have been
made elsewhere prejudicial to the rights of the United
States. It was, among other reasons, with a view of pre-
venting the embarrassments, which in our peculiar system
of Government, impede and complicate negotiations in-
volving the territorial rights of a State, that I thought it
my duty, as you have been informed on a previous oeca
sion to propose to the British Government, through its
Minister at Washington, that early steps should be taken
to adjust the points of difference on the line of boundary
from the entrance of Lake Superior to the most Nort'n.
western point of the Lake of the Woods, by the arbitra-
tion of a friendly
Power, in conformity with the seventh
article of the treaty of Ghent; No answer has yet been
returned by the British Government to this proposition.
With Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the remain-
ing powers of Europe, I am happy to inform you our rela-
tions continue to be of the most friendly character. With
Belgium a treaty of commerce and navigation, based upon
liberal principles of reciprocity and equality, was concluded
in March last, and having been ratified by the Belgian
Government, will be duly laid before the Senate. It is a
subject of congratulation that it provides for the satisfac.
tory adjustment of a long standing question of contro-
versy ; thus removing the only obstacle which could
obstruct the friendly and mutually advantageous inter-
course between the two nations. A messenger has been
despatched with the Hanoverian treaty to Berlin, where,
accord,ng to stipulation, the ratifications are to be ex-
changed. lam Iv p,y
to announce to you that, after
many delays and iiiiculties, a treaty of commerce and
navigation between the United States and Portagal was
concluded and signed at Lisbon, on the 26th of August
last, by the Plenipotentiaries of the two Governments.
Its stipulations arc founded upon those principles of mu.
tual liberality and advantage which the United States
have always sought to make the basis of their intercourse
with Foreign Powers, and it is hoped they will tend to
foster and strengthen the commercial intercourse of the
two countries.

Under the appropriation of the last session of Congress,
an agent has been scnt to Germany for the purpose of pro-
moting the interests of our tobacco trade.

The Commissioners appointed under the convention for
the adjustment of claims of citizens of the United States
upon Mexico having met and organized at Washington, in
August last, the papers in the possession of the Govern-
ment relating to those claims, were communicated to the
Board. The claims not embraced by that convention are
now the subject of negotiation between the two Govern-
ments, through the medium of our Minister at Mexico.
Nothing has occurred to disturb the harmony of our rela-
tions with the different Governments of South America.
I regret, however, to be obligzd to inform you that the claims
of our citizens upon the late republic of Colombia have
not yet been satisfied by the Governments into which it
has been resolved. _ .

The Charge d'Affaires of Brazil having expressed the
intention of his Government not to prolong the Treaty of
1828, it will cease to be obligatory upon either party on
the 12th day of December, 1841, when the extensive
commercial int.„course between the United States and
that vast empire will no longer be regulated by express
stipulations.
It affords me pleasure to communicate to you that the
Government of Chili has entered into an agreement to
indemnify the claimants in the case cf the Macedonian
for American property seized in 1819 ; and to add, that
information has also been received which justifies the hope
of an early adjustment of the remaining claims upon that

Government.
The Commissioners appointed in pursuance of the con-
vention between the United States and Texas, for marking
the boundary between them, have, according to the last re-
port received from our Commissioner, surveyed and esta-
blished the whole extent of the boundary north along the
western bank of the Sabine river, from its entrance into the
for the purpose of esta.
yo eovienutCbresreC intersection of the thirty-second
Gulf of Mexico to the 32. d degree of north latitude. The
commission adjourned on the 16th of June last, to re-assem-
• with the western bank of the Sabine,
and the meridian line thence to the Red river. It is pre-
sumed ('erng bushingrbe 1
ee
oo
fna cl tachtutetr
ualtdseetl
that the work will be concluded in the present season.
The present sound condition of their finances, and the
success with which embarrassments in regard to them, at
times apparently insurmountable, have been overcome, are
matters upon which the people and Government of the
United States may well congratulate themselves. An
overflowing treasury, however it may be regarded as an
evidence of public prosperity, is seldom conducive to the
; and experience has
incompatibiliteople y
with the salutary action
of political institutions like those of the United States.
demonstratedpeunanentweiltfsare of any p
Our safest reliance for financial efficiency and indepen-
dence has, on the contrary, been found to consist in ample
resources, unencumbered with debt ; and, in this respect,
the Federal Government occupies a singularly fortunate
and truly enviable position.
When I entered upon the discharge of my official
duties in March, 1837, the Act for the distribution
of the surplus revenue was in a course of rapid exe-
cution. Nearly twenty-eight millions of dollars of
the public moneys were, in pursuance of its provisions, de-
posited with the States in the months of January, April,
and July, of that year. In May there occurred a general
specielcep payments by the banks, including,
tions, these in which the public moneys
wereith verydep
Bad upon whose fidelity the Government
suspensionwo fse ofit deposited,
exceptions,

had unfortunately made itself dependent fur the revenues
which had been collected from the people, and were indis-
pensable for the public service. This suspension, and ex-
cesses in banking and commerce out of which it arose, and
which were greatly aggravated by its occurrence, made,
ti) a great extent, unavailable the principal part of the pub-
lic money then in hand ; suspended the collection of many
millions accruing on merchants' bonds ; and greatly re-
duced the revenue arising from customs and the public
latnia. These effects have continued to operate, in various
degrees, to the present period ; and in addition to the (i-
-crease in the revenue thus produced two and a halt mil-
lions of duties have been relinquished by two biennial re-
ductions under the Act of 1833, and probably as much
more upon the importation of iron for railroads, by special
legislation.
While such has been our condition for the last four
years in relation to revenue, we have, during the same pe-
riod, been subjected to an unavoidable continuance of
large extraordinary expenses necessarily growing out of
past transactions, and which could not be immediately ar-
rested without great prejudice to the public interest. Of
these, the charge upon the Treasury, in consequence of
the Cherokee Treaty alone, without adverting to others
arising out of Indian treaties, has already exceeded five
millions of dollars; that for the prosecution of measures
for the removal of the Seminole Indians, which were
found in progress, has been nearly fourteen millions; and
the public buildings have required the unusual sum of
nearly three millions.
It affords me, however, great pleasure to be able to say
that from the commencement of this period to the present
day, every demand upon the Government. at home or
abroad, has been promptly met. This has been done, not
only without creating a permanent debt, or a resort to ad-
ditional taxation in any form, but in the midst of a steadily
progressive reduction of existing burdens upon the people,
lesving still a considerable balance of available funds
which will remain in the Treasury at the end of the year.
The small amount of Treasury notes, not exceeding four
and a half millions still, outstanding, and less by twenty-
three millions than the United States have in deposit
with the States, is composed of such only as are not yet
due, or have not been presented for payment. They may
be redeemed out of the accruing revenue, if the expendi-
tures do not exceed the amount within which they may,
it is thought, be kept without prejudice to the public in-
terest, and the revenue shall prove to be as large as may
be justly anticipated.
Among the reflections arising from the contemplation of
these circumstances, one, not the least gratifying, is the
consciousness that the Government had the resolution and
the ability to adhere, in every emergency, to the sacred
obligation of law; to execute all its contracts according to
the requirements of the Constitution ; and thus to present,
when most needed, a rallying point by which the business
of the whole country might be brought back to a safe and
unvarying standard—a result vitally important as well to
the interests as to the morals of the people. There can surely
now be no difference of opinion in regard to the incalculable
evils that would have arisen if the Government, at that
critical moment, had suffered itself to be deterred from
upholding the only true standard of value, even by tile
pressure of adverse circumstances, or the violence of un-
merited denunciation. The manner in which the people
sustained the performance of this duty was ii4!hly honour-
able to their fortitude and patriotism. It cannot fail to
stimulate their agents to adhere, under all circumstances,
to the line of duty ; and to satisfy them of the safety with
which a course really right, and demanded by a financial
crisis, may in a community like ours, be pursued, however
apparently severe its immediate operation.
The policy of the Federal Government, in extinguishing
as rapidly as possible the national debt, and, subsequently,
in resisting every temptation to create a new one, deserves
to be regarded in the same favourable light. Among the
many objections to a national debt. the certain tendency of
public securities to concentrate ultimately in the coffers of
()reign stockholders, is one which is every day gathering
strength. Already have the resources of many of the
States, and the future industry of their citizens, been in-
definitely mortgaged to the subjects of European Govern.
'Dents to the amount of twelve millions annually, to pay
the constantly accruing interest on borrowed money—a
sum exceeding half the ordinary revenues of the whole
United States. The pretext which the relation affords to
foreigners to scrutinize the management of our domestic
affairs, if not actually to intermeddle with them, presents a
subject fur earnest attention, not to say of serious alarm.
Fortunately the Federal Go✓ernment, with the exception
of att obligation entered into in behalf of the district of
Colombia, which must soon be discharged, is wholly
exempt front any such embarrassment. It is also, as is
believed, the only Government which, having fully and
faiti,fully paid all its creditors, has also relieved itself en-
tirely from debt. To maintain a distinction so desirable,
and so honourable to our national character, should be an
object of earnest solicitude.

Never should a free people, if it be possible to avoid it,
expose themselves to the necessity of having to treat of the
peace, the honour, or the safety of the Republic, with the
Governments of foreign creditors, who, however well dis-
posed they may be to cultivate with us in general friendly
relations, arc nevertheless by the law of their own condi-
tion, made hostile to the success and permanency of poli-
tical institutions like ours. Most humiliating may be the
embarrassments consequent upon such a condition.
Another objection, scarcely less formidable, to the com-
mencement of a new debt, is the inevitable tendency to
increase in magnitude, and to foster national extrava-
gance. He has been an unprofitable observer of events,
who needs at this day to be admonished of the difficulties
which a Government, habitually dependent on loans to
sustain its ordinary expenditures, has to encounter in re-
sisting the influences constantly exerted in favour of ad-
ditional loans; by capitalists who enrich themselves by
Government securities for amounts much exceeding the
money they actually advance---a prolific source of indivi-
dual aggrandizement in all borrowing countries ; by stock.
holders, who seek their gains in the rise and tall of public
stocks, and by the selfish importunities of applicants for
appropriations for works avowedly for the accommodation
of the public, but the real objects of which are, too fre-
quently, the advancement of private interests.
The known necessity which so many of the States will
be under to impose taxes for the payment of the interest on
their debts, furnishes an additional and very cogent reason
why the Federal Government should refrain from creating a
national debt, by which the people would be exposed to
double taxation for a similar object. We possess within
ourselyes ample resources for every emergency ; and we
may be quite sure that our citizens, in no future exigency,
will be unwilling to supply the Government with all the
means asked for the defence of the country. In time of
peace there can, at all events, be no justification for the
creation of a permanent debt by the Federal Government.
Its limited range of constitutional duties may certainly,
under such circumstances, be performed without such a
resort. It has, it is seen, been avoided during four years
of greater fiscal difficulties than have existed in a similar
period since the adoption of the constitution, and one also
remarkable for the occurrence :of extraordinary causes o
expenditure.
But, to accomplish so desirable an object, two things
are indispensable ; first, that the action of the Federal
Government be kept within the boundaries prescribed by
its founders ; and, secondly, that all appropriations for
objects admitted to be constitutional, and the expenditure
of them also, be subjected to a standard of rigid but well
considered and practical economy. The first depends
chiefly on the people themselves, the opinions they form
,
of the true construction of the constitution, and the confi-
dence they repose in the political sentiments of those they
select as their representatives in the Federal Legislature ;
the second rests upon the fidelity with which their more
immediate representatives, and other public functionaries
discharge the trusts committed to them.

The duty of economising the expenses of the public
service is admitted o i all hands; yet there are few sub-
jects upon which there exists a wider difference of opinion
than is constantly manifested in regard to the fidelity with
which that duty is di,chargad. Neither diversity of senti-
ment, nor even mutual recriminations, upon a point 41 re-
spect to which the public mind is so justly sensitive, can
well be entirely avoided ; and least so at periods of great
political excitement. Au intelligent people, however,
'seldom fail to arrive, in the end, at correct conclusions in
such a matter. Practical economy in the management of
public affairs can have no adverse influence to contend
with more powerful than a large surplus revenue ; and the
unusually large appropriations for 1837 may, without
doubt, independently of the extraordinary requisitions for
the public service growing out of the state of our 'lndian
relations, be, in no inconsiderable degree, traced to this
source, The sudden and rapid distribution of the large
surplus then in the Treasury, and the equally sudden and
unprecedentedly severe revulsion in the commerce and
business of the country, pointing with unerring certainty
to a great and protracted reduction of the revenue,
strengthened the propriety of the earliest practicable re-
duction of the public expenditures.

But to change a system operating upon so large a sur-
face, and applicable to such numerous and diversified in-
terests and objects, was more than the work of a day.
The attention of every department of the Government
was immediately, and in good faith, directed to that end ;
and has been so continued to the present moment. The
estimates and appropriations for the year 1839 (the first
over which I had any control) were somewhat diminished.
The expenditures of 1839 were reduced six millions of
dollars. Those of 1840, (exclusive of disbursements for
public debt and trust claims, will probably not exceed
twenty-two ,and a half millions; being between two
and three millions less than those of the preceding year,
and nine or ten millions less than those of 1837. Nor
has it been found necessary, in order to produce this
result, to resort to the power conferred by Congress, of
postponing certain classes of the public works, except by
deferring expenditures for a short period, upon a limited
portion of them ; and which postponement terminated
some time since, at the moment the Treasury Depart-
ment, by farther receipts, from the indebted banks, be-
came fully assured of its ability to meet them without
prejudice to the public service in other respects. Causes
are in operation, which will, it is believed, justify a still
further reduction, without injury to any important na-
tional interest. The expenses of sustaining the troops
employed in Florida have been gradually and greatly
reduced, through the persevering efforts of the War
Department ; and a reasonable hope may be enter-
tained that the necessity for military operations in that
quarter will soon cease. The removal of the Indians
trom within our settled borders is nearly completed. The
pension list, one of the heaviest charges upon the Treasury,
is rapidly diminishing by death. The most costly of our
public buildings are either finished or nearly so ; and we
may, I think, safely promise ourselves a continued exemp-
tion from border difficulties.

The available balance in the Treasury on the first of
January next is estimated at one million and a half of
dollars. This sum, with the expected receipts from all
sources during the next year, will, it is believed, be suffi-
cient to enable the Government to meet every engage.
meat, and leave a suitable balance in the Treasury at the
end of the year, if the remedial measures connected with
the customs and the public lands, heretofore recommended,
shall be adopted, and the new appropriations by Congress
shall not carry the expenditure beyond the official. estimates.
The new system established by Congress for the safe.
keeping of the public money, prescribing the kind of cur-
rency to be received for the public revenue, and providing
additional guards and securities against losses, has now
been several months in opei ation. Although it might be
premature, upon an experience of such limited duration,
to form a definite opinion in regard to the extent cf
its influences in correcting many evils under which
the Federal Government and the country have hitherto
suffered, especially those that have grown out of
banking expansions, a depreciated currency, and offi
vial defalcations, yet it is but right to say that nothing
has occurred in the practical operation of the system to
weaken in the slightest degree, but much to strengthen the
confident anticipations of its friends. The grounds of these
have been heretofore so fully explained as to require no reca-
pitulation. In respect to the facility and convenience it affords
in conducting the public service, and the ability of the Go
vernmcnt to discharge through its agency every duty at-
tendant on the collection, transfer, and disbursement of
the public money with promptitude and success, I can say
with confidence that the apprehensions of those who felt
it to be their duty to oppose its adoption, have proved to
be unfounded. On the contrary, this branch of the fiscal
affairs of the Government has been, and it is believed may
alway s be, thus carried on with every desirable facility
and security. A few changes and improvements in the
details of the system, without affecting any principles in-
volved in it, will be submitted to you by the Secretary of
the Treasury, and will, ! am sure, receive at your hands
that attention to which they may, on examination, be found
to be entitled.

I have deemed this brief summary of our fiscal affairs
necessary to the due performance of a duty specially en-
joined upon me by the Constitution. It will serve, also,
to illustrate more fully the principles by which I have
been guided in reference to two contested points in our
public policy, which were earliest in their development,
and have been more important in their consequences, than
any that have arisen under our complicated and difficult,
yet admirable, system of Government. I allude to a na-
tional debt, and a national bank. It was in these that the
political contests by which the country has been agitated
ever since the adoption of the Constitution, in a great mea-
sure originated ; and there is too much reason to appre-
hend that the conflicting interests and opposing principles
thus marshalled, will continue, as heretofore, to produce
similar, if not aggravated, consequences.
Coming into office the declared enemy of both, I have
earnestly endeavoured to prevent a resort to either.
The consideration that a laree public debt affords an
apology, and produces, in some degree a necessity also, for
resorting to a system and extent of taxation which is not
only oppressive throughout, but likewise 50 apt to lead, in
the end, to the commission of that most odious of all
offences against the principles of a Republican govern-
ment—the prostitution of political power, conferred for the
general benefit, to the aggrandisement of particular classes,
and the gratification of individual cupidity—is alone suffi-
cient, independently of the weighty objections which have
already been urged, to render its creation and existence the
sources of bitter and unappeasable discord. If we add to
this its inevitable tendency to produce and foster extrava-
gant expenditures of the public money, by which a neces-
sity is created for new loans and new burdens on the
people; and, finally, if we refer to the examples of every
government which has existed, for proof how seldom it is
that the system, when once adopted and implanted in the
policy of a country, has failed to expand itself, until public
credit was exhausted, and the people were no longer able
to endure its increasing weight, it seems impossible to re-
sist the conclusion, that no benefits resulting from its ca-
reer, no extent of conquest, no accession of wealth, to par-
ticular classes, ncr any, nor all its combined advantages
can counterbalance its ultimate but certain results—a
splendid government, and an 'mpoverished people.
If a national bank was, as is undeniable, repudiated by
the framers of the Constitution as incompatible with the
rights of the States and the liberties of the people; if,
from the beginning, it has been regarded by large portions
of our citizens, as coming in direct collision with that
great arid vital amendment of the Constitution which de-
clares that all powers not conferred by that instrument on
the General Government are reserved to the States and to
the people ; if it has been viewed by them as the first great
step in the march of latitudinous construction, which, un-
checked, would render that sacred instrument of as little
value as an unwritten Constitution, dependent, as it would
alone be, for its meaning, oil the interested interpretation
of a dominant party, andaffordieg no security to the rights
of the minority ; if such is undeniably the case, what ra-
tionsl grounds could have been conceived for anticipating
aught but determined opposition to such an institution at
the present day
Could a different result have been expected when the
consequences which have flowed from its creation, and par-
ticularly from its struggles to perpetuate its existence, had
confirmed in so striking a manner, the apprehensions of
its eailiest opponents ;—when it had been so clearly de-
monstrated that a concentrated money power, wielding so
vast a capital, and combining such incalculable means of
influence, may, in those peculiar conjunctures to which this
Government is unavoidably exposed, prove an overmatch for
the political power of the people themselves; when the true
character of its capacity to regulate according to will and its
interests, and the interests of its favourites, the value and
production of the labour and property of every man in this
extended country, had been so fully and fearfully developed;
when it was notorious that all classes of this great com-
munity had, by means of the power and influence it thus
possesses, been infected to madness with a spirit of heedless
speculation ; when it had been seen that, secure in the
support of the combination of influences by which it was
surrounded, it could violate its charter, and set the laws at
defiance with impunity ; and when, too, it had become most
apparent that to believe that such an accumulation of
powers can ever be granted without the certainty of being
abused, was to indulge in a fatal delusion.
To avoid the necessity of it permanent debt audits inevi-
table consequences, I have advocated, and endeavovred to
carry into effect, the policy of confining the appropriations
for the public service to such objects only as are clearly
within the constitutional authority of the Federal Govern-
ment ; of excluding from its expenses those improvident
and unauthorised grants of public money for works of an
ternal improvement, which were so wisely arrested by the
constitutional interposition of may :predecessor, and which
if they bad not be so checked, would long before this time
have involved the finances of the General Government in
embarrassments far greater than those which are now ex-
perienced by any of the States, of limiting all our expen-
ditures to that simple, unostentatious, and economical ad-
ministration of public affairs, which is alone consistent with
the character of our institutions ; of collecting annually
from the customs and the sales of public lands a revenue
fully adequate to defray all the expenses thus incurred,
but, under no pretence whatsoever, to impose taxes upon
the people to a greater amount than was actually necessary
to the public service, conducted upon the principles I have
stated.

In lieu of a national bank, or a dependence upon banks
of any description, for the management of our fiscal affairs,
I recommended tke adoption of the system which is now
in successful operation. That system affords every requi-
site facility for the transaction of the pecuniary concerns
of the Government; will, it is confidently anticipated,
produce, in other respects, many of the benefits which have
been from time to time expected from the creation of a
national bank, but which have never been realised; avoid
the manifold evils inseparable from such an institution ;
diminish, to a greater
.extent than could be accomplished
by any other measure of reform, the patronage of the
Federal Government—a wise policy in all Government,
but more especially so in one like ours, which works well
only in proportion as it is made to rely for its support upon
the unbiassed and unadulterated opinions of its constituents;
do away for ever all dependence on corporate bodies, either
in the raising, collecting, safe keeping, or disbursing the
public revenues, and place the Government equally above
the temptation of fostering a dangerous and uneonstitu•
tional institution at home, or the necessity of adapting its
pulley to the views and interests of a still more formidable
money-power abroad.
It is by adopting and carrying out these principles
under circumstances the most arduous and discouraging,
that the attempt has been made, thus far successfully, to
demonstrate to the people of the United States that a
national bank at all times, and a national debt, except it
be incurred at a period when the honour and safety of
the nation demand the temporary sacrifice of a policy
which should only be abandoned in such exigencies, are
not merely unnecessary, but in direct and deadly hostility
to the principles of their Government, and to their own
permanent welfare.
The progress made in the development of these posi-
tions, appears in the preceding sketch of the past history
and present state of the financial concerns of the Federal
Government. The facts there stated fully authorise the
assertion, that all the purposes for which this Government
was instituted have been accomplished during four years
of greater pecuniary embarrassments than were ever before
experienced in time of peace, and in the face of opposi-
tion
as formidable as any that was ever before arrayed
against the policy of an Administration; that this
was
been done when the ordinary revenues of the Government
were generally decreasing, as well from the
operationwithout ofhout the
e Go
the laws as the condition of the country,
Ind
without the
creation of a permanent public ddebt,ryorreisinicuit wterreisagef
theany
liability, other than such as the ordinary
ley
Government will speedily discharge, and
agency of a national bank.
If this view of the
thwarranted
period it embraces, be d
they
are tbhye
the as n for
are known to exist; if the army and navy have been sus-
tained to the full extent authorised by law, and which Con-
gress deemed sufficient for the defence of the country and
diplomaticth service hasandeprotectionofitsriglitesethe
itshonour; if its civil and
sustained
if
ample
provision has been mad
e b
for equallyadministration of justice
laws
and the execution of the ;if the claims upon public
gratitude in behalf of the soldiers of the Revolution have
been promptly met and faithfully discharged ; if there have
been no failures in defraying the very large expenditures
growing out of that long continued and salutary policy of
peacefully removing the Indians to regions of comparative
safety and prosperity ; if the public faith has at all times,
and every where, been most scrupulously maintained by a
prompt discharge of the numerous, extended, and diverai-
fied claims on the Treasury ; if all these great and per.