Martin  Van  Buren  1824 
re4tiction  of  existing  burdens  upon  the  people,  leaving  still  a  consider- 
able balance  of  available  funds  which  will  remain  in  the  Treasury  at  the 
end  of  the  year.  The  small  amount  of  Treasury  notes,  not  exceeding 
$4,500,000,  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  pajonent.  They  may 
be  redeemed  out  of  the  accruing  revenue  if  the  expenditures  do  not 
exceed  the  amount  within  which  they  may,  it  is  thought,  be  kept  with- 
out prejudice  to  the  public  interest,  and  the  revenue  shaU  prove  to  be  as 
large  as  may  justly  be  anticipated. 
Among  the  reflections  arising  from  the  contemplation  of  these  circum- 
stances, one,  not  the  least  gpratif  jdng,  is  the  consciousness  that  the  Gov- 
ernment had  the  resolution  and  the  ability  to  adhere  in  every  emergency 
to  the  sacred  obligations  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,  either  by  the  pressure  of  adverse  circumstances  or  the  violence  of 
unmerited  denunciation.  The  manner  in  which  the  people  sustained 
the  performance  of  this  duty  was  highly  honorable  to  their  fortitude  and 
patriotism.  It  can  not  fail  to  stimulate  their  agents  to  adhere  under  all 
circum|tances  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  imriie- 
diate  operation. 
The  policy  of  the  Federal  Government  in  extinguishing  as  rapidly  as 
possible  the  national  debt,  and  subsequently  in  resisting  every  temp- 
tation to  create  a  new  one,  deserves  to  be  regarded  in  the  same  favor- 
able light.  Among  the  many  objections  to  a  national  debt,  the  certain 
tendency  of  public  securities  to  concentrate  ultimately  in  the  coffers 
%A  foreign  stockholders  is  one  which  is  every  day  gathering  strength. 
Already  have  the  resources  of  many  of  the  States  and  the  future  indus- 
try of  their  citizens  been  indefinitely  mortgaged  to  the  subjects  of  Euro- 
pean Governments  to  the  amount  of  twelve  millions  annually  to  pay  the 
constantly  accruing  interest  on  borrowed  money — 2.  sum  exceeding  half 
the  ordinary  revenues  of  the  whole  United  States.  The  pretext  which 
this  relation  affords  to  foreigners  to  scrutinize  the  management  of  our 
domestic  affairs,  if  not  actually  to  intermeddle  with  them,  presents  a  sub- 
ject for  earnest  attention,  not  to  say  of  serious  alarm.  Fortunately,  the 
Federal  Government,  with  the  exception  of  an  obligation  entered  into 
in  behalf  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  which  must  soon  be  discharged,
1825  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
is  wholly  exempt  from  any  such  embarrassment.  It  is  also,  as  is 
believed,  the  only  Government  which,  having  fully  and  faithfully  paid 
all  its  creditors,  has*  also  relieved  itself  entirely  from  debt.  To  main- 
tain a  distinction  so  desirable  and  so  honorable  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  honor,  or  the  safety  of  the  Republic  with  the 
governments  of  foreign  creditors,  who,  however  well  disposed  they  may 
be  to  cultivate  with  us  in  general  friendly  relations,  are  nevertheless 
by  the  law  of  their  own  condition  made  hostile  to  the  success  and  per- 
manency of  political  institutions  like  ours.  Most  humiliating  may  be 
the  embarrassments  consequent  upon  such  a  condition.  Another  objec- 
tion, scarcely  less  formidable,  to  the  commencement  of  a  new  debt  is 
its  inevitable  tendency  to  increase  in  magnitude  and  to  foster  national 
extravagance.  He  has  been  an  unprofitable  observer  of  events  who 
needs  at  this  day  to  be  admonished  of  the  difficulties  which  a  govern- 
ment habitually  dependent  on  loans  to  sustain  its  ordinary  expenditures 
has  to  encounter  in  resisting  the  influences  constantly  exerted  in  favor 
of  additional  loans;  by  capitalists,  who  enrich  themselves  by  government 
securities  for  amounts  much  exceeding  the  money  they  actually  advance — 
a  prolific  source  of  individual  aggrandizement  in  all  borrowing  countries; 
by  stockholders,  who  seek  their  gains  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  pubUc  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  frequently  the  advancement  of  private  interests.  The 
known  necessity  which  so  many  of  the  States  will  be  under  to  ^pose 
taxes  for  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  their  debts  furnishes  an  addi- 
tional 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  our- 
selves ample  resources  for  every  emergency,  and  we  may  be  quite  sure 
that  our  citizens  in  no  future  exigency  will  be  unwilUng  to  supply  the 
Government  with  all  the  means  asked  for  the  defense  of  the  country. 
In  time  of  peace  there  can,  at  all  events,  be  no  justification  for  the  crea- 
tion of  a  permanent  debt  by  the  Federal  Government.  Its  limited  range 
of  constitutional  duties  may  certainly  under  such  circumstances  be  per- 
formed 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  of  expenditures. 
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  appropria- 
tions for  objects  admitted  to  be  constitutional,  and  the  expenditure  of 
them  also,  be  subjected  to  a  standard  of  rig^id  but  well-considered  and
Martin  Van  Buren  1826 
practical  economy.  The  first  depends  chiefly  on  the  people  themselves— 
the  opinions  they  form  of  the  true  construction  of  the  Constitution  and 
the  confidence  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 
economizing  the  expenses  of  the  public  service  is  admitted  on  all  hands; 
yet  there  are  few  subjects  upon  which  there  exists  a  wider  difference  of 
opinion  than  is  constantly  manifested  in  regard  to  the  fidelity  with  which 
that  duty  is  discharged.  Neither  diversity  of  sentiment  nor  even  mutual 
recriminations  upon  a  point  in  respect  to  which  the  pubUc  mind  is  so 
justly  sensitive  can  well  be  entirely  avoided,  and  least  so  at  periods  of 
great  political  excitement.  An  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  influ- 
ence to  contend  with  more  powerful  than  a  large  surplus  revenue,  and  the 
unusually  large  appropriations  for  1837  may  without  doubt,  independ- 
ently of  the  extraordinary  requisitions  for  the  public  service  growing  out 
of  the  state  of  our  Indian  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 
revidsion  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  reduction  of  the 
public  expenditures. 
But  to  change  a  system  operating  upon  so  large  a  surface  and  applicable 
to  such  numerous  and  diversified  interests  and  objects  was  more  than 
the  work  of  a  day.  The  attention  of  every  department  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  immediately  and  in  good  faith  directed  to  that  end,  and  has 
been  so  continued  to  the  present  moment.  The  estimates  and  appropria- 
tions for  the  year  1838  (the  first.over  which  I  had  any  control)  were  some- 
what diminished.  The  expenditures  of  1839  were  reduced  $6,000,000. 
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  son^e  time  since — at  the  moment 
the  Treasury  Department  by  further  receipts  from  the  indebted  banks 
became  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  national   interest.     The   expenses  of  sustaining  the  troops
1827  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
employed  in  Florida  have  been  gradually  and  greatly  reduced  through 
the  persevering  efforts  of  the  War  Department,  and  a  reasonable  hope 
may  be  entertained  that  the  necessity  for  military  operations  in  that 
quarter  will  soon  cease.  The  removal  of  the  Indians  from  within  our 
settled  borders  is  nearly  completed.  The  pension  list,  one  of  the  heav- 
iest 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  exemption  from 
border  difficulties. 
The  available  balance  in  the  Treasury  on  the  ist  of  January  next  is 
estimated  at  $1,500,000.  This  sum,  with  the  expected  receipts  from  all 
sources  during  the  next  year,  will,  it  is  believed,  be  sufficient  to  enable 
the  Government  to  meet  every  engagement  and  have  a  suitable  balance 
in  the  Treasury  at  the  end  of  the  year,  if  the  remedial  measures  con- 
nected with  the  customs  and  the  public  lands  heretofore  recommended 
are  adopted  and  the  new  appropriations  by  Congress  shall  not  carry  the 
expenditures  beyond  the  official  estimates. 
The  new  system  estabUshed  by  Congress  for  the  safe-keeping  of  the 
public  money,  prescribing  the  kind  of  currency  to  be  received  for  the  pub- 
lic revenue  and  providing  additional  guards  and  securities  against  losses, 
has  now  been  several  months  in  operation.  Although  it  might  be  pre- 
mature upon  an  experience  of  such  limited  duration  to  form  a  definite 
opinion  in  regard  to  the  extent  of  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  official  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  recapitulation.  In  respect  to  the 
facility  and  convenience  it  affords  in  conducting  the  public  service,  and 
the  ability  of  the  Government  to  discharge  through  its  agency  every 
duty  attendant  on  the  collection,  transfer,  and  disbursement  of  the  pub- 
lic 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  contrar3'',  this  branch 
of  the  fiscal  affairs  of  the  Government  has  been,  and  it  is  believed  may 
always  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  involved  in  it,  will  be  submitted  to  you  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  will,  I  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  enjoined  upon  me  by  the  Constitu- 
tion.    It  will  serve  also  to  illustrate  more  fully  the  principles  by  which
Martin  Van  Buren  1828 
I  have  been  guided  in  reference  to  two  contested  points  in  our  public 
policy  which  were  earliest  m  their  development  and  have  been  more 
important  in  their  consequences  than  any  that  have  arisen  under  our  com- 
plicated and  difficult,  yet  admirable,  system  of  government.  I  allude 
to  a  national  debt  and  a  national  bank.  It  was  in  these  that  the  polit- 
ical contests  by  which  the  country  has  been  agitated  ever  since  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution  in  a  great  measure  originated,  and  there  is  too 
much  reason  to  apprehend  that  the  conflicting  interests  and  opposing 
principles  thus  marshaled  will  continue  as  heretofore  to  produce  simihu: 
If  not  aggravated  consequences. 
Coming  into  office  the  declared  enemy  of  both,  I  have  earnestly 
endeavored  to  prevent  a  resort  to  either. 
The  consideration  that  a  large  public  debt  afPords  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  is  like- 
wise so  apt  to  lead  in  the  end  to  the  commission  of  that  most  odious  of  all 
offenses  against  the  principles  of  republican  government,  the  prostitu- 
tion of  political  power,  conferred  for  the  general  benefit,  to  the  aggran- 
dizement of  particular  classes  and  the  gratification  of  individual  cupidity, 
is  alone  sufficient,  independently  of  the  weighty  objections  which  have 
already  been  urged,  to  reader  its  creation  and  existence  the  sources  of 
bitter  and  unappeasable  discord.  If  we  add  to  this  its  inevitable  ten- 
dency to  produce  and  foster  extravagant  expenditures  of  the  public 
moneys,  by  which  a  necessity  is  created  for  new  loans  and  new  burdens 
on  the  people,  and,  finally,  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  tmtil  public  credit  was  exhausted  and  the  people  were  no  longer 
able  to  endure  its  increasing  weight,  it  seems  impossible  to  resist  the 
conclusion  that  no  benefits  resulting  from  its  career,  no  extent  of  con- 
quest, no  accession  of  wealth  to  particular  classes,  nor  any  nor  all  its  com- 
bined advantages,  can  counterbalance  its  ultimate  but  certain  results — a 
splendid  government  and  an  impoverished  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  colHsion  with  that  great 
and  vital  amendment  of  the  Constitution  which  declares  that  aU  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  unchecked 
would  render  that  sacred  instrument  of  as  little  value  as  an  unwritten 
constitution,  dependent,  as  it  would  alone  be,  for  its  meaniog  on  the 
interested  interpretation  of  a  dominant  party,  and  affording  no  security 
to  the  rights  of  the  minority — if  such  is  undeniably  the  case,  what  rational
1829  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  I\eside7its 
g;roun(is  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  particularly  from  its  struggles 
to  perpetuate  its  existence,  had  confirmed  in  so  striking  a  manner  the 
apprehensions  of  its  earliest  opponents;  when  it  had  been  so  clearly  dem- 
onstrated 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  its  will  and  its  interests 
and  the  interests  of  its  favorites  the  value  and  production  of  the  labor  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 
community  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  a  permanent  debt  and  its  inevitable  conse- 
quences I  have  advocated  and  endeavored  to  carry  into  effect  the  poUcy 
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  unauthorized 
grants  of  public  money  for  works  of  internal  improvement  which  were  so 
wisely  arrested  by  the  constitutional  interposition  of  my  predecessor,  and 
which,  if  they  had  not  been  so  checked,  would  long  before  this  time  have 
involved  the  finances  of  the  General  Government  in  embarrassments  far 
greater  than  those  which  are  now  experienced  by  any  of  the  States;  of 
limiting  all  our  expenditures  to  that  simple,  unostentatious,  and  econom- 
ical administration  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  pretense  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  descrip- 
tion for  the  management  of  our  fiscal  affairs,  I  recommended  the  adop- 
tion of  the  system  which  is  now  in  successful  operation.  That  system 
affords  every  requisite  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  realized ;
Martin  Van  Buren  1830 
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 
governments,  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  unbi- 
ased and  unadulterated  opinions  of  its  constituents;  do  away  forever  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  unconstitu- 
tional Institution  at  home  or  the  necessity  of  adapting  its  policy  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  honor  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  hostiUty  to  the 
principles  of  their  Government  and  to  their  own  permanent  welfare. 
The  progress  made  in  the  development  of  these  positions  appears  Ji 
the  preceding  sketch  of  the  past  history  and  present  state  of  the  finm- 
cial  concerns  of  the  Federal  Government.  The  facts  there  stated  fully 
authorize  the  assertion  that  all  the  purposes  for  which  this  Government 
was  instituted  have  been  accomplished  during  four  years  of  greater  pecun- 
iary embarrassment  than  were  ever  before  experienced  in  time  of  peace, 
and  in  the  face  of  opposition  as  formidable  as  any  that  was  everv  before 
arrayed  against  the  policy  of  an  Administration;  that  this  has  been  done 
when  the  ordinary  revenues  of  the  Government  were  generally  decreas- 
ing as  well  from  the  operation  of  the  laws  as  the  condition  of  the  country, 
without  the  creation  of  a  permanent  public  debt  or  incurring  any  liability 
other  than  such  as  the  ordinary  resources  of  the  Government  will  speedily 
discharge,  and  without  the  agency  of  a  national  bank. 
If  this  view  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Government  for  the  period  it 
embraces  be  warranted  by  the  facts  as  they  are  known  to  exist;  if  the 
Army  and  Navy  have  been  sustained  to*  the  full  extent  authorized  by 
law,  and  which  Congress  deemed  sufficient  for  the  defense  of  the  country 
and  the  protection  of  its  rights  and  its  honor;  if  its  civil  and  diplomatic 
service  has  been  equally  sustained;  if  ample  provision  has  been  made  for 
the  administration  of  justice  and  the  execution  of  the  laws;  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  fail- 
ures in  defraying  the  very  large  expenditiures  growing  out  of  that  long- 
omtinued  and  salutary  poUcy  of  peacefully  removing  the  Indians  to 
regions  of  comparative  safety  and  prosperity ;  if  the  public  faith  has  at 
alt  tim.es  and  everywhere  been  most  scrupulously  maintained  by  a  prompt
1 83 1  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
discharge  of  the  numerous,  extended,  and  diversified  claims  on  the  Treas- 
ury— if  all  these  great  and  permanent  objects,  with  many  others  that 
might  be  stated,  have  for  a  series  of  years,  marked  by  peculiar  obstacles 
and  difficulties,  been  successfully  accomplished  without  a  resort  to  a  per- 
manent debt  or  the  aid  of  a  national  bank,  have  we  not  a  right  to  expect 
that  a  policy  the  object  of  which  has  been  to  sustain  the  public  service 
independently  of  either  of  these  fruitful  sources  of  discord  will  receive 
the  final  sanction  of  a  people  whose  unbiased  and  fairly  eUdted  judgment 
upon  public  affairs  is  never  ultimately  wrong? 
That  embarrassments  in  the  pecuniary  concerns  of  individuals  of  unex- 
ampled extent  and  duration  have  recently  existed  in  this  as  in  other 
commercial  nations  is  undoubtedly  true.  To  suppose  it  necessary  now 
to  trace  these  reverses  to  their  sources  would  be  a  reflection  on  the  intel- 
ligence of  my  fellow-citizens.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  obscurity 
in  which  the  subject  was  involved  during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  revul- 
sion, there  can  not  now  be  many  by  whom  the  whole  question  is  not 
fully  understood. 
Not  deeming  it  within  the  constitutional  powers  of  the  General  Govern- 
n'ent  to  repair  private  losses  sustained  by  reverses  in  business  having 
no  connection  with  the  public  service,  either  by  direct  appropriations 
froii  the  Treasury  or  by  special  legislation  designed  to  secure  exclu- 
sive privileges  and  immunities  to  individuals  or  classes  in  preference  to 
or  at  the  expense  of  the  great  majority  necessarily  debarred  from  any 
participation  in  them,  no  attempt  to  do  so  has  been  either  made,  recom- 
mended, or  encouraged  by  the  present  Executive. 
It  is  believed,  however,  that  the  great  purposes  for  the  attainment  of 
which  the  Federal  Government  was  instituted  have  not  been  lost  sight 
of.  Intrusted  only  with  certain  limited  powers,  cautiously  enumerated, 
distinctly  specified,  and  defined  with  a  precision  and  clearness  which 
would  seem  to  defy  misconstruction,  it  has  been  my  constant  aim  to 
confine  myself  within  the  limits  so  clearly  marked  out  and  so  carefully 
guarded.  Having  always  been  of  opinion  that  the  best  preservative  of 
the  union  of  the  States  is  to  be  found  in  a  total  abstinence  from  the 
exercise  of  all  doubtful  powers  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Government 
rather  than  in  attempts  to  assume  them  by  a  loose  construction  of  the 
Constitution  or  an  ingenious  perversion  of  its  words,  I  have  endeavored 
to  avoid  recommending  any  measure  which  I  had  reason  to  apprehend 
would,  in  the  opinion  even  of  a  considerable  minority  of  my  fellow-citizens, 
be  regarded  as  trenching  on  the  rights  of  the  States  or  the  provisions  of 
the  hallowed  instrument  of  our  Union.  Viewing  the  aggregate  powers 
of  the  Federal  Government  as  a  voluntary  concession  of  the  States,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  such  only  shotdd  be  exercised  as  were  at  the  time 
intended  to  be  given. 
I  have  been  strengthened,  too,  in  the  propriety  of  this  course  by  the 
conviction  that  all  efforts  to  go  beyond  this  tend  only  to  produce  dis-
Martin  Van  Buren  1832 
satisfaction  and  distrust,  to  excite  jealousies,  and  to  provoke  r^stance. 
Instead  of  adding  strength  to  the  Federal  Government,  even  when  suc- 
cessful they  must  ever  prove  a  source  of  incurable  weakness  by  alien- 
ating a  portion  of  those  whose  adhesion  is  indispensable  to  the  great 
aggregate  of  united  strength  and  whose  voluntary  attachment  is  in  my 
estimation  far  more  essential  to  the  efficiency  of  a  government  strong  in 
the  best  of  all  possible  strength — the  confidence  and  attachment  of  all 
those  who  make  up  its  constituent  elements. 
'  Thus  believing,  it  has  been  my  purpose  to  secure  to  the  whole  people 
and  to  every  member  of  the  Confederacy,  by  general,  salutary,  and  equal 
laws  alone,  the  benefit  of  those  republican  institutions  which  it  was  the 
end  and  aim  of  the  Constitution  to  establish,  and  the  impartial  influence 
of  which  is  in  my  judgment  indispensable  to  their  preservation.  I  can 
not  bripg  myself  to  believe  that  the  lasting  happiness  of  the  people,  the 
prosperity  of  the  States,  or  the  permanency  of  their  Union  can  be  main- 
tained by  giving  preference  or  priority  to  any  class  of  citizens  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  benefits  or  privileges,  or  by  the  adoption  of  measures  which 
enrich  one  portion  of  the  Union  at  the  expense  of  another;  nor  can  I  see 
in  the  interference  of  the  Federal  Government  with  the  local  legisla- 
tion and  reserved  rights  of  the  States  a  remedy  for  present  or  a  security 
against  future  dangers. 
The  first,  and  assuredly  not  the  least,  important  step  toward  reliev- 
ing the  country  from  the  condition  into  which  it  had  been  plunged  by 
excesses  in  trade,  banking,  and  credits  of  all  kinds  was  to  place  the  bua- 
ness  transactions  of  the  Government  itself  on  a  solid  basis,  giving  and 
receiving  in  all  cases  value  for  value,  and  neither  countenancing  nor 
encouraging  in  others  that  delusive  ^system  of  credits  from  which  it  has 
been  found  so  difficult  to  escape,  and  which  has  left  nothing  behind  it 
but  the  wrecks  that  mark  its  fatal  career. 
That  the  financial  affairs  of  the  Government  are  now  and  have  been 
during  the  whole  period  of  these  wide-spreading  difficulties  conducted 
with  a  strict  and  invariable  regard  to  this  great  fundamental  principle, 
and  that  by  the  assumption  and  maintenance  of  the  stand  thus  taken 
on  the  very  threshold  of  the  approaching  crisis  more  than  by  any  other 
cause  or  causes  whatever  the  community  at  large  has  been  shielded  from 
the  incalculable  evils  of  a  general  and  indefinite  suspension  pf  specie 
payments,  and  a  consequent  annihilation  for  the  whole  period  it  might 
have  lasted  of  a  just  and  invariable  standard  of  value,  will,  it  is  believed, 
at  this  period  scarcely  be  questioned. 
A  steady  adherence  on  the  part  of  the  Government  to  the  policy  which 
has  produced  such  salutary  results,  aided  by  judicious  State  legislation 
and,  what  is  not  less  important,  by  the  industry,  enterprise,  persever- 
ance, and  economy  of  the  American  people,  can  not  fail  to  raise  the  whole 
country  at  an  early  period  to  a  state  of  solid  and  enduring  prosperity, 
not  subject  to  be  again  overthrown  by  the  suspension  of  banks  or  the
^  1833  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
explosion  of  a  bloated  credit  system.  It  is  for  the  people  and  their  rep- 
resentatives to  decide  whether  or  not  the  permanent  welfare  of  the  coun- 
try (which  all  good  citizens  equally  desire,  however  widely  they  may 
difPer  as  to  the  means  of  its  accomplishment)  shall  be  in  this  way  secured, 
or  whether  the  management  of  the  pecuniary  concerns  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  by  consequence  to  a  great  extent  those  of  individuals  also, 
shall  be  carried  back  to  a  condition  of  things  which  fostered  those  con- 
tractions and  expansions  of  the  currency  and  those  reckless  £A)Uses  of 
credit  from  the  baleful  effects  of  which  the  country  has  so  deeply  suf- 
fered— a  return  that  can  promise  in  the  end  no  better  results  than  to 
reprbduce  the  embarrassments  the  Government  has  experienced,  and 
to  remove  from  the  shoulders  of  the  present  to  those  of  fresh  victims  the 
bitter  fruits  of  that  spirit  of  speculative  enterprise  to  which  our  country- 
men are  so  liable  and  upon  which  the  lessons  of  experience  are  so  una- 
vailing. The  choice  is  an  important  one,  and  I  sincerely  hope  that  it 
may  be  wisely  made. 
A  report  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  presenting  a  detailed  view  of  the 
affairs  of  that  Department,  accompanies  this  communication. 
The  desultory  duties  connected  with  the  removal  of  the  Indians,  in 
which  the  Army  has,  been  constantly  engaged  on  the  northern  and  west- 
em  frontiers  and  in  Florida,  have  rendered  it  impracticable  to  carry  into 
full  effect  the  plan  recommended  by  the  Secretary  for  improving  its  dis- 
cipline. In  every  instance  where  the  regiments  have  been  concentrated 
they  have  made  great  progress,  and  the  best  results  may  be  anticipated 
from  a  continuance  of  this  system.  During  the  last  season  a  part  of 
the  troops  have  been  employed  in  removing  Indians  from  the  interior 
to  the  territory  assigned  them  in  the  West — a  duty  which  they  have 
performed  efficiently  and  with  praiseworthy  humanity — ^and  that  portion 
of  them  which  has  been  stationed  in  Florida  continued  active  operations 
there  throughout  the  heats  of  summer. 
The  policy  of  the  United  States  in  regard  to  the  Indians,  of  which  a 
succinct  account  is  given  in  my  message  of  1838,  and  of  the  wisdom  and 
expediency  of  which  I  am  fully  satisfied,  has  been  continued  in  active 
operation  throughout  the  whole  period  of  my  Administration.  Since  the 
spring  of  1837  more  than  40,000  Indians  have  been  removed  to  their  new 
homes  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  I  am  happy  to  add  that  all  accounts 
concur  in  representing  the  result  of  this  measure  as  eminently  beneficial 
to  that  people. 
The  emigration  of  the  Seminoles  alone  has  been  attended  with  serious 
diflSculty  and  occasioned  bloodshed,  hostiUties  having  been  commenced  by 
the  Indians  in  Florida  under  the  apprehension  that  they  would  be  com- 
pelled by  force  to  comply  with  their  treaty  stipulations.  The  execution 
of  the  treaty  of  Paynes  I<anding,  signed  in  1832,  but  not  ratified  until 
1834,  was  postponed  at  the  solicitation  of  the  Indians  until  1836,  when 
they  again  renewed  their  agreement  to  remove  peaceably  to  their  new
Martin  Van  Buren  1834 
homes  in  the  West.  In  the  face  of  this  solemn  and  renewed  compact 
they  broke  their  faith  and  commenced  hostiUties  by  the  massacre  of 
Major  Dade's  command,  the  murder  of  their  agent,  General  Thompson, 
and  other  acts  of  cruel  treachery.  When  this  alarming  and  unexpected 
intelligence  reached  the  seat  of  Government,  every  effort  appears  to  have 
been  made  to  reenforce  General  Clinch,  who  commanded  the  troops  then 
in  Florida.  General  Eustis  was  dispatched  with  reenforcements  from 
Charleston,  troops  were  called  out  from  Alabama,  Tennessee,  and  Geor- 
gia, and  General  Scott  was  sent  to  take  the  command,  with  ample  powers 
and  ample  means.  At  the  first  ^larm  General  Gaines  organized  a  force 
at  New  Orleans,  and  without  waiting  for  orders  landed  in  Florida,  where 
he  delivered  over  the  troops  he  had  brought  with  him  to  General  Scott. 
Governor  Call  was  subsequently  appointed  to  conduct  a  summer  cam- 
paign, and  at  the  close  of  it  was  replaced  by  General  Jesup.  These 
events  and  changes  took  place  under  the  Administration  of  my  predeces- 
sor. Notwithstanding  the  exertions  of  the  experienced  oflScers  who  had 
command  there  for  eighteen  months,  on  entering  upon  the  administra- 
tion of  the  Government  I  found  the  Territory  of  Florida  a  prey  to  Indian 
atrocities.  A  strenuous  effort  was  immediately  made  to  bring  those  hos- 
tilities to  a  close,  and  the  army  under  General  Jesup  was  reenforced  until 
it  amounted  to  10,000  men,  and  furnished  with  abundant  supplies  of 
every  description.  In  this  campaign  a  great  nuipber  of  the  enemy  were 
captured  and  destroyed,  but  the  character  of  the  contest  only  was  changed. 
The  Indians,  having  been  defeated  in  every  engagement,  dispersed  in 
small  bands  throughout  the  country  and  became  an  enterprising,  for- 
midable, and  ruthless  banditti.  General  Taylor,  who  succeeded  General 
Jesup,  used  his  best  exertions  to  subdue  them,  and  was  seconded  in  his 
efforts  by  the  officers  under  his  command;  but  he  too  failed  to  protect 
the  Territory  from  ttieir  depredations.  By  an  act  of  signal  and  cruel 
treachery  they  broke  the  truce  made  with  them  by  General  Macomb, 
who  was  sent  from  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  into  effect 
the  expressed  wishes  of  Congress,  and  have  continued  their  devastations 
ever  since.  General  Armistead,  who  was  in  Florida  when  General  Taylor 
left  the  army  by  permission,  assumed  the  command,  and  after  active  sum- 
mer operations  was  met  by  propositions  for  peace,  and  from  the  fortunate 
coincidence  of  the  arrival  in  Florida  at  the  same  period  of  a  delegation 
from  the  Seminoles  who  are  happily  settled  west  of  the  Mississippi  and 
are  now  anxious  to  persuade  their  countrymen  to  join  them  there  hopes 
were  for  some  time  entertained  that  the  Indians  might  be  induced  to 
leave  the  Territory  without  further  difficulty.  These  hopes  have  proved 
fallacious  and  hostilities  have  been  renewed  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
Territory,  That  this  contest  has  endured  so  long  is  to  be  attributed  to 
causes  beyond  the  control  of  the  Government.  Experienced  generals 
have  had  the  command  of  the  troops,  officers  and  soldiers  have  alike  dis- 
ling^uished  themselves  for  their  activity,  patience,  and  enduring  courage,
i83S  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
the  army  has  beei^  constantly  furnished  with  supplies  of  every  descrip- 
tion, and  we  must  look  for  the  causes  which  have  so  long  procrastinated 
the  issue  of  the  contest  in  the  vast  extent  of  the  theater  of  hostilities,  the 
almost  insurmountable  obstacles  presented  by  the  nature  of  the  country, 
the  climate,  and  the  wily  character  of  the  savages. 
The  sites  for  marine  hospitals  on  the  rivers  and  lakes  which  I  was 
authorized  to  select  and  cause  to  be  purchased  have  all  been  designated, 
but  the  appropriation  not  proving  sufficient,  conditional  arrangements 
only  have  been  made  for  their  acquisition.  It  is  for  Congress  to  decide 
whether  these  conditional  purchases  shall  be  sanctioned  and  the  humane 
intentions  of  the  law  carried  into  full  effect. 
The  Navy,  as  will  appear  from  the  accompanying  report  of  the  Secre- 
tary, has  been  usefully  and  honorably  employed  in  the  protection  of  our 
commerce  and  citizens  in  the  Mediterranean,  the  Pacific,  on  the  coast 
of  Brazil,  and  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  A  small  squadron,  consisting  of 
the  frigate  Constellation  and  the  sloop  of  war  Boston,  under  Commodore 
Kearney,  is  now  on  its  way  to  the  China  and  Indian  seas  for  the  purpose 
of  attending  to  our  interests  in  that  quarter,  and  Commander  Aulick, 
in  the  sloop  of  war  Yorktoztm,  has  been  instructed  to  visit  the  Sandwich 
and  Society  islands,  the  coasts  of  New  Zealand  and  Japan,  together  with 
other  ports  and  islands  frequented  by  our  whale  ships,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  them  countenance  and  protection  should  they  be  required.  Other 
smaller  vessels  have  been  and  still  are  employed  in  prosecuting  the  surveys 
of  the  coast  of  the  United  -States  directed  by  various  acts  of  Congress, 
and  those  which  have  been  completed  will  shortly  be  laid  before  you.' 
The  exploring  expedition  at  the  latest  date  was  preparing  to  leave 
the  Bay  of  Islands,  New  Zealand,  in  further  prosecution  of  objects  which 
have  thus  far  been  successfully  accomplished.  The  discovery  of  a  new 
continent,  which  was  first  'seen  in  latitude  66°  2'  ^uth,  longitude  154** 
27'  east,  and  afterwards  in  latitude  66°  31'  south,  longitude  153°  40'  east, 
by  Lieutenants  Wilkes  and  Hudson,  for  ah  extent  of  1,800  miles,  but 
on  which  they  were  prevented  from  landing  by  vast  bodies  of  ice  which 
encompassed  it,  is  one  of  the  honorable  results  of  the  enterprise.  Lieu- 
tenant Wilkes  bears  testimony  to  the  zeal  and  good  conduct  of  his  officers 
and  men,  and  it  is  but  justice  to  that  officer  to  state  that  he  appears 
to  have  performed  the  duties  assigned  him  with  an  ardor,  ability,  and 
perseverance  which  give  every  assurance  of  an  honorable  issue  to  the 
undertaking. 
The  report  of  the  Postmaster-General  herewith  transmitted  will  exhibit 
the  service  of  that  Department  the  past  year  and  its  present  condition. 
The  transportation  has  been  maintained  during  the  year  to  the  full  extent 
authorized  by  the  existing  laws;  some  improvements  have  been  effected 
which  the  public  interest  seemed  urgently  to  demand,  but  not  involv- 
ing any  material  additional  expenditure;  the  contractors  have  generally 
performed  their  engagements  with  fideUty;  the  postmasters,  with  few
Martin  Van  Buren  1836 
exceptions,  have  rendered  their  accounts  and  paid  their  quarterly  bal- 
ances with  promptitude,  and  the  whole  service  of  the  Department  has 
maintained  the  efficiency  for  which  it  has  for  several  years  been  distin- 
guished. 
The  acts  of  Congress  establishing  new  mail  routes  and  requiring  more 
expensive  services  on  others  and  the  increasing  wants  of  the  country 
have  for  three  years  past  carried  the  expenditures  something  beyond  the 
accruing  revenues,  the  excess  having  been  met  until  the  past  year  by 
the  surplus  which  had  previously  accumulated.  That  surplus  having 
been  exhausted  and  the  anticipated  increase  in  the  revenue  not  hav- 
ing been  realized  owing  to  the  depression  in  the  commercial  business  of 
the  country,  the  finances  of  the  Department  exhibit  a  small  deficiency 
at  the  close  of  the  last  fiscal  year.  Its  resources,  however,  are  ample,  and 
the  reduced  rates  of  compensation  for  the  transportation  service  which 
may  be  expected  on  the  future  lettings  from  the  general  reduction  of 
prices,  with  the  increase  of  revenue  that  may  reasonably  be  anticipated 
from  the  revival  of  commercial  activity,  must  soon  place  the  finances  of 
the  Department  in  a  prosperous  condition. 
Considering  the  unfavorable  circumstances  which  have  existed  during 
the  past  year,  it  is  a  gratifying  result  that  the  revenue  has  not  declined 
as  compared  with  the  preceding  year,  but,  on  the  contrary,  exhibits  a 
small  increase,  the  circumstances  referred  to  haying  had  no  other  effect 
than  to  check  the  expected  income. 
It  will  be  seen  that  the  Postmaster-General  suggests  certain  improve- 
ments in  the  establishment  designed  to  reduce  the  weight  of  the  mails, 
cheapen  the  transportation,  insure  greater  regularity  in  the  service,  and 
secure  a  considerable  reduction  in  the  rates  of  letter  postage — an  object 
highly  desirable.  The  subject  is  one  of  general  interest  to  the  commi  - 
nity,  and  is  respectfully  recommended  to  your  consideration. 
The  suppression  of  the  African  slave  trade  has  received  the  continued 
attention  of  the  Government.  The  brig  Dolphin  and  schooner  Grampus 
have  been  employed  during  the  last  season  on  the  coast  of  Africa  for 
the  purpose  of  preventing  such  portions  of  that  trade  as  were  said  to  be 
prosecuted  under  the  American  flag.  After  cruising  off  those  parts  of 
the  coast  most  usually  resorted  to  by  slavers  until  the  commencement 
of  the  rainy  season,  these  vessels  returned  to  the  United  States  for  sup- 
plies, and  have  since  been  dispatched  on  a  similar  service. 
From  the  reports  of  the  commanding  officers  it  appears  that  the  trade 
is  now  principally  carried  on  under  Portuguese  colors,  and  they  express 
the  opinion  that  the  apprehension  of  their  presence  on  the  slave  coast 
has  in  a  great  degree  arrested  the  prostitution  of  the  American  flag  to 
this  inhuman  purpose.  It  is  hoped  that  by  continuing  to  maintain  this 
force  in  that  quarter  and  by  the  exertions  of  the  officers  in  command 
much  will  be  done  to  put  a  stop  to  whatever  portion  of  this  traffic  may 
have  been  carried  on  under  the  American  flag  and  to  prevent  its  use
1837  Afessages  ami  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
in  a  trade  which,  while  it  violates  the  laws,  is  equally  an  outrage  on  the 
rights  of  others  and  /the  feelings  of  humanity.  The  efforts  of  the  several 
Governments  who  are  anxiously  seeking  to  suppress  this  traffic  must, 
however,  be  directed  against  the  facilities  afforded  by  what  are  now  rec- 
ognized as  legitimate  commercial  pursuits  before  that  object  can  be  fully 
accomplished. 
Supplies  of  provisions,  water  casks,  merchandise,  and  articles  con- 
nected with  the  prosecution  of  the  slave  trade  are,  it  is  understood, 
freely  carried  by  vessels  of  different  nations  to  the  slave  factories,  and 
the  effects  of  the  factors  are  transported  openly  from  one  slave  station  to 
another  without  interruption  or  punishment  by  either  of  the  nations 
to  which  they  belong  engaged  in  the  commerce  of  that  region.  I  sub- 
mit to  your  judgments  whether  this  Government,  having  been  the  first 
to  prohibit  by  adequate  penalties  the  slave  trade,  the  first  to  declare 
it  piracy,  should  not  be  the  first  also  to  forbid  to  its  citizens  all  trade 
with  the  slave  factories  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  givipg  an  example  to  all 
nations  in  this  respect  which  if  fairly  followed  can  not  fail  to  produce 
the  most  effective  results  in  breaking  up  those  dens  of  iniquity. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
SPECIAL  MESSAGES. 
Washington,  December  7,  1840, 
Hon.  R.  M.  T.  Hunter, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
Sir:  I  herewith  transmit  a  letter  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  in 
relation  to  the  navy  pension  fund,  to  which  the  attention  of  Congress  is 
invited,  and  recommend  an  immediate  appropriation  of  $151,352.39  to 
meet  the  payment  of  pensions  becoming  due  on  and  after  the  ist  of 
January.  1841.  ^  V^N  BUREN. 
Washington,  December  lo,  184.0, 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  transmit,  for  the  action  of  the  Senate,  a  communication  from  the 
Secretary  of  War,  on  the  subject  of  the  transfer  of  Chickasaw  stock  to 
the  Choctaw  tribe,  which  the  accompanying  papers  explain. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Wab.  Dbpartmsnt,  December  lOy  1840. 
The  Prksidbnt  of  thk  United  States. 
Sir:  I  have  t^ie  honor  to  lay  before  you  a  communication  from  the  Commissioner 
of  Indian  Affairs,  relative  to  the  transfer  of  $500,000  Chickasaw  stock  to  the  Choctaws 
in  execution  of  the  compact  of  17th  January,  1837,  between  those  tribes,  that  if  yea
Martin  Van  Buren  183R 
tluiik  it  advisable  you  may  assent  to  the  proposed  transfer  and  lay  the  matter  before 
the  Senate  for  the  sanction  of  that  body. 
Very  respectfully,  your  most  obedient  servant,  r    p    POINSETT. 
War  Dbpartmbitt,  Office  Indian  Affauis, 
Bon.  J.  R.  PoiNSBTT,  December,  1840. 
Secretary  of  War, 
Sir:  A  compact  was  made  on  the  17th  January,  1837,  *'  subject  to  the  approval  of 
the  President  and  Senate  of  the  United  States,  '*  which  it  received  from  the  former 
on  the  24th  March,  1837,  in  conformity  with  the  resolution  of  the  Senate  of  25th 
February,  between  the  Choctaw  and  Chickasaw  tribes  of  Indians,  of  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  inclose  a  copy. 
By  this  instrument  the  right  to  occupy  a  portion  of  the  Choctaw  country  west  of 
the  Mississippi  was,  with  certain  privileges,  secured  to  the  Chickasaws,  who  agreed 
to  pay  therefor  ^30,000,  of  which  $30,000  were  paid  in  1837,  and  the  remaining 
$500,000  it  was  agreed  should  be  invested  under  the  direction  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  and  that  the  interest  should  be  paid  annually  to  the  Choctaws. 
There  being  no  money  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the  United  States,  but  a  very  large 
amount  of  Chickasaw  stock  under  the  direction  of  the  Treasury,  the  reasonable 
desire  of  the  Choctaws  that  this  large  fund  belonging  to  them  should  be  put  in  their 
own  names  on  the  books  of  the  Government  can  be  gratified  by  a  transfer  of  so  much 
of  the  stock  to  the  Secretary  of  War  for  their  use,  upon  which  the  interest  will  be 
received  and  paid  over  to  them^  This  will  be  an  execution  of  the  agreement  of  the 
parties.  A  sale  of  stocks  to  raise  the  money  and  then  a  reinvestment  of  it  accord- 
ing to  the  letter  of  the  compact  ought  not  to  be  resorted  to  on  account  of  their 
present  low  price  in  the  market. 
In  considering  this  subject  in  the  course  of  the  auttunn  the  thirteenth  article  of 
the  treaty  of  24th  May,  1834,  with  the  Chickasaws  was  adverted  to,  by  which  it  is 
provided:  ''If  the  Chickasaws  shall  be  so  fortunate  as  to  procmre  a  home  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States,  it  is  agreed  that,  with  the  consent  of  the  President  and 
Senate,  so  much  of  their  invested  stock  as  may  be  necessary  to  the  purchase  of  a 
country  for  them  to  settle  in  shall  be  permitted  to  them  to  be  sold,  or  the  United 
States  will  advance  the  necessary  amount  upon  a  guaranty  and  pledge  of  an  equal 
amount  of  their  stocks."  The  compact  before  referred  to  having  been  ratified  by 
the  President  and  Senate,  it  was  doubted  whether  that  was  not  a  virtual  consent 
to  the  application  of  so  much  of  the  stock  as  would  be  required  to  pay  for  the  land 
and  privileges  contracted  for  by  the  said  compact*  and  an  authority  for  the  transfer 
of  it.  The  question  was  referred  to  the  Attorney-General,  who  was  of  opinion  that 
the  transfer  could  not  be  legally  made  without  the  assent  of  the  President  and  Sen« 
ate  to  the  particular  act. 
I  have  therefore  respectfully  to  request  that  you  will  lay  the  matter  before  the 
Presidenf,  that  if  he  concurs  in  the  propriety  of  so  doing  he  may  give  his  own  and 
ask  the  consent  of  the  Senate  to  the  proposed  proceeding. 
Very  respectfuUy,  your  most  obedient,  ^   HARTLEY  CRAWFORD. 
72?  the  Senate^  Washington,  December  10,  184.0, 
I  communicate  a  report  *  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  with  the  documents 
accompanying  it,  in  compliance  with  the  resolution  of  the  Senate  of  the 
aoth  of  July  last.  ^  V^jj  BUREN. 
-^Relftting  to  sales  and  donations  of  public  lots  in  Washinffton,  D.1C.
1839  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
Washington,  December  01, 1840. 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  transmit  herewith,  for  the  consideration  of  the  Senate  with  a  view  tc 
its  ratification,  a  treaty  of  commerce  and  navigation  between  the  United 
States  of  America  and  His  Majesty  the  King  of  the  Belgians,  signed  at 
Washington  on  the  29th  day  of  March,  1840. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  December  23,  1840. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States: 
Herewith  I  transmit  a  communication*  from  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  and  also  copies  of  certain  papers  accompanying  it,  which  are 
believed  to  embrace  the  information  contemplated  by  a  resolution  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  the  17th  instant. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  December  28,  184.0. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States: 
I  herewith  transmit  to  the  House  of  Representatives  a  report  f  from 
the  Secretary  of  State,  with  accompanjdng  papers,  in  answer  to  their  res- 
olution of  the  2ist  instant.  ^^  ^^^  BUREN. 
Washington,  December  28,  1840^ 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  transmit  herewith,  for  the  consideration  of  ths  %Sen£le  with  a  view  to 
its  ratification,  a  treaty  of  commerce  and  navigation  between  the  United 
States  and  Portugal,  signed  at  Lisbon  on  the  26th  day  of  August,  1840, 
and  certain  letters  relating  thereto,  of  which  a  li«^,t  is  annexed. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  December  29,  1840. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States: 
I  herewith  transmit  to  the  House  of  Representati\  es  a  report  X  from  the 
Secretary  of  State,  with  accompanying  papers,  in  answer  to  their  resolu- 
tion of  the  23d  instant. 
M,  VAN  BUREN. 
*ltelatlng  to  the  suspension  of  appropriations  made  at  the  last  session  of  Congiwss. 
t  Transmitting  correspondence  with  Great  Britain  relative  to  the  burning  of  itxr  steambMLt 
Caroline  at  Schlosser,  N.  Y.,  December  29,  1837. 
^-rBinsmitting  correspondence  with  Great  Britain  relative  to  proceedings  on  the  part  of  thai 
fiovemment  which  may  have  a  tendency  to  interrupt  our  commerce  with  China.
Martin  Van  Buren  1840 
Washington,  Jantiary  2,  184,1, 
To  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States: 
I  think  proper  to  communicate  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  in 
further  answer  to  their  resolution  of  the  21st  ultimo,  the  correspondence 
which  has  since  occurred  between  the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  British 
minister  on  the  same  subject. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Mr,  Fox  to  Mr,  Forsyth. 
Washington,  December  ^,  1B40. 
Hon.  John  Forsyte,  etc. 
Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  26th  instant, 
ki  which,  in  reply  to  a  letter  which  I  had  addressed  to  you  on  the  13th,  you  acquaint 
me  that  the  President  is  not  prepared  to  comply  with  my  demand  for  the  liberation  of 
Mr.  Alexander  Mcl^eod,  of  Upper  Canada,  now  imprisoned  at  I/)ckport,  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  on  a  pretended  charge  of  murder  and  arson,  as  having  been  engaged  in 
the  destruction  of  the  piratical  steamboat  Caroline  on  the  29th  of  December,  1837. 
I  learn  with  deep  regret  that  such  is  the  decision  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  for  I  can  not  but  foresee  the  very  grave  and  serious  consequences  that  must 
ensue  if,  besides  the  injury  already  inflicted  upon  Mr.  McLeod  of  a  vexatious  and 
unjust  imprisonment,  any  further  harm  should  be  done  to  him  in  the  progress  of  thir 
extraordinary  proceeding. 
I  have  lost  no  time  in  forwarding  to  Her  Majesty's  Government  in  England  the 
correspondence  th&t  has  taken  place,  and  I  shall  await  the  further  orders  of  Her 
Majesty's  Government  with  respect  to  the  important  question  which  that  correspond- 
ence involves. 
But  I  feel  it  my  duty  not  to  close  this  communication  without  likewise  testif3ring 
my  vast  regret  and  surprise  at  the  expressions  which  I  find  repeated  in  your  letter 
with  reference  to  the  destruction  of  the  steamboat  Caroline,  I  had  confidently  hoped 
that  the  first  erroneous  impression  of  the  character  of  that  event,  imposed  upon  the 
mind  of  the  United  States  Government  by  partial  and  exaggerated  representations, 
would  long  since  have  been  effaced  by  a  more  strict  and  accurate  examination  of  the 
facts.  Such  an  investigation  must  even  yet,  I  am  willing  to  believe,  lead  the  United 
States  Government  to  the  same  conviction  with  which  Her  Majesty's  authorities  on 
the  spot  were  impressed — that  the  act  was  one,  in  the  strictest  sense,  of  self-defense, 
rendered  absolutely  necessary  by  the  circumstances  of  the  occasion  for  the  safety  and 
protection  of  Her  Majesty's  subjects,  and  justified  by  the  same  motives  and  princi- 
ples which  upon  similar  and  well-known  occasions  have  governed  the  conduct  of 
illustrious  officers  of  the  United  States.  The  steamboat  Caroline  was  a  hostile  vessel 
engaged  in  piratical  war  against  Her  Majesty's  people,  hired  from  her  owners  for 
that  express  purpose,  and  known  to  be  so  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt.  The  place 
where  the  vessel  was  destroyed  was  nominally,  it  is  true,  within  the  territory  of  a 
friendly  power,  but  the  friendly  power  had  been  deprived  through  overbearing  pirat- 
ical violence  of  the  use  of  its  proper  authority  over  that  portion  of  territory.  The 
authorities  of  New  York  had  not  even  been  able  to  prevent  the  artillery  of  the  State 
from  being  carried  off  publicly  at  midday  to  be  used  as  instruments  of  war  against 
Her  Majesty's  subjects.  It  was  under  such  circumstances,  which  it  is  to  be  hoped 
will  never  recur,  that  the  vessel  was  attacked  by  a  party  of  Her  Majesty's  people, 
captured,  and  destroyed.  A  remonstrance  against  the  act  in  question  has  been 
addressed  by  the  United  States  to  Her  Majesty's  Government  in  England.  I  am  not 
authorized  to  pronounce  the  decision  of  Her  Majesty's  Government  upon  that  remon- 
strance, but  I  have  felt  myself  bound  to  record  in  the  meantime  the  above  opinion,
1 84 1  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
in  order  to  protest  in  the  most  solemn  manner  against  the  spirited  and  lojal  conduct 
of  a  party  of  Her  Majesty's  officers  and  people  being  qualified,  through  an  unfortu- 
nate misapprehension,  as  I  believe,  of  the  facts,  with  the  appellation  of  outrage  or  of 
murder. 
I  avail  myself  of  this  occasion  to  renew  to  you  the  assurance  of  my  distinguished 
consideration.  »    c    pQx« 
Mr,  Forsyth  to  Mr,  Fox. 
Dbpartmbnt  of  Statk, 
Washington^  December  j/,  /^. 
Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  note  of  the  29th  instant, 
in  reply  to  mine  of  the  26th,  on  the  subject  of  the  arrest  and  detention  of  Alexander 
McLeod  as  one  of  the  perpetrators  of  the  outrage  committed  in  New  York  when  the 
steamboat  Caroline  was  seized  and  burnt  Pull  evidence  of  that  outrage  has  been  pre- 
sented to  Her  Britannic  Majesty's  Government  with  a  demand  for  redress,  and  of 
course  no  discussion  of  the  circumstances  here  can  be  either  useful  or  proper,  nor  can 
I  suppose  it  to  be  your  desire  to  invite  it.  I  take  leave  of  the  subject  with  this  single 
remark,  that  the  opinion  so  strongly  expressed  by  you  on  the  facts  and  principles 
involved  in  the  demand  for  reparation  on  Her  Majesty's  Government  by  the  United 
States  would  hardly  have  been  hazarded  had  you  been  possessed  of  the  carefully  col- 
lected testimony  which  has  been  presented  to  your  Government  in  support  of  that 
demand. 
I  avail  myself  of  «the  occasion  to  renew  to  you  the  assurance  of  my  distinguished 
consideration.  ^^^^  FORSYTH. 
Washington,  January  /,  184,1, 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  submit  herewith  a  treaty  concluded  with  the  Miami  Indians  for  the 
cession  of  their  lands  in  the  State  of  Indiana.  The  circumstances  attend- 
ing this  negotiation  are  fu4y  set  forth  in  the  accompan3dng  communi- 
cation from  the  Secretary  of  War.  Although  the  treaty  was  concluded 
without  positive  instructions  and  the  usual  oflScial  preliminaries,  its  terms 
appear  to  be  so  advantageous  and  the  acquisition  of  these  lands  are  deemed 
so  desirable  by  reason  of  their  importance  to  the  State  of  Indiana  and  the 
Government,  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  Indians  themselves,  who  will 
be  greatly  benefited  by  their  removal  west,  that  I  have  thought  it  advis- 
able to  submit  it  to  the  action  of  the  Senate. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
War  Department,  January  4, 1841, 
The  President  of  the  Untted  States. 
Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  transmit  herewith  a  treaty  concluded  with  the  Miami 
Indians  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  to  be  laid  before  the  Senate  for  their  ratification  if 
upon  due  consideration  of  the  circumstances  under  which  this  treaty  was  negotiated 
you  should  think  proper  to  do  so.  These  circumstances  are  fully  and  correctly  set 
forth  in  the  accompanying  communication  from  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs 
to  which  I  beg  leave  respectfully  to  refer  you. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  your  most  obedient  servant, 
J.  R.  POINSETT.
ABOUTIONISTS  AND  SLAVE  SELUNO 
The  eartoon  reproduced  in  the  upper  panel  aptly  caricaturea  the  indi- 
viduals associated  in  the  abolition  movement;  women,  aflame  with  Christian 
indignation  and  pity  for  their  black  sisters  in  degradation;  ex-slaves,  eager 
to  procure  the  boon  of  freedom  for  their  less  fortunate  fellows;  and  philan- 
thropists who  were  willing  to  give  their  fortunes  if  the  blot  on  the  American 
escutcheon  might  be  removed.  Enduring  the  jibes  of  the  frivolous,  the 
violence  of  the  mob  and  the  opposition  of  those  whose  incomes  were  aifected 
by  agitation,  these  people  persisted  until  slavery  was  dead. 
The  Encyclopedic  Index  articles,  entitled  ^  African  Slave  Trade,'* 
^^Abolitionists"  and  "Slavery,"  summarize  those  subjects  and  then  direct 
the  reader  to  places  where  the  Presidents  have  discussed  the  question 
which  dominated  all  others  from  1789  to  i86i«
Martin  Van  Buren  1842 
Wajl  Dbpartmsmt,  Opficb  Indian  Ai^i^Ants, 
Hon.  J.  R.  POIN3BTT,  December  29. 1840. 
Secretary  of  War. 
Sm:  A  treaty  made  with  the  Miami  tribe  of  Indians  in  the  State  of  Indiana  on 
the  28th  day  of  November  laat  for  the  residue  of  their  lands  in  that  State  has  been 
unexpectedly  received. 
Great  anxiety  has  been  manifested  by  the  citizens  of  Indiana  and  made  known  by 
their  representatives  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  that  a  cession  of  the  Miami  land 
should  be  procured,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  met  by  a  correspondent  disposition 
on  the  part  of  the  leading  men  among  the  Indians.  On  the  25th  May  last  a  com- 
munication was  received  from  General  Samuel  Milroy,  subagent,  etc.,  expressing 
the  belief  that  the  Miamies  would  treat  and  that  their  principal  chief  was  desirous 
before  the  close  of  his  life,  now  drawing  near,  to  effect  a  negotiation,  as  in  his  opin- 
ion the  emigration  or  extinction  of  the  tribe  were  the  alternatives  before  them,  and 
suggesting  that  the  most  judicious  course  would  be  to  conduct  the  business  inform- 
ally at  the  annuity  payment.  In  reply  he  was  informed  on  the  2d  July  that  the 
Department  did  not  open  negotiations  for  the  purchase  of  Indian  lands  unless 
thereto  previously  authorized  by  Congress,  and  that  at  the  request  of  a  portion  of 
the  representation  of  Indiana  an  estimate  had  been  furnished  of  the  simi  that  would 
be  required  to  hold  a  treaty,  and  that  if  the  presimied  intention  of  obtaining  the 
estimate  should  be  realized  an  effort  would  be  made  to  execute  the  purpose  for 
which  the  appropriation  would  be  obtained.  (Extracts  from  these  letters,  so  far  as 
they  relate  to  the  subject,  are  herewith  sent,  marked  A.*)  On  the  3i8t  July  he 
renewed  the  subject,  accompanied  by  an  extract  of  a  letter  of  22d  July  to  himself 
from  Allen  Hamilton,  esq.,  tiie  confidential  friend  of  Chief  Richardville,  urging  the 
propriety  of  a  negotiation.    (B.*) 
On  the  12th  August,  no  appropriation  having  been  made  by  Congress,  a  letter  was 
addressed  to  you  by  the  Hon.  O.  H.  Smith,  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  from 
Indiana,  inclosing  a  letter  from  Mr.  Hamilton,  dated  on  the  nth,  urging  the  vast 
importance  of  treating  with  the  Miamies,  as  well  to  them  as  to  the  State,  and  giving 
the  reasons  which  in  the  judgment  of  both  led  to  the  conclusion  that  their  par- 
ticular case  should  form  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  that  obtains  in  regard  of 
Indian  treaties,  and  recommending  strongly  the  appointment  of  General  Milroy  as 
a  suitable  person  to  conduct  the  negotiation.  A  communication  of  similar  character 
(except  the  last  feature),  dated  20th  August,  was  received  from  Mr.  Milroy.  The 
letter  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Smith  was  referred  by  you  to  this  office,  and  on  the  27th 
August,  after  a  conference  with  you  on  the  subject,  I  replied  that  exceptions  to  the 
rule  stated  might  under  very  peculiar  circumstances  exist,  but  that  as  the  Senate 
certainly,  and  it  was  believed  the  House  too,  had  rejected  an  application  for  an 
appropriation,  the  opening  of  a  negotiation  might  be  considered  to  be  opposed  to 
an  expression  of  legislative  opinion.  In  answer  to  the  suggestion  that  little  or  per- 
haps no  expense  need  be  incurred,  as  the  treaty  could  be  made  at  the  pa3rment  of 
the  annuities,  it  was  remarked  that  the  consideration  money  must  necessarily  be 
large,  as  the  Miami  lands  were  very  valuable,  and  an  appropriation  of  it  required, 
which  Congress  might  be  disinclined  to  grant  after  what*had  happened;  that  it  was 
therefore  deemed  advisable  to  decline  treating,  and  that  perhaps  a  future  applica- 
tion for  legislative  sanction  might  be  more  successful.  Of  this  letter  a  copy  was 
sent  to  General  Milroy  as  a  reply  on  the  subject  in  hand  to  his  communication  of 
31st  July,  and  his  letter  of  20th  August  was  further  answered  on  2d  September.    ( C* ) 
In  consequence  of  the  representations  referred  to,  and  probably  others  which  did 
not  reach  me,  you  addressed  me  an  unofficial  note  on  14th  September,  suggesting  that 
Allen  Hamilton,  esq.,  might  at  the  payment  of  the  annuities  make  an  arrangement 
with  the  Miamies  that  would  be  "gratifying  to  the  people  as  well  as  beneficial  to 
01  ♦Omitted.
1843  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
the  service. "  With  this  expressed  wish  of  the  head  of  the  Department,  and  after 
consultation  with  you,  I  wrote  unofficial  letters  to  General  Samuel  Milroy  and  to 
Allen  Hamilton,  esq.,  on  the  i8th  September,  setting  forth  the  views  of  the  Depart- 
ment as  hereinbefore  expressed  in  regard  of  precedent  legislative  sanction  and  the 
importance  to  Indiana  of  treating  with  the  Miamies,  whose  disposition  to  cede  their 
remaining  lands  on  just  and  equitable  terms  might  not  continue.  It  was  thought, 
however,  to  be  in  keeping  with  the  rule  adopted  to  ascertain  informally  from  the 
Miamies  what  they  would  be  willing  to  take  for  their  lands  when  it  was  their  pleas- 
ure to  emigrate,  etc.  It  was  doubted  whether  it  would  be  judicious  to  reduce  the 
terms  to  writing,  however  informally,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  there  might  be  in 
convincing  the  Indians  that  it  was  not  a  treaty,  although  it  was  desirable,  if  it  could 
be  safely  done,  that  it  should  be  so;  and  they  were  informed  that  a  report  from 
them  would  answer  "all  my  purposes,  as  my  object  is  to  be  able  to  say  to  each 
branch  of  Congress  upon  what  terms  the  Miami  lands  can  be  had  by  the  United 
States,  so  that  if  the  terms  are  approved  the  necessary  law  may  be  passed.**  It  was 
suggested  that  the  annuity  payment  would  afford  a  good  opportunity  for  procuring 
the  Information  desired,  which  it  was  expected  could  be  had  without  any  expense, 
for  which  there  were  no  funds,  and  that  if  there  were  it  would  not  be  proper  to 
expend  them  in  the  way  proposed.     (D.*) 
I  desire  to  state  the  facts  as  they  exist  so  fully  as  to  exhibit  precisely  what*  has 
been  the  action  of  the  Department,  without  going  into  more  detail  than  may  be 
necessary,  and  therefore  annex  extracts  and  copies  of  the  papers  referred  to  instead 
of  embodying  them  in  this  communication. 
On  the  28th  day  of  November  last  a  treaty  was  concluded  by  Messrs.  Samuel  Milroy 
and  Allen  Hamilton  with  *'the  chiefs,  warriors,  and  headmen  of  the  Miami  tribe 
of  Indians,*'  which  was  received  here  on  the  19th  instant,  accompanied  by  a  letter 
explanatory  of  the  treaty  and  stating  it  to  have  been  made  by  '*the  undersigned, 
acting  under  instructions  contained  in  your  unofficial  letter  dated  September  18, 
1840;"  that  it  was  made  at  the  annuity  payment,  when  "the  views  and  instructions 
of  the  Dep€ulment**  were  "communicated  to  the  Miami' Indians  in  full  council," 
and  that  "after  full  consideration  of  the  subject  they  decided  to  reduce  to  treaty 
form  a  proposition  or  the  terms  upon  which  they  would  consent  to  cede  their  remain- 
ing lands  in  Indiana  to  the  United  States,  subject,  as  they  understand  it,  to  the 
approval  of  the  Department  and  the  approval  and  ratification  of  the  President  and 
Senate  of  the  United  States  before  being  of  any  binding  force  or  efficiency  as  a 
treaty.**  With  the  original  treaty  I  send  a  copy  of  the  explanatory  letter  and  of  a 
communication  from  General  Milroy  giving  the  reasons  for  the  money  provisions 
made  for  the  chief  RichardviUe  and  the  family  of  Chief  Godfroy.     (E.*) 
It  will  be  thus  seen  that  the  negotiation  of  a  treaty  was  not  authorized ;  but  if  in 
the  opinion  of  the  President  and  Senate  it  shall  be  advisable  to  adopt  and  confirm 
it,  I  do  not  see  any  legal  objection  to  such  a  course.  The  quantity  of  land  ceded  is 
estimated  at  about  500,000  acres,  for  which  the  consideration  is  fixed  at  $550,000,  or 
fi.io  per  acre,  of  which  1250,000  are  payable  presently  and  the  balance  in  annual 
payments  of  |i5,ooo,  which  will  be  discharged  in  twenty  years.  In  addition,  we 
will  be  bound  to  remove  them  west  of  the  Mississippi  within  five  years,  the  period 
stipulated  for  their  emigration,  and  to  subsist  them  for  one  year  after  their  arrival. 
These  are  the  chief  provisions  in  which  the  United  States  are  interested.  By  the 
second  (it  is  called  in  the  treaty  now  submitted  the  "22,**  which,  if  the  President 
should  decide  to  lay  it  before  the  Senate,  can  be  corrected  by  that  body)  article  of 
the  treaty  of  6th  November,  1838,  there  is  reserved  from  the  cession  contained  in 
that  instrument  10  miles  square  for  the  band  of  Ma-to-sin-ia,  in  regard  ^i  which  the 
seventh  article  says :  ^ 
"  It  is  further  stipulated  that  the  United  States  convey  by  patent  to  Me-shing-go- 
*  Omitted.
Martin  Van  Buren  1844 
me-zia,  son  of  Ma-to-sin-ia,  the  tract  of  land  reserved  by  the  twenty-second  article 
of  the  treaty  of  6th  of  November,  1838,  to  the  band  of  Ma-to-sin-ia.** 
This  is  a  change  as  to  the  title  of  a  reservation  heretofore  sanctioned  and  not  now 
ceded,  and  so  far  as  the  United  States  are  concerned  does  not  vary  the  aspect  of 
the  present  compact.  There  are  reserved  to  the  chief  Richardville  seven  sections 
of  land,  and  to  him  And  the  family  of  the'  deceased  chief  Godfroy  are  to  be  paid, 
respectively,  considerable  sums  of  money,  which  it  seems  from  the  statement  of 
General  Milroy  were  debts  due  to  them  and  acknowledged  by  the  tribe. 
The  treaty  of  November,  1838,  which  was  ratified  on  the  8th  February,  1839, 
extinguished  the  Indian  title  to  about  177,000  acres  of  land  and  cost  the  United 
States  |335,68o,  or  nearly  %2  per  acre.  Measured  by  this  price  the  present  arrange- 
ment would  seem  to  be  very  advantageous.  It  is  stated  by  Messrs.  Milroy  and 
Hamilton  that  more  favorable  terms  will  not  be  assented  to  by  the  Miamies  under  any 
circiunstances,  and  considering  the  great  importance  of  the  adoption  of  this  compact, 
however  irregularly  made,  to  the  State  of  Indiana,  as  well  as  the  belief  that  any 
postponement  will  probably  swallow  up  what  remains  to  these  Indians  in  debts 
whidi  they  most  improvidently  contract  and  the  conviction  that  nothing  can  save 
them  from  moral  ruin  but  their  removal  west,  I  think  it  would  be  judicious  in  all 
▼lews  of  the  matter  to  adopt  and  ratify  this  treaty,  and  respectfully  recommend  that 
it,  with  the  accompanying  papers,  be  laid  before  the  President,  and,  if  he  and  yon 
conctur  in  my  views,  that  the  sanction  of  it  by  the  Senate  be  asked. 
Respectf  idly  submitted. 
T.  HARTIvEY  CRAWFORD. 
Washington,  January  5,  184,1. 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  communicate  to  the  Senate  stmdry  papers,*  in  further  answer  to  its 
resolution  of  the  30th  of  December,  1839,  which  have  been  received 
from  the  governor  of  Florida  since  the  adjournment  of  the  last  session 
of  Congress. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington, /a««ary  <5,  1841. 
Hon.  R.  M.  Johnson, 
President  of  the  Senate, 
Sir:  The  report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  herewith  and  the  accompa- 
nying documents  are  respectfully  submitted  in  reply  to  the  resolution  of 
the  Senate  of  June  30,  1840,  calling  for  information  in  relation  to  the  num- 
ber of  soldiers  enlisted  in  the  late  war  and  entitled  to  botmty  land,  etc. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  January  7,  1841. 
Hon.  R.  M.  Johnson, 
President  of  the  Senate, 
Sir:  The  communication  of  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the  accompany- 
ing report  of  the  colonel  of  Topographical  Engineers  are  respectfully  sub 
mitted  in  reply  to  the  resolution  of  the  15th  of  June  last,  calling  for  a 
*  Relating  to  bonds  of  the  Territory  of  Florida.
\ 
184s  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
plan  and  estimate  for  the  improvement  of  Pennsylvania  avenue  west  of 
the  President's  square  and  for  the  construction  of  a  stone  bridge  across 
Rock  Creek,  etc. 
\ 
M.  VAN  BURBN. 
Washington,  January  18^  784.1. 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  herewith  transmit  to  the  Senate,  in  reply  t6  their  resolution  of  the 
20th  of  July  last,  a  report  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  with  accompany- 
ing papers.*  M.  VANBUREN. 
Washington,  January  ip,  1841. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States: 
I  herewith  transmit  to  the  House  of  Representatives  a  report,  with 
accompanying  papers, f  from  the  Secretary. of  State,  in  answer  to  the 
resolution  of  the  House  of  the  i6th  of  December  last. 
^'       M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  January  22,  1841. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States: 
I  transmit  herewith  to  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  a  report  from  the  Director  of  the  Mint,  exhibiting  the  operations 
of  that  institution  during  the  year  1840,  and  I  have  to  invite  the  special 
attention  of  Congress  to  that  part  of  the  Director's  report  in  relation  to 
the  overvaluation  given  to  the  gold  in  foreign  coins  by  the  act  of  Con- 
gress of  June  28,  1834,  **  regulating  the  value  of  certain  foreign  gold 
coin  within  the  United  States.'* 
Applications  have  been  frequently  made  at  the  Mint  for  copies  of  med- 
als voted  at  different  times  by  Congress  to  the  officers  who  distinguished 
themselves  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution  and  in  the  last  war  (the  dies 
for  which  are  deposited  in  the  Mint),  and  it  is  submitted  to  Congress 
whether  authority  shall  be  given  to  the  Mint  to  strike  off  copies  of  those 
medals,  in  bronze  or  other  metal,  to  supply  those  persons  making  appli- 
cation for  them,  at  a  cost  not  to  exceed  the  actual  expense  of  striking 
^^^^-  M.  VANBUREN. 
Washington,  January  2p,  184,1. 
To  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives: 
By  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  State  herewith  communicated  and 
the  accompanying  papers  it  appears  that  an  additional  appropriation  is 
*  Correspondence  imputinir  malpractices  to  N.  P.  Trist,  American  consul  at  Havana,  in  rccard 
to  arantinir  papers  to  vessels  ensratred  in  the  slave  trade,  etc. 
t  Relating  to  the  origin  of  any  political  relations  between  the  United  States  and  the  Bmpite  of 
China,  eta
Martin  Van  Buren  1846 
necessary  if  it  should  be  the  pleasure  of  Congress  that  the  preparatory 
exploration  and  survey  of  the  northeastern  boundary  of  the  United  States 
should  be  completed. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  February  7,  184.1. 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  respectfully  transmit  herewith  a  report  and  accompan3dng  documents 
from  the  Secretary  of  War,  in  answer  to  a  resolution  of  the  22d  of  Decem- 
ber, 1840,  requesting  the  President  to  transmit  to  the  Senate  any  infor- 
mation in  his  possession  relative  to  the  survey  directed  by  the  act  of  the 
12th  of  June,  1838,  entitled  '  *An  act  to  ascertain  and  designate  the  bound- 
ary line  between  the  State  of  Michigan  and  Territory  of  Wi^onsin." 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
WASHINGTON,  February  8,  184T. 
To  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives: 
I  transmit  herewith  the  copy  of  a  report  from  the.  commissioners  for 
the  exploration  and  survey  of  the  northeastern  boundary,  in  addition 
to  the  documents  sent  to  Congress,  with  reference  to  a  further  appropria 
tion  for  the  completion  of  the  duty  intrusted  to  the  commission. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Report  of  the  commissioners  appointed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  under 
the  act  of  Congress  of  20th  fuly^  iS^Oy  for  the  purpose  of  exploring  and  survey^ 
ing  the  boundary  line  between  the  States  of  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  and  the 
British  J^vinces. 
N8W  Yo&K,  fanuary  6^  /84J. 
Hon.  John  Forsvth, 
Secretary  of  State. 
Sir:  The  commissioners,  haying  assembled  in  this  city  in  conformity  with  your 
orders  under  date  of  29th  of  July,  b^  leave  respectfully  to  report- 
That  the  extent  of  country  and  the  great  length  of  the  boundary  line  included  in 
the  objects  of  their  commission  would  have  rendered  it  impossible  to  have  com- 
pleted the  task  assigned  them  within  the  limits  of  a  single  season.  In  addition  to 
this  physical  impossibility,  the  work  of  the  present  year  was  entered  upon  under  dr* 
cumstances  very  unfavorable  for  making  any  great  progress.  The  law  under  which 
they  have  acted  was  passed  at  the  last  period  of  a  protracted  session^  when  nearly  half 
of  the  season  during  which  working  parties  ca!a  be  kept  in  the  field  had  elapsed;  and 
although  no  delay  took  place  in  the  appointment  of  commissioners  to  carry  it  intc 
effect,  the  organization  of  the  board  was  not  effected,  in  consequence  of  the  refusal  of 
one  of  the  commissioners  and  the  agent  to  accept  of  their  nomination.  The  com- 
missioners, acting  under  these  disadvantages,  have  done  all  that  lay  in  their  power 
to  accomplish  the  greatest  practicable  extent  of  work,  and  have  obtained  many  results 
whidx  can  not  but  be  important  in  the  examination  of  the  vexed  and  important 
question  which  has  been  committed  to  them;  but  after  having  fully  and  maturely 
considered  the  subject  and  interchanged  the  results  of  their  respective  operations
1847  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
they  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  wonld  be  premature  to  embody  the  partial 
results  which  they  have  attained  in  a  general  report  for  the  purpose  of  being  laid 
before  the  political  and  scientific  world.  The  meridian  line  of  the  St.  Croix  has  not 
been  carried  to  a  distance  of  more  than  50  miles  from  the  monument  at  the  source  of 
that  river,  and  the  operations  of  the  other  commissioners,  although  they  have  cov- 
ered a  wide  extent  of  country,  have  fulfilled  but  one  part  of  the  duty  assigned  them, 
namely,  that  of  exploration;  while  even  in  the  parts  explored  actual  surveys  will  be 
necessary  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  the  question  in  such  form  as  can  admit  of  no 
^vil.  In  particular,  the  results  of  the  examination  of  the  most  northern  part  of  the 
Ime  appear  to  differ  in  some  points  from  the  conclusions  of  the  late  Briti^  commis- 
sion. Satisfied  that  the  latter  have  been  reached  in  too  hasty  a  manner  and  without 
a  sufficient  time  having  been  expended  upon  comparative  observations,  they  are 
cautioned  by  this  example  against  committing  a  like  error.  In  respect  to  the  argu- 
mentative part  of  the  report  of  the  British  commissioners,  the  duty  of  furnishing  a 
prompt  and  immediate  reply  to  such  parts  of  it  as  rest  upon  the  construction  of  trea- 
ties and  the  acts  of  diplomacy  has  been  rendered  far  less  important  than  it  might  at 
one  time  have  appeared  by  the  publication  of  the  more  important  parts  of  the  argu- 
ment laid  before  the  King  of  the  Netherlands  as  umpire.  This  argument,  the  delib. 
erate  and  studied  work  of  men  who  well  understood  the  subject,  is  a  full  exposition 
of  the  grounds  on  which  the  claim  of  the  United  States  to  the  whole  of  the  disputed 
territory  rests.  It  has  received  the  sanction  of  successive  Administrations  of  opposite 
politics,  and  may  therefore  be  considered,  in  addition  to  its  original  official  character, 
as  approved  by  the  whole  nation.  To  this  publication  your  commission  beg  leave  to 
refer  as  embodying  an  argument  which  may  be  styled  unanswerable. 
The  operations  of  the  parties  under  the  command  of  the  several  commissioners 
were  as  follows: 
The  party  under  the  direction  of  Professor  Renwick  left  Portland  in  detachments 
on  the  26th  and  27th  of  August.  The  place  of  general  rendezvous  was  fixed  at 
Woodstock,  or,  failing  that,  at  the  Grand  Palls  of  the  St.  John.  The  commissary 
of  the  party  proceeded  as  speedily  as  possible  to  Oldtown,  in  order  to  procure  boats 
and  engage  men.  Professor  Renwick  passed  by  land  through  Brunswick,  Gardi- 
ner, and  Augusta.  At  the  former  place  barometer  No.  i  was  compared  with  that 
of  Professor  Cleaveland.  at  Gardiner  with  that  of  Hallowel  Gardiner,  esq.;  and 
arrangements  were  made  with  them  to  keep  registers,  to  be  used  as  corresponding 
observations  with  those  of  the  expedition.  At  Augusta  some  additional  articles  of 
equipment  were  obtained  from  the  authorities  of  the  State,  but  the  barometer  whicb 
it  had  been  hoped  might  have  been  procured  was  found  to  be  unfit  for  service.  At 
Houlton  two  tents  and  a  number  of  knapsacks,  with  some  gunpowder,  were  furnished 
by  the  politeness  of  General  Eustis  from  the  Government  stores. 
The  boats  and  all  the  stores  reached  Woodstock  on  the  3d  September,  and  all  the 
party  were  collected  except  one  engineer,  who  had  been  left  behind  at  Bangor  in 
the  hopes  of  obtaining  another  barometer.  A  bateau  was  therefore  left  to  bring  him 
on.  The  remainder  of  the  boats  were  loaded,  and  the  party  embarked  on  the  St. 
John  on  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  September.  This,  the  main  body,  reached  the 
Grand  Falls  at  noon  on  the  8th  of  September.  The  remaining  bateau,  with  the  engi- 
neer, arrived  the  next  evening,  having  ascended  the  rapids  of  the  St.  John  in  a  time 
short  beyond  precedent.  On  its  arrival  it  was  found  that  the  barometer,  on  whose 
receipt  reliance  had  been  placed,  had  not  been  completed  in  time,  and  although,  as 
was  learnt  afterwards,  it  had  been  committed  as  soon  a**  finished  by  the  maker  to 
the  care  of  Major  Graham,  the  other  commissioners  felt  compelled  to  set  out  before 
he  had  joined  them.  The  want  of  this  barometer,  in  which  defects  observed  in  the 
others  had  been  remedied,  was  of  no  little  detriment. 
A  delay  of  eighteen  days  had  occurred  in  Portland  in  consequence  of  the  refusal 
of  Messrs.  Cleaveland  and  Jarvis  to  accept  their  appointments,  and  it  was  known  from
Martin  Van  Buren  1848 
Che  experience  of  the  commissioners  sent  out  in  1838  by  the  State  of  Maine  that  it 
would  require  at  least  three  weeks  to  reach  the  line  claimed  by  the  United  States 
from  Bangor.  It  was  therefore  imperative  to  push  forward,  unless  the  risk  of  hav- 
ing the  whole  of  the  operations  of  this  party  paralyzed  by  the  setting  in  of  winter 
was  to  be  encountered.  It  was  also  ascertained  at  the  Grand  Palls  that  the  streams 
which  were  to  be  ascended  were  always  shallow  and  rapid,  and  that  at  the  moment 
they  were  extremely  low,  so  that  the  boats  would  not  carry  more  stores  than  would 
1^  consumed  within  the  time  required  to  reach  the  region  assigned  to  Professor  Ren- 
wick  as  his  share  of  the  duty  and  retmn.  It  became,  therefore,  necessary,  as  it  had 
been  before  feared  it  must,  to  be  content  with  an  exploration  instead  of  a  close  and 
accurate  survey.  Several  of  the  men  employed  had  been  at  the  northern  extremity 
of  the  meridian  line,  but  their  knowledge  was  limited  to  that  single  object.  Inquiry 
was  carefully  made  for  guides  through  the  country  between  the  sources  of  the  Grande 
Pourche  of  Restigouche  and  of  Tuladi,  but  none  were  to  be  found.  One  Indian  only 
had  passed  from  the  head  of  Green  River  to  the  Grande  Pourche,  but  his  knowledge 
was  limited  to  a  single  path,  in  a  direction  not  likely  to  shed  any  light  on  the  object 
of  the  commission.  He  was,  however,  engaged.  The  Prench  hunters  of  Madawaska 
had  never  penetrated  beyond  the  sources  of  Green  River,  and  the  Indians  who  for- 
merly resided  on  the  upper  waters  of  the  St.  John  were  said  to  have  abandoned  the 
country  for  more  than  twelve  3rears. 
The  party  was  now  divided  into  four  detachments,  the  first  to  proceed  down  the 
Restigouche  to  the  tide  of  the  Bay  of  Chaleurs,  the  second  to  ascend  the  Grande 
Pourche  of  Restigouche  to  its  source,  the  third  to  be  stationed  on  Green  River 
Mountain,  the  fourth  to  convey  the  surplus  stores  and  heavy  baggage  to  Lake  Temis- 
couata  and  thence  to  ascend  the  Tuladi  and  Abagusquash  to  the  highest  accessible 
point  of  the  latter.  It  was  resolved  that  the  second  and  fourth  detachments  should 
endeavor  to  cross  the  country  and  meet  each  other,  following  as  far  as  possible  the 
height  of  land.     A  general  rendezvous  was  again  fixed  at  Lake  Temiscouata. 
In  compliance  with  this  plan,  the  first  and  second  detachments  ascended  the 
Grande  River  together,  crossed  the  Wagansis  portage,  and  reached  the  confluence 
ef  the  Grande  Pourche  and  southwest  branch  of  Restigouche. 
The  first  detachment  then  descended  the  united  stream,  returned  by  the  same 
course  to  the  St.  John,  and  reached  the  portage  at  Temiscouata  on  the  7th  October. 
All  the  intended  objects  of  the  detachment  were  happily  accomplished. 
The  second  detachment,  under  the  personal  direction  of  the  commissioner,  reached 
the  junction  of  the  north  and  south  branches  of  the  Grande  Pourche  on  the  22d  Sep- 
tember. Two  engineers,  with  two  men  to  carry  provisions,  were  then  dispatched  to 
cross  the  country  to  the  meridian  line,  and  thence  to  proceed  westward  to  join  the 
detachment  at  Kedgwick  Lake.  This  duty  was  performed  and  many  valuable  obser- 
vations obtained,  but  an  accident,  by  which  the  barometer  was  broken,  prevented 
all  the  anticipated  objects  of  the  mission  from  being  accomplished. 
All  the  stores  which  could  possibly  be  spared  were  now  placed  in  a  depot  at  the 
junction  of  the  south  branch,  and  the  commissioner  proceeded  with  the  boats  thus 
lightened  toward  Kedgwick  Lake.  The  lightening  of  the  boats  was  rendered  neces- 
sary in  consequence  of  the  diminution  of  the  volume  of  the  river  and  the  occurrence 
of  falls,  over  which  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  convey  them  when  fully  loaded.' 
Por  want  of  a  guide,  a  branch  more  western  than  that  which  issues  from  the  lake 
was  entered.  One  of  the  boats  was  therefore  sent  round  into  the  lake  to  await  the 
return  of  the  engineers  dispatched  to  the  meridian  line.  The  stores,  which  were  all 
that  could  be  brought  up  in  the  state  of  the  waters,  were  now  found  to  be  wholly 
insufficient  to  allow  of  committing  the  party  to  the  unexplored  country  between  this 
stream  and  Tuladi.  Even  the  four  days  which  must  intervene  before  the  return  of 
the  engineers  could  be  expected  would  do  much  to  exhaust  them.  The  commis- 
sioner therefore  resolved  to  proceed  across  the  country,  with  no  other  companion
1849  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
than  two  men,  carrying  ten  days'  provisions.  It  was  hoped  that  four  or  five  daT8 
might  suffice  for  the  purpose,  but  ten  of  great  toil  and  difficulty  were  spent  before 
Irske  Tuladi  was  reached.  The  remainder  of  the  detachment,  united  by  the  return 
of  the  engineers,  descended  the  north  branch  of  the  Grande  Pourche  to  the  junc- 
tion of  the  south  branch,  ascended  the  latter,  and  made  the  portage  to  Green  River. 
In  this  the  boats  were  completely  worn  out,  and  the  last  of  their  food  exhausted  just 
at  the  moment  that  supplies  sent  up  the  Green  River  to  meet  them  arrived  at  their 
camp. 
No  arrangement  which  could  have  been  made  would  have  sufficed  to  prevent  the 
risk  of  famine  which  was  thus  encountered  by  the  second  detachment.  A  greater 
number  of  boats  would  have  required  more  men,  and  these  would  have  eaten  all 
they  could  have  carried.  No  other  actual  suffering  but  great  fatigue  and  anxiety 
were  encoimtered;  and  it  is  now  obvious  that  had  the  rains  which  were  so  abundant 
during  the  first  week  of  October  been  snow  (as  they  sometimes  are  in  that  climate) 
there  would  have  been  a  risk  of  the  detachment  perishing. 
The  third  detachment  reached  their  station  on  Green  River  Mountain  on  the  I5tb 
September  and  continued  there  until  the  12th  October.  A  full  set  of  barometric 
observations  was  made,  the  latitude  well  determined  by  mmierous  altitudes,  and  the 
longitude  approximately  by  some  lunar  observations. 
The  fourtii  detachment,  after  depositing  the  stores  intended  for  the  return  of  the 
party  in  chaxge  of  the  British  commissary  at  Fort  Ingall,  who  politely  undertook 
the  care  of  them,  ascended  the  Tuladi,  and  taking  its  northern  branch  reached  Lake 
Abagusquash.  Here  one  of  the  engineers  wounded  himself  severely  and  was  ren- 
dered unfit  for  duty.  The  commissary  then  proceeded  a  journey  of  five  days  toward 
the  east,  blaadng  a  path  and  making  signals  to  guide  the  second  detachment. 
The  difference  between  the  cotmtry  as  it  actually  exists  and  as  represented  on  any 
maps  prevented  the  commissioner  from  meeting  this  party.  It  found  the  source  of 
the  central  or  main  branch  of  Tuladi  to  the  north  of  that  of  the  Abagusquash,  and 
following  the  height  of  land  reached  the  deep  and  narrow  valley  of  the  Rimouski 
at  the  point  where,  on  the  British  maps,  that  stream  is  represented  as  issuing  from  a 
ridge  of  mountains  far  north  of  the  line  offered  to  the  King  of  the  Netherlands  as 
the  botmds  of  the  American  claim.  The  commissary  therefore  found  it  impossible 
to  ascend  Rimouski  to  its  source,  and  crossing  its  valley  found  himself  again  on  a 
dividing  ridge,  where  he  soon  struck  a  stream  running  to  the  southeast  This,  from 
a  comparison  of  coiurses  and  distances,  is  believed  to  be  the  source  of  the  main  branch 
of  the  Grande  Fourche  of  Ristaymoh;  and  thus  the  second  and  fourth  detachments 
had  reached  points  within  a  very  short  distance  of  each  other.  The  greater  breadth 
of  the  dividing  ridge  has  thus  been  explored,  but  it  will  remain  to  trace  the  limits  of 
the  valley  of  the  Rimouski,  which  will  form  a  deep  indenture  in  the  boundary  line. 
This  line  having  been  explored,  a  party  was  formed,  after  the  assemblage  of  the  sev- 
eral divisions  at  Temiscouata,  for  the  purpose  of  leveling  it  with  the  barometer; 
but  the  expedition  was  frustrated  by  a  heavy  snowstorm,  which  set  in  on  the  12th 
October.  This,  the  most  important  part  of  the  whole  northern  line,  therefore  remains 
for  future  investigation.  It  can  only  be  stated  that  strong  grounds  exist  for  the  belief 
that  its  summits  are  not  only  higher  than  any  point  which  has  been  measured,  but 
that,  although  cut  by  the  Rimouski,  it  exceeds  in  average  elevation  any  part  of  the 
disputed  territory. 
The  leveling  of  the  Temiscouata  portage  appeared  to  be  an  object  of  great  impor- 
tance, not  only  on  its  own  account,  but  as  furnishing  a  base  for  future  operations.  As 
soon  as  a  sufficient  force  had  been  assembled  at  Lake  Temiscouata  a  party  was  there- 
fore formed  to  survey  the  portage  with  a  theodolite.  Orders  were  also  given  by  the 
commissioner  that  the  first  barometer  which  should  be  returned  should  be  carried 
over  the  portage.  It  was  believed  that  this  double  provision  would  have  secured  ^e 
examination  of  this  point  beyond  the  chance  of  failure.    A  •nowatorm,  however
Martin  Van  Buren  1850 
(the  flune  whidi  Interrnpted  the  last  operation  referred  to),  set  in  after  the  level  had 
been  run  to  the  mountain  of  Biort,  and  one  of  the  laboring  men,  worn  out  by  his 
preceding  fatigues,  fell  sick.  The  party  being  thus  rendered  insufficient,  the  engineer 
in  command  found  himself  compelled  to  return.  The  contemplated  operation  with 
the  barometer  was  also  frustrated,  for  on  examination  at  Temiscouata  it  was  found 
that  all  were  unfit  for  further  service.  In  order  that  the  desired  object  might  be 
accomplished,  a  new  expedition  was  dispatched  from  New  York  on  the  12th  of  Novenf 
ber,  furnished  with  four  barometers.  This  party,  by  great  exertions,  reached  St 
Andr^,  on  the  St  I^wrence,  on  the  eighth  day  and  accomplished  the  object  of  its 
mission.  The  operation  was  rendered  possible  at  this  inclement  season  by  its  being 
confined  to  a  beaten  road  and  in  the  vicinity  of  human  habitations. 
The  country  which  has  been  the  object  of  this  reconnoissance  is,  as  may  already 
be  understood,  of  very  difficult  access  from  the  settled  parts  of  the  State  of  Maine. 
It  is  also,  at  best,  almost  impenetrable  except  by  the  water  courses.  It  furnishes  no 
supplies  except  fish  and  small  game,  nor  can  these  be  obtained  by  a  surveying  party 
which  can  not  be  strong  enough  to  allow  for  hunters  and  fishermen  as  a  constituent 
part  The  third  detachment  alone  derived  any  important  benefit  from  these  sources. 
The  best  mode  of  supplying  a  party  moving  on  the  eastern  section  would  be  to  draw 
provisions  and  stores  from  the  St  l/swrence.  It  is,  indeed,  now  obvious,  although 
it  is  contrary  to  the  belief  of  any  of  the  persons  professing  to  be  acquainted  with  the 
subject,  that  had  the  commissioner  proceeded  from  New  York  by  the  way  of  Mon- 
treal and  Quebec  he  must  have  reached  the  district  assigned  to  him  a  fortnight 
earlier  and  have  accomplished  twice  as  much  work  as  his  party  was  able  to  perform. 
Although  much  remains  to  be  done  in  this  region,  an  extensive  knowledge  of  a 
country  hitherto  unknown  and  tmexplored  has  been  obtained;  and  this  not  only 
sheds  much  light  upon  the  boundary  question  in  its  present  state,  but  will  be  of  per- 
manent service  in  case  of  a  further  ex  parte  examination,  or  of  a  joint  commission 
being  agreed  upon  by  the  Governments  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States. 
The  season  was«too  late  for  any  efficient  work,  as  the  line  to  be  explored  was  not 
reached  before  the  22d  September.  Not  only  were  the  rivers  at  their  lowest  ebb, 
but  ice  was  met  in  the  progress  of  the  parties  as  early  as  the  12th  September,  and 
snow  fell  on  the  21st  and  22d  September.  The  actual  setting  in  of  winter,  which 
sometimes  occurs  in  the  first  week  of  October,  was  therefore  to  be  dreaded.  Prom 
this  time  the  country  becomes  unfit  for  traveling  of  any  description  until  the  streams 
are  bound  with  solid  ice  and  a  crust  formed  on  the  snow  of  sufficient  firmness  to 
make  it  passable  on  snowshoes.  The  only  road  is  that  along  the  St.  John  River, 
and  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  a  party  distant  more  than  10  or  12  miles  from 
that  stream  to  extricate  itself  after  the  winter  begins. 
No  duty  could  be  well  imagined  more  likely  to  be  disagreeable  than  that  assigned 
to  Professor  Renwick.  The  only  feasible  modes  of  approach  lay  for  hundreds  of 
miles  through  the  acknowledged  limits  of  the  British  territory,  and  the  line  he  was 
directed  to  explore  was  included  within  the  military  post  of  that  nation.  It  may  be 
likened  to  the  entry  upon  the  land  of  a  neighbor  for  the  purpose  of  inquiring  into  his 
title.  Under  these  circumstances  of  anticipated  difficulty  it  becomes  his  duty,  as  well 
as  his  pleasure,  to  acknowledge  the  uniform  attention  and  civilities  he  has  experi- 
enced from  all  parties,  whether  in  official  or  in  private  stations.  All  possibility  of 
interruption  by  the  local  authorities  was  prevented  by  a  proclamation  of  His  Excel- 
lency Sir  John  Harvey,  K.  C.  B.,  lieutenant-governor  of  the  Province  of  New  Bruns- 
wick, and  the  British  warden,  Colonel  Madauchlan,  was  personally  instrumental  in 
promoting  the  comforts  of  the  commissioner  and  his  assistants.  Similar  attentions 
were  received  from  the  officers  of  the  garrison  at  Fort  Ingall,  and  the  commandant 
of  the  citadel  of  Quebec,  and  from  His  Excellency  the  Governor-General.  Even 
the  private  persons  whose  property  might  be  affected  by  the  acknowledgment  of  the 
American  claim  exhibited  a  generous  hospitality.
i8si  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
The  party  under  the  direction  of  Captain  Talcott  left  the  settlements  on  Halla 
Stream  on  the  6th  of  September.  The  main  branch  of  this  was  followed  to  its  souxce 
in  a  swamp,  in  which  a  branch  of  the  St.  Francis  also  had  its  origin.  From  this  point 
the  party  followed  the  ridge  dividing  the  Atlantic  from  the  St.  I/awrence  waters 
until  it  was  supposed  that  all  the  branches  of  Indian  Stream  had  been  headed.  In 
this  ^^ork  the  party  was  employed  until  the  14th  September.  It  had  now  arrived  at 
a  point  where  the  Magalloway  River  should  be  found  to  the  left,  according  to  the 
most  authentic  map  of  the  country,  especially  that  prepared  by  the  New  Hampshire 
commissioner  appointed  in  1836  to  explore  the  boundary  of  that  State,  and  accom- 
panying that  report.*  The  party  accordingly  bore  well  north  to  avoid  being  led 
from  the  true  **  height  of  land  '*  by  the  dividing  ridge  between  the  Connecticut  and 
Androscoggin  rivers.  After  crossing  several  small  streams,  it  came  on  the  afternoon 
of  the  15th  to  a  rivulet  about  13  feet  wide  running  to  the  east,  which  was  supposed  to 
be  the  main  Magalloway.  The  i6th  was  spent  in  exploring  it  to  its  source.  The 
next  day  it  was  discovered  that  what  had  been  taken  for  the  Magalloway  was  a  tribu- 
tary of  Salmon  River,  a  large  branch  of  the  St.  Francis,  and  consequently  the  party 
was  considerably  to  the  north  of  the  boundary. 
The  supply  of  provisions  did  not  allow  the  party  to  retrace  its  steps  to  the  point 
where  it  had  diverged  from  the  true  dividing  ridge.  The  course  was  therefore 
changed  until  it  bore  a  little  south;  but  it  was  not  until  the  22d  that  the  party  found 
itself  again  on  the  dividing  ridge,  and  then  upon  the  waters  of  the  Magalloway. 
The  party  reached  Arnold  River,  or  Chaudiere,  above  Lake  Megantic,  on  the  24th 
September.  After  having  recruited  and  taken  a  fresh  supply  of  provisions  from  the 
depot  established  there,  the  party  was  divided  into  two  detachments.  One  returned 
westward  to  find  the  comer  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire  as  marked  by  the  com- 
mission in  1789  appointed  to  trace  the  boundary  line. 
It  was  there  ascertained  that  the  comer  was  on  the  true  dividing  ridge,  and  not 
from  8  to  10  miles  south,  as  has  been  erroneously  reported  by  the  surveyor  employed 
by  the  New  Hampshire  commissioners  in  1836  and  reiterated  in  several  official 
papers.  From  the  State  comer  the  dividing  ridge  was  followed  to  where  it  had  been 
previously  explored  by  the  party.  Thence  a  course  was  taken  to  the  northeast  so  as 
to  reach  the  head  of  Lake  Megantic,  and  thence  to  X^ke  Magaumac,  where  on  the  8th 
October  the  two  detachments  were  again  united.  The  detachment  led  by  the  assist- 
ant, Mr.  Cutts,  had  successfully  followed  the  dividing  ridge  from  the  camp  of  the 
24th  on  Am:>ld  River  to  this  place. 
It  was  now  ascertained  that  the  provisions  remaining  were  not  sufficient  to^Subsist 
all  of  the  company  until  the  Kennebec  road  could  be  reached  by  following  the  height 
of  land.  It  was  thought  advisable  again  to  separate  into  two  detachments — one  to 
follow  the  ridge,  supplied  with  provisions  for  twenty  days,  and  the  other  to  strike 
for  the  nearest  settlement,  which  it  was  supposed  could  be  reached  in  four  or  five 
days.  This  movement  commenced  on  the  loth  October,  and  the  detachment,  follow- 
ing the  high  land,  reached  the  Kennebec  road  on  the  23d,  and  on  the  following  day 
provisions  for  the  party  for  fifteen  days  were  placed  there  and  a  like  quantity  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Metjarmette.  It  was  intended  that  the  two  detachments  should  move 
simultaneously  from  these  two  points  on  the  26th  to  explore  the  boundary  line  as  far 
as  Lake  Btchemin.  A  deep  snow,  which  commenced  falling  on  the  night  of  the  25th, 
compelled  the  commissioner  to  abandon  further  explorations  at  that  time;  and  there 
was  not  the  slightest  probability  that  they  could  be  resiuned  before  another  year. 
The  result  of  these  explorations  may  be  stated  as  follows: 
About  160  miles  of  country  along  or  near  the  *  *  height  of  land ' '  have  been  traversed, 
the  traveled  distances  carefully  estimated,  and  the  courses  measured  with  a  compass. 
Barometrical  observations  were  made  as  often  as  necessary  for  giving  a  profile  of  the 
*  Also  see  rexx>rt  No.  176,  House  of  Representatives,  Twenty-fifth  Congress,  third  session.
Martin  Van  Buren  1852 
route  from  the  head  of  Halls  Stream  to  Arnold  or  the  Chandlere  River,  and  thence 
to  Lake  Maganmac  via  the  comer  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire.  Some  further 
\>arometrical  observations  were  made  between  the  lake  and  the  Kennebec  road,  but 
for  a  portion  of  that  distance  the  barometer  was  unserviceable  in  consequence  of  air 
having  entered  the  tube.  Astronomical  observations  were  made  as  often  as  there 
was  an  opportunity,  but,  owing  to  the  prevalence  of  clouds,  not  as  often  as  was  desir- 
able. They  will  serve  for  correcting  the  courses  and  estimated  distances  traveled. 
Barometric^  observations  for  comparison  were  made  at  the  intersection  of  the  Ken- 
nebec road  and  height  of  land  hourly  from  7  a.  m.  to  5  p.  m.  while  the  parties  were 
on  the  dividing  ridge. 
The  only  discovery  of  interest  made  by  this  party  is  that  the  Magalloway  River 
does  not  head  any  of  the  branches  of  the  Connecticut,  as  it  was  generally  believed  it 
did,  and  consequently  our  claim  to  Halls  Stream  is  deprived  of  the  support  it  would 
have  had  from  the  fact  that  a//  the  other  branches  were  headed  by  an  Atlantic  river, 
and  consequently  could  not  be  reached  by  the  line  along  the  height  of  land  from 
the  northwest  angle  of  Nova  Scotia. 
The.  other  commissioner  (Major  Graham)  did  not  receive  his  appointment  until 
i6th  August  to  fill  the  place  left  vacant  by  the  nonacceptance  of  Professor  Cleave- 
land,  and  to  him  was  assigned  the  survey  and  examination  of  the  due  north  line, 
commencing  at  the  sotuxe  of  the  river  St.  Croix  and  extending  to  the  highlands 
which  divide  the  waters  that  flow  into  the  river  St.  I^wrence  from  those  which  flow 
into  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
Immediately  after  receiving  his  appointment  he  took  the  necessary  steps  for 
otganizing  his  party,  and  in  addition  to  two  officers  of  the  Corps  of  Topographical 
Engineers,  assigned  to  him  by  the  commandant  of  the  Corps  for  this  service,  he 
called  to  his  aid  two  civil  engineers  possessing  the  requisite  qualifications  for  the 
duties  to  be  performed.  So  soon  as  the  requisite  instruments  could  be  procured  and 
put  in  proper  order  he  left  New  York  for  Portland,  Me.,  where  he  arrived  on  the 
5th  of  September,  expecting  there  to  join  his  colleagues  of  the  commission.  They 
had,  however,  proceeded  to  the  points  designated  for  the  commencement  of  their 
respective  duties,  the  season  being  too  far  advanced  to  justify  their  incurring  any 
further  delay. 
At  Portland  a  short  conference  was  had  with  Mr.  Stubbs,  the  agent  of  the  State 
Department,  who  furnished  the  necessary  means  for  procuring  an  outfit  for  the  party 
in  provisions,  camp  equipage,  etc. 
The  party  then  proceeded  to  Bangor,  where  it  was  occupied  until  the  12th  in  pro- 
curing the  necessary  supplies  of  provisions,  camp  equipage,  transportation,  etc.,  to 
enable  it  to  take  the  field;  and  a  few  astronomical  observations  were  made  here  for 
the  purpose  of  testing  the  rates  of  the  chronometers  which  were  to  be  used  upon  this 
service,  as  well  as  of  obtaining  additional  data  for  computing  the  longitude  of  this 
place,  which,  together  with  the  latitude,  had  been  determined  by  the  commissioner 
by  a  very  near  approximation  in  the  summer  of  1838,  while  occupied  upon  the  mili- 
tary reconnoissances  of  the  northeastern  frontier. 
On  the  12th  the  party  left  Bangor  for  Houlton,  where  it  arrived  on  the  evening  of 
the  13th.  A  depot  of  provisions  was  established  here  for  suppljdng  the  line  of  their 
future  operations,  and  the  services  of  the  requisite  number  of  men  as  axmen,  chain 
bearers,  instrument  carriers,  etc.,  were  engaged. 
Pending  these  preparations  and  the  time  necessarily  occupied  in  cutting  a  road- 
way through  the  forest  from  a  convenient  point  on  the  Calais  road  to  the  monument 
at  the  source  of  the  river  St.  Croix,  a  series  of  astronomical  observations  was  made, 
60th  by  day  and  by  night,  by  which  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  Houlton  were 
satisfactorily  determined  and  the  rates  of  the  chronometers  further  tested. 
By  the  24th  of  September  the  roadway  was  sufficiently  opened  to  permit  a  camp  to 
be  established  upon  the  experimental  line  traced  by  the  United  States  and  British
1853  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
surveyors  in  the  year  1817,  when  an  attempt  was  made  to  mark  this  portion  of  the 
boundary  between  the  two  countries  agreeably  to  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  of 
Ghent  of  1815. 
The  provisions  and  camp  equipage  were  transported  upon  a  strong  but  roughly 
constructed  sled,  drawn  by  horses,  whilst  the  instruments  were  carried  by  hand,  the 
surface  of  the  country  over  which  this  roadway  was  opened  being  too  rough  for  any 
wheeled  vehicle  to  pass. 
The  point  decided  upon  as  the  true  source  of  the  river  St.  Croix  by  the  United  States 
and  British  commissioners  appointed  for  that  purpose  under  the  fifth  article  of  the 
treaty  of  1794  was  found  and  identified,  both  by  the  inscriptions  upon  the  monument 
erected  there  to  mark  the  spot  and  also  by  the  testimony  of  a  living  witness  of  high 
respectability,  who  has  known  the  locality  since  it  was  first  designated  by  the  com- 
missioners tmder  the  treaty  of  1794. 
The  avenue  which  had  been  cleared  through  a  dense  forest  from  the  monument  to 
a  distance  of  12  miles  north  of  it  by  the  surveyors  in  18x7  was  easily  recognized  by 
the  new  and  thick  growth  of  young  timber,  which,  having  a  width  of  from  40  to  50 
feet,  now  occupied  it.  Axmen  were  at  once  set  at  work  to  reopen  this  avenue,  under 
the  supposition  that  the  due  ndrth  line  would  at  least  fall  witl^n  its  borders  for  a 
distance  of  12  miles.  In  the  meantime  the  first  astronomical  station  and  camp  were 
established,  and  the  transit  instrument  set  up  at  a  distance  of  4,578  feet  north  of  the 
monument,  upon  an  eminence  45  K  ^cet  above  the  level  of  its  base.  This  position 
commanded  a  distinct  view  of  the  monument  to  the  south,  and  of  the  whole  line  to 
the  north  for  a  distance  of  11  miles,  reaching  to  Parks  Hill.  Whilst  the  work  of 
clearing  the  line  of  its  young  growth  of  timber  was  progressing  a  series  of  astro- 
nomical observations  was  commenced  at  this  first  camp,  and  continued  both  day  and 
night  without  intermission  (except  when  interrupted  by  unfavorable  weather),  with 
the  sextant,  the  repeating  circle  of  reflection,  and  the  transit  instrument,  imtil  the 
latitude  and  longitude  of  the  monument  and  of  this  first  camp  were  satisfactorily 
ascertained,  and  also  the  direction  of  the  true  meridian  from  the  said  monument 
established.  For  this  latter  purpose  several  observations  were  in  the  first  place 
made  upon  the  polar  star  (a  Ursse  Minoris)  when  at  its  greatest  eastern  diurnal 
'elongation,  and  the  direction  thus  obtained  was  afterwards  verified  and  corrected  by 
numerous  transit  observations  upon  stars  passing  the  meridian  at  various  altitudes 
both  north  and  south  of  the  zenith.  These  were  multiplied  with  every  degree  of 
care,  and  with  the  aid  of  four  excellent  chronometers,  whose  rates  were  constantly 
tested,  not  only  by  the  transit  observations,  but  also  by  equal  altitudes  of  the  sun  in 
the  day,  to  correct  the  time  at  noon  and  midnight,  and  by  observed  altitudes  of  east 
and  west  stars  for  correcting  the  same  at  various  hours  of  the  night. 
The  direction  of  this  meridian,  as  thus  established  by  the  commissioner,  was  found 
to  vary  from  the  experimental  line  traced  by  the  surveyors,  of  1817  by  running  in  the 
first  place  to  the  west  of  their  line,  then  crossing  it,  and  afterwards  deviating  con- 
siderably to  the  east  of  it. 
At  the  second  principal  station  erected  by  the  party,  distant  6  miles  and  3,952  feci 
north  of  the  first  camp,  or  7  miles  and  3,240  feet  north  of  the  monument,  it  found 
itself  60  feet  to  the  west  of  the  line  of  181 7.  This  appeared  to  be  the  maximum  devia- 
tion to  the  west  of  that  line  as  near  as  its  trace  could  be  identified,  which  was  only 
(narked  by  permanent  objects  recognized  by  the  party  at  the  termination  of  each  mile 
from  the  monument.  Soon  after  passing  this  station  the  line  of  1817  was  crossed, 
and  the  party  did  not  afterwards  touch  it,  but  deviated  more  and  more  to  the  east  of 
it  as  it  progressed  north  by  an  irregular  proportion  to  the  distance  advanced. 
In  order  to  obtain  a  correct  profile  or  vertical  section  along  the  whole  extent  of  this 
meridian  line,  in  the  hopes  of  fmnishing  data  for  accurate  comparisons  of  elevationi 
so  far  as  they  might  be  considered  relevant  to  the  subject  in  dispute  between  the  two 
Governments,  and  also  to  afford  an  accurate  base  of  comparison  for  the  barometers
Martin  Van  Buren  1854 
4oiig  an  extended  line  which  must  traverse  many  ridges  that  will  be  objects  of  minute 
exploration  for  many  miles  of  lateral  extent,  an  officer  was  detailed  to  trace  a  line  of 
levels  from  the  base  of  the  monument  marking  the  source  of  the  river  St.  Croix  to 
tide  water  at  Calais,  in  Maine,  by  which  means  the  elevation  of  the  base  of  the  monu- 
ment above  the  planes  of  mean  low  and  mean  high  water,  and  also  the  elevations  of 
several  intermediate  points  of  the  river  St.  Croix  on  its  expanded  lake  surface,  have 
been  accurately  ascertained. 
Another  officer  was  at  the  same  time  charged  with  tracing  a  line  of  levels  from  the 
base  of  the  same  monument  along  the  due  north  line  as  marked  by  the  comnussioner, 
by  which  it  is  intended  that  every  undulation  with  the  absolute  heights  above  the 
l^ane  of  mean  low  water  at  Calais  shall  be  shown  along  the  whole  extent  of  that  line. 
At  Parks  Hill,  distant  only  12  miles  from  the  monument,  a  second  station  for 
astronomical  observations  was  established,  and  a  camp  suitable  for  that  purpose  was 
formed.  On  the  26th  day  of  October,  whilst  occupied  in  completing  the  prolonga- 
tion of  the  meridian  line  to  that  point  and  in  establishing  a  camp  there,  the  party 
was  visited  by  a  snowstorm,  which  covered  the  ground  to  a  depth  of  4  inches  in  the 
course  of  six  hours.  This  was  succeeded  by  six  days  of  dark,  stormy  weather,  which 
entirely  intermpted  all  progress,  and  terminated  by  a  rain,  with  a  change  to  a  milder 
temperature,  which  cleared  away  the  snow.  During  this  untoward,  event  the  pairties 
made  themselves  as  comfortable  as  practicable  in  their  tents,  and  were  occupied  in 
computing  many  of  the  astronomical  and  other  observations  previously  made. 
On  the  2d  of  November  the  weather  became  clear,  and  the  necessary  astronomical 
observations  were  immediately  commenced  at  Parks  Hill.  Prom  this  elevated  point 
the  first  station  could  be  distinctly  seen  by  means  of  small  heliotropes  during  the 
day  and  bright  lights  erected  upon  it  at  night.  Its  direction,  with  that  of  several 
intermediate  stations  due  south  of  Parks  Hill,  was  verified  by  a  new  series  of  transit 
observations  upon  high  and  low  stars,  both  north  and  south  of  the  zenith.  By  the 
same  means  the  line  was  prolonged  to  the  north. 
In  one  week  after  commencing  the  observations  at  Parks  Hill  the  weather  became 
again  tmfavocable.  The  sky  was  so  constantly  overcast  as  to  preclude  all  astro- 
nomical observations,  and  the  atmosphere  so  thick  as  to  prevent  a  view  to  the  north 
which  ^iTOuld  permit  new  stations  to  be  established  with  sufficient  accuracy  in  that 
direction.  Unwilling  to  quit  the  field  while  there  was  a  prospect  of  the  weather 
becoming  sufficiently  favorable  to  enable  the  party  to  reach  the  latitude  of  Mars 
Hill,  or  even  proceed  beyond  it,  it  was  determined  that  some  of  the  party  should 
continue  in  the  tents,  and  there  occupy  themselves  with  such  calculations  as  ought 
to  be  made  before  quitting  the  field.  The  officers  charged  with  the  line  of  levels  and 
with  the  reconnoissances  in  advance  for  the  selection  of  new  positions  for  stations 
continued  their  labors  in  the  field,  notwithstanding  they  were  frequently  exposed  to 
■  alight  rain  and  snow  storms,  as  these  portions  of  the  work  could  go  on  without  a 
clear  sky. 
On  the  13th  of  November  a  severe  snowstorm  occurred,  which  in  a  single  night  and 
a  portion  of  the  following  morning  covered  the  surface  of  the  whole  countxy  and  the 
roofs  of  the  tents  to  a  depth  of  16  inches.  The  northern  extremity  of  the  avenue 
which  had  been  cleared  by  the  surveyors  of  181 7  was  now  reached,  and,  in  addition 
to  the  young  growth  which  had  sprung  up  since  that  period  upon  the  previous  part  of 
the  line,  several  miles  had  been  cleared  through  the  dense  forest  of  heavy  timber  in 
order  to  proceed  with  the  line  of  levels,  which  had  reached  nearly  to  the  Meduxna- 
keag.  The  depth  of  snow  now  upon  the  ground  rendered  it  impracticable  to  continue 
the  leveling  with  the  requisite  accuracy  any  further,  and  that  part  of  the  work  was 
accordingly  suspended  for  the  season.  The  thermometer  hsA  long  since  assumed  a 
range  extending  during  the  night  and  frequently  during  a  great  portion  of  the  day  to 
many  degrees  below 'the  freezing  point 
The  highlands  bordering  on  the  Aroostook,  distant  40  miles  to  the  north  of  the
i85S  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
party,  were  distinctly  seen  from  an  elevated  position  whenever  the  atmosphere  wan 
clear,  and  a  long  extent  of  intermediate  country  of  inferior  elevation  to  the  posi- 
tion then  occupied  presented  itself  to  the  view,  with  the  two  peaks  of  Mars  Hill 
rising  abruptly  above  the  general  surface  which  surrounded  their  base.  The  eaJstem 
extremity  of  the  base  of  the  easternmost  peak  was  nearly  2  degrees  of  arc,  or  nine- 
tenths  of  a  mile  in  space,  to  the  west  of  the  line  as  it  passed  the  same  latitude. 
To  erect  stations  opposite  to  the  base  of  Mars  Hill  and  upon  the  heights  of  the 
Aroostook,  in  order  to  obtain  exact  comparisons  with  the  old  line  at  these  points, 
were  considered  objects  of  so  much  importance  as  to  determine  the  commissioner 
to  continue  the  operations  in  the  field  to  the  latest  practicable  period  in  hopes  %A 
accomplishing  these  ends. 
On  the  1 8th  day  of  November  the  party  succeeded  in  erecting  a  station  opposite 
Mars  Hill  and  very  near  the  meridian  line.  It  was  thus  proved  that  the  line  would 
pass  from  nine-tenths  of  a  mile  to  i  mile  east  of  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  base  of 
the  northeast  peak  of  Mars  Hill. 
On  the  30th  of  November  a  series  of  signals,  was  commenced  to  be  interchanged 
at  night  between  the  position  of  the  transit  instrument  on  Parks  Hill  and  the  high- 
lands of  the  Aroostook.  These  were  continued  at  intervals  whenever  the  weather 
was«sufficiently  clear  until  by  successive  approximations  a  station  was  on  the  9th  of 
December  established  on  the  heights  i  mile  south  of  that  river  and  on  the  meridian 
line.  The  point  thus  reached  is  more  than  50  miles  from  the  monument  at  the  source 
of  the  St.  Croix,  as  ascertained  from  the  land  surveys  made  under  the  authority  of 
the  States  of  Maine  and  Massachusetts.  The  measurements  of  the  party  could  not 
be  extended  to  this  last  point,  owing  to  the  depth  of  the  snow  which  lay  upon  the 
ground  since  the  middle  of  November,  but  the  distance  derived  from  the  land  sur- 
veys must  be  a  very  near  approximation  to  the  truth.  A  permanent  station  was 
erected  at  the  position  established  on  the  Aroostook  heights  and  a  measurement 
made  from  it  due  west  to  the  experimental  or  exploring  line  of  181 7,  by  which  the 
party  found  itself  2,400  feet  to  the  east  of  that  line. 
Between  the  ist  and  15th  of  December  the  observations  were  carried  on  almost 
exclusively  during  the  night,  and  frequently  with  the  thermometer  ranging  from  o  to 
10  and  12  degrees  below  that  point  by  Fahrenheit's  scale.  Although  frequently 
exposed  to  this  temperature  in  the  performance  of  their  duties  in  the  open  air  at 
night,  and  to  within  a  few  degrees  of  that  temperatture  dming  the  hours  of  sleep, 
with  no  other  protection  than  the  tents  and  camp  beds  commonly  used  in  the  Army, 
the  whole  party,  both  officers  and  men,  enjoyed  excellent  health. 
During  the  day  the  tents  in  which  the  astronomical  computations  were  carried  on 
were  rendered  quite  comfortable  by  means  of  small  stoves,  but  at  night  the  fire 
would  become  extinguished  and  the  temperature  reduced  to  within  a  few  d^^rees  of 
that  of  the  outward  air.  Within  the  observatory  tent  the  comfort  of  a  fire  could  not 
be  indulged  in,  in  consequence  of  the  too  great  liability  to  produce  serious  errors  of 
observation  by  the  smoke  passing  the  field  of  the  telescope.  The  astronomical  obser- 
vations were  therefore  always  made  in  the  open  air  or  in  a  tent  open  to  the  heavens 
at  top  during  the  hours  of  observation,  and  without  a  fire. 
On  the  1 6th  of  December  the  tents  were  struck  and  this  party  retired  from  the  field 
for  the  season,  there  being  then  more  than  2  feet  of  snow  on  the  gtoimd.  To  the 
unremitting  zeal  amidst  severe  exposures,  and  to  the  scientific  and  practical  attain- 
ments of  the  officers,  both  civil  and  military,  who  served  under  the  orders  of  the 
commissioner  on  this  duty,  he  acknowledges  himself  in  a  great  measure  indebted 
for  the  progress  that  he  was  enabled  to  make,  notwithstanding  the  many  difficulties 
encountered. 
Observations  were  made  during  portions  of  three  lunations  of  the  transit  of  the 
moon's  bright  limb  and  of  such  tabulated  stars  as  differed  but  little  in  right  ascen- 
sion and  declination  from  the  moon,  in  order  to  obtain  additional  data  to  those
Martin  Van  Buren  1856 
fnrnisbed  by  chronometrical  comparisons  with  the  tneridian  of  Boston  for  computing 
the  longitude  of  this  meridian  line. 
At  the  first  station,  4,578  feet  north  of  the  monument,  and  also  at  the  Parks  Hill 
station,  the  dip  of  the  magnetic  needle  was  ascertained  by  a  series  of  observations^in 
the  one  case  upon  two  and  in  the  other  upon  three  separate  needles.  The  horizontal 
declination  ^as  also  ascertained  at  both  these  stations  by  a  full  set  of  observations 
upon  six  different  needles. 
The  details  of  these  and  of  all  the  astronomical  observations  alluded  to  will  be 
prepared  as  soon  as  practicable  for  the  use  of  the  commission,  should  they  be  required. 
To  His  Excellency  Major-General  Sir  John  Harvey,  K.  C.  B.,  lieutenant-governor 
of  the  Province  of  New  Brunswick,  Major  Graham  acknowledges  himself  greatly 
indebted  for  having  in  the  most  obligix^  manner  extended  to  him  every  facility 
within  his  power  for  prosecuting  the  examinations.  Prom  Mr.  Connell,  of  Wood- 
stock, a  member  of  the  colonial  parliament,  and  from  Lieutenant-Colonel  Maclauch- 
lan,  the  British  land  agent,  very  kind  attentions  were  received. 
Major  Graham  has  also  great  pleasure  in  acknowledging  his  obligations  to  Gen- 
eral Eustis,  commandant  of  the  Eastern  Department;  to  Colonel  Pierce,  commanding 
the  garrison  at  Houlton,  and  to  his  officers;  and  also  to  Major  Ripley,  of  the.CM^ 
nance  Department,  commanding  the  arsenal  at  Augusta,  for  the  prompt  and  obliging 
manner  in  which  tiiey  supplied  many  articles  useful  to  the  prosecution  of  the  labors 
of  his  party. 
The  transit  instrument  with  which  the  meridian  line  was  traced  had  been  loaned  to 
the  commission  by  the  Hon.  William  A.  Duer,  president  of  Columbia  College,  New 
York,  and  the  commissioners  feel  bound  to  return  their  acknowledgments  for  the 
liberality  with  which  the  use  of  this  astronomical  instrument  was  gratlted  at  a  time 
when  it  would  have  been  difficult,  and  perhaps  impossible,  to  have  procured  one  as 
well  suited  to  the  object. 
All  which  is  respectfully  submitted. 
JAa  RENWICK. 
JAMES  D.  GRAHAM, 
A.  TALCOTT, 
Commissioners. 
Washington,  February  12, 1841. 
To  the  Senate  of  the  United  States: 
I  transmit  a  report  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  containing  the  informa- 
tion asked  for  by  the  resolution  of  th^  Senate  of  the  5th  instant,  relative 
to  the  negroes  taken  on  board  the  schooner  Amistad. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  March  2,  1841. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives: 
I  transmit  to  the  House  of  Representatives  a  report  from  the  Attorney- 
General,  with  accompanjdng  documents,*  in  compliance  with  the  request 
contained  in  their  resolution  of  the  23d  of  March  last. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
*  opinions  of  the  Attorneys-General  of  the  United  States  from  the  commencement  of  the  Govern- 
ment  to  March  i.  1841.
1857  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
Washington,  March  2,  184.1. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives: 
I  transmit  the  accompanjdng  report  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  io 
relation  to  the  resolution  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  12th 
ultimo,  on  the  subject  of  claims  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  on  the 
Government  of  Hayti.  The  information  called  for  thereby  is  in  the  course 
of  preparation  and  will  be  without  doubt  communicated  at  the  commence- 
ment  of  the  next  session  of  Congress. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
Washington,  March  j,  1841. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives: 
I  transmit  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  compliance  with  their 
resolution  of  the  30th  January  last,  a  report*  from  the  Secretary  of  State, 
with  accompanying  documents. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
PROCLAMATION. 
[Prom  Senate  Joumatf  Twenty-dxth  Congress,  second  session,  p.  247.] 
Washington,  fanuary  6,  184L. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  to   ,  Senator  for  the  State  of   : 
Certain  matters  touching  the  public  good  requiring  that  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States  should  be  convened  on  Thursday,  the  4th  day  of  March 
next,  you  are  desired  to  attend  at  the  Senate  Chamber,  in  the  city  of 
Washington,  on  that  day,  then  and  there  to  receive  and  deliberate  on 
such  communications  as  shall  be  made  to  you. 
M.  VAN  BUREN. 
*  Relating  to  the  search  or  seizure  of  United  States  vessels  on  the  coast  of  Africa  or  elsewhere  by 
British  cruisers  or  authorities,  and  to  the  African  slave  trade,  etc
QUESTIONS. 
1.  How  is  the  District  of  Columbia  governed?    Page  1611. 
2.  Under  what  circumstances  and  by  what  authority  has  the 
President  called  the  State  militia  into  service?    Page  i6t8. 
3.  Can  the  United  States  Supreme  or  Circuit  Courts  compel  the 
Goyemment  to.  perform  specific  acts  ?    Page  1720. 
4.  How  was  the  title  to  Indian  lands  in  general  acquired  by  the 
Government,  and  were  the  bargains  considered  fair  ?  Pages 
1716,  1718. 
5.  How  can  business  depression  be  relieved  by  the  action  of  the 
Government?    Page  1708. 
6.  What  did  Van  Buren  recommend  as  to  ordnance  and  ammuni- 
tion factories?    Page  1607. 
7.  What  was  Van  Buren's  idea  as  to  the  necessity  of  a  standing 
army?    Page  1607. 
8.  What  presents  were  declined  by  Van  Buren?    Page  1809. 
9.  What  were  Van  Buren's  views  of  the  tariff?    Page  1752. 
J 
1867-A
SUGGESTIONS. 
The  revulsion  on  account  of  the  forms  of  banking  during  Jack- 
son's administration  culminated  in  panicky  conditions  in  Van 
Buren's  administration,  and  called  forth  considerable  criticism  of 
the  previous  "Wild-Cat"  methods.  For  Van  Buren's  discussion 
of  finances,  see  pages  1541,  1596,  1686,  1706,  1751,  I757,  1789, 
1822. 
Van  Buren's  decisive  views  in  favor  of  slavery  are  set  forth. 
Pages  1530  to  1537. 
Read  Van  Buren's  Foreign  Policy.  Pages  1590,  1702,  1747, 
1820. 
NOTE. 
For  further  suggestions  on  Van  Buren's  administration,  sec 
Van  Buren,  Martin,  Encyclopedic  Index. 
By  reading  the  Foreign  Policy  of  each  President,  and  by  scan- 
ning the  messages  as  to  the  state  of  the  nation,  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  history  of  the  United  States  will  be  acquired  from  the 
most  authentic  sources ;  because,  as  has  been  said,  "Each  Presi- 
dent reviews  the  past,  depicts  the  present  and  forecasts  the  f utu^ 
of  the  nation." 
1867-B
William  Henry  Harrison 
March  4  to  April  4,  1841 
SEE  ENCYCLOPEDIC  INDEX. 
The  Encyclopedic  Index  is  not  only  an  index  to  the  other  volumes,  not  onlv  a  key  that 
unlocks  the  treasures  of  the  entire  publication,  but  it  is  in  itself  an  alphabetically  arranged 
brief  history  or  story  of  the  great  controlling  events  constituting  the  History  of  the  United 
States. 
Under  its  proper  alphabetical  classification  the  story  is  told  of  every  great  subject 
referred  to  by  any  of  the  Presidents  in  their  official  Messages,  and  at  the  end  of  each  article 
the  official  utterances  of  the  Presidents  themselves  are  dted  upon  the  subject,  so  that  you 
may  readily  turn  to  the  page  in  the  body  of  the  work  itself  for  this  original  information. 
Next  to  the  possession  of  knowledge  is  the  ability  to  turn  at  will  to  where  knowledge 
is  to  be  found.
HOME  AT   NORTH   BEND,   OHIO,  OF  WILLIAM   HENRY  HARRISON 
With  reproduction  of  official  portrait,  by  Andrews,  from  the  White  House 
Collection
Anna  Symmes  was  born  near  Morristown,  N. 
J.,  and  early  in  life  was  left  motherless.  Her 
father,  disguised  as  a  British  officer,  successfully 
carried  her  to  her  grandparents  on  Long  Island, 
where  she  remained  until  the  evacuation  of  New 
York.  Trained  in  godliness,  her  whole  life  echoed 
her  early  teachings.  When  nearly  twenty  she 
married  Captain,  later  General,  and  afterwards 
President  Harrison.  While  he  was  Governor  of 
the  Indiana  Territory  she  dispensed  liberal  hospi- 
tality, being  greatly  loved  and  admired,  and  here 
in  her  home  in  the  old  French  Town  of  Vin- 
cennes  many  happy  years  were  spent.  Her  hus- 
band being  much  away,  she  reared  almost  alone 
her  ten  children,  afterwards  seeing  one  infant, 
three  grown  daughters,  four  sons  and  ten  grand- 
children die  during  thirty  years  at  North  Bend. 
The  thought  of  removing  to  Washington  was  dis- 
tasteful to  her,  but  as  the  President  died  one 
month  after  his  inauguration,  the  removal  be- 
came unnecessary.
HARRISON 
William  Henry  Harrison  as  President  was  a  distinctive  character.  In 
personality  he  probably  never  had,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  he  ever  will 
have,  an  imitator  or  an  equal.  The  country  looked  upon  him  at  the 
time  not  alone  as  a  great  pioneer  and  warrior,  but  as  a  great  and  good 
man,  who  came  very  close  to  the  people.  The  people  selected  him  for 
the  highest  office  within  their  gift,  not  only  on  account  of  that  which  he 
had  accomplished  in  blazing  the  way  to  civilization  and  taming  the 
savages  in  the  Central  West,  or  because  he  had  assisted  in  repelling 
British  intrusion,  but  because  they  regarded  him  as  the  personification 
of  honor  and  as  possessing  the  material  for  a  great  statesman.  It  has 
often  been  recorded  in  history  and  it  is  a  common  expression  today  that 
"William  Henry  Harrison  was  killed  by  office-seekers."  A  man  who 
would  place  himself  so  near  the  people  as  to  permit  office-seekers  to 
send  him  to  an  untimely  grave  must  have  had  in  a  very  marked  degree 
the  milk  of  human  kindness,  and  a  fountain  of  gratitude  and  personal 
aflfection,  which  should  win  admiration. 
It  was  the  elevation  of  such  a  man  to  the  Presidential  chair,  after  a 
campaign  so  characteristic  as  to  leave  its  imprint  upon  time,  that  made 
the  administration  of  William  Henry  Harrison  notable. 
Probably  no  man  has  ever  occupied  the  Executive  Mansion  whose 
name  was  so  universally  perpetuated  by  namesakes,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  George  Washington.  The  children  who  were  named  after 
William  Henry  Harrison,  if  they  could  be  lined  up  today,  would  make 
an  army  almpst  sufficient  to  have  conducted  successfully  the  war  against 
Spain,  or  to  fill  all  of  the  Federal  offices  of  the  country  today. 
I  find  that  the  state  papers  of  President  William  Henry  Harrison  are 
confined  to  his  inaugural  address  and  a  proclamation  convening  Con- 
gress to  meet  in  extraordinary  session  on  May  31,  1841.  On  the  fourth 
of  the  following  April  he  died.  In  his  inaugural  address  he  manifests 
an  intense  desire  to  conscientiously  fulfill  the  duties  of  his  high  office. 
He  proceeds  to  declare  his  intention  of  fulfilling  all  the  pledges  he  had 
made  and  concludes  his  address  with  this  somewhat  pathetic  sentence : 
"Felk)w  citizejis,  being  fully  vested  with  that  high  office  to  which  the 
partiality  of  my  countrymen  has  called  me,  I  now  take  an  affectionate 
leave  of  you." 
The  above  utterance  seemed  to  be  prophetic,  in  that  it  was  his  leave- 
taking,  for  he  never  again  appeared  in  public. 
As  a  warrior  among  Indians,  William  Henry  Harrison  has  been  placed 
upon  the  scroll  of  fame  with  Daniel  Boone  and  Kenton.  As  an  army 
officer,  a  trained  soldier  and  tactician  upon  the  field,  history  places  him 
with  Washington,  whose  unlimited  confidence  he  possessed. 
1S57-C
As  a  patriot,  William  Henry  Harrison  will  always  be  remembered. 
No  one  who  has  achieved  the  high  office  he  held  will  probably  ever  have 
a  greater  degree  of  confidence  or  affection  of  the  people.  It  is  lamentable 
that  the  expectations  of  the  country  were  so  rudely  dashed  by  his  un- 
timely death,  as  much  was  expected  of,  and  no  doubt  much  would  have 
been  realized  by  his  administration. 
At  the  time  of  the  Harrison- Van  Buren  campaign  political  cartoons 
were  just  coming  into  general  use  in  this  country.  Gen.  William  Henry 
Harrison,  who  had  some  time  before  retired  to  private  life,  was  then 
living  upon  his  farm  at  North  Bend,  Ohio,  between  Cincinnati  and  the 
Indiana  line.  In  one  of  these  campaign  hand  bills  are  pictures  of  various 
scenes  upon  the  farm  including  the  Log  Cabin  and  the  famous  Cider 
Press,  while  the  General  himself  is  represented  in  his  shirt  sleeves, 
ploughing.  He  was  called  "The  Cincinnatus  of  the  West,"  and  this 
epithet  proved  of  advantage  in  the  campaign. 
He  was  living  in  the  famous  cabin  at  North  Bend,  and  devoting  him- 
self to  agriculture  with  the  same  energy  and  enthusiasm  which  he  had 
displayed  in  the  affairs  of  War  and  of  State.  Here  he  remained  until 
called  upon  by  his  friends  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  of 
the  United  States.  He  had  married  a  daughter  of  John  Cleves  Symmes, 
the  founder  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio.  He  was  in  sympathy  wholly  with  the 
Western  pioneers,  among  whom  he  had  lived  so  long. 
His  term  as  President  lasted  but  thirty  days,  and  his  death  was  felt 
as  a  severe  blow  by  his  party,  which  had  formed  high  expectations  of 
his  capacity  in  executive  matters.  Notwithstanding  his  notable  career 
as  a  General  and  statesman,  William  Henry  Harrison  is  likely  to  be 
remembered  as  the  highest  type  of  the  pioneers,  who  succeeded  the 
frontiersmen  Kenton  and  Boone.  His  service  to  the  great  empire,  which 
has  since  been  divided  into  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois  and 
Michigan,  will  cause  him  to  be  affectionately  remembered  by  thousands 
who  barely  know  the  names  of  other  Presidents. 
fi^^ydr^^^t.^. 
1857-D
William  Henry  Harrison 
William  Hqnrt  Harrison,  third  and  youngest  son  of  Benjamin 
Harrison,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was 
bom  at  Berkeley,  Charles  City  County,  Va.,  February  9,  1773.  Was 
educated  at  Hampden  Sidney  College,  Virginia,  and  began  the  study  of 
medicine,  but  before  he  had  finished  it  accounts  of  Indian  outrages  on 
the  western  frontier  led  him  to  enter  the  Army,  and  he  was  commis- 
sioned an  ensign  in  the  First  Infantry  on  August  16,  1791;  joined  his 
regiment  at  Fort  Washington,  Ohio.  Was  appointed  lieutenant  June  2, 
1792,  and  afterwards  joined  the  Army  under  General  Anthony  Wa3me, 
and  was  made  aid-de-camp  to  the  commanding  officer.  For  his  services 
in  the  expedition,  in  December,  1793,  that  erected  Fort  Recovery  he  was 
thanked  by  name  in  general  orders.  Participated  in  the  engagements 
with  the  Indians  tha  began  on  June  30,  1794,  and  was  complimented  by 
General  Wayne  for  gallantry  in  the  victory  on  the  Miami  on  August  20. 
On  May  15,  1797,  was  made  captain  and  given  the  command  of  Fort 
Washington.  While  there  he  married  Anna,  daughter  of  John  Cleves 
Symmes.  Resigned  his  commission  on  June  i,  1798,  peace  having  been 
made  with  the  Indians,  and  was  immediately  appointed  by  President 
John  Adams  secretary  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  but  in  October,  1799, 
resigned  to  take  his  seat  as  Territorial  Delegate  in  Congress.  During 
his  term  part  of  the  Northwest  Territory  was  formed  into  the  Territory 
of  Indiana,  including  the  present  States  of  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan, 
and  Wisconsin,  and  he  was  appointed  its  governor  and  superintendent 
of  Indian  affairs,  which  he  accepted,  and  resigned  his  seat  in  Congress. 
Was  reappointed  successively  by  Presidents  Jefferson  and  Madison.  He 
organized  the  legislature  at  Vincennes  in  1805.  Held  frequent  coun- 
cils vcdth  the  Indians,  and  succeeded  in  averting  many  outbreaks.  On 
September  30,  1809,  concluded  a  treaty  with  several  tribes  by  which 
they  sold  to  the  United  States  about  3,000,000  acres  of  land  on  the 
Wabash  and  White  rivers.  This  and  former  treaties  were  condemned 
by  Tecumseh  and  other  chiefs,  and  an  outbreak  became  imminent,  which 
was  averted  by  the  conciliatory  course  of  the  governor.  In  the  spring 
of  181:  Indian  depredations  became  frequent,  and  Governor  Harrison 
1858
1859  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
recommended  the  establishment  of  a  military  post  at  Tippecanoe,  and 
the  Government  consented.  On  September  26  Harrison  marched  from^ 
Vincennes  with  about  900  men,  including  350  regular  infantry,  completed 
Fort  Harrison,  near  the  site  of  Terre  Haute,  Ind.,  on  October  28,  and 
leaving  a  garrison  there  pressed  on  toward  Tippecanoe.  On  November 
6,  when  near  that  town,  was  met  by  messengers  demanding  a  parley, 
and  a  council  was  proposed  for  the  next  day.  At  4  o'clock  the  follow- 
ing morning  a  fierce  attack  was  made  by  the  savages;  at  daybreak  the 
Indians  were  driven  from  the  field.  For  this  victory  he  was  highly 
complimented  by  President  Madison  in  his  message  of  December  18, 
181 1,  and  was  also  thanked  by  the  legislatures  of  Kentucky  and  Indiana. 
On  August  25,  1812,  soon  after  war  was  declared  against  Great  Britain, 
was  commissioned  major-general  of  the  militia  of  Kentucky,  though 
not  a  citizen  of  that  State.  On  August  22,  18 12,  was  commissioned  a 
brigadier-general  in  the  Regular  Army,  and  later  was  appointed  to  the 
chief  command  of  the  Northwestern  army,  with  instructions  to  act  in 
all  cases  according  to  his  own  discretion  and  judgment.  No  latitude  as 
great  as  this  had  been  given  to  any  commander  since  Washington.  On 
March  2,  1813,  was  commissioned  a  major-general.  Was  in  command 
of  Fort  Meigs  when  General  Proctor,  with  a  force  of  British  troops  and 
Indians,  laid  unsuccessful  siege  to  it  from  April  28  to  May  9,  1813. 
Transporting  his  army  to  Canada,  he  fought  the  battle  of  the  Thames 
on  October  5,  defeating  General  Proctor's  army  of  800  regulars  and 
1,200  Indians,  the  latter  led  by  the  celebrated  Tecumseh,  who  was  killed. 
This  battle,  together  with  Perry's  victory  on  Lake  Erie,  gave  the  United 
States  possession  of  the  chain  of  lakes  above  Erie  and  put  an  end  to 
the  war  in  uppermost  Canada.  For  this  victory  he  was  praised  by 
President  Madison  in  his  annual  message  to  Congress  and  by  the  leg- 
islatures of  the  different  States.  Through  a  misunderstanding  with 
General  John  Armstrong,  Secretary  of  War,  he  resigned  his  commis- 
sion in  the  Army  May  31,  1814.  In  1814,  and  again  in  1815,  he  was 
appointed  on  commissions  that  concluded  Indian  treaties,  and. in  18 16 
was  chosen  to  Congress  to  fill  a  vacancy,  serving  till  18 19.  On  March  30, 
18 18,  Congress  unanimously  voted  him  a  gold  medal*  for  his  victory  of 
the  Thames.  In  18 19  he  was  chosen  to  the  senate  of  Ohio,  and  in  1822 
was  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  Congress.  In  1824  was  a  Presiden- 
tial elector,  voting  for  Henry  Clay,  and  in  the  same  year  was  sent  to 
the  United  States  Senate,  and  succeeded  Andrew  Jackson  as  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  MiUtary  Affairs.  He  resigned  in  1828,  having 
been  appointed  by  President  John  Quincy  Adams  minister  to  the  United 
States  of  Colombia.  He  was  recalled  at  the  outset  of  Jackson's  Admin- 
istration, and  retired  to  his  farm  at  North  Bend,  near  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 
In  1835  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  by  Whig  State  conventions 
in  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Ohio,  and  other  States,  but  at  the  election 
on  November  8,  1836,  was  defeated  by  Martin  Van  Buren,  receiviuj;
William  Henry  Harrison  i860 
y  "  •  ' 
only  73  electoral  votes  to  the  latter's  170.  December  4, 1839,.  he  was 
nomixiated  for  the  Presidency  by  the  national  Whig  convention  at  Har- 
risburg,  Pa.,  and  was  electa  on  November  10,  1840,  receiving  234 
electoral  votes  to  Van  Bnren's  60.  Was  inaug^urated  March  4,  1841. 
Called  Congress  to  meet  in  extra  session  on  May  31.  He  died  on  Sun- 
day morning,  April  4, 1841.  His  body  was  interred  in  the  Congressional 
Cemetery  at  Washington,  but  in  June,  1841,  it  was  removed  tp  North 
Bend  and  placed  in  a  tomb  overlooking  the  Ohio  River. 
INAtJGURAL  ADDRESS. 
Called  from  a  retirement  which  I  had  supposed  was  to  continue  for  the 
residue  of  my  life  to  fill  the  chief  executive  office  of  this  great  and  free 
nation,  I  appear  before  you,  fellow-dtizens,  to  take  the  oaths  which  the 
Constitution  prescribes  as  a  necessary  qualification  for  the  performance 
of  its  duties;  and  in  obedience  to  a  custom  coeval  with  our  Government 
and  what  I  believe  to  be  your  expectations  I  proceed  to  present  to  you  a 
summary  of  the  principles  which  will  govern  me  in  the  discharge  of  the 
duties  which  I  shall  be  called  upon  to  perform. 
It  was  the  remark  of  a  Roman  consul  in  an  early  period  of  that  cele- 
brated Republic  that  a  most  striking  contrast  was  observable  in  the 
conduct  of  candidates  for  offices  of  power  and  trust  before  and  after 
obtaining  them,  they  seldom  carrying  out  in  the  latter  case  the  pledges 
and  promises  made  in  the  former.  However  much  the  world  may  have 
improved  in  many  respects  in  the  lapse  of  upward  of  two  thousand  years 
since  the  remark  was  made  by  the  virtuous  and  indignant  Roman,  I  fear 
that  a  strict  examination  of  the  annals  of  some  of  the  modem  elective 
governments  would  develop  similar  instances  of  violated  confidence. 
Although  the  fiat  of  the  people  has  gone  forth  proclaiming  me  the 
Chief  Magistrate  of  this  glorious  Union,  nothing  upon  their  part  remain- 
ing to  be  done,  it  may  be  thought  that  a  motive  may  exist  to  keep  up 
the  delusion  under  which  they  may  be  supposed  to  have  acted  in  relation 
to  my  principles  and  opinions;  and  perhaps  there  may  be  some  in  this 
assembly  who  have  come  here  either  prepared  to  condemn  those  I  shall 
now  deliver,  or,  approving  them,  to  doubt  the  sincerity  with  which  they 
are  now  uttered.  But  the  lapse  of  a  few  months  will  confirm  or  dispel 
their  fears.  The  outline  of  principles  to  govern  and  measures  to  be 
adopted  by  an  Administration  not  yet  begun  will  soon  be  exchanged  for 
immutable  history,  and  I  shall  stand  either  exonerated  by  my  country- 
men or  classed  with  the  mass  of  those  who  promised  that  they  might 
deceive  and  flattered  with  the  intention  to  betray.  However  strong  may 
be  my  present  purpose  to  realize  the  expectations  of  a  magnanimous  and
i86i  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
confiding  people,  I  too  well  understand  the  dangerous  temptations  to 
which  I  shall  be  exposed  from  the  magnitude  of  the  power  which  it  has 
been  the  pleasure  of  the  people  to  commit  to  my  hands  not  to  place 
my  chief  confidence  upon  the  aid  of  that  Almighty  Power  which  has 
hitherto  protected  me  and  enabled  me  to  bring  to  favorable  issues  other 
important  but  still  greatly  inferior  trusts  heretofore  confided  to  me  by  my 
country. 
The  broad  foundation  upon  which  our  Constitution  rests  being  the 
people — ^a  breath  of  theirs  having  made,  as  a  breath  can  unmake,  change, 
or  modify  it — it  can  be  assigned  to  none  of  the  great  divisions  of  gov- 
ernment but  to  that  of  democracy.  If  such  is  its  theory,  those  who 
are 'Called  upon  to  administer  it  must  recognize  as  its  leading  principle 
the  duty  of  shaping  their  measures  so  as  to  produce  the  greatest  good 
to  the  greatest  number.  But  with  these  broad  admissions,  if  we  would 
compare  the  sovereignty  acknowledged  to  exist  in  the  mass  of  our  people 
with  the  power  claimed  by  other  sovereignties,  even  by  those  which  have 
been  considered  most  purely  democratic,  we  shall  find  a  most  essential 
diflFerence.  All  others  lay  claim  to  power  limited  only  by  their  own  will. 
The  majority  of  our  citizens,  on  the  contrary,  possess  a  sovereignty  with 
an  amount  of  power  precisely  equal  to  that  which  has  been  granted  to 
them  by  the  parties  to  the  national  compact,  and  nothing  beyond.  We 
admit  of  no  government  by  divine  right,  believing  that  so  far  as  power 
is  concerned  the  Beneficent  Creator  has  made  no  distinction  amongst 
men;  that  all  are  upon  an  equality,  and  that  the  only  legitimate  right 
to  govern  is  an  express  grant  of  power  from  the. governed.  The  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  is  the  instruinent  containing  this  grant  of 
power  to  the  several  departments  composing  the  Government.  On  an 
examination  of  that  instrument  it  will  be  found  to  contain  declarations 
of  power  granted  and  of  power  withheld.  The  latter  is  also  susceptible  of 
division  into  power  which  the  majority  had  the  right  to  grant,  but  which 
they  did  not  think  proper  to  intrust  to  their  agents,  and  that  which  they 
could  not  have  granted,  not  being  possessed  by  themselves.  In  other 
words,  there  are  certain  rights  possessed  by  each  individual  American 
citizen  which  in  his  compact  with  the  others  he  has  never  surrendered. 
Some  of  them,  indeed,  he  is  unable  to  surrender,  being,  in  the  language 
of  our  system,  tmalienable.  The  boasted  privilege  of  a  Roman  citizen 
was  to  him  a  shield  only  against  a  petty  provincial  ruler,  whilst  the  proud 
democrat  of  Athens  would  console  himself  undei:  a  sentence  of  death  for 
a  supposed  violation  of  the  national  faith — which  no  one  understood  and 
which  at  times  was  the  subject  of  the  mockery  of  all — or  the  banishment 
from  his  home,  his  family,  and  his  country  with  or  without  an  alleged 
cause,  that  it  was  the  act  not  of  a  single  tyrant  or  hated  aristocracy,  but 
of  his  assembled  countrjrmen.  Par  different  is  the  power  of  our  sover- 
eignty. It  can  interfere  with  no  one's  faith,  prescribe  forms  of  worship 
for  no  one's  observance,  inflict  no  punishment  but  after  well-ascertained
William  Henry  Harrison  1862 
gtrilt,  the  result  of  investigation  under  rules  prescribed  by  the  Constitu- 
tion itself.  These  precious  privileges,  and  those  scarcely  less  important 
of  giving  expression  to  his  thoughts  and  opinions,  either  by  writing  or 
speaking,  unrestrained  but  by  the  liability  for  injury  to  others,  and  that 
of  a  full  participation  in  all  the  advantages  which  flow  from  the  Gov- 
aument,  the  acknowledged  property  of  all,  'the  American  citizen  derives 
from  no  charter  granted  by  his  fellow-man.  He  claims  them  because  he 
is  himself  a  man,  fashioned  by  the  same  Almighty  hand  as  the  rest  of 
his  species  and  entitled  to  a  full  share  of  the  blessings  with  which  He 
has  endowed  them.  Notwithstanding  the  limited  sovereignty  possessed 
by  the  people  of  the  United  States  and  the  restricted  grant  of  power 
to  the  Government  which  they  have  adopted,  enough  has  been  given  to 
accomplish  all  the  objects  for  which  it  was  created.  It  has  been  found 
powerful  in  war,  and  hitherto  justice  has  been  administered,  an  inti- 
mate union  effected,  domestic  tranquillity  preserved,  and  personal  liberty 
secured  to  the  citizen.  As  was  to  be  expected,  however,  from  the  defect 
of  language  and  the  necessarily  sententious  manner  in  which  the  Consti- 
tution is  written,  disputes  have  arisen  as  to  the  amount  of  power  which 
it  has  actually  granted  or  was  intended  to  grant. 
This  is  more  particularly  the  case  in  relation  to  that  part  of  the 
instrument  which  treats  of  the  legislative  branch,  and  not  only  as 
regards  the  exercisr  of  powers  claimed  under  a  gcmeral  clause  giving 
that  body  the  authority  to  pass  all  laws  necessary  to  carry  into  effect 
the  specified  powers,  but  in  relation  to  the  latter  also.  It  is,  however, 
consolatory  to  reflect  that  most  of  the  instances  of  alleged  departure 
from  the  letter  or  spirit  of  the  Constitution  have  ultimately  received  the 
sanction  of  a  majority  of  the  people.  And  the  fact  that  many  of  our 
statesmen  most  distinguished  for  talent  and  patriotism  have  been  at  one 
time  or  other  of  their  poUtical  career  on  both  sides  of  each  of  the  most 
warmly  disputed  questions  forces  upon  us  the  inference  that  the  errors, 
if  errors  there  were,  are  attributable  to  the  intrinsic  difficulty  in  many 
instances  of  ascertaining  the  intentions  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion rather  than  .the  influence  of  any  sinister  or  unpatriotic  motive.  But 
the  great  danger  to  our  institutions  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  in  a  ustu:- 
pation  by  the  Government  of  power  not.  granted  by  the  people,  but  by 
the  accumulation  in  one  of  the  departments  of  that  which  was  assigned 
to  others.  Wmited  as  are  the  powers  which  have  been  granted,  still 
enough  have  been  granted  to  constitute  a  despotism  if  concentrated  in 
one  of  the  departments.  This  danger  is  greatly  heightened,  as  it  has 
been  always  observable  that  men  are  less  jealous  of  encroachments  of 
one  department  upon  another  than  upon  their  own  reserved  rights. 
When  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  first  came  from  the  hands 
of  the  Convention  which  formed  it,  many  of  the  sternest  repubHcans  of 
the  day  were  alarmed  at  the  extent  of  the  power  which  had  been  granted 
to  the  Federal  Government,  and  more  particularly  of  that  portion  which
\ 
1863  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
had  been  assigned  to  the  executive  branch.  There  were  in  it  features 
which  appeared  not  to  be  in  harmony  with  their  ideas  of  a  simple  rep- 
resentative democracy  or  republic,  and  knowing  the  tendency  of  power 
to  increase  itself,  particularly  when  exercised  by  a  single  individual, 
predictions  were  made  that  at^no  very  remote  period  the  Government 
would  terminate  in  virtual  monarchy.  It  would  not  become  me  to  say  that 
the  fears  of  these  patriots  have  been  already  realized;  but  as  I  sincerely 
beUeve  that  the  tendency  of  measures  and  of  men's  opinions  for  some 
years  past  has  been  in  that  direction,  it  is,  I  conceive,  strictly  proper  that 
I  should  take  this  occasion  to  repeat  the  assurances  I  have  heretofore 
given  of  my  determination  to  arrest  the  progress  of  that  tendency  if  it 
really  exists  and  restore  the  Government  to  its  pristine  health  and  vigor, 
as  far  as  this  can  be  e£Fected  by  any  legitimate  exercise  of  the  power 
placed  in  my  hands. 
I  proceed  to  state  in  as  summary  a  manner  as  I  can  my  opinion  of  the 
sources  of  the  evils  which  have  been  so  extensively  complained  of  and 
the  correctives  which  may  be  applied.  Some  of  the  former  are  unques- 
tionably to  be  found  in  the  defects  of  the  Constitution;  others,  in  my 
judgment,  are  attributable  to  a  misconstruction  of  some  of  its  provi- 
sions. Of  the  former  is  the  eligibility  of  the  same  individual  to  a  second 
term  of  the  Presidency.  The  sagacious  mind  of  Mr.  Jefferson  early  saw 
and  lamented  this  error,  and  attempts  have  been  made,  hitherto  without 
success,  to  apply  the  amendatory  power  of  the  States  to  its  correction. 
As,  however,  one  mode  of  correction  is  in  the  power  of  every  President, 
and  consequently  in  mine,  it  would  be  useless,  and  ^haps  invidious, 
to  enumerate  the  evils  of  which,  in  the  opinion  of  many  of  our  fellow- 
citizens,  this  error  of  the  sages  who  framed  the  Constitution  may  have 
been  the  source  and  the  bitter  fruits  which  we  are  still  to  gather  from  it 
if  it  continues  to  disfigure  our  system.  It  may  be  observed,  however,  as  a 
general  remark,  that  republics  can  commit  no  greater  error  than  to  adopt 
or  continue  any  feature  in  their  systems  of  government  which  may  be  cal- 
culated to  create  or  increase  the  love  of  power  in  the  bosoms  of  those  to 
whom  necessity  obliges  them  to  commit  the  management  of  their  afiPairs; 
and  surely  nothing  is  more  likely  to  produce  such  a  state  of  mind  than 
the  long  continuance  of  an  office  of  high  trust.  Nothing  can  be  more 
corrupting,  nothing  more  destructive  of  all  those  noble  feelings  which 
belong  to  the  character  of  a  devoted  repubUcan  patriot.  When  this  cor- 
rupting passion  once  takes  possession  of  the  human  mind,  Uke  the  love 
of  gold  it  becomes  insatiable.  It  is  the  never-dying  worm  in  his  bosom, 
grows  with  his  growth  and  strengthens  with  the  declining  years  of  its 
victim.  If  this  is  true,  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  for  a  republic  to  limit  the 
service  of  that  officer  at  least  to  whom  she  has  intrusted  the  management 
of  her  foreign  relations,  the  execution  of  her  laws,  and  the  command  of 
her  armies  and  navies  to  a  period  so  short  as  to  prevent  his  forgetting 
that  he  is  the  accountable  agent,  not  the  principal;  the  servant,  not  the
William  Henry  Harrison  1864 
'master.  Until  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution  can  be  effected  public 
opinion  may  secure  the  desired  object.  I  give  my  aid  to  it  by  renewing 
the  pledge  heretofore  given  that  under  no  circumstances  will  I  consent 
to  serve  a  second  term. 
But  if  there  is  danger  to  public  liberty  from  the  acknowledged  defects 
of  the  Constitution  in  the  want  of  Hmit  to  the  continuance  of  the  Execu- 
tive power  in  the  same  hands,  there  is^  I  apprehend,  not  much  less  from 
a  misconstruction  of  that  instrument  as  it  regards  the  powers  actually 
given.  I  can  not  conceive  that  by  a  fair  construction  any  or  either  of 
its  provisions  would  be  found  to  constitute  the  President  a  part  of  the 
legislative  power.  It  can  not*be  claimed  from  the' power  to  recommend, 
since,  although  enjoined  as  a  duty  upon  him,  it  is  a  privilege  which  he 
holds  in  common  with  every  *other  citizen;  and  although  there  may 
be  something  more  of  confidence  in  the  propriety  of  the  measures  recom- 
mended in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other,  in  the  obligations  of  ultimate 
decision  there  can  be  no  difference.  In  the  language  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, "all  the  legislative  powers''  which  it  grants  ''are  vested  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States. ' '  It  would  be  a  solecism  in  language  to 
say  that  any  portion  of  these  is  not  included  in  the  whole. 
It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  the  Constitution  has  given  to  the  Execu- 
tive the  power  to  annul  the  acts  of  the  legislative  body  by  refusing  to 
them  his  assent.  So  a  similar  power  has  necessarily  resulted  from  that 
instrument  to  the  judiciary,  and  yet  the  judiciary  forms  no  part  of  the 
Legislature.  There  is,  it  is  true,  this  difference  between  these  grants 
of  power:  The  Executive  can  put  his  negative  upon  the  acts  of  the 
legislature  for  other  cause  than  that  of  want  of  conformity  to  the  Con- 
stitution, whilst  the  judiciary  can  only  declare  void  those  which  violate 
that  instrument.  But  the  decision  of  the  judiciary  is  final  in  such  a  case, 
whereas  in  every  instance  where  the  veto  of  the  Executive  is  appUed  it 
may  be  overcome  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress. 
The  negative  upon  the  acts  of  the  legislative  by  the  executive  authority, 
and  that  in  the  hands  of  one  individual,  would  seem  to  be  an  incongruity 
in  our  system.  I4ke  some  others  of  a  similar  character,  however,  it 
appears  to  be  highly  expedient,  and  if  used  only  with  the  forbearance 
and  in  the  spirit  which  was  intended  by  its  authors  it  may  be  productive 
of  great  good  and  be  found  one  of  the  best  safeguards  to  the  Union.  At 
the  period  of  the  formation  of  the  Constitution  the  principle  does  not 
'  appear  to  have  enjoyed  much  favor  in  the  State  governments.  It  existed 
but  in  two,  and  in  one  of  these  there  was  a  plural  executive.  If  we 
would  search  for  the  motives  which  operated  upon  the  purely  patriotic 
and  enlightened  assembly  which  framed  the  Constitution  for  the  adop- 
tion of  a  provision  so  apparently  repugnant  to  the  leading  democratic 
principle  that  the  majority  should  govern,  we  must  reject  the  idea  that 
th^y  anticipated  from  it  any  benefit  to  the  ordinary  coturse  of  legislation. 
They  knew  too  well  the  high  degree  of  intelligence  which  existed  among
1865  Messages  and  Papers  of  tf^e  Presidents 
the  people  and  the  enlightened  character  of  the  State  legislatures  not  to" 
have  the  fullest  confidence  that  the  two  bodies  elected  by  them  would  be 
worthy  representatives  of  such  constituents,  and,  of  course,  that  they 
would  require  no  aid  in  conceiving  and  maturing  the  measures  which 
the  circumstances  of  the  country  might  require.  And  it  is  preposterous 
to  suppose  that  a  thought  could  for  a  moment  have  been  entertained 
that  the  President,  placed  at  the  capital,  in  the  center  of  the  country, 
could  better  understand  the  wants  and  wishes  of  the  people  than  their 
own  immediate  representatives,  who  spend  a  part  of  every  year  among 
them,  living  with  them,  often  laboring  with  theim,  and  bound  to  them 
by  the  triple  tie  of  interest,  duty,  and  affection.  To  assist  or  control 
Congress,  then,  in  its  ordinary  legislation  could  not,  I  conceive,  have 
been  the  motive  for  conferring  the  veto  power  on  the  President.  This 
argument  acquires  additional  force  from  the  fact  of  its  never  having  been 
thus  used  by  the  first  six  Presidents — and  two  of  them  wtere  members  of 
the  Convention,  one  presiding  over  its  deliberations  and  the  other  bearing 
a  larger  share  in  consummating  the  labors  of  that  august  body  than  any 
other  person.  But  if  bills  were  never  returned  to  Congress  by  either 
of  the  Presidents  above  referred  to  upon  the  ground  of  their  being  inexpe- 
dient or  not  as  well  adapted  as  they  might  be  to  the  wants  of  the  people, 
the  veto  was  applied  upon  that  of  want  of  conformity  to  the  Constitu- 
tion or  because  errors  had  been  committed  from  a  too  hasty  enactment. 
There  is  another  ground  for  the  adoption  of  the  veto  principle,  which 
had  probably  more  influence  in  recommending  it  to  the  Convention  than 
any  other.  I  refer  to  the  security  which  it  gives  to  the  just  and  equitable 
action  of  the  Legislature  upon  all  parts  of  the  Utiion.  It  could  not  but 
have  occurred  to  the  Convention  that  in  a  country  so  extensive,  embra- 
cing so  great  a  variety  of  soil  and  climate,  and  consequently  of  products, 
and  which  from  the  same  causes  must  ever  exhibit  a  great  difference 
in  the  amount  of  the  population  of  its  various  sections,  calling  for  a 
great  diversity  in  the  employments  of  the  people,  that  the  legislation  of 
the  majority  might  not  always  justly  regard  the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  minority,  and  that  acts  of  this  character  might  be  passed  under  an 
express  grant  by  the  words  of  the  Constitution,  and  therefore  not  within 
the  competency  of  the  judiciary  to  declare  void;  that  however  enlight- 
ened and  patriotic  they  might  suppose  from  past  experience  the  members 
of  Congress  might  be,  and  however  largely  partaking,  in  the  general,  of 
the  liberal  feelings  of  the  people,  it  was  impossible  to  expect  that  bodies 
so  constituted  should  not  sometimes  be  controlled  by  local  interests 
and  sectional  feelings.  It  was  proper,  therefore,  to  provide  some  um- 
pire from  whose  situation  and  mode  of  appointment  more  independence 
and  freedom  from  such  influences  might  be  expected.  Such  a  one  was 
affbrded  by  the  executive  department  constituted  by  the  Constitution. 
A  person  elected  to  that  high  oiBce,  having  his  constituents  in  every  sec- 
tion, State,  and  subdivision  of  the  Union,  must  consider  himself  botind  by
William  Henry  Harrison  1866 
the  most  solemn  saactions  to  guard,  protect,  and  defend  the  rights  of  all 
and  of  every  portion,  great  or  small,  from  the  injustice  and  oppression  of 
the  rest.  I  consider  the  veto  power,  therefore,  given  by  the  Constitution 
to  the  Executive  of  the  United  States  solely  as  a  conservative  power,  to 
be  used  only  irst,  tp  protect  the  Constitution  from  violation;  secondly, 
the  people  from  Uie  effects  of  hasty  legislation  where  their  will  has  been 
probably  disregarded  or  not  well  understood,  and,  thirdly,  to  prevent  the 
effects  of  combinatioi^s  violative  of  the  rights  of  minorities.  In  refer- 
ence to  the  second  oi  these  objects  I  may  observe  that  I  consider  it  the 
right  and  privilege  of  the  people  to  decide  disputed  points  of  the  Consti- 
tution arising  from  the  general  grant  of  power  to  Congress  to  carry  into 
effect  the  powers  expressly  given;  and  I  believe  with  Mr.  Madison  that 
''repeated  recognitions  under  varied  circumstances  in  acts  of  the  legisla- 
tive, executive,  and  judicial  branches  of  the  Government,  accompanied 
by  indications  in  different  modes  of  the  concurrence  of  the  general  will 
of  the  nation,**  as  affording  to  the  President  suflSdent  authority  for  his 
considering  such  disputed  points  as  settled. 
Upward  of  half  a  century  has  elapsed  since  the  adoption  of  the  present 
form  of  government.  It  would  be  an  object  more  highly  desirable  than 
the  gratification  of  the  curiosity  of  speculative  statesmen  if  its  precise 
situation  could  be  ascertained,  a  fair  exhibit  made  of  the  operations  of 
each  of  its  departments,  of  the  powers  which  they  respectively  claim  and 
exercise,  of  the  collisions  which  have  occurred  between  them  or  between 
the  whole  Government  and  those  of  the  States  or  either  of  them.  We 
could  then  compare  our  actual  condition  after  fifty  years*  trial  of  our 
system  with  what  it  was  in  the  commencement  of  its  operations  and 
ascertain  whether  the  predictions  of  the  patriots  who  opposed  its  adop- 
tion or  the  confident  hopes  of  its  advocates  have  been  best  realized.  The 
great  dread  of  the  former  seems  to  have  been  that  the  reserved  powers  of 
the  States  would  be  absorbed  by  those  of  the  Federal  Government  and  a 
consolidated  power  established,  leaving  to  the  States  the  shadow  only 
of  that  independent  action  for  which  they  had  so  zealously  contended 
and  on  the  preservation  of  which  they  relied  as  the  last  hope  of  liberty. 
Without  denying  that  the  result  to  which  they  looked  with  so  much 
apprehension  is  in  the  way  of  being  realized,  it  is  obvious  that  they  did 
not  clearly  see  the  mode  of  its  accomplishment.  The  General  Govern- 
ment has  sd^/ed  upon  none  of  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States.  As  far 
as  any  open  warfare  may  have  gone,  the  State  authorities  have  amply 
maintained  their  rights.  To  a  casual  observer  our  system  presents  no 
appearance  of  discord  between  the  different  members  which  compose  it. 
Even  the  addition  of  many  new  ones  has  produced  no  jarring.  They 
move  in  their  respective  orbits  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  central  head 
and  with  each  other.  But  there  is  still  an  undercurrent  at  work  by 
which,  if  not  seasonably  checked,  the  worst  apprehensions  of  our  anti- 
federal  patriots  will  be  realized,  and  not  only  will  the  State  authorities
1867  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
be  overshadowed  by  the  great  increase  of  power  in  the  executive  depart- 
ment of  the  General  Government,  but  the  character  of  that  Government, 
if  not  its  designation,  be  essentially  and  radically  changed.  This  state  of 
things  has  been  in  part  efiFected  by  causes  inherent  in  the  Constitution 
and  in  part  by  the  never-failing  tendency  of  political  power  to  increase 
itself.  By  making  the  President  the  sole  distributer  of  all  the  patronage 
of  the  Government  the  f  ramers  of  the  Constitution  do  not  appear  to  have 
anticipated  at  how  short  a  period  it  would  become  a  formidable  instru- 
ment to  control  the  free  operations  of  the  State  governments.  Of  trifling 
importance  at  first,  it  had  early  in  Mr.  Jefferson's  Administration  become 
so  powerful  as  to  create  great  alarm  in  the  mind  of  that  patriot  from  the 
potent  influence  it  might  exert  in  controlling  the  freedom  of  the  elective 
franchise.  If  such  could  have  then  been  the  effects  of  its  influence,  how 
much  greater  must  be  the  danger  at  this  time,  quadrupled  in  amotmt  as 
it  certainly  is  and  more  completely  under  the  control  of  the  Executive 
wiU  than  their  construction  of  their  powers  allowed  or  the  forbearing 
characters  of  all  the  early  Presidents  permitted  them  to  make.  But  it  is 
not  by  the  extent  of  its  patronage  alone  that  the  executive  department 
has  become  dangerous,  but  by  the  use  which  it  appears  may  be  made  of 
the  appointing  power  to  bring  under  its  control  the  whole  revenues  of  the 
country.  The  Constitution  has  declared  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  see  that  the  laws  are  executed,  and  it  makes  him  the  Commander 
in  Chief  of  the  Armies  and  Navy  of  the  United  States.  If  the  opinion  of 
the  most  approved  writers  upon  that  species  of  mixed  government  which 
in  modem  Europe  is  termed  monarchy  in  contradistinction  to  despotism 
is  correct,  there  was  wanting  no  other  addition  to  the  powers  of  otu-  Chief 
Magistrate  to  stamp  a  monarchical  character  on  our  Government  but  the 
control  of  the  public  finances;  and  to  me  it  appears  strange  indeed  that 
anyone  should  doubt  that  the  entire  control  which  the  President  pos- 
sesses over  the  officers  who  have  the  custody  of  the  public  money,  by 
the  power  of  removal  with  or  without  cause,  does,  for  all  mischievous 
purposes  at  least,  virtually  subject  the  treasure  also  to  his  disposal.  The 
first  Roman  Emperor,  in  his  attempt  to  seize  the  sacred  treasure,  silenced 
the  opposition  of  the  officer  to  whose  charge  it  had  been  committed  by 
a  significant  allusion  to  his  sword.  By  a  selection  of  political  instru- 
ments for  the  care  of  the  public  money  a  reference  to  their  commissions 
by  a  President  would  be  quite  as  effectual  an  argument  as  t}iat  of  Caesar 
to  the  Roman  knight.  I  am  not  insensible  of  the  great  difficulty  that 
exists  in  drawing  a  proper  plan  for  the  safe-keeping  and  disbursement  of 
the  public  revenues,  and  I  know  the  importance  which  has  been  attached 
by  men  of  great  abilities  and  patriotism  to  the  divorce,  as  it  is  call^,  of 
the  Treasury  from  the  banking  institutions.  It  is  not  the  divorce  which 
is  complained  of,  but  the  unhallowed  union  of  the  Treasury  with  the 
executive  department,  which  has  created  such  extensive  alarm.  To  this 
danger  to  our  republican  institutions  and  that  created  by  the  influence
PIONEERING  AND  INVENTION. 
As  in  the  beginning  of  the  settlement  of  any  new  country,  the  early  days 
of  life  in  the  far  West  were  the  acme  of  all  that  is  picturesque.  Not  with- 
out reason  was  the  new  country  termed  the  "Wild  and  Woolly  West."  There 
were  no  formal  laws,  and  whatever  existed  of  unwritten  laws  necessary 
for  human  preservation  had  to  be  enforced  at  the  end  of  firearms.  Bands 
of  desperadoes,  unwilling  to  live  by  their  own  efforts  in  the  new  rich  and 
fertile  country,  attempted  to  prey  upon  those  who  were  laying  the  founda- 
tion for  the  future  greatness  of  the  West;  and  such  bands  could  only  be 
literally  shot  out  of  existence.  The  early  crude  towns,  which  were  the 
embryos  of  the  later  thriving  metropoles  of  the  West,  in  those  days  were 
little  more  than  trading  points  and  carousing  centres;  and  the  evolution 
of  these  centres  of  lawlessness  into  progressive  and  cultivated  communities 
is  one  of  the  stirring  stories  of  American  development. 
Along  with  pioneering  developments  went  new  scientific  discoveries  and 
inventions.  Professor  Samuel  Morse  (1791-1872)  began  experiments  with 
a  telegraph  in  the  thirties,  and  in  1835  had  a  mile  of  wire  producing  defi- 
nite telegraphic  results.  His  discoveries,  however,  had  to  wait  upon  slow 
and  grudging  help  from  Congress,  which  was  not  forthcoming  until  1843. 
The  first  lengthy  telegraphic  message  was  sent  on  May  1,  1844,  from 
Annapolis  to  Washington,  and  announced  the  nomination  of  Clay  by  the 
Whig  convention  meeting  in  Baltimore.  From  this  humble  beginning  has 
sprung  our  extensive  system  of  telegraph  communication,  in  which 
were  operated  in  a  recent  year  more  than  275,000  miles  of  poles  and  cables, 
and  more  than  1,800,000  miles  of  wires,  carrying  more  than  125,000,000  mes- 
sages yearly.
William  Henry  Harrison  1868 
given  to  the  Executive  through  the  instrumentahty  of  the  Federal  offi- 
cers I  propose  to  apply  all  the  remedies  which  may  be  at  my  command. 
It  was  certainly  a  great  error  in  the  f ramers  of  the  Constitution  not  to 
have  made  the  officer  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department  entirely 
independent  of  the  Executive.  He  should  at  least  have  been  removable 
only  upon  the  demand  of  the  popular  branch  of  the  Legislature.  I  have 
determined  never  to  remove  a  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  without  commu- 
nicating all  the  circumstances  attending  such  removal  to  both  Houses 
of  Congress. 
The  influence  of  the  Executive  in  controlling  the  freedom  of  the 
elective  franchise  through  the  medium  of  the  public  officers  can  be 
effectually  checked  by  renewing  the  prohibition  pubUshed  by  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son forbidding  their  interference  in  elections  further  than  giving  their 
own  votes,  and  their  own  independence  secured  by  an  assurance  of  per- 
fect immunity  in  exercising  this  sacred  privilege  of  freemen  under  the 
dictates  of  their  own  unbiased  judgments.  Never  with  my  consent  shall 
an  officer  of  the  people,  compensated  for  his  services  out  of  their  pockets, 
become  the  pliant  instrument  of  Executive  will. 
There  is  no  part  of  the  means  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Executive 
which  might  be  used  with  greater  effect  for  unhallowed  purposes  than 
the  control  of  the  public  press.  The  msmm  which  our  ancestors  derived 
from  the  mother  country  that  *  *  the  freedom  if  the  press  is  the  great  btd- 
wark  of  civil  and  religious  liberty"  is  one  of  the  most  precious  legacies 
which  they  have  left  us.  We  have  learned,  too,  from  our  own  as  well  as 
the  experience  of  other  countries,  that  golden  shackles,  by  whomsoever 
or  by  whatever  pretense  imposed,  are  as  fatal  to  it  as  the  iron  bonds  of 
despotism.  The  presses  in  the  necessary  employment  of  the  Govern- 
ment should  never  be  used  **to  clear  the  guilty  or  to  varnish  crime." 
A  decent  and  manly  examination  of  the  acts  of  the  Government  should 
be  not  only  tolerated,  but  encouraged. 
Upon  another  occasion  I  have  given  my  opitiion  at  some  length  upon 
the  impropriety  of  Executive  interference  in  the  legislation  of  Congress — 
that  the  article  in  the  Constitution  making  it  the  duty  of  the  President 
to  communicate  information  and  authorizing  him  to  recommend  meas- 
ures was  not  intended  to  make  him  the  source  in  legislation,  and,  in 
particular,  that  he  should  never  be  looked  to  for  schemes  of  finance. 
It  would  be  very  strange,  indeed,  that  the  Constitution  should  have 
strictly  forbidden  one  branch  of  the  I^egislature  from  interfering  in  the 
origination  of  such  bills  and  that  it  should  be  considered  proper  that  an 
altogether  different  department  of  the  Government  should  be  permitted 
to  do  so.  Some  of  our  best  political  maxims  and  opinions  have  been 
drawn  from  our  parent  isle.  There  are  others,  however,  which  can  not 
be  introduced  in  our  system  without  singular  incongruity  and  the  pro- 
duction of  much  mischief,  and  this  I  conceive  to  be  one.     No  matter  in 
which  of  the  houses  of  Parliament  a  bill  may  originate  nor  by  whom
1869  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
introduced — a  minister  or  a  member  of  the  opposition — by  the  fiction  of 
law,  or  rather  of  constitutional  principle,  the  sovereign  is  supposed  to 
have  prepared  it  agreeably  to  his  will  and  then  submitted  it  to  Parlia- 
ment for  their  advice  and  consent.  Now  the  very  reverse  is  the  case 
here,  not  only  with  regard  to  the  principle,  but  the  forms  prescribed  by 
the  Constitution.  The  principle  certainly  assigns  to  the  only  body  con- 
stituted by  the  Constitution  (the  legislative  body)  the  power  to  make 
laws,  and  the  forms  even  direct  that  the  enactment  should  be  ascribed  to 
them.  The  Senate,  in  relation  to  revenue  bills,  have  the  right  to  pro- 
pose amendments,  and  so  has  the  Executive  by  the  power  given  him  to 
return  them  to  the  House  of  Representatives  with  his  objections.  It  is 
in  his  power  also  to  propose  amendments  in  the  existing  revenue  laws, 
suggested  by  his  observations  upon  their  defective  or  injurious  opera- 
tion. But  the  delicate  duty  of  devising  schemes  of  revenue  should  be  left 
where  the  Constitution  has  placed  it — ^with  the  immediate  representa- 
tives of  the  people.  For  similar  reasons  the  mode  of  keeping  the  public 
treasure  should  be  prescribed  by  them,  and  the  further  removed  it  may 
be  from  the  control  of  the  Executive  the  more  wholesome  the  arrange- 
ment and  the  more  in  accordance  with  repijblican  principle. 
Connected  with  this  subject  is  the  character  of  the  currency.  The  idea 
of  making  it  exclusively  metallic,  however  well  intended,  appears  to  me 
to  be  fraught  with  more  fatal  consequences  than  any  other  scheme  hav- 
ing no  relation  to  the  personal  rights  of  the  citizens  that  has  ever  been 
devised.  If  any  single  scheme  could  produce  the  effect  of  arresting  at 
once  that  mutation  of  condition  by  which  thousands  of  our  most  indigent 
fellow-citizens  by  their  industry  and  enterprise  are  raised  to  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  that  is  the  one.  If  there  is  one  measure  better  calculated 
than  another  to  produce  that  state  of  things  so  much  deprecated  by  all 
true  republicans,  by  which  the  rich  are  daily  adding  to  their  hoards  and 
the  poor  sinking  deeper  into  penury,  it  is  an  exclusive  metallic  currency. 
Or  if  there  is  a  process  by  which  the  character  of  the  country  for  gener- 
osity and  nobleness  of  feeling  may  be  destroyed  by  the  great  increase  and 
necessary  toleration  of  usury,  it  is  an  exclusive  metallic  currency. 
Amongst  the  other  duties  of  a  delicate  character  which  the  President 
is  called  upon  to  perform  is  the  supervision  of  the  government  of  the 
Territories  of  the  United  States.  Those  of  them  which  are  destined  to 
become  members  of  our  great  political  family  are  compensated  by  their 
rapid  progress  from  infancy  to  manhood  for  the  partial  and  temporary 
deprivation  of  their  political  rights.  It  is  in  this  District  only  where 
American  citizens  are  to  be  found  who  under  a  settled  policy  are  deprived 
of  many  important  political  privileges  without  any  inspiring  hope  as  to 
the  future.  Their  only  consolation  under  circumstances  of  such  depri- 
vation is  that  of  the  devoted  exterior  guards  of  a  camp — that  their 
sufferings  secure  tranquillity  and  safety  within.  Are  there  any  of 
their  countrymen,  who  would  subject  them  to  greater  sacrifices,  to  any
William  Henry  Harrison  1870 
other  humiliations  than  those  essentially  necessary  to  the  security  of  the 
object  for  which  they  were  thus  separated  from  their  fellow-citizens? 
Are  their  rights  alone  not  to  be  guaranteed  by  the  application  of  those 
great  principles  upon  which  all  our  constitutions  are  founded?  We  are 
told  by  the  greatest  of  British  orators  and  statesmen  that  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  War  of  the  Revolution  the  most  stupid  men  in  Eng- 
land spoke  of  ** their  American  subjects.*'  Are  there,  indeed,  citizens 
of  any  of  our  States  who  have  dreamed  of  their  subjects  in  the  District 
of  Columbia?  Such  dreams  can  never  be  reaUzed  by  any  agency  of  mine. 
The  people  of  the  District  of  Columbia  are  not  the  subjects  of  the  people 
of  the  States,  but  free  American  citizens.  Being  in  the  latter  condition 
when  the  Constitution  was  formed,  no  words  used  in  that  instrument 
could  have  been  intended  to  deprive  them  of  that  character.  If  there 
is  anything  in  the  great  principle  of  unalienable  rights  so  emphatically 
insisted  upon  in  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  they  could  neither 
make  nor  the  United  States  accept  a  surrender  of  their  liberties  and 
become  the  subjects — in  other  words,  the  slaves — of  their  former  fellow- 
citizens.  If  this  be  true — and  it  will  scarcely  be  denied  by  anyone  who 
has  a  correct  idea^  of  his  own  rights  as  an  American  citizen — the  grant 
to  Congress  of  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  the  District  of  Columbia  can  be 
interpreted,  so  far  as  respects  the  aggregate  people  of  the  United  States, 
as  meaning  nothing  more  than  to  allow  to  Congress  the  controlling  power 
necessary  to  afEord  a  free  and  safe  exercise  of  the  functions  assigned  to 
the  General  Government  by  the  Constitution.  In  all  other  respects  the 
legislation  of  Congress  should  be  adapted  to  their  pecuUar  position  and 
wants  and  be  conformable  with  their  deliberate  opinions  of  their  own 
interests. 
I  have  spoken  of  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  respective  departments 
of  the  Government,  as  well  as  all  the  other  authorities  of  our  country, 
within  their  appropriate  orbits.  This  is  a  matter  of  difficulty  in  some 
cases,  as  the  powers  which  they  respectively  claim  are  often  not  defined 
by  any  distinct  lines.  Mischievous,  however,  in  their  tendencies  as  col- 
lisions of  this  kind  may  be,  those  which  arise  between  the  respective 
communities  which  for  certain  purposes  compose  one  nation  are  much 
more  so,  for  no  such  nation  can  long  exist  without  the  careful  culture 
of  those  feelings  of  confidence  and  afiEection  which  are  the  effective 
bonds  to  union  between  free  and  confederated  states.  Strong  as  is  the 
tie  of  interest,  it  has  been  often  found  ineffectual.  Men  blinded  by  their 
passions  have  been  known  to  adopt  measures  for  their  country  in  direct 
opposition  to  all  the  suggestions  of  policy.  The  alternative,  then,  is  to 
destroy  or  keep  down  a  bad  passion  by  creating  and  fostering  a  good 
one,  and  this  seems  to  be  the  comer  stone  upon  which  our  American 
poUtical  architects  have  reared  the  fabric  of  our  Government.  The 
cement  which  was  to  bind  it  and  perpetuate  its  existence  was  the  affec- 
tionate attachment  between  all  its  members.     To  insure  the  continuance
1871  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents 
of  this  feeling,  produced  at  first  by  a  community  of  dangers,  of  suffer- 
ings, and  of  interests,  the  advantages  of  each  were  made  accessible  to  all. 
No  participation  in  any  good  possessed, by  any  member  of  our  extensive 
Confederacy,  except  in  domestic  government,  was  withheld  from  the  citi- 
zen of  any  other  member.  By  a  process  attended  with  no  diflBiculty,  no 
delay,  no  expense  but  that  of  removal,  the  citizen  of  one  might  become 
the  citizen  of  any  other,  and  successively  of  the  whole.  The  lines,  too, 
separating  powers  to  be  exercised  by  the  citizens  of  one  State  from 
those  of  another  seem  to  be  so  distinctly  drawn  as  to  leave  no  room  for 
misunderstanding.  The  citizens  of  each  State  unite  in  their  persons 
all  the  privileges  which  that  character  confers  and  all  that  they  may 
claim  as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  but  in  no  case  can  the  same  per- 
sons at  the  same  time  act  as  the  citizen  of  two  separate  States,  and  he  is 
therefore  positively  precluded  from  any  interference  with  the  reserved  powers 
of  any  State  hut  that  of  which  he  is  for  the  time  being  a  citizen.  He  may, 
indeed,  offer  to  the  citizens  of  other  States  his  advice  as  to  their  manage- 
ment, and  the  form  in  which  it  is  tendered  is  left  to  his  own  discretion 
and  sense  of  propriety.  It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  organized 
associations  of  citizens  requiring  compliance  with  their  wishes  too  much 
resemble  the  recommendations  of  Athens  to  her  alHes,  supported  by  an 
armed  and  powerful  fleet.  It  was,  indeed,  to  the  ambition  of  the  lead- 
ing States  of  Greece  to  control  the  domestic  concerns  of  the  others  that 
the  destruction  of  that  celebrated  Confederacy,  and  subsequently  of  all 
its  members,  is  mainly  to  be  attributed,  and  it  is  owing  to  the  absence 
of  that  spirit  that  the  Helvetic  Confederacy  has  for  so  many  years  been 
preserved.  Never  has  there  been  seen  in  the  institutions  of  the  separate 
members  of  any  confederacy  more  elements  of  discord.  In  the  principles 
and  forms  of  government  and  religion,  as  well  as  in  the  circumstances  of 
the  several  Cantons,  so  marked  a  discrepancy  was  observable  as  to  prom- 
ise anything  but  harmony  in  their  intercourse  or  permanency  in  their 
alliance,  and  yet  for  ages  neither  has  been  interrupted.  Content  with 
the  positive  benefits  which  their  union  produced,  with  the  independence 
and  safety  from  foreign  aggression  which  it  secured,  these  sagacious 
people  respected  the  institutions  of  each  other,  however  repugnant  to 
their  own  principles  and  prejudices. 
•  Our  Confederacy,  fellow-dtizens,  can  only  be  preserved  by  the  same 
forbearance.  Our  citizens  must  be  content  with  the  exercise  of  the 
powers  with  which  the  Constitution  clothes  them.  The  attempt  of  those 
of  one  State  to  control  the  domestic  institutions  of  another  can  only 
result  in  feelings  of  distrust  and  jealousy,  the  certain  harbingers  of  dis- 
union, violence,  and  civil  war,  and  the  ultimate  destruction  of  our  free 
institutions.  Our  Confederacy  is  perfectly  illustrated  by  the  terms  and 
principles  governing  a  common  copartnership.  There  is  a  f  tmd  of  power 
to  be  exercised  under  the  direction  of  the  joint  councils  of  the  allied 
members,  but  that  which  has  been  reserved  by  the  individual  members