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S 7 o%. Pe _—_—_—_—- f fs A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS Prepared Under the Direction of the Joint Committee on Printing, of the House and Senate, Pursuant to an Act of the Filty-Second Congress of the United States ~ ss (With Additions and Encyclopedic Index by Private Enterprise) VOLUME VII
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME SEVEN The State, War and Navy Departments. .  . Frontispiece Facsimile—Pierce’s Proclamation Against Cuban Filibustering Greytown (Nicaragua) and the Paraguay Expedition . Missourians Invading Kansas to Extend Slavery . Pioneering and Invention James Buchanan (portrait) . (Sketch of his Pennsylvania home on tissue) Harriet Lane (portrait) . . The Inauguration of James Buchanan . Ante Bellum Cotton Mill Mormon Temple and Tabernacle—Young’s Mill—Mormon Family . Cartoon—Brigham Young Mustering ‘Army The Trial of John Brown . Facsimile—Buchanan’s Message Concerning Mormon Troubles Facsimile—South Carolina’s Secession Ordinance . Jefferson Davis—Confederate Capitol—Lee in War Time . Abraham Lincoln (portrait) . oe (Sketch of his early home on tissue) Mary Todd Lincoln (portrait) The Bombardment of Fort Sumter PAGE 2769 2817 2881 2959 B 2959 D 3007 3033 3034 3071 3135 3151 3183 3203 B 3203 D 3213
2755 Messages and Papers of the Presidents as of common fealty and attachment to the Union, I shall be disposed, so far as my own action is concerned, to follow the lights of the Constitu- tion as expounded and illustrated by those whose opinions and exposi- tions constitute the standard of my political faith in regard to the powers of the Federal Government. It is, I trust, not necessary to say that nc grandeur of enterprise and no present urgent inducement promising pop- ular favor will lead me to disregard those lights or to depart from that path which experience has proved to be safe, and which is now radiant with the glow of prosperity and legitimate constitutional progress. We can afford to wait, but wecan not afford to overlook the ark of our security. It is no part of my purpose to give prominence to any subject which may properly be regarded as set at rest by the deliberate judgment of the people. But while the present is bright with promise and the future fuli of demand and inducement for the exercise of active intelligence, the past can never be without useful lessons of admonition and instruction. If its dangers serve not as beacons, they will evidently fail to fulfill the object of a wise design. When the grave shall have closed over all who are now endeavoring to meet the obligations of duty, the year 1850 will be recurred to as a period filled with anxious apprehension. A success- ful war had just terminated. Peace brought with it a vast augmentation of territory. Disturbing questions arose bearing upon the domestic insti- tutions of one portion of the Confederacy and involving the constitutional rights of the States, But notwithstanding differences of opinion and sentiment which then existed in relation to details and specific provisions, the acquiescence of distinguished citizens, whose devotion to the Union can never be doubted, has given renewed vigor to our institutions and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind throughout the Confederacy. That this repose is to suffer no shock during my official term, if I have power to avert it, those who placed me here may be assured. The wisdom of men who knew what independence cost, who had put all at stake upon the issue of the Revolutionary struggle, disposed of the sub- ject to which I refer in the only way consistent with the Union of these States and with the march of power and prosperity which has made us what we are. It is a significant fact that from the adoption of the Con- stitution until the officers and soldiers of the Revolution had passed to their graves, or, through the infirmities of age and wounds, had ceased to participate actively in public affairs, there was not merely a quiet acquiescence in, but a prompt vindication of, the constitutional rights of the States, The reserved powers were scrupulously respected. No statesman put forth the narrow views of casuists to justify interference and agitation, but the spirit of the compact was regarded as sacred in the eye of honor and indispensable for the great experiment of civil liberty, which, environed by inherent difficulties, was yet borne forward in appar- ent weakness by a power superior to all obstacles. There is no condem- nation which the voice of freedom will not pronounce upon us should we
2757 Messages and Papers of the Presidents by a peaceful and healthy process of incorporation, spacious regions of virgin and exuberant soil, which are destined to swarm with the fast- growing and fast-spreading millions of our race. These considerations seem fully to justify the presumption that the law of population above stated will continue to act with undiminished effect through at least the next half century, and that thousands of persons who have already arrived at maturity and are now exercising the rights of freemen will close their eyes on the spectacle of more than 100,000,000 of population embraced within the majestic proportions of the Ameri- can Union. It is not merely as an interesting topic of speculation that I present these views for your consideration. They have important prac- tical bearings upon all the political duties we are called upon to per- form. Heretofore our system of government has worked on what may be termed a miniature scale in comparison with the development which it must thus assume within a future so near at hand as scarcely to be beyond the present of the existing generation. It is evident that a confederation so vast and so varied, both in num- bers and in territorial extent, in habits and in interests, could only be kept in national cohesion by the strictest fidelity to the principles of the Constitution as understood by those who have adhered to the most restricted construction of the powers granted by the people and the States. Interpreted and applied according to those principles, the great compact adapts itself with healthy ease and freedom to an unlimited extension of that benign system of federative self-government of which it is our glorious and, I trust, immortal charter. Let us, then, with redoubled vigilance, be on our guard against yielding to the temptation of the exercise of doubtful powers, even under the pressure of the motives of conceded temporary advantage and apparent temporary expediency. The minimum of Federal government compatible with the mainte- nance of national unity and efficient action in our relations with the rest of the world should afford the rule and measure of construction of our powers under the general clauses of the Constitution. A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority, should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous con- fidence of our constituents. In like manner, as a manifestly indispensable condition of the perpet- uation of the Union and of the realization of that magnificent national future adverted to, does the duty become yearly stronger and clearer upon us, as citizens of the several States, to cultivate a fraternal and affectionate spirit, language, and conduct in regard to other States and in relation to the varied interests, institutions, and habits of senti- ment and opinion which may respectively characterize them. Mutual forbearance, respect, and noninterference in our personal action as citi-
2759 Messages and Papers of the Presidents of my country, I hope it may be my privilege to deserve and secure not only your cordial cooperation in great public measures, but also those relations of mutual confidence and regard which it is always so desirable to cultivate between members of coordinate branches of the Government. FRANKLIN PIERCE. SPECIAL MESSAGES. WasHInctTon, December 12, 1853. To the Senate of the United States: In answer to the resolutions of the Senate of the 17th of August, 1852, and 23d of February last, requesting a copy of correspondence relative to the claim on the Government of Portugal in the case of the brig Gen- eral Armstrong, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whose Department the resolutions were referred. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WasHINGTON, December 12, 185}. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica- tion, a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation between the United States and Paraguay, concluded on the 4th of March last. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, December 12, 1853. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica- tion, a treaty for the free navigation of the rivers Parana and Uruguay between the United States and the Argentine Confederation, concluded on the roth of July last. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, December 12, 1853. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica- tion, a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation between the United States and the Argentine Confederation, concluded on the 27th of July last. FRANKLIN PIERCE.
2761 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WASHINGTON, January 9, 1854. To the House of Representatives: In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 3d of January, 1854, I have the honor to transmit herewith a letter of the Secretary of the Navy and the papers* accompanying it. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, January 19, 1854. Zo the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accom- panying documents,f in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 3d instant. FRANKLIN PIERCE WASHINGTON, January 23, 1854. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit to Congress a report of the Secretary of State, together with the set of works illustrative of the exhibition in London of 1851 to which it refers, in order that such disposal may be made of them as may be deemed advisable. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, January 25, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accom- panying documents, { in compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, February 2, 185¢. To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accom- panying documents,§ in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 30th ultimo. FRANKLIN PIERCE. * Correspondence with and orders to commanders of vessels or squadrons on the Atlantic coast of British North America relative to protecting the rights of fishing and navigation secured to citi- zens of the United States under treaties with Great Britain. + Relating to seizure and imprisonment by Spanish authorities at Puerto Rico of officers and crew of schooner North Carolina. } Relating toa complimentary mission to the United States of Archbishop Gaetano Bedini, apoe- tolic nuncio to the Empire of Brazil, for the purpose of conveying, in the name of Pope Pius IX, sentiments of regard for the President of the United States. § Correspondence with the American chargé to Austria relative to the claim of Simon Tousig to the protection of the United States
2763 Messages and Papers of the Presidents the 30th of December last. Certain amendments are proposed to the instrument, as hereinafter specified, viz: In order to make the duties and obligations stipulated in the second article reciprocal, it is proposed to add to that article the following: And the Government of Mexico agrees that the stipulations contained in this arti- cle to be performed by the United States shall be reciprocal, and Mexico shall be under like obligations to the United States and the citizens thereof as those herein- above imposed on the latter in favor of the Republic of Mexico and Mexican citizens. It is also recommended that for the third article of the original treaty the following shall be adopted as a substitute: In consideration of the grants received by the United States and the obligations relinquished by the Mexican Republic pursuant to this treaty, the former agree to pay to the latter the sum of $15,000,000 in gold or silver coin at the Treasury at Washington, one-fifth of the amount on the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty at Washington and the remaining four-fifths in monthly installments of three millions eac’ with interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum until the whole be paid, the Government of the United States reserving the right to pay up the whole sum of fifteen millions at an earlier date, as may be to it convenient. The United States also agree to assume all the claims of their citizens against the Mexican Republic which may have arisen under treaty or the law of nations since the date of the signature of the treaty of Guadalupe, and the Mexican Republic agrees to exonerate the United States of America from all claims of Mexico or Mexican citizens which may have arisen under treaty or the law of nations since the date of the treaty of Guadalupe, so that each Government, in the most formal and effective manner, shall be exempted and exonerated of all such obligations to each other respectively, I also recommend that the eighth article be modified by striking out all after the word ‘‘attempts’’ in the twenty-third line of that article. The part to be omitted is as follows: They mutually and especially obligate themselves, in all cases of such lawless enter- prises which may not have been prevented through the civil authorities before for- mation, to aid with the naval and military forces, on due notice being given by the aggrieved party of the aggressions of the citizens and subjects of the other, so that the lawless adventurers may be pursued and overtaken on the high seas, their ele- ments of war destroyed, and the deluded captives held responsible in their persons and meet with the merited retribution inflicted by the laws of nations against all such disturbers of the peace and happiness of contiguous and friendly powers, It being understood that in all cases of successful pursuit and capture the delinquents so cap- tured shall be judged and punished by the government of that nation to which the vessel capturing them may belong, conformably to the laws of each nation. At the close of the instrument it will also be advisable to substitute “‘seventy-eighth"’ for ‘‘ seventy-seventh’’ year of the Independence of the United States. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, February 13, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifi- cation, an additional article to the convention for the establishment of
2765 Messages and Papers of the Presidents Wasuincton, March 1, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 7th of December last, requesting me to present to the Senate the plan referred to in my annual message to Congress, and recommended therein, for the enlargement and modification of the present judicial system of the United States, I trans- mit a report from the Attorney-General, to whom the resolution was referred. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, March 7, 1854. To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report of the Attorney-General, in answer to the resolutions of the House of the 22d of December, requesting me to com- municate to the House the plan for the modification and enlargement of the judicial system of the United States, recommended in my annual message to Congress. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, March 7, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and the documents* therein referred to, in answer to the resolution of the Senate othe a6th March, 1855. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, March 7, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and the docu- ments} therein referred to, in answer to the resolution of the Senate in executive session of the 3d January, 1854. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WasHIncTon, March rr, 2854. . To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith to the Senate a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,{ in compliance with their resolution of the oth of March, 1853. FRANKLIN PIERCE. *Correspondence with R. C. Schenck, United States minister to Brazil, relative to the African slave trade. t Correspondence with the Mexican Republic touching the eleventh article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and copies of instructions on that subject to the United States minister to Mexico. ft Correspondence relative to the imprisonment, etc., of James H. West in the island of Cuba.
2767 Messages and Papers of the Presidents which expressly includes any interoceanic communication whatever by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. However inconvenient may be the condi- tions of that convention, still they exist, and the obligations of good faith rest alike upon the United States and Great Britain. Without enlarging upon these and other questionable features of the proposed convention which will suggest themselves to your minds, I will only add that after the most careful consideration I have deemed it my duty not to ask for its ratification by the Senate. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WasHINGTON, March 15, 1854. To the House of Representatives: In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1oth instant, I herewith transmit a report of the Secretary of State, containing all the information received at the Department in relation to the seizure of the Black Warrior at Havana on the 28th ultimo. There have been in the course of a few years past many other instances of aggression upon our commerce, violations of the rights of American citizens, and insults to the national flag by the Spanish authorities in Cuba, and all attempts to obtain redress have led to protracted, and as yet fruitless, negotiations. The documents in these cases are voluminous, and when prepared will be sent to Congress. Those now transmitted relate exclusively to the seizure of the Black Warrior, and present so clear a case of wrong that it would be reasonable to expect full indemnity therefor as soon as this unjustifiable and offensive conduct shall be made known to Her Catholic Majesty’s Government; but similar expectations in other cases have not been realized. The offending party is at our doors with large powers for aggression, but none, it is alleged, for reparation. ‘The source of redress is in another hemisphere, and the answers to our just complaints made to the home Gov- ernment are but the repetition of excuses rendered by inferior officials to their superiors in reply to representations of misconduct. The peculiar situation of the parties has undoubtedly much aggravated the annoyances and injuries which our citizens have suffered from the Cuban authorities, and Spain does not seem to appreciate to its full extent her responsibility for the conduct of these authorities. In giving very extraordinary powers to them she owes it to justice and to her friendly relations with this Gov- ernment to guard with great vigilance against the exorbitant exercise of these powers, and in case of injuries to provide for prompt redress. I have already taken measures to present to the Government of Spain the wanton injury of the Cuban authorities in the detention aud seizure of the Black Warrior, and to demand immediate indemnity for the injury which has thereby resulted to our citizens.
2769 Messages and Papers of the Presidents to the suggestion in the report, it is desirable that such of the papers as may be originals should be returned to the Department of State. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Exgcutrive Orrice, March 25, 1854. Hon. Linn Boyp, Speaker of the House of Representatives: I communicate to the House of Representatives herewith a report from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 24th instant, containing so much of the information called for by the resolution of the 17th instant as it is practicable or compatible with the public interest to furnish at the pres- ent time, respecting the proceedings which have been had and negotia- tions entered into for the extinguishment of the Indian titles to lands west of the States of Missouri and Iowa. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, March 29, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: . In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st instant, adopted in executive session, relative to the claims of the Mexican Government and of citizens of the Mexican Republic on this Government, and of citi- zens of the United States on the Government of that Republic, I trans- mit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, March 31, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 13th instant, request- ing a confidential communication of information touching the expedition under the authority of this Government for the purpose of opening trade with Japan, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, D. C., April 1, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith the report of the Secretary of State in reply to the resolution of the Senate of the 27th ultimo. That part of the document which purports to recite my official instruc- tions is strictly correct; that which is avowedly unofficial and unauthor- ized, it can hardly be necessary for me to say, in view of the documents already before the Senate, does not convey a correct impression of my ‘‘views and wishes. ”’ ‘
Franklin Pierce 2770 At no time after an intention was entertained of sending Mr. Ward as special agent to Mexico was either the Garay grant or the convention entered into by Mr. Conkling alluded to otherwise than as subjects which might embarrass the negotiation of the treaty, and were consequently not included in the instructions. While the departure of Mr. Ward, under any circumstances or in any respect, from the instructions committed to him is a matter of regret, it is just to say that, although he failed to convey in his letter to General Gadsden the correct import of remarks made by me anterior to his ap- pointment as special agent, I impute to him no design of misrepresentation. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, April 5, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate a report of the Secretary of State, with accompa- nying documents,* in compliance with their resolution of the 14th ultimo. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, April 5, 1854. To the House. of Representatives of the United States: I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, in further compliance with their resolution of the roth of March, 1854. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, April 5, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report} from the Secretary of State, in answer to the resolution of the Senate in executive session of the 3d instant. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, April 8, 1854. To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report§ of the Secretary of State, in answer to their resolution of the 3d instant. FRANKLIN PIERCE. *Correspondence relative to the seizure of Martin Koszta by Austrian authorities at Smyrna. + Relating to violations of the rights of American citizens by Spanish authorities and their refusal to allow United States vessels to enter ports of Cuba, etc. } Relating to expeditions organized in California for the invasion of Sonora, Mexico. § Stating that the correspondence relative to the refusal by the authorities of Cuba to permit the United States mail steamer Crescent City to land mail and passengers at Havana had been trans- mitted with the message to the House of April 5, 1854.
2773 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WasuinctTon, May 11, 1854. To the House of Representatives: I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,* in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1st instant. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WasHINGTON, May 20, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accom- panying documents,f in compliance with the Senate’s resolution of the goth of January last. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WasHINGTON, May 23, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, on the subject of docu- ments f called for by the resolution of the Senate of the oth instant. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, May 25, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action thereon, four several treaties recently negotiated in this city by George W. Manypenny, as commissioner on the part of the United States, with the delegates of the Delaware, Ioway, Kickapoo, and Sac and Fox tribes of Indians. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WaAsHINGTON, May 29, 185¢. To the Senate of the United States: I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty negotiated on the 12th instant at the Falls of Wolf River, in Wisconsin, by Francis Huebschmann, superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern superintendency, and the Menomonee Indians, by the chiefs, headmen, and warriors of that tribe. FRANKLIN PIERCE. * Relating to the rights accorded to neutrals and the rights claimed by belligerents in the war between certain European powers. + Correspondence relative to the difficulties between Rev. Jonas King and the Government of Greece. t Researches of H. S. Sanford, late chargé d'affaires at Paris, on the condition of penal law in con- tinental Europe, etc.; also a “‘ Memoir on the Administrative Changes in France since the Revolu- tion of 1848," by H. S. Sanford.
2775 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WASHINGTON, 20, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: Aes =f I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica- tion, a treaty extending the right of fishing and regulating the com- merce and navigation between Her Britannic Majesty’s possessions in North America and the United States, concluded in this city on the 5th instant between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, /une 24, 1854. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit to Congress the copy of two communications of the 26th ultimo and 4th instant, respectively, from Her Britannic Majesty's minis- ter accredited to this Government to the Secretary of State, relative to the health on shipboard of immigrants from foreign countries to the United States. This was the subject of my message to Congress of the 27th of April last. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON City, June 29, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, three treaties recently negotiated in this city by George W. Manypenny; as commissioner on the part of the United States; one con- cluded on the r9th ultimo with the delegates of the Shawnee Indians, one on the 5th instant with the Miami Indians, and the other on the 3oth ultimo with the united tribes of Kaskaskia and Peoria and Wea and WasHINGTON, /uly 3, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, an article of agreement made on the 13th day of June, 1854, by William H. Garrett, agent on the part of the United States, and a delegation of Creek Indians, supplementary to the Creek treaty of 1838. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WasHINGTON, July 5, 7854. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the rst instant, I herewith return the articles of convention made and concluded with the Winnebago Indians on the 6th of August, 1853, together with the Senate resolution of the oth ultimo, advising and consenting to the ratification of the same with amendments. FRANKLIN PIERCE.
2777 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WASHINGTON 24, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: ep es I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica tion, a convention concerning the rights of neutrals, concluded in this city on the 22d instant between the United States and His Majesty the Beurperor of all the Rosdlas. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, July 26, 1854. I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to the reso- lution of the Senate of the 23d of May last, relative to the slave trade in the island of Cuba. The information contained in the papers accompanying the report will, it is believed, be considered important, and perhaps necessary to enable the Senate to form an opinion upon the subjects to which they relate; but doubts may be entertained in regard to the expediency of publishing some of the documents at this juncture. This communication is accordingly addressed to the Senate in execu- tive session, in order that a discretion may be exercised in regard to its publication. FRANKLIN PIERCE, WasHINGTON, July 27, 185¢. The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 24th instant, requesting me to cause to be transmitted to the Senate the Fourth Meteor- ological Report of Professor Espy, the accompanying papers and charts are respectfully submitted. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, July 29, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the Senate resolution of the roth July instant, requesting that I would ‘‘cause to be communicated to the Senate copies of all the correspondence and other official documents on file in the Department of the Interior respecting the claims of persons for services performed and supplies and subsistence furnished to Indians in California under contracts with Indian agents in the year 1851, and embracing the names of claimants, the amount, respectively, of their claims, on what account created and by what authority, if any,’’ I transmit herewith a cog- munication from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by copies of all the papers called for which have not heretofore been furnished. Asit appears that most of the papers called for were communicated to the Sen- ate at its first and special sessions of the Thirty-second Congress, I have
2779 Messages and Papers of the Presidents The two Houses of Congress may have anticipated that the hope then expressed would be realized before the period of its adjournment, and that our relations with Spain would have assumed a satisfactory condi- tion, so as to remove past causes of complaint and afford better security for tranquillity and justice in the future. But I am constrained to say that such is not the fact. The formal demand for immediate reparation in the case of the Black Warrior, instead of having been met on the part of Spain by prompt satisfaction, has only served to call forth a justification of the local authorities of Cuba, and thus to transfer the responsibility for their acts to the Spanish Government itself. Meanwhile information, not only reliablein its nature, but of an official character, was received to the effect that preparation was making within the limits of the United States by private individuals under military or- ganization for a descent upon the island of Cuba with a view to wrest that colony from the dominion of Spain. International comity, the obli- gations of treaties, and the express provisions of law alike required, in my judgment, that all the constitutional power of the Executive should be exerted to prevent the consummation of such a violation of positive law and of that good faith on which mainly the amicable relations of neighboring nations must depend. In conformity with these convictions of public duty, a proclamation was issued to warn all persons not to par- ticipate in the contemplated enterprise and to invoke the interposition in this behalf of the proper officers of the Government. No provocation whatever can justify private expeditions of hostility against a country at peace with the United States. The power to declare war is vested by the Constitution in Congress, and the experience of our past history leaves no room to doubt that the wisdom of this arrangement of constitutional power will continue to be verified whenever the national interest and honor shall demand a resort to ultimate measures of redress. Pending negotiations by the Executive, and before the action of Congress, indi- viduals could not be permitted to embarrass the operations of the one and usurp the powers of the other of these depositaries of the functions of Government. I have only to add that nothing has arisen since the date of my former message to ‘‘ dispense with the suggestions therein contained touching the propriety of provisional measures by Congress.’’ FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, August 2, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State, with the accom- panying documents,* in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 5th vita, FRANKLIN PIERCE, *Correspondence relative to the imprisonment of George Marsden and tothe seizure of the cargo of the American bark Griffon by the authorities of Brazil.
2781 Messages and Papers of the Presidents to the terms and purposes of the federal compact offers the best, if not the only, security for the preservation of our blessed inheritance of representative liberty. The bill provides in substance: First. ‘That 10,000,000 acres of land be granted to the several States, to be apportioned among them in the compound ratio of the geographical area and representation of said States in the House of Representatives Second. That wherever there are public lands in a State subject to sale at the regular price of private entry, the proportion of said 10,000,- ooo acres falling to such State shall be selected from such lands within it, and that to the States in which there are no such public lands land scrip shall be issued to the amount of their distributive shares, respec- tively, said scrip not to be entered by said States, but to be sold by them and subject to entry by their assignees: Provided, That none of it shall be sold at less than $1 per acre, under penalty of forfeiture of the same to the United States. Third. That the expenses of the management and superintendence of said lands and of the moneys received therefrom shall be paid by the States to which they may belong out of the treasury of said States. Fourth. That the gross proceeds of the sales of such lands or land scrip so granted shall be invested by the several States in safe stocks, to constitute a perpetual fund, the principal of which shall remain for- ever undiminished, and the interest to be appropriated to the mainten- ance of the indigent insane within the several States. . Fifth. That annual returns of lands or scrip sold shall be made by the States to the Secretary of the Interior, and the whole grant be sub- ject to certain conditions and limitations prescribed in the bill, to be assented to by legislative acts of said States. This bill therefore proposes that the Federal Government shall make provision to the amount of the value of 10,000,000 acres of land for an eleemosynary object within the several States, to be administered by the political authority of the same; and it presents at the threshold the ques- tion whether any such act on the part of the Federal Government is war- ranted and sanctioned by the Constitution, the provisions and principles of which are to be protected and sustained asa first and paramount duty. It can not be questioned that if Congress has power to make provi- sion for the indigent insane without the limits ofthis District it has the same power to provide for the indigent who are not insane, and thus to transfer to the Federal Government the charge of all the poor in all the States. It has the same power to provide hospitals and other local estab- lishments for the care and cure of every species of human infirmity, and thus to assume all that duty of either public philanthropy, or public necessity to the dependent, the orphan, the sick, or the needy which is now discharged by the States themselves or by corporate institutions or
2783 Messages and Papers of the Presidents change that for the present Federal Union, and thus to confer on the Fed- eral Government more ample authdrity, they scrupulously measured such of the functions of their cherished severeignty as they chose to delegate to the General Government. With this aim and to this end the fathers of the Republic framed the Constitution, in and by which the independent and sovereign States united themselves for certain specified objects and purposes, and for those only, leaving all powers not therein set forth as conferred on one or another of the three great departments—the legis- lative, the executive, and the judicial—indubitably with the States. And when the people of the several States had in their State conventions, and thus alone, given effect and force to the Constitution, not content that any doubt should in future arise as to the scope and character of this act, they ingrafted thereon the explicit declaration that ‘‘the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.’’ Can it be con- troverted that the great mass of the business of Government—that involved in the social relations, the internal arrangements of the body politic, the mental and moral culture of men, the development of local resources of wealth, the punishment of crimes in general, the preservation of order, the relief of the needy or otherwise unfortunate members of society—did in practice remain with the States; that none of these objects of local concern are by the Constitution expressly or impliedly prohibited to the States, and that none of them are by any express language of the Con- stitution transferred to the United States? Can it be claimed that any of these functions of local administration and legislation are vested in the Federal Government by any implication? I have never found anything in the Constitution which is susceptible of such a construction. No one of the enumerated powers touches the subject or has even a remote analogy to it. The powers conferred upon the United States have reference to federal relations, or to the means of accomplishing or executing things of federal relation. So also of the same character are the powers taken away from the States by enumeration. In either case the powers granted and the powers restricted were so granted or so restricted only where it was requisite for the maintenance of peace and harmony between the States or for the purpose of protecting their common interests and defend- ing their common sovereignty against aggression from abroad or insurrec- tion at home. I shall not discuss at length the question of power sometimes claimed for the General Government under the clause of the eighth section of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power ‘‘to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,’’ because if it has not already been settled upon sound reason and authority it never will be. I take the received and just construction of that article, as if written to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises 7 order to pay the debts and
2785 Messages and Papers of the Presidents the several States, but that, on the contrary, they consist “‘not in bind- ing the States more closely to the center, but in leaving each more unob- structed in its proper orbit.’’ ‘The framers of the Constitution, in refusing to confer on the Federal Government any jurisdiction over these purely local objects, in my judg- ment manifested a wise forecast and broad comprehension of the true interests of these objects themselves. It is clear that public charities within the States can be efficiently administered only by their authority. fhe bill before me concedes this, for it does not commit the funds it pro- vides to the administration of any other authority. I can not but repeat what I have before expressed, that if the several States, many of which have already laid the foundation of munificent, establishments of local beneficence, and nearly all of which are proceed- ing to establish them, shall be led to suppose, as, should this bill become a law, they will be, that Congress is to make provision for such objects, the fountains of charity will be dried up at home, and the several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social wants of their own people, may themselves, through the strong temptation which appeals to states as to individuals, become humble suppliants for the bounty of the Federal Government, reversing their true relations to this Union. Having stated my views of the limitation of the powers conferred by the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, I deem it proper to call attention to the third section of the fourth article and to the pro- visions of the sixth article bearing directly upon the question under consideration, which, instead of aiding the claim to power exercised in this case, tend, it is believed, strongly to illustrate and explain positions which, even without such support, I can not regard as questionable. The third section of the fourth article of the Constitution is in the following terms: The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regu- lations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claiins of the United States or of any particular State. The sixth article is as follows, to wit, that— All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation. For a correct understanding of the terms used in the third section of the fourth article, above quoted, reference should be had to the history of the times in which the Constitution was formed and adopted. It was decided upon in convention on the 17th September, 1787, and by it Congress was empowered ‘‘to dispose of,’’ etc., ‘‘the territory or other property belonging to the United States.’’ The only territory then belonging to the United States was that then recently ceded by the several States, to wit: By New York in 1781, by Virginia in 1784, by
2787 Messages and Papers of the Presidents lie, as would be done by any prudent proprietor to enhance the sale value of his private domain. All such grants of land are in fact a disposal of it for value received, but they afford no precedent or constitutional reason for giving away the public lands. Still less do they give sanction to appropriations for objects which have not been intrusted to the Federal Government, and therefore belong exclusively to the States. To assume that the public lands are applicable to ordinary State ob- jects, whether of public structures, police, charity, or expenses of State administration, would be to disregard to the amount of the value of the public lands all the limitations of the Constitution and confound to that extent all distinctions between the rights and powers of the States and those of the United States; for if the public lands may be applied to the support of the poor, whether sane or insane, if the disposal of them and their proceeds be not subject to the ordinary limitations of the Constitu- tion, then Congress possesses unqualified power to provide for expendi- tures in the States by means of the public lands, even to the degree of defraying the salaries of governors, judges, and all other expenses of the government and internal administration within the several States. The conclusion from the general survey of the whole subject is to my mind irresistible, and closes the question both of right and of expediency so far as regards the principle of the appropriation proposed in this bill. Would not the admission of such power in Congress to dispose of the public domain work the practical abrogation of some of the most impor- tant provisions of the Constitution’? If the systematic reservation of a definite portion of the public lands (the sixteenth sections) in the States for the purposes of education and occasional grants for similar purposes be cited as contradicting these conclusions, the answer as it appears to me is obvious and satisfactory. Such reservations and grants, besides being a part of the conditions on which the proprietary right of the United States is maintained, along with the eminent domain of a particular State, and by which the public land remains free from taxation in the State in which it lies as long as it remains the property of the United States, are the acts of a mere land: owner disposing of a small share of his property in a way to augment the value of the residue and in this mode to eticourage the early occupa- tion of it by the industrious and intelligent pioneer. The great example of apparent donation of lands to the States likely to be relied upon as sustaining the principles of this bill is the relinquish- ment of swamp lands to the States in which they are situated, but this also, like other grants already referred to, was based expressly upon grounds clearly distinguishable in principle from any which can be as- sumed for the bill herewith returned, viz, upon the interest and duty of the proprietor. They were charged, and not without reason, to be a nui- sance to the inhabitants of the surrounding country. The measure was predicated not only upon the ground of the disease inflicted upon the
2789 Messages and Papers of the Presidents - to legislate for that District. Could a more decisive indication of the true construction and the spirit of the Constitution in regard to all matters of this nature have been given? It proves that such objects were considered by the Convention as appertaining to local legislation only; that they were not comprehended, either expressly or by implica- tion, in the grant of general power to Congress, and that consequently they remained with the several States. The general result at which I have arrived is the necessary conse- quence of those views of the relative rights, powers, and duties of the - States and of the Federal Government which I have long entertained and often expressed and in reference to which my convictions do but increase in force with time and experience. I have thus discharged the unwelcome duty of respectfully stating my objections to this bill, with which I cheerfully submit the whole subject to the wisdom of Congress. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, August ¢, 1854. To the House of Representatives: I have received the bill entitled ‘‘An act making appropriations for the repair, preservation, and completion of certain public works heretofore commenced under the authority of law.’’ It reaches me in the expiring hours of the session, and time does not allow full opportunity for exam- ining and considering its provisions or of stating at length the reasons which forbid me to give it my signature. It belongs to that class of measures which are commonly known as in- ternal improvements by the General Government, and which from a very early period have been deemed of doubtful constitutionality and expedi- ency, and have thus failed to obtain the approbation of successive Chief Magistrates. On such an examination of this bill as it has been in my power to make, I recognize in it certain provisions national in their character, and which, if they stood alone, it would be compatible with my convictions of public duty to assent to; but at the same time, it embraces others which are merely local, and not, in my judgment, warranted by any safe or true con- struction of the Constitution. To make proper and sound discriminations between these different pro- visions would require a deliberate discussion of general principles, as well as a careful scrutiny of details for the purpose of rightfully applying those principles to each separate item of appropriation. Public opinion with regard to the value and importance of internal improvements in the country is undivided, There is a disposition on all hands to have them prosecuted with energy and to see the benefits sought to be attained by them fully realized.
2791 Messages and Papers of the Presidents Annual and special messages of successive Presidents have been occupied with it, sometimes in remarks on the general topic and frequently in objection to particular bills. The conflicting sentiments of eminent states- men, expressed in Congress or in conventions called expressly to devise, if possible, some plan calculated to relieve the subject of the embarrass- ments with which it is environed, while they have directed public atten- tion strongly to the magnitude of the interests involved, have yet left unsettled the limits, not merely of expediency, but of constitutional power, in relation to works of this class by the General Government. What is intended by the phrase ‘‘internal improvements’’? What does it embrace and what exclude? No such language is found in the Consti- tution. Not only is it not an expression of ascertainable constitutional power, but it has no sufficient exactness of meaning to be of any value as the basis of a safe conclusion either of constitutional law or of practical statesmanship. President John Quincy Adams, in claiming on one occasion, after his retirement from office, the authorship of the idea of introducing into the administration of the affairs of the General Government ‘‘a permanent and regular system’? of internal improvements, speaks of it as a system by which ‘‘the whole Union would have been checkered over with rail- roads and canals,’’ affording ‘‘ high wages and constant employment to hundreds of thousands of laborers;’’ and he places it in express contrast with the construction of such works by the legislation of the States and by private enterprise. It is quite obvious that if there be any constitutional power which authorizes the construction of ‘‘railroads and canals’’ by Congress, the same power must comprehend turnpikes and ordinary carriage roads; nay, it must extend to the construction of bridges, to the draining of marshes, to the erection of levees, to the construction of canals of irriga- tion; in a word, to all the possible means of the material improvement of the earth, by developing its natural resources anywhere and everywhere, even within the proper jurisdiction of the several States. But if there be any constitutional power thus comprehensive in its nature, must not the same power embrace within its scope other kinds of improvement of equal utility in themselves and equally important to the welfare of the whole country? President Jefferson, while intimating the expediency of so amending the Constitution as to comprise objects of physical progress and well-being, does not fail to perceive that ‘‘other objects of public improvement,’’ including ‘‘ public education’’ by name, belong to the same tlass of powers. In fact, not only public instruction, but hospitals, establishments of science and art, libraries, and, indeed, everything apper- taining to the internal welfare of the country, are just as much objects of internal improvement, or, in other words, of internal utility, as canals and railways. The admission of the power in either of its senses implies its existence
\ 2793 Messages and Papers of the Presidents a navy, to raise and support armies, to regulate commerce, and to dis- pose of the territory and other public property of the United States. As to the last of these sources of power, that of disposing of the terri- tory and other public property of the United States, it may be conceded that it authorizes Congress, in the management of the public property, to make improvements essential to the successful execution of the trust; but this must be the primary object of any such improvement, and it would be an abuse of the trust to sacrifice the interest of the property to incidental purposes. As to the other assumed sources of a general power over internal im- provements, they being specific powers of which this is supposed to be the incident, if the framers of the Constitution, wise and thoughtful men as they were, intended to confer on Congress the power over a sub- ject so wide as the whole field of internal improvements, it is remark- able that they did not use language clearly to express it, or, in other words, that they did not give it as a distinct and substantive power in- stead of making it the implied incident of some other one; for such is the magnitude of the supposed incidental power and its capacity of ex- pansion that any system established under it would exceed each of the others in the amount of expenditure and number of the persons employed, which would thus be thrown upon the General Government. This position may be illustrated by taking as a single example one of the many things comprehended clearly in the idea of ‘‘a general system of internal improvements,’’ riamely, roads. Let it be supposed that the power to construct roads over the whole Union, according to the sugges- tion of President J. Q. Adams in 1807, whilst a member of the Senate of the United States, had been conceded. Congress would have begun, in pursuance of the state of knowledge at the time, by constructing turn- pikes; then, as knowledge advanced, it would have constructed canals, and at the present time it would have been embarked in an almost limit- less scheme of railroads. Now there are in the United States, the results of State or private enterprise, upward of 17,000 miles of railroads and 5,000 miles of canals; in all, 22,000 miles, the total cost of which may be estimated at little short of $600,000,000; and if the same works had been constructed by the Federal Government, supposing the thing to have been practicable, the cost would have probably been not less than $900,000,000. The number of persons employed in superintending, managing, and keeping up these canals and railroads may be stated at 126,000 or thereabouts, to which are to be added 70,000 or 80,000 employed on the railroads in construction, making a total of at least 200,000 persons, representing in families nearly 1,000,000 souls, employed on or maintained by this one class of public works in the United States, In view of all this, it is not easy to estimate the disastrous conse- quences which must have resulted from such extended local improve- 7"
2795 Messages and Papers of the Presidents when this provision is carefully examined and compared with other parts of the Constitution. It is undoubtedly true that ‘‘like authority’’ refers back to ‘‘exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” as applied to the District of Colum- bia, and there is in the District no division of powers as between the General and the State Governments. In those places which the United States has purchased or retains within any of the States—sites for dockyards or forts, for example—legal process of the given State is still permitted to run for some purposes, and there- fore the jurisdiction of the United States is not absolutely perfect. But let us assume for the argument’s sake that the jurisdiction of the United States in a tract of land ceded to it for the purpose of a dockyard or fort by Virginia or Maryland is as complete as in that ceded by them for the seat of Government, and then proceed to analyze this clause of the Constitution. It provides that Congress shall have certain legislative authority over all places purchased by the United States for certain purposes. It im- plies that Congress has otherwise the power to purchase. But where does Congress get the power to purchase? Manifestly it must be from some other clause of the Constitution, for it is not conferred by thisone. Now, as it is a fundamental principle that the Constitution is one of limited powers, the authority to purchase must be conferred in one of the enu- merations of legislative power; so that the power to purchase is itself not an unlimited one, but is limited by the objects in regard to which iegis- lative authority is directly conferred. The other expressions of the clause in question confirm this conclu- sion, since the jurisdiction is given as to places purchased for certain enumerated objects or purposes. Of these the first great division—forts, magazines, arsenals, and dockyards—is obviously referable to recog- nized heads of specific constitutional power. There remains only the phrase ‘‘and other needful buildings.'’ Wherefore needful? Needful for any possible purpose within the whole range of the business of so- ciety and of Government? Clearly not; but only such ‘‘buildings’’ as are ‘‘ needful’’ to the United States in the exercise of any of the powers conferred on Congress. Thus the United States need, in the exercise of admitted powers, not only forts, magazines, arsenals, and dockyards, but also court-houses, prisons, custom-houses, and post-offices within the respective States, Places for the erection of such buildings the General Government may constitutionally purchase, and, having purchased them, the jurisdiction over them belongs to the United States. So if the General Government has the power to build a light-house or a beacon, it may purchase a place for that object; and having purchased it, then this clause of the Consti- tution gives jurisdiction over it. Still, the power to purchase for the pur- pose of erecting a light-house or beacon must depend on the existence of
“4 2797 Messages and Papers of the Presidents to prevent their formation, or for supplying harbors where these do uot exist, are also means of rendering navigation safe and easy, and may in supposable cases be the most efficient, as well as the most economical, of such means, Nevertheless, it is not until the year 1824 that in an act to improve the navigation of the rivers Ohio and Mississippi and in another act making appropriations for deepening the channel leading into the harbor of Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, and for repairing Plym- outh Beach, in Massachusetts Bay, we have any example of an appropri- ation for the improvement of harbors in the nature of those provided for in the bill returned by me to the House of Representatives. It appears not probable that the abstinence of Congress in this respect is attributable altogether to considerations of economy or to any failure to perceive that the removal of an obstacle to navigation might be not less useful than the indication of it for avoidance, and it may be well assumed that the course of legislation so long pursued was induced, in whole or in part, by solicitous consideration in regard to the constitu- tional power over such matters vested in Congress. One other peculiarity in this course of legislation is not less remarka- ble. It is that when the General Government first took charge of light- houses and beacons it required the works themselves and the lands on which they were situated to be ceded to the United States. And although for a time this precaution was neglected in the case of new works, in the sequel it was provided by general laws that no light-house should be constructed on any site previous to the jurisdiction over the same being ceded to the United. States. Constitutional authority for the construction and, support of many of the public works of this nature, it is certain, may be found in the power of Congress to maintain a navy and provide for the general defense; but their number, and in many instances their location, preclude the idea of their being fully justified as necessary and proper incidents of that power. And they do not seem susceptible of being referred to any other of the specific powers vested in Congress by the Constitution, unless it be that to raise revenue in so far as this relates to navigation. The practice under all my predecessors in office, the express admissions of some of them, and absence of denial by any sufficiently manifest their belief that the power to erect light-houses, beacons, and piers is possessed by the General Government. In the acts of Congress, as we have already seen, the inducement and object of the appropriations are expressly declared, those appropriations being for ‘‘light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers’’ erected or placed ‘‘ within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe.’’ \ I£it be conteuded that this review of the history of appropriations of this class leads to the inference that, beyond the purposes of national defense and maintenance of a navy, there is authority in the Constitution to construct certain works in aid of navigation, it is at the same time to
2799 Messages and Papers of the Presidents means of communication impressed itself upon all minds with a force which had not been experienced at the date of the formation of the Con- stitution, and more and more embarrassed those who were most anxious to abstain scrupulously from any exercise of doubtful power. Hence the recognition in the messages of Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe of the eminent desirableness of such works, with admission that some of them could lawfully and should be conducted by the Gen- eral Government, but with obvious uncertainty of opinion as to the line between such as are constitutional and such as are not, such as ought to receive appropriations from Congress and such as ought to be consigned to private enterprise or the legislation of the several States. This uncertainty has not been removed by the practical working of our institutions in later times; for although the acquisition of additional territory and the application of steam to the propulsion of vessels have greatly magnified the importance of internal commerce, this fact has at the same time complicated the question of the power of the General Gov- ernment over the present subject. In fine, a careful review of the opinions of all my predecessors and of the legislative history of the country does not indicate any fixed rule by which to decide what, of the infinite variety of possible river and harbor improvements, are within the scope of the power delegated by the Con- stitution; and the question still remains unsettled. President Jackson conceded the constitutionality, under suitable circumstances, of the im- provement of rivers and harbors through the agency of Congress, and President Polk admitted the propriety of the establishment and support by appropriations from the Treasury of light-houses, beacons, buoys, and other improvements within the bays, inlets, and harbors of the ocean and lake coasts immediately connected with foreign commerce. But if the distinction thus made rests upon the differences between foreign and domestic commerce it can not be restricted thereby to the bays, inlets, and harbors of the oceans and lakes, because foreign com- merce has already penetrated thousands of miles into the interior of the continent by means of our great rivers, and will continue so to extend itself with the progress of settlement until it reaches the limit of naviga- bility. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution the vast Valley of the Mississippi, now teeming with population and supplying almost bound- less resources, was literally an unexplored wilderness. Our advancement has outstripped even the most sanguine anticipations of the fathers of the Republic, and it illustrates the fact that no rule is admissible which under- takes to discriminate, so far as regards river and harbor improvements, between the Atlantic or Pacific coasts and the great lakes and rivers of the interior regions of North America, Indeed, it is quite erroneous to suppose that any such discrimination has ever existed in the practice of the Government. ‘To the contrary of which is the significant fact, before
2801 Messages and Papers of the Presidents and its mighty rivers, with secondary branches exceeding in magnitude the largest rivers of Great Britain. At a later period it is true that, in disregard of the more comprehen- sive definition of navigability afforded by that act of Congress, it was for a time held by many that the rule established for England was to be received in the United States, the effect of which was to exclude from the jurisdiction of the General Government not only the waters of the Mis- sissippi, but also those of the Great Lakes. To this construction it was with truth objected that, in so far as concerns the lakes, they are in fact seas, although of fresh water; that they are the natural marine communi- cations between a series of populous States and between them and the possessions of a foreign nation; that they are actually navigated by ships of commerce of the largest capacity; that they had once been and might again be the scene of foreign war; and that therefore it was doing vio- lence to all reason to undertake by means of an arbitrary doctrine of technical foreign law to exclude such waters from the jurisdiction of the General Government. In regard to the river Mississippi, it was objected that to draw a line across that river at the point of ebb and flood of tide, and say that the part below was public navigable water and the part above not, while in the latter the water was at least equally deep and navigable and its commerce as rich as in the former, with numerous ports of foreign entry and delivery, was to sanction a distinction artificial and unjust, because regardless of the real fact of navigability. We may conceive that some such considerations led to the enactment in the year 1845 of an act in addition to that of 1789, declaring that— The district courts of the United States shall have, possess, and exercise the same jurisdiction in matters of contract and tort arising in, upon, or concerning steam- boats and other vessels of 20 tons burden and upward, enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade and at the time employed in business of commerce and navigation between ports and places in different States and Territories upon the lakes and navi- gable waters connecting said lakes, as is now possessed and exercised by the said courts in cases of the like steamboats and other vessels employed in navigation and commerce upon the high seas or tide waters within the admiralty and maritime juris- diction of the United States. It is observable that the act of 1789 applies the jurisdiction of the United States to all ‘‘ waters which are navigable from the sea’’ for ves- sels of 10 tons burden, and that of 1845 extends the jurisdiction to enrolled vessels of 20 tons burden, on the lakes and navigable waters connecting said lakes, though not waters navigable from the sea, pro- vided such vessels be employed between places in different States and Territories. F Thus it appears that these provisions of law in effect prescribe con- ditions by which to determine whether any waters are public navigable waters, subject to the authority of the Federal Government. The con- ditions include all waters, whether salt or fresh, and whether of sea, lake, or river, provided they be capable of navigation by vessels of a
2803 Messages and Papers of the Presidents it is always material to consider what amount of public money shall be appropriated for any particular object. The same consideration applies with augmented force to a class of appropriations which are in their nature peculiarly prone to run to excess, and which, being made in the exercise of incidental powers, have intrinsic tendency to overstep the bounds of constitutionality. If an appropriation for improving the navigability of a river or deepen- ing or protecting a harbor have reference to military or naval purposes, then its rightfulness, whether in amount or in the objects to which it is applied, depends, manifestly, on the military or naval exigency; and the subject-matter affords its own measure of legislative discretion. But if the appropriation for such an object have no distinct relation to the mili- tary or naval wants of the country, and is wholly, or even mainly, intended to promote the revenue from commerce, then the very vagueness of the proposed purpose of the expenditure constitutes a perpetual admonition of reserve and caution. Through disregard of this it is undeniable that in many cases appropriations of this nature have been made unwisely, without accomplishing beneficial results commensurate with the cost, and sometimes for evil rather than good, independently of their dubious rela- tion to the Constitution. Among the radical changes of the course of legislation in these mat- ters which, in my judgment, the public interest demands, one is a return to the primitive idea of Congress, which required in this class of public works, as in all others, a conveyance of the soil and a cession of the jurisdiction to the United States. I think this condition ought never te have been waived in the case of any harbor improvement of a permanent nature, as where piers, jetties, sea walls, and other like works are to be constructed and maintained. It would powerfully tend to counteract endeavors to obtain appropriations of a local character and chiefly calcu- lated to promote individual interests, The want of such a provision is the occasion of abuses in regard to existing works, exposing them to private encroachment without sufficient means of redress by law. In- deed, the absence in such cases of a cession of jurisdiction has consti- tuted one of the constitutional objections to appropriations of this class. It is not easy to perceive any sufficient reason for requiring it in the case of arsenals or forts which does not equally apply to all other public works. If to be constructed and maintained by Congress in the exercise of a constitutional power of appropriation, they should be brought within the jurisdiction of the United States. There is another measure of precaution in regard to such appropriations which seems to me to be worthy of the consideration of Congress. It is to make appropriation for every work in a separate bill, so that each one shall stand on its own independent merits, and if it pass shall do so under circumstances of legislative scrutiny entitling it to be regarded as of gen- eral interest and a proper subject of charge on the Treasurv of the Union
2805 Messages and Papers of the Presidents themselves with any such enterprise or expedition that the penalties of the law denounced against such criminal conduct will be rigidly enforced; and I exhort all good citizens, as they regard our national character, as they respect our laws or the law of nations, as they value the blessings of peace and the welfare of their country, to discountenance and by all lawful means prevent such criminal enterprises; and I call upon all offi- cers of this Government, civil and military, to use any efforts which may be in their power to arrest for trial and punishment every such offender. Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washing- ton, this 18th day of January, A. D. 1854, and the seventy [sat]  cighth of the Independence of the United States. FRANKLIN PIERCE. By THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. A PROCLAMATION, Whereas information has been received that sundry persons, citizens of the United States and others residing therein, are engaged in organ- izing and fitting out a military expedition for the invasion of the island of Cuba; and Whereas the said undertaking is contrary to the spirit and express stipulations of treaties between the United States and Spain, derogatory to the character of this nation, and in violation of the obvious duties and obligations of faithful and patriotic citizens; and Whereas it is the duty of the constituted authorities of the United States to hold and maintain the control of the great question of peace or war, and not suffer the same to be lawlessly complicated under any pre tense whatever; and Whereas to that end all private enterprises of a hostile character within the United States against any foreign power with which the United States are at peace are forbidden and declared to be a high misdemeanor by an express act of Congress: Now, therefore, in virtue of the authority vested by the Constitution in the President of the United States, I do issue this proclamation to warn all persons that the General Government claims it as a right and duty to interpose itself for the honor of its flag, the rights of its citi- zens, the national security, and the preservation of the public tranquillity, from whatever quarter menaced, and it will not fail to prosecute with due energy all those who, unmindful of their own and their country’s fame, presume thus to disregard the laws of the land and our treaty obligations. 7
2807 Messages and Papers of the Presidents condition. Hence it has been my earnest endeavor to maintain peace and friendly intercourse with all nations. The wise theory of this Government, so early adopted and steadily pursued, of avoiding all entangling alliances has hitherto exempted it from many complications in which it would otherwise have become involved. Notwithstanding this our clearly defined and well-sustained course of action and our geographical position, so remote from Europe, increasing disposition has been manifested by some of its Governments to supervise and in certain respects to direct our foreign policy. In plans for adjusting the balance of power among themselves they have assumed to take us into account, and would constrain us to conform our conduct to their views, One or another of the powers of Europe has from time to time undertaken to enforce arbitrary regulations contrary in many respects to established principles of international law. That law the United States have in their foreign intercourse uniformly re- spected and observed, and they can not recognize any such interpolations therein as the temporary interests of others may suggest. They do not admit that the sovereigns of one continent or of a particular community of states can legislate for all others. Leaving the transatlantic nations to adjust their political system in the way they may think best for their common welfare, the independent powers of this continent may well assert the right to be exempt from all annoying interference on their part. Systematic abstinence from inti- mate political connection with distant foreign nations does not conflict with giving the widest range to our foreign commerce. This distinc- tion, so clearly marked in history, seems to have been overlooked or dis- regarded by some leading foreign states. Our refusal to be brought within and subjected to their peculiar system has, I fear, created a jeai- ous distrust of our conduct and induced on their part occasional acts of disturbing effect upon our foreign relations. Our present attitude and past course give assurances, which should not be questioned, that our purposes are not aggressive nor threatening to the safety and welfare of other nations. Our military establishment in time of peace is adapted to maintain exterior defenses and to preserve order among the aboriginal tribes within the limits of the Union. Our naval force is intended only for the protection of our citizens abroad and of our commerce, diffused, as it is, over all the seas of the globe. The Government of the United States, being essentially pacific in policy, stands prepared to repel inva- sion by the voluntary service of a patriotic people, and provides no per- manent means of foreign aggression. ‘These considerations should allay all apprehension that we are disposed to encroach on the rights or en- danger the security of other states. Some European powers have regarded with disquieting concern the territorial expansion of the United States. This rapid growth has re- sulted from the legitimate exercise of sovereign rights belonging alike
- 2809 Messages and Papers of the Presidents Russia acted promptly in this matter, and a convention was concluded between that country and the United States providing for the observance of the principles announced, not only as between themselves, but also as. between them and all other nations which shall enter into like stipula- tions. None of the other powers have as yet taken final action on the subject. I am not aware, however, that any objection to the proposed stipulations has been made, but, on the contrary, they are acknowledged to be essential to the security of neutral commerce, and the only appar- ent obstacle to their general adoption is in the possibility that it may be encumbered by inadmissible conditions. ' The King of the Two Sicilies has expressed to our minister at Naples his readiness to concur in our proposition relative to neutral rights and _ to enter into a convention on that subject. The King of Prussia entirely approves of the project of a treaty to the same effect submitted to him, but proposes an additional article provid- ing for the renunciation of privateering, Such an article, for most ob- vious reasons, is much desired by nations having naval establishments large in proportion to their foreign commerce. If it were adopted as an international rule, the commerce of a nation having comparatively a small naval force would be very much at the mercy of its enemy in case of war with a power of decided naval superiority. The bare statement of the condition in which the United States would be placed, after having surrendered the right to resort to privateers, in the event of war with a belligerent of naval supremacy will show that this Government could never listen to such a proposition. ‘The navy of the first maritime power in Europe is at least ten times as large as that of the United States. The foreign commerce of the two countries is nearly equal, and about equally exposed to hostile depredations. In war between that power and the United States, without resort on our part to our mercantile marine the means of our enemy to inflict injury upon our commerce would be tenfold greater than ours to retaliate. We could not extricate our country from this unequal condition, with such an enemy, unless we at once departed from our present peaceful policy and became a great naval power. Nor would this country be better situated in war with one of the secondary naval powers. Though the naval disparity would be less, the greater extent and more exposed condition of our widespread commerce would give any of them a like advantage over us. The proposition to enter into engagements to forego a resort to priva- teers in case this country should be forced into war with a great naval power is not entitled to more favorable consideration than would be a proposition to agree not to accept the services of volunteers for operations on land. When the honor or the rights of our country require it to as- sume a hostile attitude, it confidently relies upon the patriotism of its citi- zens, not ordinarily devoted to the military profession, to augment the Anny and the Navy so as to make them fully adequate to the emergency
2811 Messages and Papers of the Presidents I recommend that provision be made for a commission, to be joined by one on the part of Her Britannic Majesty, for the purpose of running and establishing the line in controversy. Certain stipulations of the third and fourth articles of the treaty concluded by the United States and Great Britain in 1846, regarding possessory rights of the Hudsons Bay Company and property of the Pugets Sound Agricultural Company, have given rise to serious disputes, and it is important to all concerned that summary means of settling them amicably should be devised. I have reason to believe that an arrangement can be made on just terms for the extinguishment of the rights in question, embracing also the right of the Hudsons Bay Company to the navigation of the river Columbia; and I therefore suggest to your consideration the expediency of making a contingent appropriation for that purpose. France was the early and efficient ally of the United States in their struggle forindependence. From that time to the present, with occasional slight interruptions, cordial relations of friendship have existed between the Governments and people of the two countries. The kindly senti- ments cherished alike by both nations have led to extensive social and commercial intercourse, which I trust will not be interrupted or checked by any casual event of an apparently unsatisfactory character. The French consul at San Francisco was not long since brought into the United States district court at that place by compulsory process as a wit- ness in favor of another foreign consul, in violation, as the French Goy- ernment conceives, of his privileges under our consular convention with France. ‘There being nothing in the transaction which could imply any disrespect to France or its consul, such explanation has been made as, I hope, will be satisfactory. Subsequently misunderstanding arose on the his way from London to Madrid. But that Government has unequivo- cally disavowed any design to deny the right of transit to the minister of the United States, and after explanations to this effect he has resumed his at Paris and the minister of foreign relations of the French Government. The position of our affairs with Spain remains as at the close of the last session. Internal agitation, assuming very nearly the character of polit- ical revolution, has recently convulsed that country. The late ministers) were violently expelled from power, and men of very different views in relation to its internal affairs have succeeded, Since this change there has been no propitious opportunity to resume and press on negotiatii for the adjustment of serious questions of difficulty between the Government and the United States. ‘There is reason to believe that minister will find the present Government more favorably inclined th the preceding to comply with our just demands and to make suitabl
2813 Messages and Papers of the Presidents violated our laws. The energy and activity of our civil and military authorities have frustrated the designs of those who meditated expedi- tions of this character except in two instances. One of these, composed. of foreigners, was at first countenanced and aided by the Mexican Gov- ernment itself, it having been deceived as to their real object. The other, small in number, eluded the vigilance of the magistrates at Sam Francisco and succeeded in reaching the Mexican terri‘ories; but the effective measures taken by this Government compelled the abandon- ment of the undertaking. The commission to establish the new line between the United States and Mexico, according to the pr ovisions of the treaty of the 30th of December last, has been organized, and the work is already commenced. Our treaties with the Argentine Confederation and with the Republics of Uruguay and Paraguay secure to us the free navigation of the river La Plata and some of its larger tributaries, but the same success has not attended our endeavors to open the Amazon. The reasons in favor of the free use of that river I had occasion to present fully in a former message, and, considering the cordial relations which have long existed between this Government and Brazil, it may be expected that pending negotiations will eventually reach a favorable result. Convenient means of transit between the several parts of a country are not only desirable for the objects of commercial and personal communica- tion, but essential to its existence under one government. Separated, as are the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, by the whole breadth of the continent, still the inhabitants of each are closely bound together by community of origin and institutions and by strong attach- ment to the Union. Hence the constant and increasing intercourse and vast interchange of commercial productions between these remote divi- sions of the Republic. At the present time the most practicable and only commodious routes for communication between them are by the way of the isthmus of Central America. It is the duty of the Government to secure these avenues against all danger of interruption. In relation to Central America, perplexing questions existed between the United States aud Great Britain at the time of the cession of Cali- fornia. These, as well as questions which subsequently arose concerning interoceanic communication across the Isthmus, were, as it was supposed, adjusted by the treaty of April 19, 1850, but, unfortunately, they have been reopened by serious misunderstanding as to the import of some of its provisions, a readjustment of which is now under consideration. Our minister at London has made strenuous efforts to accomplish this desir- able object, but has not yet found it possible to bring the negotiations to a termination. As incidental to these questions, I deem it proper to notice an occur- rence which happened in Central America near the close of the last ses- sion of Congress. So soon as the necessity was perceived of establishing
2815 Messages and Papers of the Presidents some person exercising the chief authority. While parleying with them he was wounded by a missile from the crowd. A boat dispatched from the American steamer Northern Light to release him from the perilous situation in which he was understood to be was fired into by the town guard and compelled to return. These incidents, together with the known character of the population of Greytown and their excited state, induced just apprehensions that the lives and property of our citizens at Punta Arenas would be in imminent danger after the departure of the steamer, with her passengers, for New York, unless a guard was left for their protection. For this purpose, and in order to insure the safety of passengers and property passing over the route, a temporary force was organized, at considerable expense to the United States, for which provi- sion was made at the last session of Congress. This pretended community, a heterogeneous assemblage gathered from various countries, and composed for the most part of blacks and persons of mixed blood, had previously given other indications of mischievous and dangerous propensities. Early in the same month property was clandestinely abstracted from the depot of the Transit Company and taken to Greytown. The plunderers obtained shelter there and their pursuers were driven back by its people, who not only protected the wrongdoers and shared the plunder, but treated with rudeness and vio- lence those who sought to recover their property. Such, in substance, are the facts submitted to my consideration, and proved by trustworthy evidence. I could not doubt that the case de- manded the interposition of this Government. Justice required that reparation should be made for so many and such gross wrongs, and that a course of insolence and plunder, tending directly to the insecurity of the lives of numerous travelers and of the rich treasure belonging to our citizens passing over this transit way, should be peremptorily arrested. Whatever it might be in other respects, the community in question, in power to do mischief, was not despicable. It was well provided with ordnance, small arms, and ammunition, and might easily seize on the unarmed boats, freighted with millions of property, which passed almost daily within its reach, It did not profess to belong to any regular goy- ernment, and had, in fact, no recognized dependence on or connection with anyone to which the United States or their injured citizens might apply for redress or which could be held responsible in any way for the outrages committed. Not standing before the world in the attitude of an organized political society, being neither competent to exercise the rights nor to discharge the obligations of a government, it was, in fact, a marauding establishment too dangerous to be disregarded and too guilty to pass unpunished, and yet incapable of being treated in any other way than as a piratical resort of outlaws or a camp of savages depredating on emigrant trains or caravans and the frontier settlements of civilized states. ———————————
2817 Messages and Papers of the Presidents When the Cyane was ordered to Central America, it was confidently hoped, and expected that no occasion would arise for ‘‘a resort to vio- lence and destruction of property and loss of life.’’ Instructions to that effect were given to her commander; and no extreme act would have been requisite had not the people themselves, by their extraordinary con- duct in the affair, frustrated all the possible mild measures for obtain- ing satisfaction. A withdrawal from the place, the object of his visit entirely defeated, would under the circumstances in which the com- mander of the Cyane found himself have been absolute abandonment of all claim of our citizens for indemnification and submissive acquiescence in national indignity. It would have encouraged in these lawless men a spirit of insolence and rapine most dangerous to the lives and property of our citizens at Punta Arenas, and probably emboldened them to grasp at the treasures and valuable merchandise continually passing over the Nica- raguaroute. It certainly would have been most satisfactory to me if the objects of the Cyane’s mission could have been consummated without any act of public force, but the arrogant contumacy of the offenders rendered it impossible to avoid the alternative either to break up their establish- ment or to leave them impressed with the idea that they might persevere with impunity in a career of insolence and plunder. This transaction has been the subject of complaint on the part of some foreign powers, and has been characterized with more of harshness than of justice. If comparisons were to be instituted, it would not be difficult to present repeated instances in the history of states standing in the very front of modern civilization where communities far less offending and more defenseless than Greytown have been chastised with much greater severity, and where not cities only have been laid in ruins, but human life has been recklessly sacrificed and the blood of the innocent made pro- fusely to mingle with that of the guilty. Passing from foreign to domestic affairs, your attention is naturally directed to the financial condition of the country, always a subject of gen- eralinterest. For complete and exact information regarding the finances and the various branches of the public service connected therewith I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, from which it will appear that the amount of revenue during the last fiscal year from all sources was $73,549,705, and that the public expenditures for the same period, exclusive of payments on account of the public debt, amounted to $51,018,249. During the same period the payments made in redemption of the public debt, including interest and premium, amounted to $24,336,- 380. To the sum total of the receipts of that year is to be added a bal- ance remaining in the Treasury at the commencement thereof, amounting to $21,942,892; and at the close of the same year a corresponding balance, amounting to $20,137,967, of receipts above expenditures also remained inthe Treasury. Although, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Treas- urv. the receipts of the current fiscal year are not likely to equal in amount
NICARAGUAN AND PARAGUAYAN TROUBLES The two great commercial nations, Great Britain and the United States, were natural rivals for Central American influence. Both wanted to con- struct an isthmian canal. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty seemed to settle all differences, but it was not long before England's tactics showed she did not propose to be bound by it. One of the incidents of the friction occurred in Greytown, Nicaragua. This place stood at the mouth of the San Juan River, a necessary element to any canal projects of the time, and by British advice had renounced all political connections and declared itself a sovereignty. Our Consul there having been insulted, an American war vessel bombarded the town. For a fuller description of the incident, see the President's account on page 2814. , Later a fleet of nineteen vessels was sent to Paraguay to obtain repara- tion from that republic for insults and injuries to the Government and to individual citizens. Needless to say, this Armada accomplished its purpose. The history of our diplomacy is told in the series of articles covering our treaty relations; in this case refer to the articles “ Nicaragua”; ‘‘ Nicaragua, Treaties with ”; “‘ Paraguay’; “‘ Paraguay, Treaties with”; “‘ Great Britain’; and “ Great Britain, Treaties with.” The story of the isthmian canal is told in the article entitled “ Panama Canal.” All of the articles are in the Encyclo- pedic Index.
2819 Messages and Papers of the Presidents placed them beyond the reach of the Government. Conduct of this char- acter, brought in several instances to the notice of the present Secretary of the Treasury, naturally awakened his suspicion, and resulted in the disclosure that at four ports—namely, Oswego, Toledo, Sandusky, and Milwaukee—the Treasury had, by false entries, been defrauded within the four years next preceding March, 1853, of the sum of $198,000. The great difficulty with which the detection of these frauds has been attended, in consequence of the abstraction of books and papers by the retiring officers, and the facility with which similar frauds in the public service may be perpetrated render the necessity of new legal enactments in the respects above referred to quite obvious. For other material modifi- cations of the revenue laws which seem to me desirable, I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. That report and the tables which accompany it furnish ample proofs of the solid foundation on which the financial security of the country rests and of the salutary influence of the independent-treasury system upon commerce and all monetary operations. The experience of the last year furnishes additional reasons, I regret to say, of a painful character, for the recommendation heretofore made to provide for increasing the military force employed in the Territory inhab- ited by the Indians. The settlers on the frontier have suffered much from the incursions of predatory bands, and large parties of emigrants to our Pacific possessions have been massacred with impunity. The recur- rence of such scenes can only be prevented by teaching these wild tribes the power of and their responsibility to the United States. From the garrisons of our frontier posts it is only possible to detach troops in small bodies; and though these have on all occasions displayed a gallantry and a stern devotion to duty which on a larger field would have com- manded universal admiration, they have usually suffered severely in these conflicts with superior numbers, and have sometimes been entirely sacri- ficed. All the disposable force of the Army is already employed on this service, and is known to be wholly inadequate to the protection which should be afforded. The public mind of the country has been recently shocked by savage atrocities committed upon defenseless emigrants and border settlements, and hardly less by the unnecessary destruction of valuable lives where inadequate detachments of troops have undertaken to furnish the needed aid. Without increase of the military force these scenes will be repeated, it is to be feared, on a larger scale and with more disastrous consequences. Congress, I am sure, will perceive that the plain- est duties and responsibilities of Government are involved in this question. and I doubt not that prompt action may be confidently anticipated when delay must be attended by such fearful hazards. The bill of the last session providing for an increase of the pay of the rank and file of the Army has had beneficial results, not only in facili- tating enlistments, but in obvious improvement in the class of men who
2821 Messages and Papers of the Presidents the evil without wounding the just pride of men who by past service have established a claim to high consideration, In again comm ‘ this measure to the favorable consideration of Congress I would sug that the power of placing officers on the retired list be limited to | year. The practical operation of the measure would thus be tested, ame if after the lapse of years there should be occasion to renew the provi- sion it can be reproduced with any improvements which experience may indicate. The present organization of the artillery into regiments : liable to obvious objections. The service of artillery is that of batteries and an organization of batteries into a corps of artillery would be more consistent with the nature of their duties. A large part of the troops now called artillery are, and have been, on duty as infantry, the distinc lery in our service is disproportionate to the whole force and greater thar the wants of the country demand. I therefore commend the discontinu- ance of a distinction which has no foundation in either the arms used or the character of the service expected to be performed. In connection with the proposition for the increase of the Army, I have presented these suggestions with regard to certain measure reform as the complement of a system which would produce the happiest results from a given expenditure, and which, I hope, may attract the early attention and be deemed worthy of the approval of Congress. The recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy having reference to more ample provisions for the discipline and general improvement in the character of seamen and for the reorganization and gradual in- crease of the Navy I deem eminently worthy of your favorable consider- ation. The principles which have controlled our policy in relation to the permanent military force by sea and land are sound, consistent with the theory of our system, atid should by no means be disregarded. But, limiting the force to the objects particularly set forth in the preceding part of this message, we should not overlook the present magnitude and ive extension of our commercial marine, nor fail to give due weight to the fact that besides the 2,000 miles of Atlantic seaboard we have now a Pacific coast stretching from Mexico to the British posses- sions in the north, teeming with wealth and enterprise and demanding the constant presence of ships of war. The augmentation of the Navy has not kept pace with the duties properly and profitably assigned to it in time of peace, and it is inadequate for the large field of its operations, not merely in the present, but still more in the progressively increasing exigencies of the commerce of the United States. I cordially approve of the proposed apprentice system for our national vessels recommended by the Secretary of the Navy. The occurrence during the last few months of marine disasters of the most tragic nature, involving great loss of human life, has produced intense emotions of sympathy and sorrow throughout the country. It
2823 Messages and Papers of the Presidents upon the general Treasury. The cost of mail transportation during the year ending June 30, 1854, exceeds the cost of the preceding year by $495,074. I again call your attention to the subject of mail transporta- tion by ocean steamers, and commend the suggestions of the Postmaster- General to your early attention. During the last fiscal year 11,070,935 acres of the public lands have been surveyed and 8,190,017 acres brought into market. The number of acres sold is 7,035,735 and the amount received therefor $9,285,533. The aggregate amount of lands sold, located under military scrip and land warrants, selected as swamp lands by States, and by locating under grants for roads is upward of 23,000,000 acres, The increase of lands sold over the previous year is about 6,000,000 acres, and the sales during the first two quarters of the current year present the extraordinary result of five and a half millions sold, exceeding by nearly 4,000,000 acres the sales of the corresponding quarters of the last year. The commendable policy of the Government in relation to setting apart public domain for those who have served their country in time of war is illustrated by the fact that since 1790 no less than 30,000,000 acres have been applied to this object. The suggestions which I submitted in my annual message of last year in reference to grants of land in aid of the construction of railways were less full and explicit than the magnitude of the subject and subsequent developments would seem to render proper and desirable. Of the sound- ness of the principle then asserted with regard to the limitation of the power of Congress I entertain no doubt, but in its application it is not enough that the value of lands in a particular locality may be enhanced; that, in fact, a larger amount of money may probably be received in a given time for alternate sections than could have been realized for all the sections without the impulse and influence of the proposed improve- ments. A prudent proprietor looks beyond limited sections of his do- main, beyond present results to the ultimate effect which a particular line of policy is likely to produce upon all his possessions and interests. The Government, which is trustee in this matter for the people of the States, is bound to take the same wise and comprehensive view. Prior to and during the last session of Congress upward of 30,000,000 acres of land were withdrawn from public sale with a view to applications for grants of this character pending before Congress. A careful review of the whole subject led me to direct that all such orders be abrogated and the lands restored to market, and instructions were immediately given to that effect. The applications at the last session contemplated the con- struction of more than 5,000 miles of road and grants to the amount of nearly 20,000,000 acres of the public domain. Even admitting the right on the part of Congress to be unquestionable, is it quite clear that the proposed grants would be productive of good, and not evil? The differ- ent projects are confined for the present to eleven States of this Union
2825 Messages and Papers of the Presidents of time at the close of the last session prevented my submitting on the return to the House of Representatives with objections of the bill entitled *‘An act making appropriations for the repair, preservation, and comple- tion of certain public works heretofore commenced under the authority of law;’’ but the space in this communication already occupied with other matter of immediate public exigency constrains me to reserve that sub- ject for a special message, which will be transmitted to the two Houses of Congress at an early day. The judicial establishment of the United States requires modification, and certain reforms in the manner of conducting the legal business of the Government are also much needed; but as I have addressed you upon both of these subjects at length before, I have only to call your attention to the suggestions then made. My former recommendations in relation to suitable provision for vari- ous objects of deep interest to the inhabitants of the District of Columbia are renewed. Many of these objects partake largely of a national char- acter, and are important independently of their relation to the prosper- ity of the only considerable organized community in the Union entirely unrepresented in Congress. I have thus presented suggestions on such subjects as appear to me to be of particular interest or importance, and therefore most worthy of consideration during the short remaining period allotted to the labors of the present Congress, Our forefathers of the thirteen united colonies, in acquiring their inde- pendence and in founding this Republic of the United States of America, have devolved upon us, their descendants, the greatest and the most noble trust ever committed to the hands of man, imposing upon all, and espe- cially such as the public will may have invested for the time being with political functions, the most sacred obligations. We have to maintain inviolate the great doctrine of the inherent right of popular self-govern- ment; to reconcile the largest liberty of the individuai citizen with com- ' plete security of the public order; to render cheerful obedience to the laws of the land, to unite in enforcing their execution, and to frown in- dignantly on all combinations to resist them; to harmonize a sincere and ardent devotion to the institutions of religious faith with the most uni- versal religious toleration; to preserve the rights of all by causing each to respect those of the other; to carry forward every social improvement to the uttermost limit of human perfectibility, by the free action of mind upon mind, not by the obtrusive intervention of misapplied force; to uphold the integrity and guard the limitations of our organic law; to preserve sacred from all touch of usurpation, as the very palladium of our political salvation, the reserved rights and powers of the several States and of the people; to cherish with loyal fealty and devoted affection this Union, as the only sure foundation on which the hopes of civil liberty rest; to administer government with vigilant integrity and rigid economy; to cul-
2829 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WasHINGTON, December 20, 185¢. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty made at the Neosho Agency on the 12th August, 1854, by Andrew J. Dorn, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Quapaw tribe of Indians. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, December 20, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty made by Andrew J. Dorn, commissioner on the part of the United States, on the 23d of August, 1854, and the chiefs and warriors of the Senecas of Sandusky and the Senecas and Shawnees of Lewistown, desig- nated by the treaty of 1832 as the United Nation of Seneca and Shawnee Indians. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, December 20, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith transmi: to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty made at La Pointe, Wis., on the 3oth of September, 1854, by Henry C, Gilbert and David B. Harriman, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Chippewas of Lake Superior and the Mississippi. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, December 26, 1854. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant, requesting me, if not incompatible with the public interests, to communi- cate to that body ‘‘copies of all instructions and correspondence between the different Departments of the Government and Major-General Wool, commanding the Pacific division of the Army, in regard to his operations on that coast,’’ I transmit the accompanying documents. FRANKLIN PIERCE, [For message of December 30, 1854, giving an exposition of the rea- sons of the President for vetoing ‘‘An act making appropriations for the repair, preservation, and completion of certain public works heretofore commenced under the authority of law,’ see pp. 257-271.] WasuincTon, D. C., January 1, 1855. To the House of Representatives: In response to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 11th ultimo, requesting the President ‘‘to communicate to this House
da he yt co ely ln, we ta mer oft ams aa tives of the 27th of July last, upon the subject of the case of Gibson, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State. ’ FRANKLIN PIERCE, — * Relating to affairs on the Pacific Coast.
2833 Messages and Papers of the Presidents I respectfully recommend that provisions be made by law requiring the lands which are to be sold on account of the Indians by the Govern- ment to be appraised and classified; a minimum price to be fixed, for a less sum than which no sales shall be made without further provision of law; and authorizing the sale of the lands in such quantities and at such times and places as the obligations of the Government, the rights of the Indian tribes, and the public interest, with reference to speedy settle- ment, may render expedient. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, January 30, 1855. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 6th of December last, requesting the President ‘‘to communicate to the Senate, if in his opinion not incompatible with the public interest, the instructions, corre- spondence, and other documents relating to the naval expedition to Japan, and the proceedings and negotiations resulting in a treaty with the Gov- ernment thereof,’’ I transmit the inclosed report from the Secretary of the Navy, with the accompanying documents, FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, February 1, 1855. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, with a view to ratification, a convention which was concluded between the United States and Mexico at the City of Mexico on the 8th day of January last. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, February 4, 1855. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I communicate to Congress herewith, for its consideration, the accom- panying papers from the Secretary of the Interior, on the subject of the proviso of the act of July 31, 1854, in relation to the removal of the Cali- fornia Indians. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, February 4, 1855. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I communicate to Congress the accompanying papers* from the Sec- retary of the Interior, and recommend that the appropriations therein asked for may be made. FRANKLIN PIERCE. * Relating to the expenses necessary to be incurred in colonizing the Texas Indians,
2837 Messages and Papers of the Presidents superintendent of Indian affairs, on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Quil-si-eton and Na-hel-ta bands of the Chasta tribe of Indians, the Cow-non-ti-co, Sa-cher-i-ton, and Na-al-ye bands of Scotans, and the Grave Creek band of Umpqua Indians in Oregon Ter- ritory; the other, made on the 29th of November, 1854, by Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs, on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the confederated bands of the Umpqua tribe of Indians and the Calaponas, residing in Umpqua Valley, Oregon Territory. FRANKLIN PIERCE, Wasuincton, February 21, 1855. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I communicate to Congress a communication of this date from the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying paper, and recommend that the appropriation * therein asked for be made. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, February 22, 1855. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 21st instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, inclosing a copy of the let- ter} addressed to the Department of State on the 17th November, 1852, by Mr. Joaquin J. de Osma, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipo- WASHINGTON, February 23, 1855. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I communicate to Congress herewith a communication of this date from the Secretary of the Interior, with ¢2companying estimates, and recommend that the appropriation} therein isked for be made. FRANKLIN PIERCE, Wasuincton, February 24, 1855. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 22d instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, together with the copy of a communication from Francis W. Rice,§ therein referred to. FRANKLIN PIERCE. * For extending and improving the culvert running from the United States Capitol Grounds down the center of South Capitol street toward the canal. + Proposing a settlement of the Lobos Islands controversy. To fulfill treaty stipulations with the Wyandotte Indians. § Late United States consul at Acapulco, relative to outrages committed upon him by authorities of Mexico,
2841 Messages and Papers of the Presidents hands, Although the President is required from time to time to recom- mend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient, his participation in the formal business of leg- islation is limited to the single duty, in a certain contingency, of demand~- ing for a bill a particular form of vote prescribed by the Constitution before it can become a law. He is not invested with power to defeat legislation by an absolute veto, but only to restrain it, and is charged with the duty, in case he disapproves a measure, of invoking a second and a more deliberate and solemn consideration of it on the part of Con- gress. It is not incumbent on the President to sign a bill as a matter of course, and thus merely to authenticate the action of Congress, for he must exercise intelligent judgment or be faithless to the trust reposed in him. If he approve a bill, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated for such further action as the Constitution demands, which is its enactment, if at all, not by a bare numerical majority, as in the first instance, but by a constitutional majority of two-thirds of both Houses. While the Constitution thus confers on the legislative bodies the com- plete power of legislation in all cases, it proceeds, in the spirit of justice, to provide for the protection of the responsibility of the President. It does not compel him to affix the signature of approval to any bill unless it actually have his approbation; for while it requires him to sign if he approve, it, in my judgment, imposes upon him the duty of withholding his signature if he do not approve. In the execution of his official duty in this respect he is not to perform a mere mechanical part, but is to decide and act according to conscientious convictions of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the proposed law. In a matter as to which he is doubtful in his own mind he may well defer to the majority of the two Houses. Individual members of the respective Houses, owing to the nature, variety, and amount of business pending, must necessarily rely for their guidance in many, perhaps most, cases, when the matters in- volved are not of popular interest, upon the investigation of appropriate committees, or, it may be, that of a single member, whose attention has been particularly directed to the subject. For similar reasons, but even to a greater extent, from the number and variety of subjects daily urged upon his attention, the President naturally relies much upon the inyes- tigation had and the results arrived at by the two Houses, and hence those results, in large classes of cases, constitute the basis upon which his approval rests. The President's responsibility is to the whole people of the United States, as that of a Senator is to the people of a particular State, that of a Representative to the people of a State or district; and it may be safely assumed that he will not resort to the clearly defined and limited power of arresting legislation and calling for reconsideration of any measure except in obedience to requirements of duty. When, how- ever, he entertains a decisive and fixed conclusion, not merely of the
i | 2845 Messages and Papers of the Presidents | were groundless. Failing in this, another attempt to adjust all differ- ences between the two Republics was made in the form of an extraor- dinary mission, composed of three distinguished citizens, but the refusal to receive was offensively repeated, and thus terminated this last effort to preserve peace and restore kind relations with our early friend and ally, to whom a debt of gratitude was due which the American people have never been willing to depreciate or to forget. Years of negotiation had not only failed to secure indemnity for our citizens and exemption from further depredation, but these long-continued efforts had brought upon the Government the suspension of diplomatic intercourse with France and such indignities as to induce President Adams, in his message of May 16, 1797, to Congress, convened in special session, to present it as the particular matter for their consideration and to speak of it in terms of the highest indignation, Thenceforward the action of our Government assumed a character which clearly indicates that hope was no longer entertained from the amicable feeling or justice of the Government of France, and hence the subsequent measures were those of force. On the 28th of May, 1798, an act was passed for the employment of the Navy of the United States against ‘‘armed vessels of the Republic of France,’ and authorized their capture if ‘‘found hovering on the coast of the United States for the purpose of committing depredations on the vessels belonging to the citizens thereof;’’ on the 18th of June, 1798, an act was passed prohibiting commercial intercourse with France under the penalty of the forfeiture of the vessels so employed; on the 25th of June, the same year, an act to arm the merchant marine to oppose searches, capture aggressors, and recapture American vessels taken by the French; on the 28th of June, same year, an act for the condemnation and sale of French vessels captured by authority of the act of 28th of May preceding; on the 27th of July, same year, an act abrogating the trea- ties and the convention which had been concluded between the United States and France, and declaring ‘‘that the same shall not henceforth be regarded as legally obligatory on the Government or citizens of the United States;’’ on the oth of the same month an act was passed which enlarged the limits of the hostilities then existing by authorizing our public vessels to capture armed vessels of France wherever found upon the high seas, and conferred power on the President to issue commis- sions to private armed vessels to engage in like service. These acts, though short of a declaration of war, which would put all the citizens of each country in hostility with those of the other, were, nevertheless, actual war, partial in its application, maritime in its char- acter, but which required the expenditure of much of our public treasure and much of the blood of our patriotic citizens, who, in vessels but little suited to the purposes of war, went forth to battle on the high seas for the rights and security of their fellow-citizens and to repel indignities offered to the national honor.
a. | 2849 Messages and Papers of the Presidents well understood that the claimant can not have recourse to the United States otherwise.than he might have had to the French Republic, and only in case of the insufficiency of the captors.’’ If, as was affirmed on all hands, the convention of 1803 was intended to close all questions between the Governments of France and the United States, and 20,000,000 francs were set apart as a sum which might ex- ceed, but could not fall short of, the debts due by France to the citizens of the United States, how are we to reconcile the claim now presented _ with the estimates made by those who were of the time and immediately co.uected with the events, and whose intelligence and integrity have in no s.call degree contributed to the character and prosperity of the coun- try in which we live? Is it rational to assume that the claimants who now present themselves for indemnity by the United States represent debts which would have been admitted and paid by France but for the intervention of the United States? And is it possible to escape from the effect of the voluminous evidence tending 0 establish the fact that France resisted all these claims; that it was only vfter long and skillful negotia- tion that the agents of the United States votained the recognition of such of the claims as were provided for in the conventions of 1800 and 1803? And is it not conclusive against any pretensions of possible success on the part of the claimants, if left unaided to make their applications to France, that the only debts due to American citizens which have been paid by France are those which were assumed by the United States as part of the consideration in the purchase of Louisiana? There is little which is creditable either to the judgment or patriot- ism of those of our fellow-citizens who at this day arraign the justice, the fidelity, or love of country of the men who founded the Republic in representing them as having bartered away the property of individuals to escape from public obligations, and then to have withheld from them just compensation. It has been gratifying to me in tracing the history of these claims to find that ample evidence exists to refute an accusa- tion which would impeach the purity, the justice, and the magnanimity of the illustrious men who guided and controlled the early destinies of the Republic. I pass from this review of the history of the subject, and, omitting many substantial objections to these claims, proceed to examine some what more closely the only grounds upon which they can by possibility be maintained. Before entering on this it may be proper to state distinctly certain propositions which it is admitted on all hands are essential to prove the obligations of the Government. First. That at the date of the treaty of September 30, 1800, these claims were valid and subsisting as against France, Second. That they were released or extinguished by the United States in that treaty and by the manner of its ratification.
2877 Messages and Papers of the Presidents interests; if a portion of the States assume to impose their institutions on the others or refuse to fulfill their obligations to them, we are no longer united, friendly States, but distracted, hostile ones, with little capacity left of common advantage, but abundant means of reciprocal injury and mis- chief. Practically it is immaterial whether aggressive interference betweer the States or deliberate refusal on the part of any one of them to comply with constitutional obligations arise from erroneous conviction or blind prejudice, whether it be perpetrated by direction or indirection. In either case it is full of threat and of danger to the durability of the Union. Placed in the office of Chief Magistrate as the executive agent of the whole country, bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and specially enjoined by the Constitution to give information to Congress on the state of the Union, it would be palpable neglect of duty on my part to pass over a subject like this, which beyond all things at the pres- ent time vitally concerns individual and public security. It has been matter of painful regret to see States conspicuous for their services in founding this Republic and equally sharing its advantages disregard their constitutional obligations to it. Although conscious of their inability to heal admitted and palpable social evils of their own, and which are completely within their jurisdiction, they engage in the offen- Sive and hopeless undertaking of reforming the domestic institutions of other States, wholly beyond’ their control and authority. In the vain pursuit of ends by them entively unattainable, and which they may not legally attempt to compass, they peril the very existence of the Constitu- tion and all the countless benefits which it has conferred. While the people of the Southern States confine their attention to their own affairs, uot presuming officiously to intermeddle with the social institutions of the Northern States, too many of the inhabitants of the latter are perma- nently organized in associations to inflict injury on the former by wrong- ful acts, which would be cause of war as between foreign powers and only fail to be such in our system because perpetrated under cover of the Union. Is it possible to present this subject as truth and the occasion require without noticing the reiterated but groundless allegation that the South has persistently asserted claims and obtained advantages in the practical administration of the General Government to the prejudice of the North, and in which the latter has acquiesced? ‘That is, the States which either promote or tolerate attacks on the rights of persons and of property in other States, to disguise their own injustice, pretend or imagine, and constantly aver, that they, whose constitutional rights are thus system- atically assailed, are themselves the aggressors. At the present time this imputed aggression, resting, as it does, only in the vague declama- tory charges of political agitators, resolves itself into misapprehension, or misinterpretation, of the principles and facts of the political organiza- tion of the new Territories of the United States. What is the voice of history? When the ordinance which provided for
MISSOURI BORDER RUFFIANS IN KANSAS The South interpreted the Kansas-Nebraska Act as contemplating the formation of one slave and one free State; Nebraska, the northernmost, they left to the North, but Kansas, as contiguous to the slave State of Mis- souri, they must have. When Northerners moved into Kansas their wrath was unbounded. It was a violation of the pact, they thought, and such squat- ters must be chased away. The stream from the North assumed alarming proportions; when the time came to vote for and against slavery, the free-soil men would predominate. By some means Southern rights must be pro- tected. On the first election day 1,729 Southerners of the type shown in the picture, carrying rifles on shoulders, pistols in belts and bowie-knives in boots, with whiskey for sustenance, took possession of the polls, and the pro-slavery candidate won. On the second election day 5,000 of the same stripe, led by U. S. Senator Atchison, repeated the performance. When the Governor, who knew two-thirds of the vote was non-resident, threatened to call a new election, they gave him fifteen minutes to change his mind or die. He chose the former alternative. During the time of their domination only fifty slaveholders were in Kansas. Each party elected and inaugurated a government of its own. Their conflicting claims to authority led to bloodshed. The free-state settlement of Lawrence was entered by a mob under the guise of a sheriff’s posse and sacked. It is impossible to say which faction committed the most misdeeds, as after a while the crimes of each were simply retaliatory. Consult the articles “‘ Kansas,” “‘ Kansas Aid Society,” “‘ Kansas-Nebraska Act,” “ Lecompton Constitution”? and ‘“‘ Wyandotte Constitution”? in the Encyclopedic Index for the history of the subject.
2883 Messages and Papers of the Presidents” spirit did not force the fact upon our attention, it would be difficult to believe that any considerable portion of the people of this enlightened country could have so surrendered themselves to a fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States as totally to abandou and disregard the interests of the 25,000,000 Amer- icans; to trample under foot the injunctions of moral and constitutional obligation, and to engage in plans of vindictive hostility against those who are associated with them in the enjoyment of the common, heritage of our tational institutions. Nor is it hostility against their fellow-citizens of one section of the Union alone. The interests, the honor, the duty, the peace, and the pros- perity of the people of all sections are equally involved and imperiled in this question. And are patriotic men in any part of the Union prepared on such issue thus madly to invite all the consequences of the forfei- ture of their constitutional engagements? It is impossible. The storm of frenzy and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the un- shaken rock of the Constitution. I shall never doubt it. I know that the Union is stronger a thousand times than all the wild and chimerical schemes of social change which are generated one after another in the unstable minds of visionary sophists and interested agitators, I rely con- fidently on the patriotism of the people, on the dignity and self-respect of the States, on the wisdom of Congress, and, above all, on the continued gracious favor of Almighty God to maintain against all enemies, whether at home or abroad, the sanctity of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union. FRANKLIN PIERCE. SPECIAL MESSAGES. Wasuincton, December 26, 1855. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 17th instant, I send herewith the ‘‘memorial of citizens of New Orleans, complaining of the irregularity of the mail service between Washington and New Orleans,’’ I deem it proper also to transmit with the memorial my note of the r8th instant to the memorialists and a copy of the letter of the Postmaster-General therein referred to, FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, December 27, 1855. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty between the United States and Nicaragua, signed at Granada on the 20th day of June, A. D. 1855. FRANKLIN PIERCE.
a | 2885 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WASHINGTON, } ( To the Senate of the United States: SOON AE IIE I communicate herewith to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty between the United States and the Choctaw and Chick- asaw tribes of Indians, made and concluded in this city on the 22d day of toa FRANKLIN PIERCE, WASHINGTON, January 24, 1856. To the Senate and House of Representatives: Circumstances have occurred to disturb the course of governmental organization in the Territory of Kansas and produce there a condition of things which renders it incumbent on me to call your attention to the subject and urgently to recommend the adoption by you of such meas- ures of legislation as the grave exigencies of the case appear to require. A brief exposition of the circumstances referred to and of their causes will be necessary to the full understanding of the recommendations which it is proposed to submit. The act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas was a man- ifestation of the legislative opinion of Congress on two great points of con- stitutional construction: One, that the designation of the boundaries of a new Territory and provision for its political organization and administra- tion as a Territory are measures which of right fall within the powers of the General Government; and the other, that the inhabitants of any such Territory, considered as an inchoate State, are entitled, in the exercise of self-government, to determine for themselves what shall be their own domestic institutions, subject only to the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by Congress under it and to the power of the existing States to decide, according to the provisions and principles of the Constitution, at what time the Territory shall be received as a State into the Union. Such are the great political rights which are solemnly declared and affirmed by that act. Based upon this theory, the act of Congress defined for each Terri- tory the outlines of republican government, distributing public author- ity among lawfully created agents—executive, judicial, and legislative— to be appointed either by the General Government or by the Territory. The legislative functions were intrusted to a council and a house of representatives, duly elected, and empowered to enact all the local laws which they might deem essential to their prosperity, happiness, and good government. Acting in the same spirit, Congress also defined the persons who were in the first instance to be considered as the people of each Territory, enacting that every free white male inhabitant of the same above the age of 21 years, being an actual resident thereof and possessing the qualifications hereafter described, should be entitled to vote at the first election and be eligible to any office within the Terri-
2887 Messages and Papers of the Presidents enumeration of its inhabitants, until so late a day that the election of the members of the legislative assembly did not take place until the goth of March, 1855, nor its meeting until the 2d of July, 1855. So that fora year after the Territory was constituted by the act of Congress and the officers to be appointed by the Federal Executive had been commissioned it was without a complete government, without any legislative authority, without local law, and, of course, without the ordinary guaranties of peace and public order. _In other respects the governor, instead of exercising constant vigilance and putting forth all his energies to prevent or counteract the tendencies to illegality which are prone to exist in all imperfectly organized and newly associated communities, allowed his attention to be diverted from official obligations by other objects, and himself set an example of the vio- lation of law in the performance of acts which rendered it my duty in the sequel to remove him from the office of chief executive magistrate of the Territory. Before the requisite preparation was accomplished for election of a Territorial legislature, an election of Delegate to Congress had been held in the Territory on the 29th day of November, 1854, and the Delegate took his seat in the House of Representatives without challenge. It arrangements had been perfected by the governor so that the election for members of the legislative assembly might be held in the several precincts at the same time as for Delegate to Congress, any question appertaining to the qualification of the persons voting as people of the Territory would have passed necessarily and at once under the supervi- sion of Congress, as the judge of the validity of the return of the Dele- gate, and would have been determined before conflicting passions had become inflamed by time, and before opportunity could have been afforded for systematic interference of the people of individual States. This interference, in so far as concerns its primary causes and its immediate commencement, was one of the incidents of that pernicious agitation on the subject of the condition of the colored persons held to service in some of the States which has so long disturbed the repose of our country and excited individuals, otherwise patriotic and law abid- ing, to toil with misdirected zeal in the attempt to propagate their social theories by the perversion and abuse of the powers of Congress. The persons and the parties whom the tenor of the act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas thwarted in the endeavor to impose, through the agency of Congress, their particular views of social organi- zation on the people of the future new States now perceiving that the policy of leaving the inhabitants of each State to judge for themselves in this respect was ineradicably rooted in the convictions of the people of the Union, then had recourse, in the pursuit of their general object, to the extraordinary measure of propagandist colonization of the Territory of Kansas to prevent the free and natural action of its inhabitants in its
2889 Messages and Papers of the Presidents But after a few days the assembly resolved to adjourn to another place in the Territory. A law was accordingly passed, against the consent of the governor, but in due form otherwise, to remove the seat of govern- ment temporarily to the ‘‘Shawnee Manual Labor School’’ (or mission), and thither the assembly proceeded. After this, receiving a bill for the establishment of a ferry at the town of Kickapoo, the governor refused to sign it, and by special message assigned for reason of refusal not any- thing objectionable in the bill itself nor any pretense of the illegality or incompetency of the assembly as such, but only the fact that the assem- bly had by its act transferred the seat of government temporarily from Pawnee City to the Shawnee Mission. For the same reason he continued to refuse to sign other bills until in the course of a few days he by official message communicated to the assembly the fact that he had received noti- fication of the termination of his functions as governor, and that the duties of the office were legally devolved on the secretary of the Territory; thus to the last recognizing the body as a duly elected and constituted legislative assembly. It will be perceived that if any constitutional defect attached to the legislative acts of the assembly it is not pretended to consist in irregu- larity of election or want of qualification of the members, but only in the change of its place of session. However trivial this objection may seem to be, it requires to be considered, because upon it is founded all that superstructure of acts, plainly against law, which now threaten the peace, not only of the Territory of Kansas, but of the Union. Such an objection to the proceedings of the legislative assembly was of exceptionable origin, for the reason that by the express terms of the organic law the seat of government of the Territory was ‘‘located tem- porarily at Fort Leavenworth;’’ and yet the governor himself remained there less than two months, and of his own discretion transferred the seat of government to the Shawnee Mission, where it in fact was at the time the assembly were called to meet at Pawnee City. If the governor had any such right to change temporarily the seat of government, still more had the legislative assembly. ‘The objections are of exceptionable origin for the further reason that the place indicated by the governor, without having any exclusive claim of preference in itself, was a pro- posed town site only, which he and others were attempting to locate un- lawfully upon land within a military reservation, and for participation in which illegal act the commandant of the post, a superior officer in the Army, has been dismissed by sentence of court-martial. Nor is it easy to see why the legislative assembly might not with propriety pass the Ter- ritorial act transferring its sittings to the Shawnee Mission. If it could not, that must be on account of some prohibitory or incompatible provi- sion of act of Congress; but no such provision exists, The organic act, as already quoted, says “‘the seat of government is hereby located tem- porarily at Fort Leavenworth;” and it then provides that certain of the
2905 Messages and Papers of the Presidents because to permit them would be a departure from good faith toward those American Republics in amity with us, which are entitled to, and will never cease to enjoy, in their calamities the cordial sympathy, and in their prosperity the efficient good will, of the Government and of the peo- ple of the United States. To say that our Iaws in this respect are sometimes violated or success- fully evaded is only to say what is true of all laws in all countries, but not more so in the United States than in any one whatever of the coun- tries of Europe. Suffice it to repeat that the laws of the United States prohibiting all foreign military enlistments or expeditions within our ter- ritory have been executed with impartial good faith, and, so far as the nature o: things permits, as well in repression of private persons as of the official agents of other Governments, both of Europe and America. Among the Central American Republics to which modern events have imparted most prominence is that of Nicaragua, by reason of its par- ticular position on the Isthmus. Citizens of the United States have established in its territory a regular interoceanic transit route, second only in utility and value to the one previously established in the territory of New Granada. ‘The condition of Nicaragua would, it is believed, have been much more prosperous than it has been but for the occupation of its only Atlantic port by a foreign power, and of the disturbing author- ity set up and sustained by the same power in a portion of its territory, by means of which its domestic sovereignty was impaired, its public lands were withheld from settlement, and it was deprived of all the maritime revenue which it would otherwise collect on imported merchandise at San Juan del Norte. In these circumstances of the political debility of the Republic of Nica- ragua, and when its inhabitants were exhausted by long-continued civil war between parties neither of them strong enough to overcome the other or permanently maintain internal tranquillity, one of the contending fac- tions of the Republic invited the assistance and cooperation of a small body of citizens of the United States from the State of California, whose presence, as it appears, put an end at once to civil war and restored appar- ent order throughout the territory of Nicaragua, with a new administra- tion, having at its head a distinguished individual, by birth a citizen of the Republic, D. Patricio Rivas, as its provisional President. It is the established policy of the United States to recognize all goy- ernments without question of their source or their organization, or of the means by which the governing persons attain their power, provided there be a government de facto accepted by the people of the country, and with reserve only of the time as to the recognition of revolutionary govern- ments arising out of the subdivision of parent states with which we are in relations of amity. We do not go behind the fact of a foreign govern- ment exercising actual power to investigate questions of legitimacy; we do not inquire into the causes which may have led to a change of govern-
2907 Messages and Papers of the Presidents of their Government. Inthe second place, the interoceanic communica- tion by the way of Nicaragua is effectually interrupted, and the persons and property of unoffending private citizens of the United States in that country require the attention of their Government. Neither of these objects can receive due consideration without resumption of diplomatic intercourse with the Government of Nicaragua. Further than this, the documents communicated show that while the interoceanic transit by the way of Nicaragua is cut off, disturbances at Panama have occurred to obstruct, temporarily at least, that by the way of New Granada, involving the sacrifice of the lives and property of citi- zens of the United States. A special commissioner has been dispatched to Panama to investigate the facts of this occurrence with a view par- ticularly to the redress of parties aggrieved. But measures of another class will be demanded for the future security of interoceanic communi- cation by this as by the other routes of the Isthmus. It would be difficult to suggest a single object of interest, external or internal, more important to the United States than the maintenance of the communication, by land and sea, between the Atlantic and Pacific States and Territories of the Union It is a material element of the national integrity and sovereignty. I have adopted such precautionary measures and have taken such action for the purpose of affording security to the several transit routes of Central America and to the persons and property of citizens of the United States connected with or using the same as are within my con- stitutional power and as existing circumstances have seemed to demand. Should these measures prove inadequate to the object, that fact will be communicated to Congress with such recommendations as the exigency of the case may indicate. FRANKLIN PIERCE. EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Washington, May 16, 1856, To the Senate and House of Representatives: I communicate to Congress a report from the Secretary of the Interior, containing estimates of appropriations required in the fulfillment of treaty stipulations with certain Indian tribes, and recommend that the appro- priations asked for be made in the manner therein suggested. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, May 79, 1856. To the House of Representatives: In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th ultimo, requesting the President ‘‘ to communicate what information he may possess in regard to citizens of the United States being engaged in the slave trade, or in the transportation in American ships of coolies
2909 Messages and Papers of the Presidents communicated touching the construction and purport of the convention between the United States and Great Britain of the roth of April, 1850, T transmit a copy of an instruction of the 24th instant from the Secretary of State to the minister of the United States at London. ‘ FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, June 7, 1856. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I herewith communicate a letter of the 26th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, and accompanying papers, relative to the conflict of juris- diction between the Federal and Cherokee courts and the inadequacy of protection against the intrusion of improper persons into the Cherokee country, and recommend the subject to the consideration of Congress. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, June 3, 1856. To the House of Representatives: I transmit a report* from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolu- tion of the House of Representatives of the 29th ultimo. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, June 4, 1856. To the House of Representatives: In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 8th of last month, requesting information in regard to a contemplated impo- sition of additional duties on American leaf tobacco by the Zollverein or Commercial Union of the German States, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred. FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, June 13, 1856, To the House of Representatives: In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 18th of February last, requesting me to communicate to the House ‘the report of Captain E. B. Boutwell, and all the documents accompany- ing it, relative to the operations of the United States sloop of war John Adams, under his command, at the Fejee Islands in the year 1855,’’ I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of the Navy. FRANKLIN PIERCE. * Stating that no information relative to the action of the leading powers of Europe on the subject of privateering has been officially communicated by any foreign government.
2013 Messages and Papers of the Presidents Also a treaty made and concluded at Hahd Skus, or Point no Point, on the 26th day of January, 1855, by and between the same commis- sioner on the part of the United States and the chiefs, headmen, and delegates of the different villages of the S’Klallams Indians in said Ter- ritory. Also a treaty made and concluded at Neah Bay on the 31st day of Jan- uary, 1855, by and between the same commissioner on the part of the United States and the chiefs, headmen, and delegates of the same vil- lages of the Makah tribe of Indians in the said Territory. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, /uly 29, 1856. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty made and concluded by and between Isaac I. Stevens, governor and superintendent of Indian affairs of the Territory of Washington, on the part of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and delegates of the different tribes and bands of the Qui-nai-elt and Quil-leh-ute In- dians in Washington Territory, Said treaty was made on the rst of July, 1855, and 25th January, 1856. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, July 29, 1856. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty made and concluded at the treaty ground at Hell Gate, in the Bitter Root Valley, on the 16th day of July, 1855, by and between Isaac I, Stevens, governor and superintendent of Indian affairs for the Terri- tory of Washington, on the part of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and delegates of the confederate tribes of the Flathead, Koo- tenay, and Upper Pend d’Oreilles Indians, who by the treaty are consti- tuted a nation, under the name of the Flat Head Nation. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Wasuincton, July 29, 1856. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty made and concluded at Wasco, near the Dalles of the Columbia River, in Oregon Territory, by and between Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs, on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the confederated tribes and bands of Walla-Wallas and Was- coes Indians residing in middle Oregon, Said treaty was made on the 25th of June, 1855. FRANKLIN PIERCE.
2915 Messages and Papers of the Presidents the ratifications of that instrument should be effected within twenty-four months of its date; that is, on or before the 4th March, 1855. From circumstances, however, over which the Government of the United States had no control, but which are not supposed to indicate any indis- position on the part of the Paraguayan Government to consummate the final formalities necessary to give fuli force and validity to the treaty, the exchange of ratifications has not yet been effected. A similar condition exists in regard to the treaty between the United States and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay of the 28th August, 1852. The Senate, by a resolution of 13th June, 1854, extended the time within which the ratifications of that treaty might be exchanged to thirty months from its date. ‘That limit, however, has expired, and the exchange has not been effected. I deem it expedient to direct a renewal of negotiations with the Gov- ernments referred to, with a view to secure the exchange of the ratifica- tions of these important conventions. But as the limit prescribed by the Senate in both cases has passed by, it is necessary that authority be con- ferred on the Executive for that purpose. I consequently recommend that the Senate sanction an exchange of the ratifications of the treaties above mentioned at any time which may be deemed expedient by the President within three years from the date of , ee eee Sea ae FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, August 7, 1856, To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: Icommunicate to Congress herewith the report of Major W. H. Emory, United States commissioner, on the survey of the boundary between the United States and the Republic of Mexico, referred to in the accom- panying letter of this date from the Secretary of the Interior. FRANKLIN PIERCE. EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Washington, August ¢, 1856. To the House of Representatives of the United States: I herewith lay before the House of Representatives a report of the Secretary of War, in reply to a resolution of the House requesting ‘‘in- formation in regard to the construction of the Capitol and Post-Office extensions,” FRANKLIN PIERCE. EXECUTIVE Orrick, August ¢, 1856. To the Senate of the United States: I communicate herewith a report of the Secretary of War, in response to a resolution of the Senate calling for information in relation to instrue-
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 1917 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.
2943 Messages and Papers of the Presidents The aggregate sales of the public lands during the last fiscal year amount to 9,227,878 acres, for which has been received the sum of $8,821,414. During the same period there have been located with mili- tary scrip and land warrants and for other purposes 30,100,230 acres, thus making a total aggregate of 39,328,108 acres. On the joth of Sep- tember last surveys had been made of 16,873,699 acres, a large proportion of which is ready for market. . The suggestions in this report in regard to the complication and pro- gressive expansion of the business of the different bureaus of the Depart- ment, to the pension system, to the colonization of Indian tribes, and the recommendations in relation to various improvements in the District of Columbia are especially commended to your consideration. The report of the Postmaster-General presents fully the condition of that Department of the Government. Its expenditures for the last fiscal year were $10,407,868 and its gross receipts $7,620,801, making an ex- cess of expenditure over receipts of $2,787,046. The deficiency of this Department is thus $744,000 greater than for the year ending June 30, 1853. Of this deficiency $330,000 is to be attributed to the additional compensation allowed to postmasters by the act of Congress of June 22, 1854. The mail facilities in every part of the country have been very much increased in that period, and the large addition of railroad service, amounting to 7,908 miles, has added largely to the cost of transportation. The inconsiderable augmentation of the income of the Post-Office De- partment under the reduced rates of postage and its increasing expendi- tures must for the present make it dependent to some extent upon the Treasury for support. The recommendations of the Postmaster-General in relation to the abolition of the franking privilege and his views on the establishment of mail steamship lines deserve the consideration of Con- gress. I also call the special attention of Congress to the statement of the Postmaster-General respecting the sums now paid for the tramsporta- tion of mails to the Panama Railroad Company, and commend to their early and favorable consideration the suggestions of that officer in rela- tion to new contracts for mail transportation upon that route, and also upon the Tehuantepec and Nicaragua routes. The United States continue in the enjoyment of amicable relations with all foreign powers. When my last annual message was transmitted to Congress two sub- jects of controversy, one relating to the enlistment of soldiers in this country for foreign service and the other to Central America, threatened to disturb the good understanding between the United States and Great Britain. Of the progress and termination of the former question you were informed at the time, and the other is now in the way of satisfac- tory adjustment. The object of the convention between the United States and Great Britain of the 19th of April, 1850, was to secure for the benefit of all
2045 Messages and Papers of the Presidents European powers interested in the subject, and the manner in which her proposition was received warranting her to believe that a satisfactory arrangement with them could soon be concltded, sh+ made a strong appeal to this Government for temporary suspension of definite action on its part, in consideration of the embarrassment which might result to her European negotiations by an immediate adjustment of the question with the United States. This request has been acceded to upon the condition that the sums collected after the 16th of June last and until the 16th of June next from vessels and cargoes belonging to our merchants are to be considered as paid under protest and subject to future adjustment. There is reason to believe that an arrangement between Denmark and the maritime powers of Europe on the subject will be soon concluded, and that the pending negotiation with the United States may then be resumed and terminated in a satisfactory manner. With Spain no new difficulties have arisen, nor has much progress been made in the adjustment of pending ones. Negotiations entered into for the purpose of relieving our commercial intercourse with the island of Cuba of some of its burdens and providing for the more speedy settlement of local disputes growing out of that intercourse have not yet been attended with any results. Soon after the commencement of the late war in Europe this Govern- ment submitted to the consideration of all maritime nations two princi- ples for the security of neutral commerce—one that the neutral flag should cover enemies’ goods, except articles contraband of war, and the other that neutral property on board merchant vessels of belligerents should be exempt from condemnation, with the exception of contraband articles. These were not presented as new rules of international law, having been generally claimed by neutrals, though not always admitted by belligerents. One of the parties to the war (Russia), as well as sev- eral neutral powers, promptly acceded to these propositions, and the two other principal belligerents (Great Britain and France) having consented to observe them for the present occasion, a favorable opportunity seemed to be presented for obtaining a general recognition of them, both in Europe and America. But Great Britain and France, in common with most of the States of Europe, while forbearing to reject, did not affirmatively act upon the overtures of the United States. While the question was in this position the representatives of Russia, France, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, and Turkey, assembled at Paris, took into consideration the subject of maritime rights, and put forth a declaration containing the two principles which this Government had submitted nearly two years before to the consideration of maritime powers, and adding thereto the following propositions: ‘‘ Privateering is and remains abolished,’’ and “‘Blockades in order to be binding must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent
2949 Messages and Papers of the Presidents Granada. On the 15th day of April last a riotous assemblage of the inhabitants of Panama committed a violent and outrageous attack on the premises of the railroad company and the passengers and other per- sons in or near the same, involving the death of several citizens of the United States, the pillage of many others, and the destruction of a large amount of property belonging to the railroad company. I caused full investigation of that event to be made, and the result shows satisfac- torily that complete responsibility for what occurred attaches to the Government of New Granada, I have therefore demanded of that Gov- ernment that the perpetrators of the wrongs in question should be pun- ished; that provision should be made for the families of citizens of the United States who were killed, with full indemnity for the property pil- laged or destroyed. The present condition of the Isthmus of Panama, in so far as regards the security of persons and property passing over it, requires serious con- sideration. Recent incidents tend to show that the local authorities can not be relied on to maintain the public peace of Panama, and there is just ground for apprehension that a portion of the inhabitants are medi- tating further outrages, without adequate measures for the security and protection of persons or property having been taken, either by the State of Panama or by the General Government of New Granada. Under the guaranties of treaty, citizens of the United States have, by the outlay of several million dollars, constructed a railroad across the Isthmus, and it has become the main route between our Atlantic and Pacific possessions, over which multitudes of our citizens and a vast amount of property are constantly passing; to the security and protec- tion of all which and the continuance of the public advantages involved it is impossible for the Government of the United States to be indifferent. I have deemed the danger of the recurrence of scenes of lawless vio- lence in this quarter so imminent as to make it my duty to station a part of our naval force in the harbors of Panama and Aspinwall, in order to protect the persons and property of the citizens of the United States in those ports and to insure to them safe passage across the Isthmus, And it would, in my judgment, be unwise to withdraw the naval force now in those ports until, by the spontaneous action of the Republic of New Granada or otherwise, some adequate arrangement shall have been made for the protection and security of a line of interoceanic communication, so important at this time not to the United States only, but to all other maritime states, both of Europe and America. Meanwhile negotiations have been instituted, by means of a special commission, to obtain from New Granada full indemnity for injuries sustained by our citizens on the Isthmus and satisfactory security for the general interests of the United States. In addressing to you my last annual message the occasion seems to me an appropriate one to express my congratulations, in view of the peace,
2950 Messages and Papers of the Presidents PROCLAMATION. By THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas objects of interest to the United States require that the Senate should be convened at 12 o’clock on the 4th of March next to receive and act upon such communications as may be made to it on the part of the Executive: Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, have considered it to be my duty to issue this my proclamation, declaring that an extraordinary occasion requires the Senate of the United States to convene for the transaction of business at the Capitol, in the city of Washington, on the 4th day of March next, at 12 o’clock at noon of that day, of which all who shall at that time be entitled to act as members © of that body are hereby required to take notice. Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washing- ton, this 16th day of February, A. D. 1857, and of the Inde- pendence of the United States the eighty-first. FRANKLIN PIERCE. (sHAL.] By the President: W.L. Marcy, Secretary of State,
2959-4 QUESTIONS. May a person enlist in this country for service in foreign wars, or leave here for such service? Page 2865. How did England and France treat neutral shipping in 1793? Page 2844. When was the first treaty with Japan sent to the Senate? Pages 2776, 2812. What nations collectively agreed to abolish privateering? Page 2945. What population did Pierce predict the generation of his day might see? Page 2757. When did the British Government enlist men in this country for service in foreign wars? Page 2865. Did the British Government ever agree not to assume any sovereignty in Central America? Page 2884.
SUGGESTIONS. During Pierce’s administration the Gadsden Purchase, q. v., Encyclopedic Index, was made. This was an important step in American expansion. Pages 2762, 2763. Read about Illegal Combinations in Kansas, a preliminary step in slavery troubles. Page 2923. And in this connection see Kansas-Nebraska Act, Encyclopedic Index. The first Japanese Treaty, referred to on pages 2776 and 2812, is regarded by publicists as marking an important epoch in world civilization. (See Japan, Treaty with, Encyclopedic Index.) Read Pierce’s Foreign Policy. Pages 2731, 2745, 2807, 2864, 2904. NOTE. For further suggestions on Pierce’s administration, see Pierce, Franklin, 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 future of the nation.” 2959-B
James Buchanan March 4, 1887, to March 4, 1861 SEE ENCYCLOPEDIC INDEX. The Encyclopedic Index is not only an index to the other volumes, not only 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 tates. 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 cited 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 1s to ound.
NOME AT WHEATLAND, PENNSYLVANIA, OF JAMES BUCHANAN With reproduction of official portrait, by Andrews, from the White House Collection
BUCHANAN Mr. Buchanan came to the Presidency through gradual promotion; first the Pennsylvania legislature, then Congress, next minister to Russia, then the United States Senate for three terms, next Secretary of State, then minister to England from which he returned to assume the reins of government. His personal appearance was striking. He was a little over six feet in height, broad shouldered and admirably proportioned ; dignified without austerity, gracious to all and especially courteous to women. His complexion was fair, his forehead massive; he wore no beard, while his abundant silky white hair, scrupulous neatness in dress, with the old-fashioned standing collar and large white cravat, stamped him as a gentleman of the old school. His eyes were blue, one near- and one far-sighted, because of which defect he habitually inclined his head to one side to favor the better eye. He was essentially a courtly and handsome man, and reached more nearly my ideal of how a Presi- dent should look than any President I have seen. His moral character and personal virtue were above reproach and, so far as I know, were never assailed. He was of an eminently religious turn and was always a regular attendant at the Presbyterian church in Washington, although it was not until late in life that he formally connected himself with any church. It is related by Reverend William M. Paxton, D. D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New York city, how this came about. While both were at Bedford Springs, Pa., in 1860, Mr. Buchanan sent for Dr. Paxton and conversed with him freely on the subject of religion, and then and there declared his intention to make a public profession upon his retirement from the Presidential chair. When urged to take the step at once, his reply was, with deep feeling: “I must delay for the honor of religion. If I were to join the church now, they would say hypocrite from Maine to Georgia.” He carried out his purpose immediately upon his retirement and return to his home in Lancaster, Pa. Of his scrupulous integrity and exactness in public affairs, I recall this incident. During his Administration the revenue cutter “Harriet Lane,” named in honor of his niece, an uncrowned queen, was sent to Washington. Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, seized the opportunity to invite all the public officials and many prominent citizens in Washington to an excursion on this recent and handsomest addition to the revenue marine. The trip down the Potomac proved a brilliant success. After it was over, Mr. Buchanan, who did not go, desired to know who was to foot the bill. The Secretary was somewhat embar- rassed when informed that it must not be paid from the Treasury, but that he, the President, would, if necessary, draw his own check for the 2959-C
amount. Mr. Cobb managed the matter without taking it from the public funds. It would be interesting if Congress would now institute an inquiry how frequently this precedent has since been ignored, and how many millions have been squandered in official junketing. Space is not given me to speak of Mr. Buchanan’s attitude after the acts of secession were committed. It is necessary only to say that a purer or more loyal patriot did not exist, but he had an antagonistic and partly disloyal Congress which absolutely refused to heed his messages of December, 1860, and January, 1861, and provide him the men and means to stamp out the rising and most formidable insurrection. It alone had the constitutional right to do so. The President was at all times ready to execute the laws, but Congress neglected to exercise its constitutional prerogative. The little regular army was scattered along our exposed frontier. It was with much difficulty that the President could get a regular battery to Washington in time for the inauguration. The Capital was filled with secessionists, organized and ready to over- throw the Government. The district militia hastily formed was a mob. The North was greatly divided and New York city peculiarly so, with scarcely a prominent newspaper that was not opposed to a civil conflict. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, as did Mr. Lincoln for six weeks after his inauguration, bent all his energies to a peaceful solution of the diffi- culties. He, as very few did, appreciated the extent and horror of an internecine struggle, and the last words he said to my father as he bade him farewell at the depot, was the expression of his great relief that his Administration had closed without bloodshed. The gun at Sumter which consolidated the North and West made it easy for Mr. Lincoln to meet force with force. Says James Buchanan Henry, his faithful ward and private secretary: ‘Mr. Buchanan, to the day of his death, expressed to me his abiding conviction that the American people would, in due time, come to regard his course as the only one which at that time promised any hope of saving the Nation from a bloody and devastating war, and would recognize the integrity and wisdom of his course in administering the Government for the good of the whole peo- ple, whether North or South. His conviction on this point was so genuine that he looked forward serenely to the future, and never seemed to entertain a misgiving or a doubt.” And they will. 2959-D
Harrirt LANe was left an orphan at nine years of age, and was brought up by her uncle, James 3uchanan, who took great pains with her educa- tion. When he became Minister to England in 1852, she accompanied him and was a marked favorite in court and diplomatic circles. She was a handsome blonde of twenty, dignified, grace- ful, clever, and an engaging talker. On her uncle’s return to America and his subsequent clection, she became mistress of the White [Touse and was renowned for her charm, good taste and diplomacy. She entertained the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, while in America in 1860, and in recognition of this was an especially invited guest at his Coronation Ceremony. After her uncle passed away, her great sorrows were the deaths of her husband, Henry Elliot John- ston, and her two young sons. Shortly after her return to America she developed symptoms of a scrious illness, to which she succumbed in July, 1903.
THE INAUGURATION OF JAMES BUCHANAN The drawing shows Buchanan reading his inaugural message, while at the left stands General Winfield Scott, and at his right stands Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the United States, and Franklin Pierce, the retiring President. For a sketch of Buchanan’s Administration, see the article entitled “Bu- chanan, James,” in the Encyclopedic Index. A similar analysis of each Administration appears in the alphaketical place of the name of the President.
2983 Messages and Papers of the Presidents The convention to frame a constitution for Kansas met on the first Monday of September last. They were called together by virtue of an act of the Territorial legislature, whose lawful existence had been recog- nized by Congress in different forms and by different enactments. A large proportion of the citizens of Kansas did not think proper to register their names and to vote at the election for delegates; but an opportunity to do this having been fairly afforded, their refusal to avail themselves of their right could in no manner affect the legality of the convention. This convention proceeded to frame a constitution for Kansas, and finally adjourned on the 7th day of November. But little difficulty occurred in the convention except on the subject of slavery, The truth is that the general provisions of our recent State constitutions are so similar and, I may add, so excellent that the difference between them is not essential. Under the earlier practice of the Government no con- stitution framed by the convention of a Territory preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State had been submitted to the people. I trust, however, the example set by the last Congress, requiring that the constitution of Minnesota '‘should be subject to the approval and ratification of the people of the proposed State,’’ may be followed on future occasions. I took it for granted that the convention of Kansas would act in accordance with this example, founded, as it is, on correct principles, and hence my instructions to Governor Walker in favor of submitting the constitution to the people were expressed in general and unqualified terms. In the Kansas-Nebraska act, however, this requirement, as applicable to the whole constitution, had not been inserted, and the convention were not bound by its terms to submit any other portion of the instru- ment to an election except that which relates to the ‘‘domestic institu- tion’’ of slavery. This will be rendered clear by a simple reference to _its language. It was ‘‘not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way.’’ According to the plain construction of the sentence, the words ‘domestic institutions’’ have a direct, as they have an appropriate, ref- erence to slavery. ‘‘ Domestic institutions’’ are limited to the family The relation between master and slave and a few others are ‘‘ domestic institutions,’’ and are entirely distinct from institutions of a political character. Besides, there was no question then before Congress, nor, indeed, has there since been any serious question before the people of Kansas or the country, except that which relates to the ‘* domestic insti- tution’’ of slavery. The convention, after an angry and excited debate, finally determined, by a majority of only two, to submit the question of slavery to the people, though at the last forty-three of the fifty delegates present affixed their signatures to the constitution.
2987 Messages and Papers of the Presidents A great part of all this may be idle boasting, but yet no wise gov- ernment will lightly estimate the efforts which may be inspired by such frenzied fanaticism as exists among the Mormons in Utah. This is the first rebellion which has existed in our Territories, and humanity itself requires that we should put it down in such a manner that it shall be the last. To trifle with it would be to encourage it and to render it formidable. We ought to go there with such an imposing force as to convince these deluded people that resistance would be vain, and thus © spare the effusion of blood. We can in this manner best convince them that we are their friends, not their enemies. In order to accomplish this object it will be necessary, according to the estimate of the War Department, to raise four additional regiments; and this I earnestly recommend to Congress. At the present moment of depression in the revenues of the country I am sorry to be obliged to recommend such a measure; but I feel confident of the support of Congress, cost what it may, in suppressing the insurrection and in restoring and maintaining the sovereignty of the Constitution and laws over the Territory of Utah. I recommend to Congress the establishment of a Territorial govern- ment over Arizona, incorporating with it such portions of New Mexico as they may deem expedient. I need scarcely adduce arguments in support of this recommendation. We are bound to protect the lives and the property of our citizens inhabiting Arizona, and these are now with- out any efficient protection. Their present number is already consider- able, and is rapidly increasing, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they labor, Besides, the proposed Territory is believed to be rich in mineral and agricultural resources, especially in silver and copper. The mails of the United States to California are now carried over it throughout its whole extent, and this route is known to be the nearest and believed to be the best to the Pacific. Long experience has deeply convinced me that a st-ict construction of the powers granted to Congress is the only true, as well as the only safe, theory of the Constitution, Whilst this principle shall guide my public conduct, I consider it clear that under the war-making power Congress may appropriate money for the construction of a military road through the Territories of the United States when this is absolutely necessary for the defense of any of the States against foreign invasion. ‘The Constitu- tion has conferred upon Congress power ‘‘to declare war,"’ ‘‘to raise and support armies,’’ ‘‘to provide and maintain a navy,’’ and to call forth the militia to ‘‘repel invasions.’’ These high sovereign powers necessarily involve important and responsible public duties, and among them there is none so sacred and so imperative as that of preserving our soil from the invasion of a foreign enemy. ‘The Constitution has therefore left nothing on this point to construction, but expressly requires that ‘‘the United States shall protect each of them [the States] against invasion.” Now if a military road over our own Territories be indispensably nec-
COTTON. The first attempt to cultivate cotton in the United States took place in Virginia in 1621. Cotton was introduced into South Carolina in 1733, into Georgia in 1741, into Louisiana in 1741. It was not until 1770, however, that cotton was grown as ia staple crop. The greatest cotton-growing sec- tion in the world, both in extent and in production, is the southern and southeastern section of the United States. Next to corn, cotton is the most valuable crop raised in the United States, and represents the largest single item of export. The United States contributes more than 60 per cent of the cotton production of the world. (See article Cotton in Encyclopedic Index.)
301r Messages and Papers of the Presidents idea of affording the disaffected in Kansas a third opportunity of pro- hibiting slavery in the State, which they might have done twice before if in the majority, no man can foretell the consequences. If Congress, for the sake of those men who refused to vote for delegates to the convention when they might have excluded slavery from the con- stitution, and who afterwards refused to vote on the 21st December last, when they might, as they claim, have stricken slavery from the consti- tution, should now reject the State because slavery remains in the con- stitution, it is manifest that the agitation upon this dangerous subject will be renewed in a more alarming form than it has ever yet assumed. Every patriot in the country had indulged the hope that the Kansas and Nebraska act would put a fiual end te the slavery agitation, at least in Congress, which had for more than twenty years convulsed the coun- try and endangered the Union. This act involved great and fundamental principles, and if fairly carried into effect will settle the question. Shouki the agitation be again revived, should the people of the sister States be again estranged from each other with more than their former bitter- ness, this will arise from a cause, so far as the interests of Kansas are concerned, more trifling and insignificant than has ever stirred the ele- ments of a great people into commotion. To the people of Kansas the only practical difference between admission or rejection depends simply upon the fact whether they can themselves more speedily change the present constitution if it does not accord with the will of the majority, or frame a second constitution to be submitted to Congress hereafter. Even if this were a question of mere expediency, and not of right, the small difference of time one way or the other is of not the least importance when contrasted with the evils which must necessarily result to the whole coun- try from a revival of the slavery agitation. In considering this question it should never be forgotten that in pro- portion to its insignificance, let the decision be what it may so far as it may affect the few thousand inhabitants of Kansas who have from the beginning resisted the constitution and the laws, for this very reason the rejection of the constitution will be so much the more keenly felt by the people of fourteen of the States of this Union, where slavery is recognized under the Constitution of the United States. Again, the speedy admission of Kansas into the Union would restore peace and quiet to the whole country. Already the affairs of this Ter- ritory have engrossed an undue proportion of public attention. ‘They have sadly affected the friendly relations of the people of the States with each other and alarmed the fears of patriots for the safety of the Union. Kansas once admitted into the Union, the excitement becomes localized and will soon die away for want of outside aliment. Then every diffi- culty will be settled at the ballot box. Besides—and this is no trifling consideration—I shall then be enabled to withdraw the troops of the United States from Kansas and employ
3015 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WASHINGTON, 4. 20, 1858. To the Senate of the United States: wig I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,* in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant. JAMES BUCHANAN. WASHINGTON, April 27, 1858. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith transmit the reports of the Secretary of State and the Sec- retary of the Navy, with accompanying papers,} in answer to the resolu- tion of the Senate of the 19th of January last. JAMES BUCHANAN. WASHINGTON, April 28, 1858. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to the reso- lution of the Senate of the 24th ultimo, requesting information relative to the seizure in the Valley of Sitana, in Peru, by authorities of Chile of a sum of money belonging to citizens of the United States. JAMES BUCHANAN. WASHINGTON, May 1, 1858. To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of th® 24th ultimo, I herewith transmit a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents. t JAMES BUCHANAN, To the Senate of the United States: Wasuincton, May, 1858. 1 transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty negotiated with the Ponca tribe of Indians on the 12th of March, 1858, with the accompanying documents from the Department of the Interior. JAMES BUCHANAN, To the House of Representatives: Wasuincton, May 3, 1858. In compliance with the resolutions of the House of Representatives of the 19th January, 1857, and 3d February, 1858, I herewith transmit the report of the Secretary of the Interior, with accompanying documents.§ JAMES BUCHANAN. * Instructions to William B. Reed, United States commissioner to China. +Relating to the African slave trade and to movements of the French Government to establish a -olony in the possessions of that Government from the coast of Africa. ? Relating to outrages committed against the family of Walter Dickson, an American citizen residing at Jaffa, Palestine, § Relating to Indian affairs in Oregon and Washington Territories and to the official conduct of Anson Dart, superintendent of Indian affairs ih Oregon Territory.
3019 Messages and Papers of the Presidents WaAsHINGTON City, June rr, 1858. To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with the accompanying papers,* in obedience to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2d of June, 1858. JAMES BUCHANAN. WASHINGTON City, June 12, 1858. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I feel it to be an indispensable duty to call your attention to the con- dition of the Treasury. On the 19th day of May last the Secretary of the Treasury submitted a report to Congress ‘‘on the present condition of the finances of the Government.’’ In this report he states that after acall upon the heads of Departments he had received official informa: tion that the sum of $37,000,000 would probably be required during the first two quarters of the next fiscal year, from the 1st of July until the 1st of January. “This sum,’’ the Secretary says, ‘‘does not include such amounts as may be appropriated by Congress over and above the esti- mates submitted to them by the Departments, and I have no data on which to estimate for such expenditures. Upon this point Congress is better able to form a correct opinion than I am.”’ The Secretary then estimates that the receipts into the Treasury from all sources between the 1st of July and the 1st of January would amount to $25,000,000, leaving a deficit of $15,000,000, inclusive of the sum of about $3,000,000, the least amount required to be in the Treasury at all times to secure its successful operation. For this amount he recom- mends a loan. ‘This loan, it will be observed, was required, after a close calculation, to meet the estimates from the different Departments, and not such appropriations as might be made by Congress over and above these estimates. There was embraced in this sum of $15,000,000 estimates to the amount of about $1,750,000 for the three volunteer regiments authorized by the act of Congress approved April 7, 1858, for two of which, if not for the third, no appropriation will now be required. To this extent a por- tion of the loan of $15,000,000 may be applied to pay the appropriations made by Congress beyond the estimates from the different Departments, referred to in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. To what extent a probable deficiency may exist in the Treasury be- tween the rst July and the 1st January next can not be ascertained until the appropriation bills, as well as the private bills containing appropria- tions, shall have finally passed. Adversity teaches useful lessons to nations as well as individuals, The habit of extravagant expenditures, fostered by a large surplus in * Copies of contracts for deepening the channels of the Southwest Pass and Pass A l’Outre, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, etc,
3023 Messages and Papers of the Presidents the duties on Prussian vessels and their cargoes,’’ it is provided that upon satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States by the governnient of any foreign nation that no discrimiuating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the said nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States, or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country, the President is thereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the said foreign nation and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the said foreign nation or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the Presi- dent of the United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer; and Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received from the Goy- ernment of His Holiness the Pope, through an official communication addressed by Cardinal Antonelli, his secretary of state, to the minister resident of the United States at Rome, under date of the 7th day of December, 1857, that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the Pontifical States upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States, or upon the produce, manu- factures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country: Now, therefore, I, James Buchanan, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the subjects of His Holiness the Pope and the produce, manufactures, or merchan- dise imported into the United States in the same from the Pontifical States or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the 7th day of December, 1857, above mentioned, and to con- tinue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer. Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 25th day of [seat] February, A. D. 1858, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-second. JAMES BUCHANAN. By the President: Lewis Cass, Secretary of State.
Shaake pcigreet attitaids decane pf Racial. und ucoenerved acitcliy inte United States and to all their loyal citizens. Their determination to oppose the authority of the Government by military force has not only been expressed in words, but manifested in overt acts of the most une- quivocal character. Fellow-citizens of Utah, this is rebellion against the Government to which you owe allegiance; it is levying war against the United States, and involves you in the guilt of treason. Persistence in it will bring you to condign punishment, to ruin, and to shame; for it is mere mad- ness to suppose that with your limited resources you can successfully resist the force of this great and powerful nation. If you have calculated upon the forbearance of the United States, if you have permitted yourselves to suppose that this Government will fail to put forth its strength and bring you to submission, you have fallen into a grave mistake. You have settled upon territory which lies, geo- graphically, in the heart of the Union. The land you live upon was purchased by the United States and paid for out of their Treasury; the proprietary right and title to it is in them, and not in you, Utah is bounded on every side by States and Territories whose people are true to the Union, It is absurd to believe that they will or can permit you to erect in their very midst a government of your own, not only independ- ent of the authority which they all acknowledge, but hostile to them and their interests. Do not deceive yourselves nor try to mislead others by propagating the idea that this is a crusade against your religion. The Constitution and laws of this country can take no notice of your creed, whether it be true or false, That is a question between your God and yourselves, in which I disclaim all right to interfere. If you obey the laws, keep the peace, and respect the just rights of others, you will be perfectly secure, and may live on in your present faith or change it for another at your pleasure. Every intelligent man among you knows very well that this Government has never, directly or indirectly, sought to molest you in your worship, to control you in your ecclesiastical affairs, or even to in- fluence you in your religious opinions. This rebellion is not merely a violation of your legal duty; it is with- out just cause, without reason, without excuse. You never made a complaint that was not listened to with patience; you never exhibited a real grievance that was not redressed as promptly as it could be. The laws and regulations enacted for your government by Congress have been equal and just, and their enforcement was manifestly necessary for your own welfare and happiness. You have never asked their repeal, They are similar in every material respect to the laws which have been passed for the other Territories of the Union, and which everywhere else (with one partial exception) have been cheerfully obeyed. No people