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Dates of addresses by Martin van Buren in this eBook: December 5, 1837 December 3, 1838 December 2, 1839 December 5, 1840

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State of the Union AddressMartin van BurenDecember 5, 1837

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

We have reason to renew the expression of our devout gratitude to the Giverof All Good for His benign protection. Our country presents on every sidethe evidences of that continued favor under whose auspices it, hasgradually risen from a few feeble and dependent colonies to a prosperousand powerful confederacy. We are blessed with domestic tranquillity and allthe elements of national prosperity. The pestilence which, invading for atime some flourishing portions of the Union, interrupted the generalprevalence of unusual health has happily been limited in extent andarrested in its fatal career. The industry and prudence of our citizens aregradually relieving them from the pecuniary embarrassments under whichportions of them have labored; judicious legislation and the natural andboundless resources of the country have afforded wise end timely aid toprivate enterprise, and the activity always characteristic of our peoplehas already in a great degree resumed its usual and profitable channels. 

The condition of our foreign relations has not materially changed since thelast annual message of my predecessor. We remain at peace with all nations, and no efforts on my part consistent with the preservation of our rightsand the honor of the country shall be spared to maintain a position soconsonant to our institutions. We have faithfully sustained the foreignpolicy with which the United States, under the guidance of their firstPresident, took their stand in the family of nations--that of regulatingtheir intercourse with other powers by the approved principles of privatelife; asking and according equal rights and equal privileges; rendering anddemanding justice in all cases; advancing their own and discussing thepretensions of others with candor, directness, and sincerity; appealing atall times to reason, but never yielding to force nor seeking to acquireanything for themselves by its exercise. 

A rigid adherence to this policy has left this Government with scarcely aclaim upon its justice for injuries arising from acts committed by itsauthority. The most imposing and perplexing of those of the United Statesupon foreign governments for aggressions upon our citizens were disposed ofby my predecessor. Independently of the benefits conferred upon ourcitizens by restoring to the mercantile community so many millions of whichthey had been wrongfully divested, a great service was also rendered to hiscountry by the satisfactory adjustment of so many ancient and irritatingsubjects of contention; and it reflects no ordinary credit on hissuccessful administration of public affairs that this great object wasaccomplished without compromising on any occasion either the honor or thepeace of the nation. 

With European powers no new subjects of difficulty have arisen, and thosewhich were under discussion, although not terminated, do not present a moreunfavorable aspect for the future preservation of that good understandingwhich it has ever been our desire to cultivate. 

Of pending questions the most important is that which exists with theGovernment of Great Britain in respect to our northeastern boundary. It iswith unfeigned regret that the people of the United States must look backupon the abortive efforts made by the Executive, for a period of more thanhalf a century, to determine what no nation should suffer long to remain indispute--the true line which divides its possessions from those of otherpowers. The nature of the settlements on the borders of the United Statesand of the neighboring territory was for a season such that this, perhaps, was not indispensable to a faithful performance of the duties of theFederal Government. Time has, however, changed this state of things, andhas brought about a condition of affairs in which the true interests ofboth countries imperatively require that this question should be put atrest. It is not to be disguised that, with full confidence, oftenexpressed, in the desire of the British Government to terminate it, we areapparently as far from its adjustment as we were at the time of signing thetreaty of peace in 1783. The sole result of long-pending negotiations and aperplexing arbitration appears to be a conviction on its part that aconventional line must be adopted, from the impossibility of ascertainingthe true one according to the description contained in that treaty. Withoutcoinciding in this opinion, which is not thought to be well rounded, mypredecessor gave the strongest proof of the earnest desire of the UnitedStates to terminate satisfactorily this dispute by proposing thesubstitution of a conventional line if the consent of the States interestedin the question could be obtained. To this proposition no answer has as yetbeen received. The attention of the British Government has, however, beenurgently invited to the subject, and its reply can not, I am confident, bemuch longer delayed. The general relations between Great Britain and theUnited States are of the most friendly character, and I am well satisfiedof the sincere disposition of that Government to maintain them upon theirpresent footing. This disposition has also, I am persuaded, become moregeneral with the people of England than at any previous period. It isscarcely necessary to say to you how cordially it is reciprocated by theGovernment and people of the United States. The conviction, which must becommon to all, of the injurious consequences that result from keeping openthis irritating question, and the certainty that its final settlement cannot be much longer deferred, will, I trust, lead to an early andsatisfactory adjustment. At your last session I laid before you the recentcommunications between the two Governments and between this Government andthat of the State of Maine, in whose solicitude concerning a subject inwhich she has so deep an interest every portion of the Union participates. 

The feelings produced by a temporary interruption of those harmoniousrelations between France and the United States which are due as well to therecollections of former times as to a correct appreciation of existinginterests have been happily succeeded by a cordial disposition on bothsides to cultivate an active friendship in their future intercourse. Theopinion, undoubtedly correct, and steadily entertained by us, that thecommercial relations at present existing between the two countries aresusceptible of great and reciprocally beneficial improvements is obviouslygaining ground in France, and I am assured of the disposition of thatGovernment to favor the accomplishment of such an object. This dispositionshall be met in a proper spirit on our part. The few and comparativelyunimportant questions that remain to be adjusted between us can, I have nodoubt, be settled with entire satisfaction and without difficulty. 

Between Russia and the United States sentiments of good will continue to bemutually cherished. Our minister recently accredited to that Court has beenreceived with a frankness and cordiality and with evidences of respect forhis country which leave us no room to doubt the preservation in future ofthose amicable and liberal relations which have so long and souninterruptedly existed between the two countries. On the few subjectsunder discussion between us an early and just decision is confidentlyanticipated. 

A correspondence has been opened with the Government of Austria for theestablishment of diplomatic relations, in conformity with the wishes ofCongress as indicated by an appropriation act of the session of 1837, andarrangements made for the purpose, which will be duly carried into effect. 

With Austria and Prussia and with the States of the German Empire (nowcomposing with the latter the Commercial League) our political relationsare of the most friendly character, whilst our commercial intercourse isgradually extending, with benefit to all who are engaged in it. 

Civil war yet rages in Spain, producing intense suffering to its ownpeople, and to other nations inconvenience and regret. Our citizens whohave claims upon that country will be prejudiced for a time by thecondition of its treasury, the inevitable consequence of long-continued andexhausting internal wars. The last installment of the interest of the debtdue under the convention with the Queen of Spain has not been paid andsimilar failures may be expected to happen until a portion of the resourcesof her Kingdom can be devoted to the extinguishment of its foreign debt. 

Having received satisfactory evidence that discriminating tonnage dutieswere charged upon the vessels of the United States in the ports ofPortugal, a proclamation was issued on the 11th day of October last, incompliance with the act of May 25, 1832, declaring that fact, and theduties on foreign tonnage which were levied upon Portuguese vessels in theUnited States previously to the passage of that act are accordinglyrevived. 

The act of July 4, 1836, suspending the discriminating duties upon theproduce of Portugal imported into this country in Portuguese vessels, waspassed, upon the application of that Government through its representativehere, under the belief that no similar discrimination existed in Portugalto the prejudice of the United States. I regret to state that such dutiesare now exacted in that country upon the cargoes of American vessels, andas the act referred to vests no discretion in the Executive, it is forCongress to determine upon the expediency of further legislation on thesubject. Against these discriminations affecting the vessels of thiscountry and their cargoes seasonable remonstrance was made, and notice wasgiven to the Portuguese Government that unless they should be discontinuedthe adoption of countervailing measures on the part of the United Stateswould become necessary; but the reply of that Government, received at theDepartment of State through our charge d'affaires at Lisbon in the month ofSeptember last, afforded no ground to hope for the abandonment of a systemso little in harmony with the treatment shown to the vessels of Portugaland their cargoes in the ports of this country and so contrary to theexpectations we had a right to entertain. 

With Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Naples, and Belgium a friendly intercoursehas been uninterruptedly maintained. 

With the Government of the Ottoman Porte and its dependencies on the coastof the Mediterranean peace and good will are carefully cultivated, and havebeen fostered by such good offices as the relative distance and thecondition of those countries would permit. 

Our commerce with Greece is carried on under the laws of the twoGovernments, reciprocally beneficial to the navigating interests of both;and I have reason to look forward to the adoption of other measures whichwill be more extensively and permanently advantageous. 

Copies of the treaties concluded with the Governments of Siam and Muscatare transmitted for the information of Congress, the ratifications havingbeen received and the treaties made public since the close of the lastannual session. Already have we reason to congratulate ourselves on theprospect of considerable commercial benefit; and we have, besides, receivedfrom the Sultan of Muscat prompt evidence of his desire to cultivate themost friendly feelings, by liberal acts toward one of our vessels, bestowedin a manner so striking as to require on our part a gratefulacknowledgment. 

Our commerce with the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico still labors underheavy restrictions, the continuance of which is a subject of regret. Theonly effect of an adherence to them will be to benefit the navigation ofother countries at the expense of both the United States and Spain. 

The independent nations of this continent have ever since they emerged fromthe colonial state experienced severe trials in their progress to thepermanent establishment of liberal political institutions. Their unsettledcondition not only interrupts their own advances to prosperity, but hasoften seriously injured the other powers of the world. The claims of ourcitizens upon Peru, Chili, Brazil, the Argentine Republic, the Governmentsformed out of the Republics of Colombia and Mexico, are still pending, although many of them have been presented for examination more than twentyyears. New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador have recently formed aconvention for the purpose of ascertaining and adjusting claims upon theRepublic of Colombia, from which it is earnestly hoped our citizens willere long receive full compensation for the injuries inflicted upon them andfor the delay in affording it. 

An advantageous treaty of commerce has been concluded by the United Stateswith the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, which wants only the ratification ofthat Government. The progress of a subsequent negotiation for thesettlement of claims upon Peru has been unfavorably affected by the warbetween that power and Chili and the Argentine Republic, and the same eventis also likely to produce delays in the settlement of out demands on thosepowers. 

The aggravating circumstances connected with our claims upon Mexico and avariety of events touching the honor and integrity of our Government led mypredecessor to make at the second session of the last Congress a specialrecommendation of the course to be pursued to obtain a speedy and finalsatisfaction of the injuries complained of by this Government and by ourcitizens. He recommended a final demand of redress, with a contingentauthority to the Executive to make reprisals if that demand should be madein vain. From the proceedings of Congress on that recommendation itappeared that the opinion of both branches of the Legislature coincidedwith that of the Executive, that any mode of redress known to the law ofnations might justifiably be used. It was obvious, too, that Congressbelieved with the President that another demand should be made, in order togive undeniable and satisfactory proof of our desire to avoid extremitieswith a neighboring power, but that there was an indisposition to vest adiscretionary authority in the Executive to take redress should itunfortunately be either denied or unreasonably delayed by the MexicanGovernment. 

So soon as the necessary documents were prepared, after entering upon theduties of my office, a special messenger was sent to Mexico to make a finaldemand of redress, with the documents required by the provisions of ourtreaty. The demand was made on the 20th of July last. The reply, whichbears date the 29th of the same month, contains assurances of a desire onthe part of that Government to give a prompt and explicit answer respectingeach of the complaints, but that the examination of them would necessarilybe deliberate; that in this examination it would be guided by theprinciples of public law and the obligation of treaties; that nothingshould be left undone that might lead to the most speedy and equitableadjustment of our demands, and that its determination in respect to eachcase should be communicated through the Mexican minister here. 

Since that time an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary hasbeen accredited to this Government by that of the Mexican Republic. Hebrought with him assurances of a sincere desire that the pendingdifferences between the two Governments should be terminated in a mannersatisfactory to both. He was received with reciprocal assurances, and ahope was entertained that his mission would lead to a speedy, satisfactory, and final adjustment of all existing subjects of complaint. A sincerebeliever in the wisdom of the pacific policy by which the United Stateshave always been governed in their intercourse with foreign nations, it wasmy particular desire, from the proximity of the Mexican Republic andwell-known occurrences on our frontier, to be instrumental in obviating allexisting difficulties with that Government and in restoring to theintercourse between the two Republics that liberal and friendly characterby which they should always be distinguished. I regret, therefore, the moredeeply to have found in the recent communications of that Government solittle reason to hope that any future efforts of mine for theaccomplishment of those desirable objects would be successful. 

Although the larger number--and many of them aggravated cases of personalwrongs--have been now for years before the Mexican Government, and some ofthe causes of national complaint, and those of the most offensivecharacter, admitted of immediate, simple, and satisfactory replies, it isonly within a few days past that any specific communication in answer toour last demand, made five months ago, has been received from the Mexicanminister. By the report of the Secretary of State herewith presented andthe accompanying documents it will be seen that for not one of our publiccomplaints has satisfaction been given or offered, that but one of thecases of personal wrong has been favorably considered, and that but fourcases of both descriptions out of all those formally presented andearnestly pressed have as yet been decided upon by the Mexican Government. 

Not perceiving in what manner any of the powers given to the Executivealone could be further usefully employed in bringing this unfortunatecontroversy to a satisfactory termination, the subject was by mypredecessor referred to Congress as one calling for its interposition. Inaccordance with the clearly understood wishes of the Legislature, anotherand formal demand for satisfaction has been made upon the MexicanGovernment, with what success the documents now communicated will show. Ona careful and deliberate examination of their contents, and considering thespirit manifested by the Mexican Government, it has become my painful dutyto return the subject as it now stands to Congress, to whom it belongs todecide upon the time, the mode, and the measure of redress. Whatever may beyour decision, it shall be faithfully executed, confident that it will becharacterized by that moderation and justice which will, I trust, under allcircumstances govern the councils of our country. 

The balance in the Treasury on the 1st January, 1837, was $45, 968, 523. Thereceipts during the present year from all sources, including the amount ofTreasury notes issued, are estimated at $23, 499, 981, constituting anaggregate of $69, 468, 504. Of this amount about $35, 281, 361 will have beenexpended at the end of the year on appropriations made by Congress, and theresidue, amounting to $34, 187, 143, will be the nominal balance in theTreasury on the 1st of January next; but of that sum only $1, 085, 498 isconsidered as immediately available for and applicable to public purposes. Those portions of it which will be for some time unavailable consistchiefly of sums deposited with the States and due from the former depositbanks. The details upon this subject will be found in the annual report ofthe Secretary of the Treasury. The amount of Treasury notes which it willbe necessary to issue during the year on account of those funds beingunavailable will, it is supposed, not exceed four and a half millions. Itseemed proper, in the condition of the country, to have the estimates onall subjects made as low as practicable without prejudice to any greatpublic measures. The Departments were therefore desired to prepare theirestimates accordingly, and I am happy to find that they have been able tograduate them on so economical a scale. In the great and often unexpectedfluctuations to which the revenue is subjected it is not possible tocompute the receipts beforehand with great certainty, but should they notdiffer essentially from present anticipations, and should theappropriations not much exceed the estimates, no difficulty seems likely tohappen in defraying the current expenses with promptitude and fidelity. 

Notwithstanding the great embarrassments which have recently occurred incommercial affairs, and the liberal indulgence which in consequence ofthese embarrassments has been extended to both the merchants and the banks, it is gratifying to be able to anticipate that the Treasury notes whichhave been issued during the present year will be redeemed and that theresources of the Treasury, without any resort to loans or increased taxes, will prove ample for defraying all charges imposed on it during 1838. 

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury will afford you a more minuteexposition of all matters connected with the administration of the financesduring the current year--a period which for the amount of public moneysdisbursed and deposited with the States, as well as the financialdifficulties encountered and overcome, has few parallels in our history. 

Your attention was at the last session invited to the necessity ofadditional legislative provisions in respect to the collection, safe-keeping, and transfer of the public money. No law having been thenmatured, and not understanding the proceedings of Congress as intended tobe final, it becomes my duty again to bring the subject to your notice. 

On that occasion three modes of performing this branch of the publicservice were presented for consideration. These were, the creation of anational bank; the revival, with modifications, of the deposit systemestablished by the act of the 23d of June, 1836, permitting the use of thepublic moneys by the banks; and the discontinuance of the use of suchinstitutions for the purposes referred to, with suitable provisions fortheir accomplishment through the agency of public officers. Considering theopinions of both Houses of Congress on the first two propositions asexpressed in the negative, in which I entirely concur, it is unnecessaryfor me again in to recur to them. In respect to the last, you have had anopportunity since your adjournment not only to test still further theexpediency of the measure by the continued practical operation of suchparts of it as are now in force, but also to discover what should ever besought for and regarded with the utmost deference--the opinions and wishesof the people. 

The national will is the supreme law of the Republic, and on all subjectswithin the limits of his constitutional powers should be faithfully obeyedby the public servant. Since the measure in question was submitted to yourconsideration most of you have enjoyed the advantage of personalcommunication with your constituents. For one State only has an electionbeen held for the Federal Government; but the early day at which it tookplace deprived the measure under consideration of much of the support itmight otherwise have derived from the result. Local elections for Stateofficers have, however, been held in several of the States, at which theexpediency of the plan proposed by the Executive has been more or lessdiscussed. You will, I am confident, yield to their results the respect dueto every expression of the public voice. Desiring, however, to arrive attruth and a just view of the subject in all its bearings, you will at thesame time remember that questions of far deeper and more immediate localinterest than the fiscal plans of the National Treasury were involved inthose elections. Above all, we can not overlook the striking fact thatthere were at the time in those States more than one hundred and sixtymillions of bank capital, of which large portions were subject to actualforfeiture, other large portions upheld only by special and limitedlegislative indulgences, and most of it, if not all, to a greater or lessextent dependent for a continuance of its corporate existence upon the willof the State legislatures to be then chosen. Apprised of this circumstance, you will judge whether it is not most probable that the peculiar conditionof that vast interest in these respects, the extent to which it has beenspread through all the ramifications of society, its direct connection withthe then pending elections, and the feelings it was calculated to infuseinto the canvass have exercised a far greater influence over the resultthan any which could possibly have been produced by a conflict of opinionin respect to a question in the administration of the General Governmentmore remote and far less important in its bearings upon that interest. 

I have found no reason to change my own opinion as to the expediency ofadopting the system proposed, being perfectly satisfied that there will beneither stability nor safety either in the fiscal affairs of the Governmentor in the pecuniary transactions of individuals and corporations so long asa connection exists between them which, like the past, offers such stronginducements to make them the subjects of political agitation. Indeed, I ammore than ever convinced of the dangers to which the free and unbiasedexercise of political opinion--the only sure foundation and safeguard ofrepublican government--would be exposed by any further increase of thealready overgrown influence of corporate authorities. I can not, therefore, consistently with my views of duty, advise a renewal of a connection whichcircumstances have dissolved. 

The discontinuance of the use of State banks for fiscal purposes ought notto be regarded as a measure of hostility toward those institutions. Banksproperly established and conducted are highly useful to the business of thecountry, and will doubtless continue to exist in the States so long as theyconform to their laws and are found to be safe and beneficial. How theyshould be created, what privileges they should enjoy, under whatresponsibilities they should act, and to what restrictions they should besubject are questions which, as I observed on a previous occasion, belongto the States to decide. Upon their rights or the exercise of them theGeneral Government can have no motive to encroach. Its duty toward them iswell performed when it refrains from legislating for their special benefit, because such legislation would violate the spirit of the Constitution andbe unjust to other interests; when it takes no steps to impair theirusefulness, but so manages its own affairs as to make it the interest ofthose institutions to strengthen and improve their condition for thesecurity and welfare of the community at large. They have no right toinsist on a connection with the Federal Government, nor on the use of thepublic money for their own benefit. The object of the measure underconsideration is to avoid for the future a compulsory connection of thiskind. It proposes to place the General Government, in regard to theessential points of the collection, safe-keeping, and transfer of thepublic money, in a situation which shall relieve it from all dependence onthe will of irresponsible individuals or corporations; to withdraw thosemoneys from the uses of private trade and confide them to agentsconstitutionally selected and controlled by law; to abstain from improperinterference with the industry of the people and withhold inducements toimprovident dealings on the part of individuals; to give stability to theconcerns of the Treasury; to preserve the measures of the Government fromthe unavoidable reproaches that flow from such a connection, and the banksthemselves from the injurious effects of a supposed participation in thepolitical conflicts of the day, from which they will otherwise find itdifficult to escape. 

These are my views upon this important subject, formed after carefulreflection and with no desire but to arrive at what is most likely topromote the public interest. They are now, as they were before, submittedwith unfeigned deference for the opinions of others. It was hardly to behoped that changes so important on a subject so interesting could be madewithout producing a serious diversity of opinion; but so long as thoseconflicting views are kept above the influence of individual or localinterests, so long as they pursue only the general good and are discussedwith moderation and candor, such diversity is a benefit, not an injury. Ifa majority of Congress see the public welfare in a different light, andmore especially if they should be satisfied that the measure proposed wouldnot be acceptable to the people, I shall look to their wisdom to substitutesuch as may be more conducive to the one and more satisfactory to theother. In any event, they may confidently rely on my hearty cooperation tothe fullest extent to which my views of the Constitution and my sense ofduty will permit. 

It is obviously important to this branch of the public service and to thebusiness and quiet of the country that the whole subject should in some waybe settled and regulated by law, and, if possible, at your present session. Besides the plans above referred to, I am not aware that any one has beensuggested except that of keeping the public money in the State banks inspecial deposit. This plan is to some extent in accordance with thepractice of the Government and with the present arrangements of theTreasury Department, which, except, perhaps, during the operation of thelate deposit act, has always been allowed, even during the existence of anational bank, to make a temporary use of the State banks in particularplaces for the safe-keeping of portions of the revenue. This discretionarypower might be continued if Congress deem it desirable, whatever generalsystem be adopted. So long as the connection is voluntary we need, perhaps, anticipate few of those difficulties and little of that dependence on thebanks which must attend every such connection when compulsory in its natureand when so arranged as to make the banks a fixed part of the machinery ofgovernment. It is undoubtedly in the power of Congress so to regulate andguard it as to prevent the public money from being applied to the use orintermingled with the affairs of individuals. Thus arranged, although itwould not give to the Government that entire control over its own fundswhich I desire to secure to it by the plan I have proposed, it would, itmust be admitted, in a great degree accomplish one of the objects which hasrecommended that plan to my judgment--the separation of the fiscal concernsof the Government from those of individuals or corporations. 

With these observations I recommend the whole matter to your dispassionatereflection, confidently hoping that some conclusion may be reached by yourdeliberations which on the one hand shall give safety and stability to thefiscal operations of the Government, and be consistent, on the other, withthe genius of our institutions and with the interests and wishes of thegreat mass of our constituents. 

It was my hope that nothing would occur to make necessary on this occasionany allusion to the late national bank. There are circumstances, however, connected with the present state of its affairs that bear so directly onthe character of the Government and the welfare of the citizen that Ishould not feel myself excused in neglecting to notice them. The charterwhich terminated its banking privileges on the 4th of March, 1836, continued its corporate power two years more for the sole purpose ofclosing its affairs, with authority "to use the corporate name, style, andcapacity for the purpose of suits for a final settlement and liquidation ofthe affairs and acts of the corporation, and for the sale and dispositionof their estate--real, personal, and mixed--but for no other purpose or inany other manner whatsoever. " Just before the banking privileges ceased, its effects were transferred by the bank to a new State institution, thenrecently incorporated, in trust, for the discharge of its debts and thesettlement of its affairs. With this trustee, by authority of Congress, anadjustment was subsequently made of the large interest which the Governmenthad in the stock of the institution. The manner in which a trustunexpectedly created upon the act granting the charter, and involving suchgreat public interests, has been executed would under any circumstances bea fit subject of inquiry; but much more does it deserve your attention whenit embraces the redemption of obligations to which the authority and creditof the United States have given value. The two years allowed are now nearlyat an end. It is well understood that the trustee has not redeemed andcanceled the outstanding notes of the bank, but has reissued and isactually reissuing, since the 3d of March, 1836, the notes which have beenreceived by it to a vast amount. According to its own official statement, so late as the 1st of October last, nineteen months after the bankingprivileges given by the charter had expired, it had under its controluncanceled notes of the late Bank of the United States to the amount of$27, 561, 866, of which $6, 175, 861 were in actual circulation, $ 1, 468, 627 atState bank agencies, and $3, 002, 390 in transitu, thus showing that upwardof ten millions and a half of the notes of the old bank were then stillkept outstanding. 

The impropriety of this procedure is obvious, it being the duty of thetrustee to cancel and not to put forth the notes of an institution whoseconcerns it had undertaken to wind up. If the trustee has a right toreissue these notes now, I can see no reason why it may not continue to doso after the expiration of the two years. As no one could have anticipateda course so extraordinary, the prohibitory clause of the charter abovequoted was not accompanied by any penalty or other special provision forenforcing it, nor have we any general law for the prevention of similaracts in future. 

But it is not in this view of the subject alone that your interposition isrequired. The United States in settling with the trustee for their stockhave withdrawn their funds from their former direct liability to thecreditors of the old bank, yet notes of the institution continue to be sentforth in its name, and apparently upon the authority of the United States. The transactions connected with the employment of the bills of the old bankare of vast extent, and should they result unfortunately the interests ofindividuals may be deeply compromised. Without undertaking to decide howfar or in what form, if any, the trustee could be made liable for noteswhich contain no obligation on its part, or the old bank for such as areput in circulation after the expiration of its charter and without itsauthority, or the Government for indemnity in case of loss, the questionstill presses itself upon your consideration whether it is consistent withduty and good faith on the part of the Government to witness thisproceeding without a single effort to arrest it. 

The report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which will belaid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury, will show how the affairsof that office have been conducted for the past year. The disposition ofthe public lands is one of the most important trusts confided to Congress. The practicability of retaining the title and control of such extensivedomains in the General Government, and at the same time admitting theTerritories embracing them into the Federal Union as coequals with theoriginal States, was seriously doubted by many of our wisest statesmen. Allfeared that they would become a source of discord, and many carried theirapprehensions so far as to see in them the seeds of a future dissolution ofthe Confederacy. But happily our experience has already been sufficient toquiet in a great degree all such apprehensions. The position at one timeassumed, that the admission of new States into the Union on the samefooting with the original States was incompatible with a right of soil inthe United States and operated as a surrender thereof, notwithstanding theterms of the compacts by which their admission was designed to beregulated, has been wisely abandoned. Whether in the new or the old States, all now agree that the right of soil to the public lands remains in theFederal Government, and that these lands constitute a common property, tobe disposed of for the common benefit of all the States, old and new. Acquiescence in this just principle by the people of the new States hasnaturally promoted a disposition to adopt the most liberal policy in thesale of the public lands. A policy which should be limited to the mereobject of selling the lands for the greatest possible sum of money, withoutregard to higher considerations, finds but few advocates. On the contrary, it is generally conceded that whilst the mode of disposition adopted by theGovernment should always be a prudent one, yet its leading object ought tobe the early settlement and cultivation of the lands sold, and that itshould discountenance, if it can not prevent, the accumulation of largetracts in the same hands, which must necessarily retard the growth of thenew States or entail upon them a dependent tenantry and its attendantevils. 

A question embracing such important interests and so well calculated toenlist the feelings of the people in every quarter of the Union has verynaturally given rise to numerous plans for the improvement of the existingsystem. The distinctive features of the policy that has hitherto prevailedare to dispose of the public lands at moderate prices, thus enabling agreater number to enter into competition for their purchase andaccomplishing a double object--of promoting their rapid settlement by thepurchasers and at the same time increasing the receipts of the Treasury; tosell for cash, thereby preventing the disturbing influence of a large massof private citizens indebted to the Government which they have a voice incontrolling; to bring them into market no faster than good lands aresupposed to be wanted for improvement, thereby preventing the accumulationof large tracts in few hands; and to apply the proceeds of the sales to thegeneral purposes of the Government, thus diminishing the amount to beraised from the people of the States by taxation and giving each State itsportion of the benefits to be derived from this common fund in a manner themost quiet, and at the same time, perhaps, the most equitable, that can bedevised. These provisions, with occasional enactments in behalf of specialinterests deemed entitled to the favor of the Government, have in theirexecution produced results as beneficial upon the whole as could reasonablybe expected in a matter so vast, so complicated, and so exciting. Upward of70, 000, 000, acres have been sold, the greater part of which is believed tohave been purchased for actual settlement. The population of the new Statesand Territories created out of the public domain increased between 1800 and1830 from less than 60, 000 to upward of 2, 300, 000 souls, constituting atthe latter period about one-fifth of the whole people of the United States. The increase since can not be accurately known, but the whole may now besafely estimated at over three and a half millions of souls, composing nineStates, the representatives of which constitute above one-third of theSenate and over one-sixth of the House of Representatives of the UnitedStates. 

Thus has been formed a body of free and independent landholders with arapidity unequaled in the history of mankind; and this great result hasbeen produced without leaving anything for future adjustment between theGovernment and its citizens. The system under which so much has beenaccomplished can not be intrinsically bad, and with occasionalmodifications to correct abuses and adapt it to changes of circumstancesmay, I think, be safely trusted for the future. There is in the managementof such extensive interests much virtue in stability; and although greatand obvious improvements should not be declined, changes should never bemade without the fullest examination and the clearest demonstration oftheir practical utility. In the history of the past we have an assurancethat this safe rule of action will not be departed from in relation to thepublic lands; nor is it believed that any necessity exists for interferingwith the fundamental principles of the system, or that the public mind, even in the new States, is desirous of any radical alterations. On thecontrary, the general disposition appears to be to make such modificationsand additions only as will the more effectually carry out the originalpolicy of filling our new States and Territories with an industrious andindependent population. 

The modification most perseveringly pressed upon Congress, which hasoccupied so much of its time for years past, and will probably do so for along time to come, if not sooner satisfactorily adjusted, is a reduction inthe cost of such portions of the public lands as are ascertained to beunsalable at the rate now established by law, and a graduation according totheir relative value of the prices at which they may hereafter be sold. Itis worthy of consideration whether justice may not be done to everyinterest in this matter, and a vexed question set at rest, perhaps forever, by a reasonable compromise of conflicting opinions. Hitherto, after beingoffered at public sale, lands have been disposed of at one uniform price, whatever difference there might be in their intrinsic value. The leadingconsiderations urged in favor of the measure referred to are that in almostall the land districts, and particularly in those in which the lands havebeen long surveyed and exposed to sale, there are still remaining numerousand large tracts of every gradation of value, from the Government pricedownward; that these lands will not be purchased at the Government price solong as better can be conveniently obtained for the same amount; that thereare large tracts which even the improvements of the adjacent lands willnever raise to that price, and that the present uniform price, combinedwith their irregular value, operates to prevent a desirable compactness ofsettlements in the new States and to retard the full development of thatwise policy on which our land system is founded, to the injury not only ofthe several States where the lands lie, but of the United States as awhole. 

The remedy proposed has been a reduction of the prices according to thelength of time the lands have been in market, without reference to anyother circumstances. The certainty that the efflux of time would not alwaysin such cases, and perhaps not even generally, furnish a true criterion ofvalue, and the probability that persons residing in the vicinity, as theperiod for the reduction of prices approached, would postpone purchasesthey would otherwise make, for the purpose of availing themselves of thelower price, with other considerations of a similar character, havehitherto been successfully urged to defeat the graduation upon time. 

May not all reasonable desires upon this subject be satisfied withoutencountering any of these objections? All will concede the abstractprinciple that the price of the public lands should be proportioned totheir relative value, so far as can be accomplished without departing fromthe rule heretofore observed requiring fixed prices in cases of privateentries. The difficulty of the subject seems to lie in the mode ofascertaining what that value is. Would not the safest plan be that whichhas been adopted by many of the States as the basis of taxation--an actualvaluation of lands and classification of them into different rates? Wouldit not be practicable and expedient to cause the relative value of thepublic lands in the old districts which have been for a certain length oftime in market to be appraised and classed into two or more rates below thepresent minimum price by the officers now employed in this branch of thepublic service or in any other mode deemed preferable, and to make thoseprices permanent if upon the coming in of the report they shall provesatisfactory to Congress? Could not all the objects of graduation beaccomplished in this way, and the objections which have hitherto been urgedagainst it avoided? It would seem to me that such a step, with arestriction of the sales to limited quantities and for actual improvement, would be free from all just exception. 

By the full exposition of the value of the lands thus furnished andextensively promulgated persons living at a distance would be informed oftheir true condition and enabled to enter into competition with thoseresiding in the vicinity; the means of acquiring an independent home wouldbe brought within the reach of many who are unable to purchase at presentprices; the population of the new States would be made more compact, andlarge tracts would be sold which would otherwise remain on hand. Not onlywould the land be brought within the means of a larger number ofpurchasers, but many persons possessed of greater means would be content tosettle on a larger quantity of the poorer lands rather than emigratefarther west in pursuit of a smaller quantity of better lands. Such ameasure would also seem to be more consistent with the policy of theexisting laws--that of converting the public domain into cultivated farmsowned by their occupants. That policy is not best promoted by sendingemigration up the almost interminable streams of the West to occupy ingroups the best spots of land, leaving immense wastes behind them andenlarging the frontier beyond the means of the Government to afford itadequate protection, but in encouraging it to occupy with reasonabledenseness the territory over which it advances, and find its best defensein the compact front which it presents to the Indian tribes. Many of youwill bring to the consideration of the subject the advantages of localknowledge and greater experience, and all will be desirous of making anearly and final disposition of every disturbing question in regard to thisimportant interest. If these suggestions shall in any degree contribute tothe accomplishment of so important a result, it will afford me sinceresatisfaction. 

In some sections of the country most of the public lands have been sold, and the registers and receivers have very little to do. It is a subjectworthy of inquiry whether in many cases two or more districts may not beconsolidated and the number of persons employed in this businessconsiderably reduced. Indeed, the time will come when it will be the truepolicy of the General Government, as to some of the States, to transfer tothem for a reasonable equivalent all the refuse and unsold lands and towithdraw the machinery of the Federal land offices altogether. All who takea comprehensive view of our federal system and believe that one of itsgreatest excellencies consists in interfering as little as possible withthe internal concerns of the States look forward with great interest tothis result. 

A modification of the existing laws in respect to the prices of the publiclands might also have a favorable influence on the legislation of Congressin relation to another branch of the subject. Many who have not the abilityto buy at present prices settle on those lands with the hope of acquiringfrom their cultivation the means of purchasing under preemption laws fromtime to time passed by Congress. For this encroachment on the rights of theUnited States they excuse themselves under the plea of their ownnecessities; the fact that they dispossess nobody and only enter upon thewaste domain: that they give additional value to the public lands in theirvicinity, and their intention ultimately to pay the Government price. Somuch weight has from time to time been attached to these considerationsthat Congress have passed laws giving actual settlers on the public lands aright of preemption to the tracts occupied by them at the minimum price. These laws have in all instances been retrospective in their operation, butin a few years after their passage crowds of new settlers have been foundon the public lands for similar reasons and under like expectations, whohave been indulged with the same privilege. This course of legislationtends to impair public respect for the laws of the country. Either the lawsto prevent intrusion upon the public lands should be executed, or, if thatshould be impracticable or inexpedient, they should be modified orrepealed. If the public lands are to be considered as open to be occupiedby any, they should by law be thrown open to all. That which is intended inall instances to be legalized should at once be made legal, that those whoare disposed to conform to the laws may enjoy at least equal privilegeswith those who are not. But it is not believed to be the disposition ofCongress to open the public lands to occupancy without regular entry andpayment of the Government price, as such a course must tend to worse evilsthan the credit system, which it was found necessary to abolish. 

It would seem, therefore, to be the part of wisdom and sound policy toremove as far as practicable the causes which produce intrusions upon thepublic lands, and then take efficient steps to prevent them in future. Would any single measure be so effective in removing all plausible groundsfor these intrusions as the graduation of price already suggested? A shortperiod of industry and economy in any part of our country would enable thepoorest citizen to accumulate the means to buy him a home at the lowerprices, and leave him without apology for settling on lands not his own. Ifhe did not under such circumstances, he would enlist no sympathy in hisfavor, and the laws would be readily executed without doing violence topublic opinion. 

A large portion of our citizens have seated themselves on the public landswithout authority since the passage of the last preemption law, and now askthe enactment of another to enable them to retain the lands occupied uponpayment of the minimum Government price. They ask that which has beenrepeatedly granted before. If the future may be judged of by the past, little harm can be done to the interests of the Treasury by yielding totheir request. Upon a critical examination it is found that the lands soldat the public sales since the introduction of cash payments, in 1820, haveproduced on an average the net revenue of only 6 cents an acre more thanthe minimum Government price. There is no reason to suppose that futuresales will be more productive. The Government, therefore, has no adequatepecuniary interest to induce it to drive these people from the lands theyoccupy for the purpose of selling them to others. 

Entertaining these views, I recommend the passage of a preemption law fortheir benefit in connection with the preparatory steps toward thegraduation of the price of the public lands, and further and more effectualprovisions to prevent intrusions hereafter. Indulgence to those who havesettled on these lands with expectations that past legislation would bemade a rule for the future, and at the same time removing the mostplausible ground on which intrusions are excused and adopting moreefficient means to prevent them hereafter, appears to me the most judiciousdisposition which can be made of this difficult subject. The limitationsand restrictions to guard against abuses in the execution of a preemptionlaw will necessarily attract the careful attention of Congress, but underno circumstances is it considered expedient to authorize floating claims inany shape. They have been heretofore, and doubtless would be hereafter, most prolific sources of fraud and oppression, and instead of operating toconfer the favor of the Government on industrious settlers are often usedonly to minister to a spirit of cupidity at the expense of the mostmeritorious of that class. 

The accompanying report of the Secretary of War will bring to your view thestate of the Army and all the various subjects confided to thesuperintendence of that officer. 

The principal part of the Army has been concentrated in Florida, with aview and in the expectation of bringing the war in that Territory to aspeedy close. The necessity of stripping the posts on the maritime andinland frontiers of their entire garrisons for the purpose of assembling inthe field an army of less than 4, 000 men would seem to indicate thenecessity of increasing our regular forces; and the superior efficiency, aswell as greatly diminished expense of that description of troops, recommendthis measure as one of economy as well as of expediency. I refer to thereport for the reasons which have induced the Secretary of War to urge thereorganization and enlargement of the staff of the Army, and of theOrdnance Corps, in which I fully concur. 

It is not, however, compatible with the interests of the people to maintainin time of peace a regular force adequate to the defense of our extensivefrontiers. In periods of danger and alarm we must rely principally upon awell-organized militia, and some general arrangement that will render thisdescription of force more efficient has long been a subject of anxioussolicitude. It was recommended to the First Congress by General Washington, and has been since frequently brought to your notice, and recently itsimportance strongly urged by my immediate predecessor. The provision in theConstitution that renders it necessary to adopt a uniform system oforganization for the militia throughout the United States presents aninsurmountable obstacle to an efficient arrangement by the classificationheretofore proposed, and I invite your attention to the plan which will besubmitted by the Secretary of War, for the organization of volunteer corpsand the instruction of militia officers, as more simple and practicable, ifnot equally advantageous, as a general arrangement of the whole militia ofthe United States. 

A moderate increase of the corps both of military and topographicalengineers has been more than once recommended by my predecessor, and myconviction of the propriety, not to say necessity, of the measure, in orderto enable them to perform the various and important duties imposed uponthem, induces me to repeat the recommendation. 

The Military Academy continues to answer all the purposes of itsestablishment, and not only furnishes well-educated officers to the Army, but serves to diffuse throughout the mass of our citizens individualspossessed of military knowledge and the scientific attainments of civil andmilitary engineering. At present the cadet is bound, with consent of hisparents or guardians, to remain in service five years from the period ofhis enlistment, unless sooner discharged, thus exacting only one year'sservice in the Army after his education is completed. This does not appearto me sufficient. Government ought to command for a longer period theservices of those who are educated at the public expense, and I recommendthat the time of enlistment be extended to seven years, and the terms ofthe engagement strictly enforced. 

The creation of a national foundry for cannon, to be common to the serviceof the Army and Navy of the United States, has been heretofore recommended, and appears to be required in order to place our ordnance on an equalfooting with that of other countries and to enable that branch of theservice to control the prices of those articles and graduate the suppliesto the wants of the Government, as well as to regulate their quality andinsure their uniformity. The same reasons induce me to recommend theerection of a manufactory of gunpowder, to be under the direction of theOrdnance Office. The establishment of a manufactory of small arms west ofthe Alleghany Mountains, upon the plan proposed by the Secretary of War, will contribute to extend throughout that country the improvements whichexist in establishments of a similar description in the Atlantic States, and tend to a much more economical distribution of the armament required inthe western portion of our Union. 

The system of removing the Indians west of the Mississippi, commenced byMr. Jefferson in 1804, has been steadily persevered in by every succeedingPresident, and may be considered the settled policy of the country. Unconnected at first with any well-defined system for their improvement, the inducements held out to the Indians were confined to the greaterabundance of game to be found in the West; but when the beneficial effectsof their removal were made apparent a more philanthropic and enlightenedpolicy was adopted in purchasing their lands east of the Mississippi. Liberal prices were given and provisions inserted in all the treaties withthem for the application of the funds they received in exchange to suchpurposes as were best calculated to promote their present welfare andadvance their future civilization. These measures have been attended thusfar with the happiest results. 

It will be seen by referring to the report of the Commissioner of IndianAffairs that the most sanguine expectations of the friends and promoters ofthis system have been realized. The Choctaws, Cherokees, and other tribesthat first emigrated beyond the Mississippi have for the most partabandoned the hunter state and become cultivators of the soil. Theimprovement in their condition has been rapid, and it is believed that theyare now fitted to enjoy the advantages of a simple form of government, which has been submitted to them and received their sanction; and I can nottoo strongly urge this subject upon the attention of Congress. 

Stipulations have been made with all the Indian tribes to remove thembeyond the Mississippi, except with the bands of the Wyandots, the SixNations in New York, the Menomonees, Munsees, and Stockbridges inWisconsin, and Miamies in Indiana. With all but the Menomonees it isexpected that arrangements for their emigration will be completed thepresent year. The resistance which has been opposed to their removal bysome of the tribes even after treaties had been made with them to thateffect has arisen from various causes, operating differently on each ofthem. In most instances they have been instigated to resistance by personsto whom the trade with them and the acquisition of their annuities wereimportant, and in some by the personal influence of interested chiefs. These obstacles must be overcome, for the Government can not relinquish theexecution of this policy without sacrificing important interests andabandoning the tribes remaining east of the Mississippi to certaindestruction. 

The decrease in numbers of the tribes within the limits of the States andTerritories has been most rapid. If they be removed, they can be protectedfrom those associations and evil practices which exert so pernicious anddestructive an influence over their destinies. They can be induced to laborand to acquire property, and its acquisition will inspire them with afeeling of independence. Their minds can be cultivated, and they can betaught the value of salutary and uniform laws and be made sensible of theblessings of free government and capable of enjoying its advantages. In thepossession of property, knowledge, and a good government, free to give whatdirection they please to their labor, and sharers in the legislation bywhich their persons and the profits of their industry are to be protectedand secured, they will have an ever-present conviction of the importance ofunion and peace among themselves and of the preservation of amicablerelations with us. The interests of the United States would also be greatlypromoted by freeing the relations between the General and State Governmentsfrom what has proved a most embarrassing incumbrance by a satisfactoryadjustment of conflicting titles to lands caused by the occupation of theIndians, and by causing the resources of the whole country to be developedby the power of the State and General Governments and improved by theenterprise of a white population. 

Intimately connected with this subject is the obligation of the Governmentto fulfill its treaty stipulations and to protect the Indians thusassembled "at their new residences from all interruptions and disturbancesfrom any other tribes or nations of Indians or from any other person orpersons whatsoever, " and the equally solemn obligation to guard from Indianhostility its own border settlements, stretching along a line of more than1, 000 miles. To enable the Government to redeem this pledge to the Indiansand to afford adequate protection to its own citizens will require thecontinual presence of a considerable regular force on the frontiers and theestablishment of a chain of permanent posts. Examinations of the countryare now making, with a view to decide on the most suitable points for theerection of fortresses and other works of defense, the results of whichwill be presented to you by the Secretary of War at an early day, togetherwith a plan for the effectual protection of the friendly Indians and thepermanent defense of the frontier States. 

By the report of the Secretary of the Navy herewith communicated it appearsthat unremitted exertions have been made at the different navy-yards tocarry into effect all authorized measures for the extension and employmentof our naval force. The launching and preparation of the ship of the linePennsylvania and the complete repairs of the ships of the line Ohio, Delaware, and Columbus may be noticed as forming a respectable addition tothis important arm of our national defense. Our commerce and navigationhave received increased aid and protection during the present year. Oursquadrons in the Pacific and on the Brazilian station have been muchincreased, and that in the Mediterranean, although small, is adequate tothe present wants of our commerce in that sea. Additions have been made toour squadron on the West India station, where the large force underCommodore Dallas has been most actively and efficiently employed inprotecting our commerce, in preventing the importation of slaves, and incooperating with the officers of the Army in carrying on the war inFlorida. 

The satisfactory condition of our naval force abroad leaves at our disposalthe means of conveniently providing for a home squadron for the protectionof commerce upon our extensive coast. The amount of appropriations requiredfor such a squadron will be found in the general estimates for the navalservice for the year 1838. 

The naval officers engaged upon our coast survey have rendered importantservice to our navigation. The discovery of a new channel into the harborof New York, through which our largest ships may pass without danger, mustafford important commercial advantages to that harbor and add greatly toits value as a naval station. The accurate survey of Georges Shoals, offthe coast of Massachusetts, lately completed, will render comparativelysafe a navigation hitherto considered dangerous. 

Considerable additions have been made to the number of captains, commanders, lieutenants, surgeons, and assistant surgeons in the Navy. These additions were rendered necessary by the increased number of vesselsput in commission to answer the exigencies of our growing commerce. 

Your attention is respectfully invited to the various suggestions of theSecretary for the improvement of the naval service. 

The report of the Postmaster-General exhibits the progress and condition ofthe mail service. The operations of the Post-Office Department constituteone of the most active elements of our national prosperity, and it isgratifying to observe with what vigor they are conducted. The mail routesof the United States cover an extent of about 142, 877 miles, having beenincreased about 37, 103 miles within the last two years. The annual mailtransportation on these routes is about 36, 228, 962 miles, having beenincreased about 10, 359, 476 miles within the same period. The number ofpost-offices has also been increased from 10, 770 to 12, 099, very few ofwhich receive the mails less than once a week, and a large portion of themdaily. Contractors and postmasters in general are represented as attendingto their duties with most commendable zeal and fidelity. The revenue of theDepartment within the year ending on the 30th of June last was$4, 137, 056. 59, and its liabilities accruing within the same time were$3, 380, 847. 75. The increase of revenue over that of the preceding year was$708, 166. 41. 

For many interesting details I refer you to the report of thePostmaster-General, with the accompanying papers, Your particular attentionis invited to the necessity of providing a more safe and convenientbuilding for the accommodation of that Department. 

I lay before Congress copies of reports submitted in pursuance of a callmade by me upon the heads of Departments for such suggestions as theirexperience might enable them to make as to what further legislativeprovisions may be advantageously adopted to secure the faithful applicationof public moneys to the objects for which they are appropriated, to preventtheir misapplication or embezzlement by those intrusted with theexpenditure of them, and generally to increase the security of theGovernment against losses in their disbursement. It is needless to dilateon the importance of providing such new safeguards as are within the powerof legislation to promote these ends, and I have little to add to therecommendations submitted in the accompanying papers. 

By law the terms of service of our most important collecting and disbursingofficers in the civil departments are limited to four years, and whenreappointed their bonds are required to be renewed. The safety of thepublic is much increased by this feature of the law, and there can be nodoubt that its application to all officers intrusted with the collection ordisbursement of the public money, whatever may be the tenure of theiroffices, would be equally beneficial. I therefore recommend, in addition tosuch of the suggestions presented by the heads of Departments as you maythink useful, a general provision that all officers of the Army or Navy, orin the civil departments, intrusted with the receipt or payment of publicmoney, and whose term of service is either unlimited or for a longer timethan four years, be required to give new bonds, with good and sufficientsureties, at the expiration of every such period. 

A change in the period of terminating the fiscal year, from the 1st ofOctober to the 1st of April, has been frequently recommended, and appearsto be desirable. 

The distressing casualties in steamboats which have so frequently happenedduring the year seem to evince the necessity of attempting to prevent themby means of severe provisions connected with their customhouse papers. Thissubject was submitted to the attention of Congress by the Secretary of theTreasury in his last annual report, and will be again noticed at thepresent session, with additional details. It will doubtless receive thatearly and careful consideration which its pressing importance appears torequire. 

Your attention has heretofore been frequently called to the affairs of theDistrict of Columbia, and I should not again ask it did not their entiredependence on Congress give them a constant claim upon its notice. Separated by the Constitution from the rest of the Union, limited inextent, and aided by no legislature of its own, it would seem to be a spotwhere a wise and uniform system of local government might have been easilyadopted. This District has, however, unfortunately been left to lingerbehind the rest of the Union. Its codes, civil and criminal, are not onlyvery defective, but full of obsolete or inconvenient provisions. Beingformed of portions of two States, discrepancies in the laws prevail indifferent parts of the territory, small as it is; and although it wasselected as the seat of the General Government, the site of its publicedifices, the depository of its archives, and the residence of officersintrusted with large amounts of public property and the management ofpublic business, yet it has never been subjected to or received thatspecial and comprehensive legislation which these circumstances peculiarlydemand. I am well aware of the various subjects of greater magnitude andimmediate interest that press themselves on the consideration of Congress, but I believe there is not one that appeals more directly to its justicethan a liberal and even generous attention to the interests of the Districtof Columbia and a thorough and careful revision of its local government. M. VAN BUREN

***

State of the Union AddressMartin van BurenDecember 3, 1838

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I congratulate you on the favorable circumstances in the condition of ourcountry under which you reassemble for the performance of your officialduties. Though the anticipations of an abundant harvest have not everywherebeen realized, yet on the whole the labors of the husbandman are rewardedwith a bountiful return; industry prospers in its various channels ofbusiness and enterprise; general health again prevails through our vastdiversity of climate; nothing threatens from abroad the continuance ofexternal peace; nor has anything at home impaired the strength of thosefraternal and domestic ties which constitute the only guaranty to thesuccess and permanency of our happy Union, and which, formed in the hour ofperil, have hitherto been honorably sustained through every vicissitude inour national affairs. These blessings, which evince the care andbeneficence of Providence, call for our devout and fervent gratitude. 

We have not less reason to be grateful for other bounties bestowed by thesame munificent hand, and more exclusively our own. 

The present year closes the first half century of our Federal institutions, and our system, differing from all others in the acknowledged practical andunlimited operation which it has for so long a period given to thesovereignty of the people, has now been fully tested by experience. 

The Constitution devised by our forefathers as the framework and bond ofthat system, then untried, has become a settled form of government; notonly preserving and protecting the great principles upon which it wasrounded, but wonderfully promoting individual happiness and privateinterests. Though subject to change and entire revocation whenever deemedinadequate to all these purposes, yet such is the wisdom of itsconstruction and so stable has been the public sentiment that it remainsunaltered except in matters of detail comparatively unimportant. It hasproved amply sufficient for the various emergencies incident to ourcondition as a nation. A formidable foreign war; agitating collisionsbetween domestic, and in some respects rival, sovereignties; temptations tointerfere in the intestine commotions of neighboring countries; thedangerous influences that arise in periods of excessive prosperity, and theantirepublican tendencies of associated wealth--these, with other trialsnot less formidable, have all been encountered, and thus far successfullyresisted. 

It was reserved for the American Union to test the advantages of agovernment entirely dependent on the continual exercise of the popularwill, and our experience has shown that it is as beneficent in practice asit is just in theory. Each successive change made in our local institutionshas contributed to extend the right of suffrage, has increased the directinfluence of the mass of the community, given greater freedom to individualexertion, and restricted more and more the powers of Government; yet theintelligence, prudence, and patriotism of the people have kept pace withthis augmented responsibility. In no country has education been so widelydiffused. Domestic peace has nowhere so largely reigned. The close bonds ofsocial intercourse have in no instance prevailed with such harmony over aspace so vast. All forms of religion have united for the first time todiffuse charity and piety, because for the first time in the history ofnations all have been totally untrammeled and absolutely free. The deepestrecesses of the wilderness have been penetrated; yet instead of therudeness in the social condition consequent upon such adventures elsewhere, numerous communities have sprung up, already unrivaled in prosperity, general intelligence, internal tranquillity, and the wisdom of theirpolitical institutions. Internal improvement, the fruit of individualenterprise, fostered by the protection of the States, has added new linksto the Confederation and fresh rewards to provident industry. Doubtfulquestions of domestic policy have been quietly settled by mutualforbearance, and agriculture, commerce, and manufactures minister to eachother. Taxation and public debt, the burdens which bear so heavily upon allother countries, have pressed with comparative lightness upon us. Withoutone entangling alliance, our friendship is prized by every nation, and therights of our citizens are everywhere respected, because they are known tobe guarded by a united, sensitive, and watchful people. 

To this practical operation of our institutions, so evident and successful, we owe that increased attachment to them which is among the most cheeringexhibitions of popular sentiment and will prove their best security in timeto come against foreign or domestic assault. 

This review of the results of our institutions for half a century, withoutexciting a spirit of vain exultation, should serve to impress upon us thegreat principles from which they have sprung--constant and directsupervision by the people over every public measure, strict forbearance onthe part of the Government from exercising any doubtful or disputed powers, and a cautious abstinence from all interference with concerns whichproperly belong and are best left to State regulations and individualenterprise. 

Full information of the state of our foreign affairs having been recentlyon different occasions submitted to Congress, I deem it necessary now tobring to your notice only such events as have subsequently occurred or areof such importance as to require particular attention. 

The most amicable dispositions continue to be exhibited by all the nationswith whom the Government and citizens of the United States have an habitualintercourse. At the date of my last annual message Mexico was the onlynation which could not be included in so gratifying a reference to ourforeign relations. 

I am happy to be now able to inform you that an advance has been madetoward the adjustment of our differences with that Republic and therestoration of the customary good feeling between the two nations. Thisimportant change has been effected by conciliatory negotiations that haveresulted in the conclusion of a treaty between the two Governments, which, when ratified, will refer to the arbitrament of a friendly power all thesubjects of controversy between us growing out of injuries to individuals. There is at present also reason to believe that an equitable settlement ofall disputed points will be attained without further difficulty orunnecessary delay, and thus authorize the free resumption of diplomaticintercourse with our sister Republic. 

With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no officialcorrespondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passedsince that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session. The offer to negotiate a convention for the appointment of a jointcommission of survey and exploration I am, however, assured will be met byHer Majesty's Government in a conciliatory and friendly spirit, andinstructions to enable the British minister here to conclude such anarrangement will be transmitted to him without needless delay. It is hopedand expected that these instructions will be of a liberal character, andthat this negotiation, if successful, will prove to be an important steptoward the satisfactory and final adjustment of the controversy. 

I had hoped that the respect for the laws and regard for the peace andhonor of their own country which have ever characterized the citizens ofthe United States would have prevented any portion of them from using anymeans to promote insurrection in the territory of a power with which we areat peace, and with which the United States are desirous of maintaining themost friendly relations. I regret deeply, however, to be obliged to informyou that this has not been the case. Information has been given to me, derived from official and other sources, that many citizens of the UnitedStates have associated together to make hostile incursions from ourterritory into Canada and to aid and abet insurrection there, in violationof the obligations and laws of the United States and in open disregard oftheir own duties as citizens. This information has been in part confirmedby a hostile invasion actually made by citizens of the United States, inconjunction with Canadians and others, and accompanied by a forcibleseizure of the property of our citizens and an application thereof to theprosecution of military operations against the authorities and people ofCanada. 

The results of these criminal assaults upon the peace and order of aneighboring country have been, as was to be expected, fatally destructiveto the misguided or deluded persons engaged in them and highly injurious tothose in whose behalf they are professed to have been undertaken. Theauthorities in Canada, from intelligence received of such intendedmovements among our citizens, have felt themselves obliged to takeprecautionary measures against them; have actually embodied the militia andassumed an attitude to repel the invasion to which they believed thecolonies were exposed from the United States. A state of feeling on bothsides of the frontier has thus been produced which called for prompt andvigorous interference. If an insurrection existed in Canada, the amicabledispositions of the United States toward Great Britain, as well as theirduty to themselves, would lead them to maintain a strict neutrality and torestrain their citizens from all violations of the laws which have beenpassed for its enforcement. But this Government recognizes a still higherobligation to repress all attempts on the part of its citizens to disturbthe peace of a country where order prevails or has been reestablished. Depredations by our citizens upon nations at peace with the United States, or combinations for committing them, have at all times been regarded by theAmerican Government and people with the greatest abhorrence. Militaryincursions by our citizens into countries so situated, and the commissionof acts of violence on the members thereof, in order to effect a change intheir government, or under any pretext whatever, have from the commencementof our Government been held equally criminal on the part of those engagedin them, and as much deserving of punishment as would be the disturbance ofthe public peace by the perpetration of similar acts within our ownterritory. 

By no country or persons have these invaluable principles of internationallaw--principles the strict observance of which is so indispensable to thepreservation of social order in the world--been more earnestly cherished orsacredly respected than by those great and good men who first declared andfinally established the independence of our own country. They promulgatedand maintained them at an early and critical period in our history; theywere subsequently embodied in legislative enactments of a highly penalcharacter, the faithful enforcement of which has hitherto been, and will, Itrust, always continue to be, regarded as a duty inseparably associatedwith the maintenance of our national honor. That the people of the UnitedStates should feel an interest in the spread of political institutions asfree as they regard their own to be is natural, nor can a sinceresolicitude for the success of all those who are at any time in good faithstruggling for their acquisition be imputed to our citizens as a crime. With the entire freedom of opinion and an undisguised expression thereof ontheir part the Government has neither the right nor, I trust, thedisposition to interfere. But whether the interest or the honor of theUnited States requires that they should be made a party to any suchstruggle, and by inevitable consequence to the war which is waged in itssupport, is a question which by our Constitution is wisely left to Congressalone to decide. It is by the laws already made criminal in our citizens toembarrass or anticipate that decision by unauthorized military operationson their part. Offenses of this character, in addition to their criminalityas violations of the laws of our country, have a direct tendency to drawdown upon our own citizens at large the multiplied evils of a foreign warand expose to injurious imputations the good faith and honor of thecountry. As such they deserve to be put down with promptitude and decision. I can not be mistaken, I am confident, in counting on the cordial andgeneral concurrence of our fellow-citizens in this sentiment. A copy of theproclamation which I have felt it my duty to issue is herewithcommunicated. I can not but hope that the good sense and patriotism, theregard for the honor and reputation of their country, the respect for thelaws which they have themselves enacted for their own government, and thelove of order for which the mass of our people have been so long and sojustly distinguished will deter the comparatively few who are engaged inthem from a further prosecution of such desperate enterprises. In themeantime the existing laws have been and will continue to be faithfullyexecuted, and every effort will be made to carry them out in their fullextent. Whether they are sufficient or not to meet the actual state ofthings on the Canadian frontier it is for Congress to decide. 

It will appear from the correspondence herewith submitted that theGovernment of Russia declines a renewal of the fourth article of theconvention of April, 1824, between the United States and His ImperialMajesty, by the third article of which it is agreed that "hereafter thereshall not be formed by the citizens of the United States or under theauthority of the said States any establishment upon the northwest coast ofAmerica, nor in any of the islands adjacent, to the north of 54° 40' ofnorth latitude, and that in the same manner there shall be none formed byRussian subjects or under the authority of Russia south of the sameparallel;" and by the fourth article, "that during a term of ten years, counting from the signature of the present convention, the ships of bothpowers, or which belong to their citizens or subjects, respectively, mayreciprocally frequent, without any hindrance whatever, the interior seas, gulfs, harbors, and creeks upon the coast mentioned in the precedingarticle, for the purpose of fishing and trading with the natives of thecountry. " The reasons assigned for declining to renew the provisions ofthis article are, briefly, that the only use made by our citizens of theprivileges it secures to them has been to supply the Indians withspirituous liquors, ammunition, and firearms; that this traffic has beenexcluded from the Russian trade; and as the supplies furnished from theUnited States are injurious to the Russian establishments on the northwestcoast and calculated to produce complaints between the two Governments, HisImperial Majesty thinks it for the interest of both countries not to accedeto the proposition made by the American Government for the renewal of thearticle last referred to. 

The correspondence herewith communicated will show the grounds upon whichwe contend that the citizens of the United States have, independent of theprovisions of the convention of 1824, a right to trade with the nativesupon the coast in question at unoccupied places, liable, however, it isadmitted, to be at any time extinguished by the creation of Russianestablishments at such points. This right is denied by the RussianGovernment, which asserts that by the operation of the treaty of 1824 eachparty agreed to waive the general right to land on the vacant coasts on therespective sides of the degree of latitude referred to, and accepted inlieu thereof the mutual privileges mentioned in the fourth article. Thecapital and tonnage employed by our citizens in their trade with thenorthwest coast of America will, perhaps, on adverting to the officialstatements of the commerce and navigation of the United States for the lastfew years, be deemed too inconsiderable in amount to attract muchattention; yet the subject may in other respects deserve the carefulconsideration of Congress. 

I regret to state that the blockade of the principal ports on the easterncoast of Mexico, which, in consequence of differences between that Republicand France, was instituted in May last, unfortunately still continues, enforced by a competent French naval armament, and is necessarilyembarrassing to our own trade in the Gulf, in common with that of othernations. Every disposition, however, is believed to exist on the part ofthe French Government to render this measure as little onerous aspracticable to the interests of the citizens of the United States and tothose of neutral commerce, and it is to be hoped that an early settlementof the difficulties between France and Mexico will soon reestablish theharmonious relations formerly subsisting between them and again open theports of that Republic to the vessels of all friendly nations. 

A convention for marking that part of the boundary between the UnitedStates and the Republic of Texas which extends from the mouth of the Sabineto the Red River was concluded and signed at this city on the 25th of Aprillast. It has since been ratified by both Governments, and seasonablemeasures will be taken to carry it into effect on the part of the UnitedStates. 

The application of that Republic for admission into this Union, made inAugust, 1837, and which was declined for reasons already made known to you, has been formally withdrawn, as will appear from the accompanying copy ofthe note of the minister plenipotentiary of Texas, which was presented tothe Secretary of State on the occasion of the exchange of the ratificationsof the convention above mentioned. 

Copies of the convention with Texas, of a commercial treaty concluded withthe King of Greece, and of a similar treaty with the Peru-BolivianConfederation, the ratifications of which have been recently exchanged, accompany this message, for the information of Congress and for suchlegislative enactments as may be found necessary or expedient in relationto either of them. 

To watch over and foster the interests of a gradually increasing and widelyextended commerce, to guard the rights of American citizens whom businessor pleasure or other motives may tempt into distant climes, and at the sametime to cultivate those sentiments of mutual respect and good will whichexperience has proved so beneficial in international intercourse, theGovernment of the United States has deemed it expedient from time to timeto establish diplomatic connections with different foreign states, by theappointment of representatives to reside within their respectiveterritories. I am gratified to be enabled to announce to you that since theclose of your last session these relations have been opened under thehappiest auspices with Austria and the Two Sicilies, that new nominationshave been made in the respective missions of Russia, Brazil, Belgium, andSweden and Norway in this country, and that a minister extraordinary hasbeen received, accredited to this Government, from the ArgentineConfederation. 

An exposition of the fiscal affairs of the Government and of theircondition for the past year will be made to you by the Secretary of theTreasury. 

The available balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January next isestimated at $2, 765, 342. The receipts of the year from customs and landswill probably amount to $20, 615, 598. These usual sources of revenue havebeen increased by an issue of Treasury notes, of which less than$8, 000, 000, including interest and principal, will be outstanding at theend of the year, and by the sale of one of the bonds of the Bank of theUnited States for $2, 254, 871. The aggregate of means from these and othersources, with the balance on hand on the 1st of January last, has beenapplied to the payment of appropriations by Congress. The whole expenditurefor the year on their account, including the redemption of more than eightmillions of Treasury notes, constitutes an aggregate of about $40, 000, 000, and will still leave in the Treasury the balance before stated. 

Nearly $8, 000, 000 of Treasury notes are to be paid during the coming yearin addition to the ordinary appropriations for the support of Government. For both these purposes the resources of the Treasury will undoubtedly besufficient if the charges upon it are not increased beyond the annualestimates. No excess, however, is likely to exist. Nor can the postponedinstallment of the surplus revenue be deposited with the States nor anyconsiderable appropriations beyond the estimates be made without causing adeficiency in the Treasury. The great caution, advisable at all times, oflimiting appropriations to the wants of the public service is renderednecessary at present by the prospective and rapid reduction of the tariff, while the vigilant jealousy evidently excited among the people by theoccurrences of the last few years assures us that they expect from theirrepresentatives, and will sustain them in the exercise of, the most rigideconomy. Much can be effected by postponing appropriations not immediatelyrequired for the ordinary public service or for any pressing emergency, andmuch by reducing the expenditures where the entire and immediateaccomplishment of the objects in view is not indispensable. 

When we call to mind the recent and extreme embarrassments produced byexcessive issues of bank paper, aggravated by the unforeseen withdrawal ofmuch foreign capital and the inevitable derangement arising from thedistribution of the surplus revenue among the States as required byCongress, and consider the heavy expenses incurred by the removal of Indiantribes, by the military operations in Florida, and on account of theunusually large appropriations made at the last two annual sessions ofCongress for other objects, we have striking evidence in the presentefficient state of our finances of the abundant resources of the country tofulfill all its obligations. Nor is it less gratifying to find that thegeneral business of the community, deeply affected as it has been, isreviving with additional vigor, chastened by the lessons of the past andanimated by the hopes of the future. By the curtailment of paper issues, bycurbing the sanguine and adventurous spirit of speculation, and by thehonorable application of all available means to the fulfillment ofobligations, confidence has been restored both at home and abroad, and easeand facility secured to all the operations of trade. 

The agency of the Government in producing these results has been asefficient as its powers and means permitted. By withholding from the Statesthe deposit of the fourth installment, and leaving several millions at longcredits with the banks, principally in one section of the country, and moreimmediately beneficial to it, and at the same time aiding the banks andcommercial communities in other sections by postponing the payment of bondsfor duties to the amount of between four and five millions of dollars; byan issue of Treasury notes as a means to enable the Government to meet theconsequences of their indulgences, but affording at the same timefacilities for remittance and exchange; and by steadily declining to employas general depositories of the public revenues, or receive the notes of, all banks which refused to redeem them with specie--by these measures, aided by the favorable action of some of the banks and by the support andcooperation of a large portion of the community, we have witnessed an earlyresumption of specie payments in our great commercial capital, promptlyfollowed in almost every part of the United States. This result has beenalike salutary to the true interests of agriculture, commerce, andmanufactures; to public morals, respect for the laws, and that confidencebetween man and man which is so essential in all our social relations. 

The contrast between the suspension of 1814 and that of 1837 is moststriking. The short duration of the latter, the prompt restoration ofbusiness, the evident benefits resulting from an adherence by theGovernment to the constitutional standard of value instead of sanctioningthe suspension by the receipt of irredeemable paper, and the advantagesderived from the large amount of specie introduced into the countryprevious to 1837 afford a valuable illustration of the true policy of theGovernment in such a crisis. Nor can the comparison fail to remove theimpression that a national bank is necessary in such emergencies. Not onlywere specie payments resumed without its aid, but exchanges have also beenmore rapidly restored than when it existed, thereby showing that privatecapital, enterprise, and prudence are fully adequate to these ends. On allthese points experience seems to have confirmed the views heretoforesubmitted to Congress. We have been saved the mortification of seeing thedistresses of the community for the third time seized on to fasten upon thecountry so dangerous an institution, and we may also hope that the businessof individuals will hereafter be relieved from the injurious effects of acontinued agitation of that disturbing subject. The limited influence of anational bank in averting derangement in the exchanges of the country or incompelling the resumption of specie payments is now not less apparent thanits tendency to increase inordinate speculation by sudden expansions andcontractions; its disposition to create panic and embarrassment for thepromotion of its own designs; its interference with politics, and its fargreater power for evil than for good, either in regard to the localinstitutions or the operations of Government itself. What was in theserespects but apprehension or opinion when a national bank was firstestablished now stands confirmed by humiliating experience. The scenesthrough which we have passed conclusively prove how little our commerce, agriculture, manufactures, or finances require such an institution, andwhat dangers are attendant on its power--a power, I trust, never to beconferred by the American people upon their Government, and still less uponindividuals not responsible to them for its unavoidable abuses. 

My conviction of the necessity of further legislative provisions for thesafe-keeping and disbursement of the public moneys and my opinion in regardto the measures best adapted to the accomplishment of those objects havebeen already submitted to you. These have been strengthened by recentevents, and in the full conviction that time and experience must stillfurther demonstrate their propriety I feel it my duty, with respectfuldeference to the conflicting views of others, again to invite yourattention to them. 

With the exception of limited sums deposited in the few banks stillemployed under the act of 1836, the amounts received for duties, and, withvery inconsiderable exceptions, those accruing from lands also, have sincethe general suspension of specie payments by the deposit banks been keptand disbursed by the Treasurer under his general legal powers, subject tothe superintendence of the Secretary of the Treasury. The propriety ofdefining more specifically and of regulating by law the exercise of thiswide scope of Executive discretion has been already submitted to Congress. 

A change in the office of collector at one of our principal ports hasbrought to light a defalcation of the gravest character, the particulars ofwhich will be laid before you in a special report from the Secretary of theTreasury. By his report and the accompanying documents it will be seen thatthe weekly returns of the defaulting officer apparently exhibitedthroughout a faithful administration of the affairs intrusted to hismanagement. It, however, now appears that he commenced abstracting thepublic moneys shortly after his appointment and continued to do so, progressively increasing the amount, for the term of more than seven years, embracing a portion of the period during which the public moneys weredeposited in the Bank of the United States, the whole of that of the Statebank deposit system, and concluding only on his retirement from office, after that system had substantially failed in consequence of the suspensionof specie payments. 

The way in which this defalcation was so long concealed and the steps takento indemnify the United States, as far as practicable, against loss willalso be presented to you. The case is one which imperatively claims theattention of Congress and furnishes the strongest motive for theestablishment of a more severe and secure system for the safe-keeping anddisbursement of the public moneys than any that has heretofore existed. 

It seems proper, at all events, that by an early enactment similar to thatof other countries the application of public money by an officer ofGovernment to private uses should be made a felony and visited with severeand ignominious punishment. This is already in effect the law in respect tothe Mint, and has been productive of the most salutary results. Whateversystem is adopted, such an enactment would be wise as an independentmeasure, since much of the public moneys must in their collection andultimate disbursement pass twice through the hands of public officers, inwhatever manner they are intermediately kept. The Government, it must beadmitted, has been from its commencement comparatively fortunate in thisrespect. But the appointing power can not always be well advised in itsselections, and the experience of every country has shown that publicofficers are not at all times proof against temptation. It is a duty, therefore, which the Government owes, as well to the interests committed toits care as to the officers themselves, to provide every guard againsttransgressions of this character that is consistent with reason andhumanity. Congress can not be too jealous of the conduct of those who areintrusted with the public money, and I shall at all times be disposed toencourage a watchful discharge of this duty. 

If a more direct cooperation on the part of Congress in the supervision ofthe conduct of the officers intrusted with the custody and application ofthe public money is deemed desirable, it will give me pleasure to assist inthe establishment of any judicious and constitutional plan by which thatobject may be accomplished. You will in your wisdom determine upon thepropriety of adopting such a plan and upon the measures necessary to itseffectual execution. When the late Bank of the United States wasincorporated and made the depository of the public moneys, a right wasreserved to Congress to inspect at its pleasure, by a committee of thatbody, the books and the proceedings of the bank. In one of the States, whose banking institutions are supposed to rank amongst the first in pointof stability, they are subjected to constant examination by commissionersappointed for that purpose, and much of the success of its banking systemis attributed to this watchful supervision. 

The same course has also, in view of its beneficial operation, been adoptedby an adjoining State, favorably known for the care it has always bestowedupon whatever relates to its financial concerns. I submit to yourconsideration whether a committee of Congress might not be profitablyemployed in inspecting, at such intervals as might be deemed proper, theaffairs and accounts of officers intrusted with the custody of the publicmoneys. The frequent performance of this duty might be made obligatory onthe committee in respect to those officers who have large sums in theirpossession, and left discretionary in respect to others. They might reportto the Executive such defalcations as were found to exist, with a view to aprompt removal from office unless the default was satisfactorily accountedfor, and report also to Congress, at the commencement of each session, theresult of their examinations and proceedings. It does appear to me thatwith a subjection of this class of public officers to the generalsupervision of the Executive, to examinations by a committee of Congress atperiods of which they should have no previous notice, and to prosecutionand punishment as for felony for every breach of trust, the safe-keeping ofthe public moneys might under the system proposed be placed on a surerfoundation than it has ever occupied since the establishment of theGovernment. 

The Secretary of the Treasury will lay before you additional informationcontaining new details on this interesting subject. To these I ask yourearly attention. That it should have given rise to great diversity ofopinion can not be a subject of surprise. After the collection and custodyof the public moneys had been for so many years connected with and madesubsidiary to the advancement of private interests, a return to the simpleself-denying ordinances of the Constitution could not but be difficult. Buttime and free discussion, eliciting the sentiments of the people, and aidedby that conciliatory spirit which has ever characterized their course ongreat emergencies, were relied upon for a satisfactory settlement of thequestion. Already has this anticipation, on one important point atleast--the impropriety of diverting public money to private purposes--beenfully realized. There is no reason to suppose that legislation upon thatbranch of the subject would now be embarrassed by a difference of opinion, or fail to receive the cordial support of a large majority of ourconstituents. 

The connection which formerly existed between the Government and banks wasin reality injurious to both, as well as to the general interests of thecommunity at large. It aggravated the disasters of trade and thederangements of commercial intercourse, and administered new excitementsand additional means to wild and reckless speculations, the disappointmentof which threw the country into convulsions of panic, and all but producedviolence and bloodshed. The imprudent expansion of bank credits, which wasthe natural result of the command of the revenues of the State, furnishedthe resources for unbounded license in every species of adventure, seducedindustry from its regular and salutary occupations by the hope of abundancewithout labor, and deranged the social state by tempting all trades andprofessions into the vortex of speculation on remote contingencies. 

The same wide-spreading influence impeded also the resources of theGovernment, curtailed its useful operations, embarrassed the fulfillment ofits obligations, and seriously interfered with the execution of the laws. Large appropriations and oppressive taxes are the natural consequences ofsuch a connection, since they increase the profits of those who are allowedto use the public funds, and make it their interest that money should beaccumulated and expenditures multiplied. It is thus that a concentratedmoney power is tempted to become an active agent in political affairs; andall past experience has shown on which side that influence will be arrayed. We deceive ourselves if we suppose that, it will ever be found assertingand supporting the rights of the community at large in opposition to theclaims of the few. 

In a government whose distinguishing characteristic should be a diffusionand equalization of its benefits and burdens the advantage of individualswill be augmented at the expense of the community at large. Nor is it thenature of combinations for the acquisition of legislative influence toconfine their interference to the single object for which they wereoriginally formed. The temptation to extend it to other matters is, on thecontrary, not unfrequently too strong to be resisted. The rightfulinfluence in the direction of public affairs of the mass of the people istherefore in no slight danger of being sensibly and injuriously affected bygiving to a comparatively small but very efficient class a direct andexclusive personal interest in so important a portion of the legislation ofCongress as that which relates to the custody of the public moneys. If lawsacting upon private interests can not always be avoided, they should beconfined within the narrowest limits, and left wherever possible to thelegislatures of the States. When not thus restricted they lead tocombinations of powerful associations, foster an influence necessarilyselfish, and turn the fair course of legislation to sinister ends ratherthan to objects that advance public liberty and promote the general good. 

The whole subject now rests with you, and I can not but express a hope thatsome definite measure will be adopted at the present session. 

It will not, I am sure, be deemed out of place for me here to remark thatthe declaration of my views in opposition to the policy of employing banksas depositories of the Government funds can not justly be construed asindicative of hostility, official or personal, to those institutions; or torepeat in this form and in connection with this subject opinions which Ihave uniformly entertained and on all proper occasions expressed. Thoughalways opposed to their creation in the form of exclusive privileges, and, as a State magistrate, aiming by appropriate legislation to secure thecommunity against the consequences of their occasional mismanagement, Ihave yet ever wished to see them protected in the exercise of rightsconferred by law, and have never doubted their utility when properlymanaged in promoting the interests of trade, and through that channel theother interests of the community. To the General Government they presentthemselves merely as State institutions, having no necessary connectionwith its legislation or its administration. Like other Stateestablishments, they may be used or not in conducting the affairs of theGovernment, as public policy and the general interests of the Union mayseem to require. The only safe or proper principle upon which theirintercourse with the Government can be regulated is that which regulatestheir intercourse with the private citizen--the conferring of mutualbenefits. When the Government can accomplish a financial operation betterwith the aid of the banks than without it, it should be at liberty to seekthat aid as it would the services of a private banker or other capitalistor agent, giving the preference to those who will serve it on the bestterms. Nor can there ever exist an interest in the officers of the GeneralGovernment, as such, inducing them to embarrass or annoy the State banksany more than to incur the hostility of any other class of Stateinstitutions or of private citizens. It is not in the nature of things thathostility to these institutions can spring from this source, or anyopposition to their course of business, except when they themselves departfrom the objects of their creation and attempt to usurp powers notconferred upon them or to subvert the standard of value established by theConstitution. While opposition to their regular operations can not exist inthis quarter, resistance to any attempt to make the Government dependentupon them for the successful administration of public affairs is a matterof duty, as I trust it ever will be of inclination, no matter from whatmotive or consideration the attempt may originate. 

It is no more than just to the banks to say that in the late emergency mostof them firmly resisted the strongest temptations to extend their paperissues when apparently sustained in a suspension of specie payments bypublic opinion, even though in some cases invited by legislativeenactments. To this honorable course, aided by the resistance of theGeneral Government, acting in obedience to the Constitution and laws of theUnited States, to the introduction of an irredeemable paper medium, may beattributed in a great degree the speedy restoration of our currency to asound state and the business of the country to its wonted prosperity. 

The banks have but to continue in the same safe course and be content intheir appropriate sphere to avoid all interference from the GeneralGovernment and to derive from it all the protection and benefits which itbestows on other State establishments, on the people of the States, and onthe States themselves. In this, their true position, they can not butsecure the confidence and good will of the people and the Government, whichthey can only lose when, leaping from their legitimate sphere, they attemptto control the legislation of the country and pervert the operations of theGovernment to their own purposes. 

Our experience under the act, passed at the last session, to grantpreemption rights to settlers on the public lands has as yet been toolimited to enable us to pronounce with safety upon the efficacy of itsprovisions to carry out the wise and liberal policy of the Government inthat respect. There is, however, the best reason to anticipate favorableresults from its operation. The recommendations formerly submitted to youin respect to a graduation of the price of the public lands remain to befinally acted upon. Having found no reason to change the views thenexpressed, your attention to them is again respectfully requested. 

Every proper exertion has been made and will be continued to carry out thewishes of Congress in relation to the tobacco trade, as indicated in theseveral resolutions of the House of Representatives and the legislation ofthe two branches. A favorable impression has, I trust, been made in thedifferent foreign countries to which particular attention has beendirected; and although we can not hope for an early change in their policy, as in many of them a convenient and large revenue is derived frommonopolies in the fabrication and sale of this article, yet, as thesemonopolies are really injurious to the people where they are established, and the revenue derived from them may be less injuriously and with equalfacility obtained from another and a liberal system of administration, wecan not doubt that our efforts will be eventually crowned with, success ifpersisted in with temperate firmness and sustained by prudent legislation. 

In recommending to Congress the adoption of the necessary provisions atthis session for taking the next census or enumeration of the inhabitantsof the United States, the suggestion presents itself whether the scope ofthe measure might not be usefully extended by causing it to embraceauthentic statistical returns of the great interests specially intrusted toor necessarily affected by the legislation of Congress. 

The accompanying report of the Secretary of War presents a satisfactoryaccount of the state of the Army and of the several branches of the publicservice confided to the superintendence of that officer. 

The law increasing and organizing the military establishment of the UnitedStates has been nearly carried into effect, and the Army has beenextensively and usefully employed during the past season. 

I would again call to your notice the subjects connected with and essentialto the military defenses of the country which were submitted to you at thelast session, but which were not acted upon, as is supposed, for want oftime. The most important of them is the organization of the militia on themaritime and inland frontiers. This measure is deemed important, as it isbelieved that it will furnish an effective volunteer force in aid of theRegular Army, and may form the basis of a general system of organizationfor the entire militia of the United States. The erection of a nationalfoundry and gunpowder manufactory, and one for making small arms, thelatter to be situated at some point west of the Allegany Mountains, allappear to be of sufficient importance to be again urged upon yourattention. 

The plan proposed by the Secretary of War for the distribution of theforces of the United States in time of peace is well calculated to promoteregularity and economy in the fiscal administration of the service, topreserve the discipline of the troops, and to render them available for themaintenance of the peace and tranquillity of the Country. With this view, likewise, I recommend the adoption of the plan presented by that officerfor the defense of the western frontier. The preservation of the lives andproperty of our fellow-citizens who are settled upon that border country, as well as the existence of the Indian population, which might be temptedby our want of preparation to rush on their own destruction and attack thewhite settlements, all seem to require that this subject should be actedupon without delay, and the War Department authorized to place that countryin a state of complete defense against any assault from the numerous andwarlike tribes which are congregated on that border. 

It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entireremoval of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of theMississippi. The measures authorized by Congress at its last session, witha view to the long-standing controversy with them, have had the happiesteffects. By an agreement concluded with them by the commanding general inthat country, who has performed the duties assigned to him on the occasionwith commendable energy and humanity, their removal has been principallyunder the conduct of their own chiefs, and they have emigrated without anyapparent reluctance. 

The successful accomplishment of this important object, the removal also ofthe entire Creek Nation with the exception of a small number of fugitivesamongst the Seminoles in Florida, the progress already made toward a speedycompletion of the removal of the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, thePottawatamies, the Ottawas, and the Chippewas, with the extensive purchasesof Indian lands during the present year, have rendered the speedy andsuccessful result of the long-established policy of the Government upon thesubject of Indian affairs entirely certain. The occasion is thereforedeemed a proper one to place this policy in such a point of view as willexonerate the Government of the United States from the undeserved reproachwhich has been cast upon it through several successive Administrations. That a mixed occupancy of the same territory by the white and red man isincompatible with the safety or happiness of either is a position inrespect to which there has long since ceased to be room for a difference ofopinion. Reason and experience have alike demonstrated itsimpracticability. The bitter fruits of every attempt heretofore to overcomethe barriers interposed by nature have only been destruction, both physicaland moral, to the Indian, dangerous conflicts of authority between theFederal and State Governments, and detriment to the individual prosperityof the citizen as well as to the general improvement of the country. Theremedial policy, the principles of which were settled more than thirtyyears ago under the Administration of Mr. Jefferson, consists in anextinction, for a fair consideration, of the title to all the lands stilloccupied by the Indians within the States and Territories of the UnitedStates; their removal to a country west of the Mississippi much moreextensive and better adapted to their condition than that on which theythen resided; the guarantee to them by the United States of their exclusivepossession of that country forever, exempt from all intrusions by whitemen, with ample provisions for their security against external violence andinternal dissensions, and the extension to them of suitable facilities fortheir advancement in civilization. This has not been the policy ofparticular Administrations only, but of each in succession since the firstattempt to carry it out under that of Mr. Monroe. All have labored for itsaccomplishment, only with different degrees of success. The manner of itsexecution has, it is true, from time to time given rise to conflicts ofopinion and unjust imputations; but in respect to the wisdom and necessityof the policy itself there has not from the beginning existed a doubt inthe mind of any calm, judicious, disinterested friend of the Indian raceaccustomed to reflection and enlightened by experience. 

Occupying the double character of contractor on its own account andguardian for the parties contracted with, it was hardly to be expected thatthe dealings of the Federal Government with the Indian tribes would escapemisrepresentation. That there occurred ill the early settlement of thiscountry, as in all others where the civilized race has succeeded to thepossessions of the savage, instances of oppression and fraud on the part ofthe former there is too much reason to believe. No such offenses can, however, be justly charged upon this Government since it became free topursue its own course. Its dealings with the Indian tribes have been justand friendly throughout; its efforts for their civilization constant, anddirected by the best feelings of humanity; its watchfulness in protectingthem from individual frauds unremitting; its forbearance under the keenestprovocations, the deepest injuries, and the most flagrant outrages maychallenge at least a comparison with any nation, ancient or modern, insimilar circumstances; and if in future times a powerful, civilized, andhappy nation of Indians shall be found to exist within the limits of thisnorthern continent it will be owing to the consummation of that policywhich has been so unjustly assailed. Only a very brief reference to factsin confirmation of this assertion can in this form be given, and you aretherefore necessarily referred to the report of the Secretary of War forfurther details. To the Cherokees, whose case has perhaps excited thegreatest share of attention and sympathy, the United States have granted infee, with a perpetual guaranty of exclusive and peaceable possession, 13, 554, 135 acres of land on the west side of the Mississippi, eligiblysituated, in a healthy climate, and in all respects better suited to theircondition than the country they have left, in exchange for only 9, 492, 160acres on the east side of the same river. The United States have inaddition stipulated to pay them $5, 600, 000 for their interest in andimprovements on the lands thus relinquished, and $1, 160, 000 for subsistenceand other beneficial purposes, thereby putting it in their power to becomeone of the most wealthy and independent separate communities of the sameextent in the world. 

By the treaties made and ratified with the Miamies, the Chippewas, theSioux, the Sacs and Foxes, and the Winnebagoes during the last year theIndian title to 18, 458, 000 acres has been extinguished. These purchaseshave been much more extensive than those of any previous year, and have, with other Indian expenses, borne very heavily upon the Treasury. Theyleave, however, but a small quantity of unbought Indian lands within theStates and Territories, and the Legislature and Executive were equallysensible of the propriety of a final and more speedy extinction of Indiantitles within those limits. The treaties, which were with a singleexception made in pursuance of previous appropriations for defraying theexpenses, have subsequently been ratified by the Senate, and received thesanction of Congress by the appropriations necessary to carry them intoeffect. Of the terms upon which these important negotiations were concludedI can speak from direct knowledge, and I feel no difficulty in affirmingthat the interest of the Indians in the extensive territory embraced bythem is to be paid for at its fair value, and that no more favorable termshave been granted to the United States than would have been reasonablyexpected in a negotiation with civilized men fully capable of appreciatingand protecting their own rights. For the Indian title to 116, 349, 897 acresacquired since the 4th of March, 1829, the United States have paid$72, 560, 056 in permanent annuities, lands, reservations for Indians, expenses of removal and subsistence, merchandise, mechanical andagricultural establishments and implements. When the heavy expensesincurred by the United States and the circumstance that so large a portionof the entire territory will be forever unsalable are considered, and thisprice is compared with that for which the United States sell their ownlands, no one can doubt that justice has been done to the Indians in thesepurchases also. Certain it is that the transactions of the FederalGovernment with the Indians have been uniformly characterized by a sincereand paramount desire to promote their welfare; and it must be a source ofthe highest gratification to every friend to justice and humanity to learnthat not withstanding the obstructions from time to time thrown in its wayand the difficulties which have arisen from the peculiar and impracticablenature of the Indian character, the wise, humane, and undeviating policy ofthe Government in this the most difficult of all our relations, foreign ordomestic, has at length been justified to the world in its near approach toa happy and certain consummation. 

The condition of the tribes which occupy the country set apart for them inthe West is highly prosperous, and encourages the hope of their earlycivilization. They have for the most part abandoned the hunter state andturned their attention to agricultural pursuits. All those who have beenestablished for any length of time in that fertile region maintainthemselves by their own industry. There are among them traders of noinconsiderable capital, and planters exporting cotton to some extent, butthe greater number are small agriculturists, living in comfort upon theproduce of their farms. The recent emigrants, although they have in someinstances removed reluctantly, have readily acquiesced in their unavoidabledestiny. They have found at once a recompense for past sufferings and anincentive to industrious habits in the abundance and comforts around them. There is reason to believe that all these tribes are friendly in theirfeelings toward the United States; and it is to be hoped that theacquisition of individual wealth, the pursuits of agriculture, and habitsof industry will gradually subdue their warlike propensities and inclinethem to maintain peace among themselves. To effect this desirable objectthe attention of Congress is solicited to the measures recommended by theSecretary of War for their future government and protection, as well fromeach other as from the hostility of the warlike tribes around them and theintrusions of the whites. The policy of the Government has given them apermanent home and guaranteed to them its peaceful and undisturbedpossession. It only remains to give them a government and laws which willencourage industry and secure to them the rewards of their exertions. Theimportance of some form of government can not be too much insisted upon. The earliest effects will be to diminish the causes and occasions forhostilities among the tribes, to inspire an interest in the observance oflaws to which they will have themselves assented, and to multiply thesecurities of property and the motives for self-improvement. Intimatelyconnected with this subject is the establishment of the military defensesrecommended by the Secretary of War, which have been already referred to. Without them the Government will be powerless to redeem its pledge ofprotection to the emigrating Indians against the numerous warlike tribesthat surround them and to provide for the safety of the frontier settlersof the bordering States. 

The case of the Seminoles constitutes at present the only exception to thesuccessful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homesassigned them west of the Mississippi. Four hundred of this tribe emigratedin 1836 and 1, 500 in 1837 and 1838, leaving in the country, it is supposed, about 2, 000 Indians. The continued treacherous conduct of these people; thesavage and unprovoked murders they have lately committed, butchering wholefamilies of the settlers of the Territory without distinction of age orsex, and making their way into the very center and heart of the country, sothat no part of it is free from their ravages; their frequent attacks onthe light-houses along that dangerous coast, and the barbarity with whichthey have murdered the passengers and crews of such vessels as have beenwrecked upon the reefs and keys which border the Gulf, leave the Governmentno alternative but to continue the military operations against them untilthey are totally expelled from Florida. There are other motives which wouldurge the Government to pursue this course toward the Seminoles. The UnitedStates have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with theIndian tribes, and have in every other instance insisted upon a likeperformance of their obligations. To relax from this salutary rule becausethe Seminoles have maintained themselves so long in the territory they hadrelinquished, and in defiance of their frequent and solemn engagementsstill continue to wage a ruthless war against the United States, would notonly evince a want of constancy on our part, but be of evil example in ourintercourse with other tribes. Experience has shown that but little is tobe gained by the march of armies through a country so intersected withinaccessible swamps and marshes, and which, from the fatal character of theclimate, must be abandoned at the end of the winter. I recommend, therefore, to your attention the plan submitted by the Secretary of War inthe accompanying report, for the permanent occupation of the portion of theTerritory freed from the Indians and the more efficient protection of thepeople of Florida from their inhuman warfare. 

From the report of the Secretary of the Navy herewith transmitted it willappear that a large portion of the disposable naval force is eitheractively employed or in a state of preparation for the purposes ofexperience and discipline and the protection of our commerce. So effectualhas been this protection that so far as the information of Governmentextends not a single outrage has been attempted on a vessel carrying theflag of the United States within the present year, in any quarter, howeverdistant or exposed. 

The exploring expedition sailed from Norfolk on the 19th of August last, and information has been received of its safe arrival at the island ofMadeira. The best spirit animates the officers and crews, and there isevery reason to anticipate from its efforts results beneficial to commerceand honorable to the nation. 

It will also be seen that no reduction of the force now in commission iscontemplated. The unsettled state of a portion of South America renders itindispensable that our commerce should receive protection in that quarter;the vast and increasing interests embarked in the trade of the Indian andChina seas, in the whale fisheries of the Pacific Ocean, and in the Gulf ofMexico require equal attention to their safety, and a small squadron may beemployed to great advantage on our Atlantic coast in meeting sudden demandsfor the reenforcement of other stations, in aiding merchant vessels indistress, in affording active service to an additional number of officers, and in visiting the different ports of the United States, an accurateknowledge of which is obviously of the highest importance. 

The attention of Congress is respectfully called to that portion of thereport recommending an increase in the number of smaller vessels, and toother suggestions contained in that document. The rapid increase and wideexpansion of our commerce, which is every day seeking new avenues ofprofitable adventure; the absolute necessity of a naval force for itsprotection precisely in the degree of its extension; a due regard to thenational rights and honor; the recollection of its former exploits, and theanticipation of its future triumphs whenever opportunity presents itself, which we may rightfully indulge from the experience of the past--all seemto point to the Navy as a most efficient arm of our national defense and aproper object of legislative encouragement. 

The progress and condition of the Post-Office Department will be seen byreference to the report of the Postmaster-General. The extent of post-roadscovered by mail contracts is stated to be 134, 818 miles, and the annualtransportation upon them 34, 580, 202 miles. The number of post-offices inthe United States is 12, 553, and rapidly increasing. The gross revenue forthe year ending on the 30th day of June last was $4, 262, 145; the accruingexpenditures, $4, 680, 068; excess of expenditures, $417, 923. This has beenmade up out of the surplus previously on hand. The cash on hand on the 1stinstant was $314, 068. The revenue for the year ending June 30, 1838, was$161, 540 more than that for the year ending June 30, 1837. The expendituresof the Department had been graduated upon the anticipation of a largelyincreased revenue. A moderate curtailment of mail service consequentlybecame necessary, and has been effected, to shield the Department againstthe danger of embarrassment. Its revenue is now improving, and it will soonresume its onward course in the march of improvement. 

Your particular attention is requested to so much of thePostmaster-Generals report as relates to the transportation of the mailsupon railroads. The laws on that subject do not seem adequate to securethat service, now become almost essential to the public interests, and atthe same time protect the Department from combinations and unreasonabledemands. 

Nor can I too earnestly request your attention to the necessity ofproviding a more secure building for this Department. The danger ofdestruction to which its important books and papers are continuallyexposed, as well from the highly combustible character of the buildingoccupied as from that of others in the vicinity, calls loudly for promptaction. 

Your attention is again earnestly invited to the suggestions andrecommendations submitted at the last session in respect to the District ofColumbia. 

I feel it my duty also to bring to your notice certain proceedings at lawwhich have recently been prosecuted in this District in the name of theUnited States, on the relation of Messrs. Stockton & Stokes, of the Stateof Maryland, against the Postmaster-General, and which have resulted in thepayment of money out of the National Treasury, for the first time since theestablishment of the Government, by judicial compulsion exercised by thecommon-law writ of mandamus issued by the circuit court of this District. 

The facts of the case and the grounds of the proceedings will be foundfully stated in the report of the decision, and any additional informationwhich you may desire will be supplied by the proper Department. Nointerference in the particular case is contemplated. The money has beenpaid, the claims of the prosecutors have been satisfied, and the wholesubject, so far as they are concerned, is finally disposed of; but it is onthe supposition that the case may be regarded as an authoritativeexposition of the law as it now stands that I have thought it necessary topresent it to your consideration. 

The object of the application to the circuit court was to compel thePostmaster-General to carry into effect an award made by the Solicitor ofthe Treasury, under a special act of Congress for the settlement of certainclaims of the relators on the Post-Office Department, which award thePostmaster-General declined to execute in full until he should receivefurther legislative direction on the subject. If the duty imposed on thePostmaster-General by that law was to be regarded as one of an officialnature, belonging to his office as a branch of the executive, then it isobvious that the constitutional competency of the judiciary to direct andcontrol him in its discharge was necessarily drawn in question; and if theduty so imposed on the Postmaster-General was to be considered as merelyministerial, and not executive, it yet remained to be shown that thecircuit court of this District had authority to interfere by mandamus, sucha power having never before been asserted or claimed by that court. With aview to the settlement of these important questions, the judgment of thecircuit court was carried by a writ of error to the Supreme Court of theUnited States. In the opinion of that tribunal the duty imposed on thePostmaster-General was not an official executive duty, but one of a merelyministerial nature. The grave constitutional questions which had beendiscussed were therefore excluded from the decision of the case, the court, indeed, expressly admitting that with powers and duties properly belongingto the executive no other department can interfere by the writ ofmandamus; and the question therefore resolved itself into this: HasCongress conferred upon the circuit court of this District the power toissue such a writ to an officer of the General Government commanding him toperform a ministerial act? A majority of the court have decided that ithas, but have rounded their decision upon a process of reasoning which inmy judgment renders further legislative provision indispensable to thepublic interests and the equal administration of justice. 

It has long since been decided by the Supreme Court that neither thattribunal nor the circuit courts of the United States, held within therespective States, possess the power in question; but it is now held thatthis power, denied to both of these high tribunals (to the former by theConstitution and to the latter by Congress), has been by its legislationvested in the circuit court of this District. No such direct grant of powerto the circuit court of this District is claimed, but it has been held toresult by necessary implication from several sections of the lawestablishing the court. One of these sections declares that the laws ofMaryland, as they existed at the time of the cession, should be in force inthat part of the District ceded by that State, and by this provision thecommon law in civil and criminal cases, as it prevailed in Maryland in1801, was established in that part of the District. 

In England the court of king's bench--because the Sovereign, who, accordingto the theory of the constitution, is the fountain of justice originallysat there in person, and is still deemed to be present in construction oflaw--alone possesses the high power of issuing the writ of mandamus, notonly to inferior jurisdictions and corporations, but also to magistratesand others, commanding them in the King's name to do what their dutyrequires in cases where there is a vested right and no other specificremedy. It has been held in the case referred to that as the Supreme Courtof the United States is by the Constitution rendered incompetent toexercise this power, and as the circuit court of this District is a courtof general jurisdiction in cases at common law, and the highest court oforiginal jurisdiction in the District, the right to issue the writ ofmandamus is incident to its common-law powers. Another ground relied uponto maintain the power in question is that it was included by fairconstruction in the powers granted to the circuit courts of the UnitedStates by the act "to provide for the more convenient organization of thecourts of the United States, " passed 13th February, 1801; that the actestablishing the circuit court of this District, passed the 27th day ofFebruary, 1801, conferred upon that court and the judges thereof the samepowers as were by law vested in the circuit courts of the United States andin the judges of the said courts; that the repeal of the first-mentionedact, which took place in the next year, did not divest the circuit court ofthis District of the authority in dispute, but left it still clothed withthe powers over the subject which, it is conceded, were taken away from thecircuit courts of the United States by the repeal of the act of 13thFebruary, 1801. 

Admitting that the adoption of the laws of Maryland for a portion of thisDistrict confers on the circuit court thereof, in that portion, thetranscendent extrajudicial prerogative powers of the court of king's benchin England, or that either of the acts of Congress by necessary implicationauthorizes the former court to issue a writ of mandamus to an officer ofthe United States to compel him to perform a ministerial duty, theconsequences are in one respect the same. The result in either case is thatthe officers of the United States stationed in different parts of theUnited States are, in respect to the performance of their official duties, subject to different laws and a different supervision--those in the Statesto one rule, and those in the District of Columbia to another and a verydifferent one. In the District their official conduct is subject to ajudicial control from which in the States they are exempt. 

Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the expediency of vestingsuch a power in the judiciary in a system of government constituted likethat of the United States, all must agree that these disparagingdiscrepancies in the law and in the administration of justice ought not tohe permitted to continue; and as Congress alone can provide the remedy, thesubject is unavoidably presented to your consideration. 

M. VAN BUREN

***

State of the Union AddressMartin van BurenDecember 2, 1839

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I regret that I can not on this occasion congratulate you that the pastyear has been one of unalloyed prosperity. The ravages of fire and diseasehave painfully afflicted otherwise flourishing portions of our country, andserious embarrassments yet derange the trade of many of our cities. Butnotwithstanding these adverse circumstances, that general prosperity whichhas been heretofore so bountifully bestowed upon us by the Author of AllGood still continues to call for our warmest gratitude. Especially have wereason to rejoice in the exuberant harvests which have lavishly recompensedwell-directed industry and given to it that sure reward which is vainlysought in visionary speculations. I cannot, indeed, view without peculiarsatisfaction the evidences afforded by the past season of the benefits thatspring from the steady devotion of the husbandman to his honorable pursuit. No means of individual comfort is more certain and no source of nationalprosperity is so sure. Nothing can compensate a people for a dependenceupon others for the bread they eat, and that cheerful abundance on whichthe happiness of everyone so much depends is to be looked for nowhere withsuch sure reliance as in the industry of the agriculturist and the bountiesof the earth. 

With foreign countries our relations exhibit the same favorable aspectwhich was presented in my last annual message, and afford continued proofof the wisdom of the pacific, just, and forbearing policy adopted by thefirst Administration of the Federal Government and pursued by itssuccessors. The extraordinary powers vested in me by an act of Congress forthe defense of the country in an emergency, considered so far probable asto require that the Executive should possess ample means to meet it, havenot been exerted. They have therefore been attended with no other resultthan to increase, by the confidence thus reposed in me, my obligations tomaintain with religious exactness the cardinal principles that govern ourintercourse with other nations. Happily, in our pending questions withGreat Britain, out of which this unusual grant of authority arose, nothinghas occurred to require its exertion, and as it is about to return to theLegislature I trust that no future necessity may call for its exercise bythem or its delegation to another Department of the Government. 

For the settlement of our northeastern boundary the proposition promised byGreat Britain for a commission of exploration and survey has been received, and a counter project, including also a provision for the certain and finaladjustment of the limits in dispute, is now before the British Governmentfor its consideration. A just regard to the delicate state of this questionand a proper respect for the natural impatience of the State of Maine, notless than a conviction that the negotiation has been already protractedlonger than is prudent on the part of either Government, have led me tobelieve that the present favorable moment should on no account be sufferedto pass without putting the question forever at rest. I feel confident thatthe Government of Her Britannic Majesty will take the same view of thissubject, as I am persuaded it is governed by desires equally strong andsincere for the amicable termination of the controversy. 

To the intrinsic difficulties of questions of boundary lines, especiallythose described in regions unoccupied and but partially known, is to beadded in our country the embarrassment necessarily arising out of ourConstitution by which the General Government is made the organ ofnegotiating and deciding upon the particular interests of the States onwhose frontiers these lines are to be traced. To avoid another controversyin which a State government might rightfully claim to have her wishesconsulted previously to the conclusion of conventional arrangementsconcerning her rights of jurisdiction or territory, I have thought itnecessary to call the attention of the Government of Great Britain toanother portion of our conterminous dominion of which the division stillremains to be adjusted I refer to the line from the entrance of LakeSuperior to the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods, stipulations for the settlement of which are to be found in the seventharticle of the treaty of Ghent. The commissioners appointed under thatarticle by the two Governments having differed in their opinions, madeseparate reports, according to its stipulations, upon the points ofdisagreement, and these differences are now to be submitted to thearbitration of some friendly sovereign or state. The disputed points shouldbe settled and the line designated before the Territorial government ofwhich it is one of the boundaries takes its place in the Union as a State, and I rely upon the cordial cooperation of the British Government to effectthat object. 

There is every reason to believe that disturbances like those which latelyagitated the neighboring British Provinces will not again prove the sourcesof border contentions or interpose obstacles to the continuance of thatgood understanding which it is the mutual interest of Great Britain and theUnited States to preserve and maintain. 

Within the Provinces themselves tranquillity is restored, and on ourfrontier that misguided sympathy in favor of what was presumed to be ageneral effort in behalf of popular rights, and which in some instancesmisled a few of our more inexperienced citizens, has subsided into arational conviction strongly opposed to all intermeddling with the internalaffairs of our neighbors. The people of the United States feel, as it ishoped they always will, a warm solicitude for the success of all who aresincerely endeavoring to improve the political condition of mankind. Thisgenerous feeling they cherish toward the most distant nations, and it wasnatural, therefore, that it should be awakened with more than common warmthin behalf of their immediate neighbors; but it does not belong to theircharacter as a community to seek the gratification of those feelings inacts which violate their duty as citizens, endanger the peace of theircountry, and tend to bring upon it the stain of a violated faith towardforeign nations. If, zealous to confer benefits on others, they appear fora moment to lose sight of the permanent obligations imposed upon them ascitizens, they are seldom long misled. From all the information I receive, confirmed to some extent by personal observation, I am satisfied that noone can now hope to engage in such enterprises without encountering publicindignation, in addition to the severest penalties of the law. 

Recent information also leads me to hope that the emigrants from HerMajesty's Provinces who have sought refuge within our boundaries aredisposed to become peaceable residents and to abstain from all attempts toendanger the peace of that country which has afforded them an asylum. On areview of the occurrences on both sides of the line it is satisfactory toreflect that in almost every complaint against our country the offense maybe traced to emigrants from the Provinces who have sought refuge here. Inthe few instances in which they were aided by citizens of the United Statesthe acts of these misguided men were not only in direct contravention ofthe laws and well-known wishes of their own Government, but met with thedecided disapprobation of the people of the United States. 

I regret to state the appearance of a different spirit among Her Majesty'ssubjects in the Canadas. The sentiments of hostility to our people andinstitutions which have been so frequently expressed there, and thedisregard of our rights which has been manifested on some occasions, have, I am sorry to say, been applauded and encouraged by the people, and even bysome of the subordinate local authorities, of the Provinces. The chiefofficers in Canada, fortunately, have not entertained the same feeling, andhave probably prevented excesses that must have been fatal to the peace ofthe two countries. 

I look forward anxiously to a period when all the transactions which havegrown out of this condition of our affairs, and which have been made thesubjects of complaint and remonstrance by the two Governments, respectively, shall be fully examined, and the proper satisfaction givenwhere it is due from either side. 

Nothing has occurred to disturb the harmony of our intercourse withAustria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Naples, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, orSweden. The internal state of Spain has sensibly improved, and awell-grounded hope exists that the return of peace will restore to thepeople of that country their former prosperity and enable the Government tofulfill all its obligations at home and abroad. The Government of Portugal, I have the satisfaction to state, has paid in full the eleventh and lastinstallment due to our citizens for the claims embraced in the settlementmade with it on the 3d of March, 1837. 

I lay before you treaties of commerce negotiated with the Kings of Sardiniaand of the Netherlands, the ratifications of which have been exchangedsince the adjournment of Congress. The liberal principles of these treatieswill recommend them to your approbation. That with Sardinia is the firsttreaty of commerce formed by that Kingdom, and it will, I trust, answer theexpectations of the present Sovereign by aiding the development of theresources of his country and stimulating the enterprise of his people. Thatwith the Netherlands happily terminates a long-existing subject of disputeand removes from our future commercial intercourse all apprehension ofembarrassment. The King of the Netherlands has also, in furtherillustration of his character for justice and of his desire to remove everycause of dissatisfaction, made compensation for an American vessel capturedin 1800 by a French privateer, and carried into Curacoa, where the proceedswere appropriated to the use of the colony, then, and for a short timeafter, under the dominion of Holland. 

The death of the late Sultan has produced no alteration in our relationswith Turkey. Our newly appointed minister resident has reachedConstantinople, and I have received assurances from the present ruler thatthe obligations of our treaty and those of friendship will be fulfilled byhimself in the same spirit that actuated his illustrious father. 

I regret to be obliged to inform you that no convention for the settlementof the claims of our citizens upon Mexico has yet been ratified by theGovernment of that country. The first convention formed for that purposewas not presented by the President of Mexico for the approbation of itsCongress, from a belief that the King of Prussia, the arbitrator in case ofdisagreement in the joint commission to be appointed by the United Statesand Mexico, would not consent to take upon himself that friendly office. Although not entirely satisfied with the course pursued by Mexico, I feltno hesitation in receiving in the most conciliatory spirit the explanationoffered, and also cheerfully consented to a new convention, in order toarrange the payments proposed to be made to our citizens in a manner which, while equally just to them, was deemed less onerous and inconvenient to theMexican Government. Relying confidently upon the intentions of thatGovernment, Mr. Ellis was directed to repair to Mexico, and diplomaticintercourse has been resumed between the two countries. The new conventionhas, he informs us, been recently submitted by the President of thatRepublic to its Congress under circumstances which promise a speedyratification, a result which I can not allow myself to doubt. 

Instructions have been given to the commissioner of the United States underour convention with Texas for the demarcation of the line which separatesus from that Republic. The commissioners of both Governments met in NewOrleans in August last. The joint commission was organized, and adjournedto convene at the same place on the 12th of October. It is presumed to benow in the performance of its duties. 

The new Government of Texas has shown its desire to cultivate friendlyrelations with us by a prompt reparation for injuries complained of in thecases of two vessels of the United States. 

With Central America a convention has been concluded for the renewal of itsformer treaty with the United States. This was not ratified before thedeparture of our late charge d'affaires from that country, and the copy ofit brought by him was not received before the adjournment of the Senate atthe last session. In the meanwhile, the period limited for the exchange ofratifications having expired, I deemed it expedient, in consequence of thedeath of the charge d'affaires, to send a special agent to Central Americato close the affairs of our mission there and to arrange with theGovernment an extension of the time for the exchange of ratifications. 

The commission created by the States which formerly composed the Republicof Colombia for adjusting the claims against that Government has by a veryunexpected construction of the treaty under which it acts decided that noprovision was made for those claims of citizens of the United States whicharose from captures by Colombian privateers and were adjudged against theclaimants in the judicial tribunals. This decision will compel the UnitedStates to apply to the several Governments formerly united for redress. With all these--New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador--a perfectly goodunderstanding exists. Our treaty with Venezuela is faithfully carried intoexecution, and that country, in the enjoyment of tranquillity, is graduallyadvancing in prosperity under the guidance of its present distinguishedPresident, General Paez. With Ecuador a liberal commercial convention haslately been concluded, which will be transmitted to the Senate at an earlyday. 

With the great American Empire of Brazil our relations continue unchanged, as does our friendly intercourse with the other Governments of SouthAmerica--the Argentine Republic and the Republics of Uruguay, Chili, Peru, and Bolivia. The dissolution of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation mayoccasion some temporary inconvenience to our citizens in that quarter, butthe obligations on the new Governments which have arisen out of thatConfederation to observe its treaty stipulations will no doubt be soonunderstood, and it is presumed that no indisposition will exist to fulfillthose which it contracted with the United States. 

The financial operations of the Government during the present year have, Iam happy to say, been very successful. The difficulties under which theTreasury Department has labored, from known defects in the existing lawsrelative to the safe-keeping of the public moneys, aggravated by thesuspension of specie payments by several of the banks holding publicdeposits or indebted to public officers for notes received in payment ofpublic dues, have been surmounted to a very gratifying extent. The largecurrent expenditures have been punctually met, and the faith of theGovernment in all its pecuniary concerns has been scrupulously maintained. 

The nineteen millions of Treasury notes authorized by the act of Congressof 1837, and the modifications thereof with a view to the indulgence ofmerchants on their duty bonds and of the deposit banks in the payment ofpublic moneys held by them, have been so punctually redeemed as to leaveless than the original ten millions outstanding at any one time, and thewhole amount unredeemed now falls short of three millions. Of these thechief portion is not due till next year, and the whole would have beenalready extinguished could the Treasury have realized the payments due toit from the banks. If those due from them during the next year shall bepunctually made, and if Congress shall keep the appropriations within theestimates, there is every reason to believe that all the outstandingTreasury notes can be redeemed and the ordinary expenses defrayed withoutimposing on the people any additional burden, either of loans or increasedtaxes. 

To avoid this and to keep the expenditures within reasonable bounds is aduty second only in importance to the preservation of our nationalcharacter and the protection of our citizens in their civil and politicalrights. The creation in time of peace of a debt likely to become permanentis an evil for which there is no equivalent. The rapidity with which manyof the States are apparently approaching to this condition admonishes us ofour own duties in a manner too impressive to be disregarded. One, not theleast important, is to keep the Federal Government always in a condition todischarge with ease and vigor its highest functions should their exercisebe required by any sudden conjuncture of public affairs--a condition towhich we are always exposed and which may occur when it is least expected. To this end it is indispensable that its finances should be untrammeled andits resources as far as practicable unencumbered. No circumstance couldpresent greater obstacles to the accomplishment of these vitally importantobjects than the creation of an onerous national debt. Our own experienceand also that of other nations have demonstrated the unavoidable andfearful rapidity with which a public debt is increased when the Governmenthas once surrendered itself to the ruinous practice of supplying itssupposed necessities by new loans. The struggle, therefore, on our part tobe successful must be made at the threshold. To make our efforts effective, severe economy is necessary. This is the surest provision for the nationalwelfare, and it is at the same time the best preservative of the principleson which our institutions rest. Simplicity and economy in the affairs ofstate have never failed to chasten and invigorate republican principles, while these have been as surely subverted by national prodigality, underwhatever specious pretexts it may have been introduced or fostered. 

These considerations can not be lost upon a people who have never beeninattentive to the effect of their policy upon the institutions they havecreated for themselves, but at the present moment their force is augmentedby the necessity which a decreasing revenue must impose. The check latelygiven to importations of articles subject to duties, the derangements inthe operations of internal trade, and especially the reduction graduallytaking place in our tariff of duties, all tend materially to lessen ourreceipts; indeed, it is probable that the diminution resulting from thelast cause alone will not fall short of $5, 000, 000 in the year 1842, as thefinal reduction of all duties to 20 per cent then takes effect. The wholerevenue then accruing from the customs and from the sales of public lands, if not more, will undoubtedly be wanted to defray the necessary expenses ofthe Government under the most prudent administration of its affairs. Theseare circumstances that impose the necessity of rigid economy and requireits prompt and constant exercise. With the Legislature rest the power andduty of so adjusting the public expenditure as to promote this end. By theprovisions of the Constitution it is only in consequence of appropriationsmade by law that money can be drawn from the Treasury. No instance hasoccurred since the establishment of the Government in which the Executive, though a component part of the legislative power, has interposed anobjection to an appropriation bill on the sole ground of its extravagance. His duty in this respect has been considered fulfilled by requesting suchappropriations only as the public service may be reasonably expected torequire. In the present earnest direction of the public mind toward thissubject both the Executive and the Legislature have evidence of the strictresponsibility to which they will be held; and while I am conscious of myown anxious efforts to perform with fidelity this portion of my publicfunctions, it is a satisfaction to me to be able to count on a cordialcooperation from you. 

At the time I entered upon my present duties our ordinary disbursements, without including those on account of the public debt, the Post-Office, andthe trust funds in charge of the Government, had been largely increased byappropriations for the removal of the Indians, for repelling Indianhostilities, and for other less urgent expenses which grew out of anoverflowing Treasury. Independent of the redemption of the public debt andtrusts, the gross expenditures of seventeen and eighteen millions in 1834and 1835 had by these causes swelled to twenty-nine millions in 1836, andthe appropriations for 1837, made previously to the 4th of March, causedthe expenditure to rise to the very large amount of thirty-three millions. We were enabled during the year 1838, notwithstanding the continuance ofour Indian embarrassments, somewhat to reduce this amount, and that for thepresent year (1839) will not in all probability exceed twenty-six millions, or six millions less than it was last year. With a determination, so far asdepends on me, to continue this reduction, I have directed the estimatesfor 1840 to be subjected to the severest scrutiny and to be limited to theabsolute requirements of the public service. They will be found less thanthe expenditures of 1839 by over $5, 000, 000. 

The precautionary measures which will be recommended by the Secretary ofthe Treasury to protect faithfully the public credit under the fluctuationsand contingencies to which our receipts and expenditures are exposed, andespecially in a commercial crisis like the present, are commended to yourearly attention. 

On a former occasion your attention was invited to various considerationsin support of a preemption law in behalf of the settlers on the publiclands, and also of a law graduating the prices for such lands as had longbeen in the market unsold in consequence of their inferior quality. Theexecution of the act which was passed on the first subject has beenattended with the happiest consequences in quieting titles and securingimprovements to the industrious, and it has also to a very gratifyingextent been exempt from the frauds which were practiced under previouspreemption laws. It has at the same time, as was anticipated, contributedliberally during the present year to the receipts of the Treasury. 

The passage of a graduation law, with the guards before recommended, wouldalso, I am persuaded, add considerably to the revenue for several years, and prove in other respects just and beneficial. Your early considerationof the subject is therefore once more earnestly requested. 

The present condition of the defenses of our principal seaports andnavy-yards, as represented by the accompanying report of the Secretary ofWar, calls for the early and serious attention of Congress; and, asconnecting itself intimately with this subject, I can not recommend toostrongly to your consideration the plan submitted by that officer for theorganization of the militia of the United States. 

In conformity with the expressed wishes of Congress, an attempt was made inthe spring to terminate the Florida war by negotiation. It is to beregretted that these humane intentions should have been frustrated and thatthe effort to bring these unhappy difficulties to a satisfactory conclusionshould have failed; but after entering into solemn engagements with thecommanding general, the Indians, without any provocation, recommenced theiracts of treachery and murder. The renewal of hostilities in that Territoryrenders it necessary that I should recommend to your favorableconsideration the plan which will be submitted to you by the Secretary ofWar, in order to enable that Department to conduct them to a successfulissue. 

Having had an opportunity of personally inspecting a portion of the troopsduring the last summer, it gives me pleasure to bear testimony to thesuccess of the effort to improve their discipline by keeping them togetherin as large bodies as the nature of our service will permit. I recommend, therefore, that commodious and permanent barracks be constructed at theseveral posts designated by the Secretary of War. Notwithstanding the highstate of their discipline and excellent police, the evils resulting to theservice from the deficiency of company officers were very apparent, and Irecommend that the staff officers be permanently separated from the line. 

The Navy has been usefully and honorably employed in protecting the rightsand property of our citizens wherever the condition of affairs seemed torequire its presence. With the exception of one instance, where an outrage, accompanied by murder, was committed on a vessel of the United States whileengaged in a lawful commerce, nothing is known to have occurred to impedeor molest the enterprise of our citizens on that element, where it is sosignally displayed. On learning this daring act of piracy, Commodore Reedproceeded immediately to the spot, and receiving no satisfaction, either inthe surrender of the murderers or the restoration of the plunderedproperty, inflicted severe and merited chastisement on the barbarians. 

It will be seen by the report of the Secretary of the Navy respecting thedisposition of our ships of war that it has been deemed necessary tostation a competent force on the coast of Africa to prevent a fraudulentuse of our flag by foreigners. 

Recent experience has shown that the provisions in our existing laws whichrelate to the sale and transfer of American vessels while abroad areextremely defective. Advantage has been taken of these defects to give tovessels wholly belonging to foreigners and navigating the ocean an apparentAmerican ownership. This character has been so well simulated as to affordthem comparative security in prosecuting the slave trade--a trafficemphatically denounced in our statutes, regarded with abhorrence by ourcitizens, and of which the effectual suppression is nowhere more sincerelydesired than in the United States. These circumstances make it proper torecommend to your early attention a careful revision of these laws, so thatwithout impeding the freedom and facilities of our navigation or impairingan important branch of our industry connected with it the integrity andhonor of our flag may be carefully preserved. Information derived from ourconsul at Havana showing the necessity of this was communicated to acommittee of the Senate near the close of the last session, but too late, as it appeared, to be acted upon. It will be brought to your notice by theproper Department, with additional communications from other sources. 

The latest accounts from the exploring expedition represent it asproceeding successfully in its objects and promising results no less usefulto trade and navigation than to science. 

The extent of post-roads covered by mail service on the 1st of July lastwas about 133, 999 miles and the rate of annual transportation upon them34, 496, 878 miles. The number of post-offices on that day was 12, 780 and onthe 30th ultimo 13, 028. 

The revenue of the Post-Office Department for the year ending with the 30thof June last was $4, 476, 638, exhibiting an increase over the preceding yearof $241, 560. The engagements and liabilities of the Department for the sameperiod are $4, 624, 117. 

The excess of liabilities over the revenue for the last two years has beenmet out of the surplus which had previously accumulated. The cash on handon the 30th ultimo was about $206, 701. 95 and the current income of theDepartment varies very little from the rate of current expenditures. Mostof the service suspended last year has been restored, and most of the newroutes established by the act of 7th July, 1838, have been set inoperation, at an annual cost of $136, 963. Notwithstanding the pecuniarydifficulties of the country, the revenue of the Department appears to beincreasing, and unless it shall be seriously checked by the recentsuspension of payment by so many of the banks it will be able not only tomaintain the present mail service, but in a short time to extend it. It isgratifying to witness the promptitude and fidelity with which the agents ofthis Department in general perform their public duties. 

Some difficulties have arisen in relation to contracts for thetransportation of the mails by railroad and steamboat companies. It appearsthat the maximum of compensation provided by Congress for thetransportation of the mails upon railroads is not sufficient to induce someof the companies to convey them at such hours as are required for theaccommodation of the public. It is one of the most important duties of theGeneral Government to provide and maintain for the use of the people of theStates the best practicable mail establishment. To arrive at that end it isindispensable that the Post-Office Department shall be enabled to controlthe hours at which the mails shall be carried over railroads, as it nowdoes over all other roads. Should serious inconveniences arise from theinadequacy of the compensation now provided by law, or from unreasonabledemands by any of the railroad companies, the subject is of such generalimportance as to require the prompt attention of Congress. 

In relation to steamboat lines, the most efficient remedy is obvious andhas been suggested by the Postmaster-General. The War and Navy Departmentsalready employ steamboats in their service; and although it is by no meansdesirable that the Government should undertake the transportation ofpassengers or freight as a business, there can be no reasonable objectionto running boats, temporarily, whenever it may be necessary to put downattempts at extortion, to be discontinued as soon as reasonable contractscan be obtained. 

The suggestions of the Postmaster-General relative to the inadequacy of thelegal allowance to witnesses in cases of prosecutions for mail depredationsmerit your serious consideration. The safety of the mails requires thatsuch prosecutions shall be efficient, and justice to the citizen whose timeis required to be given to the public demands not only that his expensesshall be paid, but that he shall receive a reasonable compensation. 

The reports from the War, Navy, and Post-Office Departments will accompanythis communication, and one from the Treasury Department will be presentedto Congress in a few days. 

For various details in respect to the matters in charge of theseDepartments I would refer you to those important documents, satisfied thatyou will find in them many valuable suggestions which will be found welldeserving the attention of the Legislature. 

From a report made in December of last year by the Secretary of State tothe Senate, showing the trial docket of each of the circuit courts and thenumber of miles each judge has to travel in the performance of his duties, a great inequality appears in the amount of labor assigned to each judge. The number of terms to be held in each of the courts composing the ninthcircuit, the distances between the places at which they sit and from thenceto the seat of Government, are represented to be such as to render itimpossible for the judge of that circuit to perform in a mannercorresponding with the public exigencies his term and circuit duties. Arevision, therefore, of the present arrangement of the circuit seems to becalled for and is recommended to your notice. 

I think it proper to call your attention to the power assumed byTerritorial legislatures to authorize the issue of bonds by corporatecompanies on the guaranty of the Territory. Congress passed a law in 1836providing that no act of a Territorial legislature incorporating banksshould have the force of law until approved by Congress, but acts of a veryexceptionable character previously passed by the legislature of Floridawere suffered to remain in force, by virtue of which bonds may be issued toa very large amount by those institutions upon the faith of the Territory. A resolution, intending to be a joint one, passed the Senate at the samesession, expressing the sense of Congress that the laws in question oughtnot to be permitted to remain in force unless amended in many materialrespects; but it failed in the House of Representatives for want of time, and the desired amendments have not been made. The interests involved areof great importance, and the subject deserves your early and carefulattention. 

The continued agitation of the question relative to the best mode ofkeeping and disbursing the public money still injuriously affects thebusiness of the country. The suspension of specie payments in 1837 renderedthe use of deposit banks as prescribed by the act of 1836 a source ratherof embarrassment than aid, and of necessity placed the custody of most ofthe public money afterwards collected in charge of the public officers. Thenew securities for its safety which this required were a principal cause ofmy convening an extra session of Congress, but in consequence of adisagreement between the two Houses neither then nor at any subsequentperiod has there been any legislation on the subject. The effort made atthe last session to obtain the authority of Congress to punish the use ofpublic money for private purposes as a crime a measure attended under othergovernments with signal advantage--was also unsuccessful, from diversitiesof opinion in that body, notwithstanding the anxiety doubtless felt by itto afford every practicable security. The result of this is still to leavethe custody of the public money without those safeguards which have beenfor several years earnestly desired by the Executive, and as the remedy isonly to be found in the action of the Legislature it imposes on me the dutyof again submitting to you the propriety of passing a law providing for thesafe-keeping of the public moneys, and especially to ask that its use forprivate purposes by any officers intrusted with it may be declared to be afelony, punishable with penalties proportioned to the magnitude of theoffense. 

These circumstances, added to known defects in the existing laws andunusual derangement in the general operations of trade, have during thelast three years much increased the difficulties attendant on thecollection, keeping, and disbursement of the revenue, and called forthcorresponding exertions from those having them in charge. Happily thesehave been successful beyond expectation. Vast sums have been collected anddisbursed by the several Departments with unexpected cheapness and ease, transfers have been readily made to every part of the Union, howeverdistant, and defalcations have been far less than might have beenanticipated from the absence of adequate legal restraints. Since theofficers of the Treasury and Post-Office Departments were charged with thecustody of most of the public moneys received by them there have beencollected $66, 000, 000, and, excluding the case of the late collector at NewYork, the aggregate amount of losses sustained in the collection can not, it is believed, exceed $60, 000. The defalcation of the late collector atthat city, of the extent and circumstances of which Congress have beenfully informed, ran through all the modes of keeping the public money thathave been hitherto in use, and was distinguished by an aggravated disregardof duty that broke through the restraints of every system, and can not, therefore, be usefully referred to as a test of the comparative safety ofeither. Additional information will also be furnished by the report of theSecretary of the Treasury, in reply to a call made upon that officer by theHouse of Representatives at the last session requiring detailed informationon the subject of defaults by public officers or agents under eachAdministration from 1789 to 1837. This document will be submitted to you ina few days. The general results (independent of the Post-Office, which iskept separately and will be stated by itself), so far as they bear uponthis subject, are that the losses which have been and are likely to besustained by any class of agents have been the greatest by banks, including, as required in the resolution, their depreciated paper receivedfor public dues; that the next largest have been by disbursing officers, and the least by collectors and receivers. If the losses on duty bonds areincluded, they alone will be threefold those by both collectors andreceivers. Our whole experience, therefore, furnishes the strongestevidence that the desired legislation of Congress is alone wanting toinsure in those operations the highest degree of security and facility. Such also appears to have been the experience of other nations. From theresults of inquiries made by the Secretary of the Treasury in regard to thepractice among them I am enabled to state that in twenty-two out oftwenty-seven foreign governments from which undoubted information has beenobtained the public moneys are kept in charge of public officers. Thisconcurrence of opinion in favor of that system is perhaps as great asexists on any question of internal administration. 

In the modes of business and official restraints on disbursing officers nolegal change was produced by the suspension of specie payments. The reportlast referred to will be found to contain also much useful information inrelation to this subject. 

I have heretofore assigned to Congress my reasons for believing that theestablishment of an independent National Treasury, as contemplated by theConstitution, is necessary to the safe action of the Federal Government. The suspension of specie payments in 1837 by the banks having the custodyof the public money showed in so alarming a degree our dependence on thoseinstitutions for the performance of duties required by law that I thenrecommended the entire dissolution of that connection. This recommendationhas been subjected, as I desired it should be, to severe scrutiny andanimated discussion, and I allow myself to believe that notwithstanding thenatural diversities of opinion which may be anticipated on all subjectsinvolving such important considerations, it has secured in its favor asgeneral a concurrence of public sentiment as could be expected on one ofsuch magnitude. 

Recent events have also continued to develop new objections to such aconnection. Seldom is any bank, under the existing system and practice, able to meet on demand all its liabilities for deposits and notes incirculation. It maintains specie payments and transacts a profitablebusiness only by the confidence of the public in its solvency, and wheneverthis is destroyed the demands of its depositors and note holders, pressedmore rapidly than it can make collections from its debtors, force it tostop payment. This loss of confidence, with its consequences, occurred in1837, and afforded the apology of the banks for their suspension. Thepublic then acquiesced in the validity of the excuse, and while the Statelegislatures did not exact from them their forfeited charters, Congress, inaccordance with the recommendation of the Executive, allowed them time topay over the public money they held, although compelled to issue Treasurynotes to supply the deficiency thus created. 

It now appears that there are other motives than a want of publicconfidence under which the banks seek to justify themselves in a refusal tomeet their obligations. Scarcely were the country and Government relievedin a degree from the difficulties occasioned by the general suspension of1837 when a partial one, occurring within thirty months of the former, produced new and serious embarrassments, though it had no palliation insuch circumstances as were alleged in justification of that which hadpreviously taken place. There was nothing in the condition of the countryto endanger a well-managed banking institution; commerce was deranged by noforeign war; every branch of manufacturing industry was crowned with richrewards, and the more than usual abundance of our harvests, after supplyingour domestic wants, had left our granaries and storehouses filled with asurplus for exportation. It is in the midst of this that an irredeemableand depreciated paper currency is entailed upon the people by a largeportion of the banks. They are not driven to it by the exhibition of a lossof public confidence or of a sudden pressure from their depositors or noteholders, but they excuse themselves by alleging that the current ofbusiness and exchange with foreign countries, which draws the preciousmetals from their vaults, would require in order to meet it a largercurtailment of their loans to a comparatively small portion of thecommunity than it will be convenient for them to bear or perhaps safe forthe banks to exact. The plea has ceased to be one of necessity. Convenienceand policy are now deemed sufficient to warrant these institutions indisregarding their solemn obligations. Such conduct is not merely an injuryto individual creditors, but it is a wrong to the whole community, fromwhose liberality they hold most valuable privileges, whose rights theyviolate, whose business they derange, and the value of whose property theyrender unstable and insecure. It must be evident that this new ground forbank suspensions, in reference to which their action is not onlydisconnected with, but wholly independent of, that of the public, gives acharacter to their suspensions more alarming than any which they exhibitedbefore, and greatly increases the impropriety of relying on the banks inthe transactions of the Government. 

A large and highly respectable portion of our banking institutions are, itaffords me unfeigned pleasure to state, exempted from all blame on accountof this second delinquency. They have, to their great credit, not onlycontinued to meet their engagements, but have even repudiated the groundsof suspension now resorted to. It is only by such a course that theconfidence and good will of the community can be preserved, and in thesequel the best interests of the institutions themselves promoted. 

New dangers to the banks are also daily disclosed from the extension ofthat system of extravagant credit of which they are the pillars. Formerlyour foreign commerce was principally rounded on an exchange of commodities, including the precious metals, and leaving in its transactions but littleforeign debt. Such is not now the case. Aided by the facilities afforded bythe banks, mere credit has become too commonly the basis of trade. Many ofthe banks themselves, not content with largely stimulating this systemamong others, have usurped the business, while they impair the stability, of the mercantile community; they have become borrowers instead of lenders;they establish their agencies abroad; they deal largely in stocks andmerchandise; they encourage the issue of State securities until the foreignmarket is glutted with them; and, unsatisfied with the legitimate use oftheir own capital and the exercise of their lawful privileges, they raiseby large loans additional means for every variety of speculation. Thedisasters attendant on this deviation from the former course of business inthis country are now shared alike by banks and individuals to an extent ofwhich there is perhaps no previous example in the annals of our country. Solong as a willingness of the foreign lender and a sufficient export of ourproductions to meet any necessary partial payments leave the flow of creditundisturbed all appears to be prosperous, but as soon as it is checked byany hesitation abroad or by an inability to make payment there in ourproductions the evils of the system are disclosed. The paper currency, which might serve for domestic purposes, is useless to pay the debt due inEurope. Gold and silver are therefore drawn in exchange for their notesfrom the banks. To keep up their supply of coin these institutions areobliged to call upon their own debtors, who pay them principally in theirown notes, which are as unavailable to them as they are to the merchants tomeet the foreign demand. The calls of the banks, therefore, in suchemergencies of necessity exceed that demand, and produce a correspondingcurtailment of their accommodations and of the currency at the very momentwhen the state of trade renders it most inconvenient to be borne. Theintensity of this pressure on the community is in proportion to theprevious liberality of credit and consequent expansion of the currency. Forced sales of property are made at the time when the means of purchasingare most reduced, and the worst calamities to individuals are only at lastarrested by an open violation of their obligations by the banks--a refusalto pay specie for their notes and an imposition upon the community of afluctuating and depreciated currency. 

These consequences are inherent in the present system. They are notinfluenced by the banks being large or small, created by National or StateGovernments. They are the results of the irresistible laws of trade orcredit. In the recent events, which have so strikingly illustrated thecertain effects of these laws, we have seen the bank of the largest capitalin the Union, established under a national charter, and latelystrengthened, as we were authoritatively informed, by exchanging that for aState charter with new and unusual privileges--in a condition, too, as itwas said, of entire soundness and great prosperity--not merely unable toresist these effects, but the first to yield to them. 

Nor is it to be overlooked that there exists a chain of necessarydependence among these institutions which obliges them to a great extent tofollow the course of others, notwithstanding its injustice to their ownimmediate creditors or injury to the particular community in which they areplaced. This dependence of a bank, which is in proportion to the extent ofits debts for circulation and deposits, is not merely on others in its ownvicinity, but on all those which connect it with the center of trade. Distant banks may fail without seriously affecting those in our principalcommercial cities, but the failure of the latter is felt at the extremitiesof the Union. The suspension at New York in 1837 was everywhere, with veryfew exceptions, followed as soon as it was known. That recently atPhiladelphia immediately affected the banks of the South and West in asimilar manner. This dependence of our whole banking system on theinstitutions in a few large cities is not found in the laws of theirorganization, but in those of trade and exchange. The banks at that center, to which currency flows and where it is required in payments formerchandise, hold the power of controlling those in regions whence itcomes, while the latter possess no means of restraining them; so that thevalue of individual property and the prosperity of trade through the wholeinterior of the country are made to depend on the good or bad management ofthe banking institutions in the great seats of trade on the seaboard. 

But this chain of dependence does not stop here. It does not terminate atPhiladelphia or New York. It reaches across the ocean and ends in London, the center of the credit system. The same laws of trade which give to thebanks in our principal cities power over the whole banking system of theUnited States subject the former, in their turn, to the money power inGreat Britain. It is not denied that the suspension of the New York banksin 1837, which was followed in quick succession throughout the Union, wasproduced by an application of that power, and it is now alleged, inextenuation of the present condition of so large a portion of our banks, that their embarrassments have arisen from the same cause. 

From this influence they can not now entirely escape, for it has its originin the credit currencies of the two countries; it is strengthened by thecurrent of trade and exchange which centers in London, and is renderedalmost irresistible by the large debts contracted there by our merchants, our banks, and our States. It is thus that an introduction of a new bankinto the most distant of our villages places the business of that villagewithin the influence of the money power in England; it is thus that everynew debt which we contract in that country seriously affects our owncurrency and extends over the pursuits of our citizens its powerfulinfluence. We can not escape from this by making new banks, great or small, State or national. The same chains which bind those now existing to thecenter of this system of paper credit must equally fetter every similarinstitution we create. It is only by the extent to which this system hasbeen pushed of late that we have been made fully aware of its irresistibletendency to subject our own banks and currency to a vast controlling powerin a foreign lad, and it adds a new argument to those which illustratetheir precarious situation.. Endangered in the first place by their ownmismanagement and again by the conduct of every institution which connectsthem with the center of trade in our own country, they are yet subjectedbeyond all this to the effect of whatever measures policy, necessity, orcaprice may induce those who control the credits of England to resort to. Imean not to comment upon these measures, present or past, and much less todiscourage the prosecution of fair commercial dealing between the twocountries, based on reciprocal benefits; but it having now been mademanifest that the power of inflicting these and similar injuries is by theresistless law of a credit currency and credit trade equally capable ofextending their consequences through all the ramifications of our bankingsystem, and by that means indirectly obtaining, particularly when our banksare used as depositories of the public moneys, a dangerous politicalinfluence in the United States, I have deemed it my duty to bring thesubject to your notice and ask for it your serious consideration. 

Is an argument required beyond the exposition of these facts to show theimpropriety of using our banking institutions as depositories of the publicmoney? Can we venture not only to encounter the risk of their individualand mutual mismanagement, but at the same time to place our foreign anddomestic policy entirely under the control of a foreign moneyed interest?To do so is to impair the independence of our Government, as the presentcredit system has already impaired the independence of our banks; it is tosubmit all its important operations, whether of peace or war, to becontrolled or thwarted, at first by our own banks and then by a powerabroad greater than themselves. I can not bring myself to depict thehumiliation to which this Government and people might be sooner or laterreduced if the means for defending their rights are to be made dependentupon those who may have the most powerful of motives to impair them. 

Nor is it only in reference to the effect of this state of things on theindependence of our Government or of our banks that the subject presentsitself for consideration; it is to be viewed also in its relations to thegeneral trade of our country. The time is not long passed when a deficiencyof foreign crops was thought to afford a profitable market for the surplusof our industry, but now we await with feverish anxiety the news of theEnglish harvest, not so much from motives of commendable sympathy, butfearful lest its anticipated failure should narrow the field of creditthere. Does not this speak volumes to the patriot? Can a system bebeneficent, wise, or just which creates greater anxiety for interestsdependent on foreign credit than for the general prosperity of our owncountry and the profitable exportation of the surplus produce of ourlabor?

The circumstances to which I have thus adverted appear to me to affordweighty reasons, developed by late events, to be added to those which Ihave on former occasions offered when submitting to your better knowledgeand discernment the propriety of separating the custody of the public moneyfrom banking institutions. Nor has anything occurred to lessen, in myopinion, the force of what has been heretofore urged. The only ground onwhich that custody can be desired by the banks is the profitable use whichthey may make of the money. Such use would be regarded in individuals as abreach of trust or a crime of great magnitude, and yet it may be reasonablydoubted whether, first and last, it is not attended with more mischievousconsequences when permitted to the former than to the latter. The practiceof permitting the public money to be used by its keepers, as here, isbelieved to be peculiar to this country and to exist scarcely anywhereelse. To procure it here improper influences are appealed to, unwiseconnections are established between the Government and vast numbers ofpowerful State institutions, other motives than the public good are broughtto bear both on the executive and legislative departments, and selfishcombinations leading to special legislation are formed. It is made theinterest of banking institutions and their stockholders throughout theUnion to use their exertions for the increase of taxation and theaccumulation of a surplus revenue, and while an excuse is afforded themeans are furnished for those excessive issues which lead to extravaganttrading and speculation and are the forerunners of a vast debt abroad and asuspension of the banks at home. 

Impressed, therefore, as I am with the propriety of the funds of theGovernment being withdrawn from the private use of either banks orindividuals, and the public money kept by duly appointed public agents, andbelieving as I do that such also is the judgment which discussion, reflection, and experience have produced on the public mind, I leave thesubject with you. It is, at all events, essential to the interests of thecommunity and the business of the Government that a decision should bemade. 

Most of the arguments that dissuade us from employing banks in the custodyand disbursement of the public money apply with equal force to the receiptof their notes for public dues. The difference is only in form. In oneinstance the Government is a creditor for its deposits, and in the otherfor the notes it holds. They afford the same opportunity for using thepublic moneys, and equally lead to all the evils attendant upon it, since abank can as safely extend its discounts on a deposit of its notes in thehands of a public officer as on one made in its own vaults. On the otherhand, it would give to the Government no greater security, for in case offailure the claim of the note holder would be no better than that of adepositor. 

I am aware that the danger of inconvenience to the public and unreasonablepressure upon sound banks have been urged as objections to requiring thepayment of the revenue in gold and silver. These objections have beengreatly exaggerated. From the best estimates we may safely fix the amountof specie in the country at $85, 000, 000, and the portion of that whichwould be employed at any one time in the receipts and disbursements of theGovernment, even if the proposed change were made at once, would not, it isnow, after fuller investigation, believed exceed four or five millions. Ifthe change were gradual, several years would elapse before that sum wouldbe required, with annual opportunities in the meantime to alter the lawshould experience prove it to be oppressive or inconvenient. The portionsof the community on whose business the change would immediately operate arecomparatively small, nor is it believed that its effect would be in theleast unjust or injurious to them. 

In the payment of duties, which constitute by far the greater portion ofthe revenue, a very large proportion is derived from foreign commissionhouses and agents of foreign manufacturers, who sell the goods consigned tothem generally at auction, and after paying the duties out of the availsremit the rest abroad in specie or its equivalent. That the amount ofduties should in such cases be also retained in specie can hardly be made amatter of complaint. Our own importing merchants, by whom the residue ofthe duties is paid, are not only peculiarly interested in maintaining asound currency, which the measure in question will especially promote, butare from the nature of their dealings best able to know when specie will beneeded and to procure it with the least difficulty or sacrifice. Residing, too, almost universally in places where the revenue is received and wherethe drafts used by the Government for its disbursements must concentrate, they have every opportunity to obtain and use them in place of specieshould it be for their interest or convenience. Of the number of thesedrafts and the facilities they may afford, as well as of the rapidity withwhich the public funds are drawn and disbursed, an idea may be formed fromthe fact that of nearly $20, 000, 000 paid to collectors and receivers duringthe present year the average amount in their hands at any one time has notexceeded a million and a half, and of the fifteen millions received by thecollector of New York alone during the present year the average amount heldby him subject to draft during each week has been less than half amillion. 

The ease and safety of the operations of the Treasury in keeping the publicmoney are promoted by the application of its own drafts to the public dues. The objection arising from having them too long outstanding might beobviated and they yet made to afford to merchants and banks holding them anequivalent for specie, and in that way greatly lessen the amount actuallyrequired. Still less inconvenience will attend the requirement of specie inpurchases of public lands. Such purchases, except when made on speculation, are in general but single transactions, rarely repeated by the same person;and it is a fact that for the last year and a half, during which the notesof sound banks have been received, more than a moiety of these payments hasbeen voluntarily made in specie, being a larger proportion than would havebeen required in three years under the graduation proposed. 

It is, moreover, a principle than which none is better settled byexperience that the supply of the precious metals will always be foundadequate to the uses for which they are required. They abound in countrieswhere no other currency is allowed. In our own States, where small notesare excluded, gold and silver supply their place. When driven to theirhiding places by bank suspensions, a little firmness in the community soonrestores them in a sufficient quantity for ordinary purposes. Postage andother public dues have been collected in coin without serious inconvenienceeven in States where a depreciated paper currency has existed for years, and this, with the aid of Treasury notes for a part of the time, was donewithout interruption during the suspension of 1837. At the present momentthe receipts and disbursements of the Government are made in legal currencyin the largest portion of the Union. No one suggests a departure from thisrule, and if it can now be successfully carried out it will be surelyattended with even less difficulty when bank notes are again redeemed inspecie. 

Indeed, I can not think that a serious objection would anywhere be raisedto the receipt and payment of gold and silver in all public transactionswere it not from an apprehension that a surplus in the Treasury mightwithdraw a large portion of it from circulation and lock it up unprofitablyin the public vaults. It would not, in my opinion, be difficult to preventsuch an inconvenience from occurring; but the authentic statements which Ihave already submitted to you in regard to the actual amount in the publicTreasury at any one time during the period embraced in them and the littleprobability of a different state of the Treasury for at least some years tocome seem to render it unnecessary to dwell upon it. Congress, moreover, asI have before observed, will in every year have an opportunity to guardagainst it should the occurrence of any circumstances lead us to apprehendinjury from this source. Viewing the subject in all its aspects, I can notbelieve that any period will be more auspicious than the present for theadoption of all measures necessary to maintain the sanctity of our ownengagements and to aid in securing to the community that abundant supply ofthe precious metals which adds so much to their prosperity and gives suchincreased stability to all their dealings. 

In a country so commercial as ours banks in some form will probably alwaysexist, but this serves only to render it the more incumbent on us, notwithstanding the discouragements of the past, to strive in ourrespective stations to mitigate the evils they produce; to take from themas rapidly as the obligations of public faith and a careful considerationof the immediate interests of the community will permit the unjustcharacter of monopolies; to check, so far as may be practicable, by prudentlegislation those temptations of interest and those opportunities for theirdangerous indulgence which beset them on every side, and to confine themstrictly to the performance of their paramount duty--that of aiding theoperations of commerce rather than consulting their own exclusiveadvantage. These and other salutary reforms may, it is believed, beaccomplished without the violation of any of the great principles of thesocial compact, the observance of which is indispensable to its existence, or interfering in any way with the useful and profitable employment of realcapital. 

Institutions so framed have existed and still exist elsewhere, giving tocommercial intercourse all necessary facilities without inflating ordepreciating the currency or stimulating speculation. Thus accomplishingtheir legitimate ends, they have gained the surest guaranty for theirprotection and encouragement in the good will of the community. Among apeople so just as ours the same results could not fail to attend a similarcourse. The direct supervision of the banks belongs, from the nature of ourGovernment, to the States who authorize them. It is to their legislaturesthat the people must mainly look for action on that subject. But as theconduct of the Federal Government in the management of its revenue has alsoa powerful, though less immediate, influence upon them, it becomes our dutyto see that a proper direction is given to it. While the keeping of thepublic revenue in a separate and independent treasury and of collecting itin gold and silver will have a salutary influence on the system of papercredit with which all banks are connected, and thus aid those that aresound and well managed, it will at the same time sensibly check such as areotherwise by at once withholding the means of extravagance afforded by thepublic funds and restraining them from excessive issues of notes which theywould be constantly called upon to redeem. 

I am aware it has been urged that this control may be best attained andexerted by means of a national bank. The constitutional objections which Iam well known to entertain would prevent me in any event from proposing orassenting to that remedy; but in addition to this, I can not after pastexperience bring myself to think that it can any longer be extensivelyregarded as effective for such a purpose. The history of the late nationalbank, through all its mutations, shows that it was not so. On the contrary, it may, after a careful consideration of the subject, be, I think, safelystated that at every period of banking excess it took the lead; that in1817 and 1818, in 1823, in 1831, and in 1834 its vast expansions, followedby distressing contractions, led to those of the State institutions. Itswelled and maddened the tides of the banking system, but seldom allayed orsafely directed them. At a few periods only was a salutary controlexercised, but an eager desire, on the contrary, exhibited for profit inthe first place; and if afterwards its measures were severe toward otherinstitutions, it was because its own safety compelled it to adopt them. Itdid not differ from them in principle or in form; its measures emanatedfrom the same spirit of gain; it felt the same temptation to overissues; itsuffered from and was totally unable to avert those inevitable laws oftrade by which it was itself affected equally with them; and at least onone occasion, at an early day, it was saved only by extraordinary exertionsfrom the same fate that attended the weakest institution it professed tosupervise. In 1837 it failed equally with others in redeeming its notes(though the two years allowed by its charter for that purpose had notexpired), a large amount of which remains to the present time outstanding. It is true that, having so vast a capital and strengthened by the use ofall the revenues of the Government, it possessed more power; but while itwas itself by that circumstance freed from the control which all banksrequire, its paramount object and inducement were left the same--to makethe most for its stockholders, not to regulate the currency of the country. Nor has it, as far as we are advised, been found to be greatly otherwiseelsewhere. The national character given to the Bank of England has notprevented excessive fluctuations in their currency, and it proved unable tokeep off a suspension of specie payments, which lasted for nearly a quarterof a century. And why should we expect it to be otherwise? A nationalinstitution, though deriving its charter from a different source than theState banks, is yet constituted upon the same principles, is conducted bymen equally exposed to temptation, and is liable to the same disasters, with the additional disadvantage that its magnitude occasions an extent ofconfusion and distress which the mismanagement of smaller institutionscould not produce. It can scarcely be doubted that the recent suspension ofthe United State Bank of Pennsylvania, of which the effects are felt not inthat State alone, but over half the Union, had its origin in a course ofbusiness commenced while it was a national institution, and there is nogood reason for supposing that the same consequences would not havefollowed had it still derived its powers from the General Government. It isin vain, when the influences and impulses are the same, to look for adifference in conduct or results. By such creations we do, therefore, butincrease the mass of paper credit and paper currency, without checkingtheir attendant evils and fluctuations. The extent of power and theefficiency of organization which we give, so far from being beneficial, arein practice positively injurious. They strengthen the chain of dependencethroughout the Union, subject all parts more certainly to common disaster, and bind every bank more effectually in the first instance to those of ourcommercial cities, and in the end to a foreign power. In a word, I can notbut believe that, with the full understanding of the operations of ourbanking system which experience has produced, public sentiment is not lessopposed to the creation of a national bank for purposes connected withcurrency and commerce than for those connected with the fiscal operationsof the Government. 

Yet the commerce and currency of the country are suffering evils from theoperations of the State banks which can not and ought not to be overlooked. By their means we have been flooded with a depreciated paper, which it wasevidently the design of the framers of the Constitution to prevent whenthey required Congress to "Coin money and regulate the value of foreigncoins, " and when they forbade the States "to coin money, emit bills ofcredit, make anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, " or"pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. " If they did not guardmore explicitly against the present state of things, it was because theycould not have anticipated that the few banks then existing were to swellto an extent which would expel to so great a degree the gold and silver forwhich they had provided from the channels of circulation, and fill themwith a currency that defeats the objects they had in view. The remedy forthis must chiefly rest with the States from whose legislation it hassprung. No good that might accrue in a particular case front the exerciseof powers not obviously conferred on the General Government would authorizeits interference or justify a course that might in the slightest degreeincrease at the expense of the States the power of the Federal authorities;nor do I doubt that the States will apply the remedy. Within the last fewyears events have appealed to them too strongly to be disregarded. Theyhave seen that the Constitution, though theoretically adhered to, issubverted in practice; that while on the statute books there is no legaltender but gold and silver, no law impairing the obligations of contracts, yet that in point of fact the privileges conferred on banking corporationshave made their notes the currency of the country; that the obligationsimposed by these notes are violated under the impulses of interest orconvenience, and that the number and power of the persons connected withthese corporations or placed under their influence give them a fearfulweight when their interest is in opposition to the spirit of theConstitution and laws. To the people it is immaterial whether these resultsare produced by open violations of the latter or by the workings of asystem of which the result is the same. An inflexible execution even of theexisting statutes of most of the States would redress many evils nowendured, would effectually show the banks the dangers of mismanagementwhich impunity encourages them to repeat, and would teach all corporationsthe useful lesson that they are the subjects of the law and the servants ofthe people. What is still wanting to effect these objects must be sought inadditional legislation, or, if that be inadequate, in such furtherconstitutional grants or restrictions as may bring us back into the pathfrom which we have so widely wandered. 

In the meantime it is the duty of the General Government to cooperate withthe States by a wise exercise of its constitutional powers and theenforcement of its existing laws. The extent to which it may do so byfurther enactments I have already adverted to, and the wisdom of Congressmay yet enlarge them. But above all, it is incumbent upon us to hold erectthe principles of morality and law, constantly executing our own contractsin accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, and thus serving asa rallying point by which our whole country may be brought back to thatsafe and honored standard. 

Our people will not long be insensible to the extent of the burdensentailed upon them by the false system that has been operating on theirsanguine, energetic, and industrious character, nor to the means necessaryto extricate themselves from these embarrassments. The weight which pressesupon a large portion of the people and the States is an enormous debt, foreign and domestic. The foreign debt of our States, corporations, and menof business can scarcely be less than $200, 000, 000, requiring more than$10, 000, 000 a year to pay the interest. This sum has to be paid out of theexports of the country, and must of necessity cut off imports to thatextent or plunge the country more deeply in debt from year to year. It iseasy to see that the increase of this foreign debt must augment the annualdemand on the exports to pay the interest, and to the same extent diminishthe imports, and in proportion to the enlargement of the foreign debt andthe consequent increase of interest must be the decrease of the importtrade. In lieu of the comforts which it now brings us we might have our. Gigantic banking institutions and splendid, but in many instancesprofitless, railroads and canals absorbing to a great extent in interestupon the capital borrowed to construct them the surplus fruits of nationalindustry for years to come, and securing to posterity no adequate returnfor the comforts which the labors of their hands might otherwise havesecured. It is not by the increase of this debt that relief is to besought, but in its diminution. Upon this point there is, I am happy to say, hope before us; not so much in the return of confidence abroad, which willenable the States to borrow more money, as in a change of public feeling athome, which prompts our people to pause in their career and think of themeans by which debts are to be paid before they are contracted. If we wouldescape embarrassment, public and private, we must cease to run in debtexcept for objects of necessity or such as will yield a certain return. Letthe faith of the States, corporations, and individuals already pledged bekept with the most punctilious regard. It is due to our national characteras well as to justice that this should on the part of each be a fixedprinciple of conduct. But it behooves us all to be more chary in pledgingit hereafter. By ceasing to run in debt and applying the surplus of ourcrops and incomes to the discharge of existing obligations, buying less andselling more, and managing all affairs, public and private, with stricteconomy and frugality, we shall see our country soon recover from atemporary depression, arising not from natural and permanent causes, butfrom those I have enumerated, and advance with renewed vigor in her careerof prosperity. 

Fortunately for us at this moment, when the balance of trade is greatlyagainst us and the difficulty of meeting it enhanced by the disturbed stateof our money affairs, the bounties of Providence have come to relieve usfrom the consequences of past errors. A faithful application of the immenseresults of the labors of the last season will afford partial relief for thepresent, and perseverance in the same course will in due season accomplishthe rest. We have had full experience in times past of the extraordinaryresults which can in this respect be brought about in a short period by theunited and well-directed efforts of a community like ours. Our surplusprofits, the energy and industry of our population, and the wonderfuladvantages which Providence has bestowed upon our country in its climate, its various productions, indispensable to other nations, will in due timeafford abundant means to perfect the most useful of those objects for whichthe States have been plunging themselves of late in embarrassment and debt, without imposing on ourselves or our children such fearful burdens. 

But let it be indelibly engraved on our minds that relief is not to befound in expedients. Indebtedness can not be lessened by borrowing moremoney or by changing the form of the debt. The balance of trade is not tobe turned in our favor by creating new demands upon us abroad. Our currencycan not be improved by the creation of new banks or more issues from thosewhich now exist. Although these devices sometimes appear to give temporaryrelief, they almost invariably aggravate the evil in the end. It is only byretrenchment and reform--by curtailing public and private expenditures, bypaying our debts, and by reforming our banking system--that we are toexpect effectual relief, security for the future, and an enduringprosperity. In shaping the institutions and policy of the GeneralGovernment so as to promote as far as it can with its limited powers theseimportant ends, you may rely on my most cordial cooperation. 

That there should have been in the progress of recent events doubts in manyquarters and in some a heated opposition to every change can not surpriseus. Doubts are properly attendant on all reform, and it is peculiarly inthe nature of such abuses as we are now encountering to seek to perpetuatetheir power by means of the influence they have been permitted to acquire. It is their result, if not their object, to gain for the few an ascendencyover the many by securing to them a monopoly of the currency, the mediumthrough which most of the wants of mankind are supplied; to producethroughout society a chain of dependence which leads all classes to look toprivileged associations for the means of speculation and extravagance; tonourish, in preference to the manly virtues that give dignity to humannature, a craving desire for luxurious enjoyment and sudden wealth, whichrenders those who seek them dependent on those who supply them; tosubstitute for republican simplicity and economical habits a sicklyappetite for effeminate indulgence and an imitation of that recklessextravagance which impoverished and enslaved the industrious people offoreign lands, and at last to fix upon us, instead of those equal politicalrights the acquisition of which was alike the object and supposed reward ofour Revolutionary struggle, a system of exclusive privileges conferred bypartial legislation. To remove the influences which had thus graduallygrown up among us, to deprive them of their deceptive advantages, to testthem by the light of wisdom and truth, to oppose the force which theyconcentrate in their sup-port--all this was necessarily the work of time, even among a people so enlightened and pure as that of the United States. In most other countries, perhaps, it could only be accomplished throughthat series of revolutionary movements which are too often found necessaryto effect any great and radical reform; but it is the crowning merit of ourinstitutions that they create and nourish in the vast majority of ourpeople a disposition and a power peaceably to remedy abuses which haveelsewhere caused the effusion of rivers of blood and the sacrifice ofthousands of the human race. The result thus far is most honorable to theself-denial, the intelligence, and the patriotism of our citizens; itjustifies the confident hope that they will carry through the reform whichhas been so well begun, and that they will go still further than they haveyet gone in illustrating the important truth that a people as free andenlightened as ours will, whenever it becomes necessary, show themselves tobe indeed capable of self-government by voluntarily adopting appropriateremedies for every abuse, and submitting to temporary sacrifices, howevergreat, to insure their permanent welfare. 

My own exertions for the furtherance of these desirable objects have beenbestowed throughout my official career with a zeal that is nourished byardent wishes for the welfare of my country, and by an unlimited relianceon the wisdom that marks its ultimate decision on all great andcontroverted questions. Impressed with the solemn obligations imposed uponme by the Constitution, desirous also of laying before my fellow-citizens, with whose confidence and support I have been so highly honored, suchmeasures as appear to me conducive to their prosperity, and anxious tosubmit to their fullest consideration the grounds upon which my opinionsare formed, I have on this as on preceding occasions freely offered myviews on those points of domestic policy that seem at the present time mostprominently to require the action of the Government. I know that they willreceive from Congress that full and able consideration which the importanceof the subjects merits, and I can repeat the assurance heretofore made thatI shall cheerfully and readily cooperate with you in every measure thatwill tend to promote the welfare of the Union. 

M. VAN BUREN

***

State of the Union AddressMartin van BurenDecember 5, 1840

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Our devout gratitude is due to the Supreme Being for having graciouslycontinued to our beloved country through the vicissitudes of another yearthe invaluable blessings of health, plenty, and peace. Seldom has thisfavored land been so generally exempted from the ravages of disease or thelabor of the husbandman more amply rewarded, and never before have ourrelations with other countries been placed on a more favorable basis thanthat which they so happily occupy at this critical conjuncture in theaffairs of the world. A rigid and persevering abstinence from allinterference with the domestic and political relations of other States, alike due to the genius and distinctive character of our Government and tothe principles by which it is directed; a faithful observance in themanagement of our foreign relations of the practice of speaking plainly, dealing justly, and requiring truth and justice in return as the bestconservatives of the peace of nations; a strict impartiality in ourmanifestations of friendship in the commercial privileges we concede andthose we require from others--these, accompanied by a disposition as promptto maintain in every emergency our own rights as we are from principleaverse to the invasion of those of others, have given to our country andGovernment a standing in the great family of nations of which we have justcause to be proud and the advantages of which are experienced by ourcitizens throughout every portion of the earth to which their enterprisingand adventurous spirit may carry them. Few, if any, remain insensible tothe value of our friendship or ignorant of the terms on which it can beacquired and by which it can alone be preserved. 

A series of questions of long standing, difficult in their adjustment andimportant in their consequences, in which the rights of our citizens andthe honor of the country were deeply involved, have in the course of a fewyears (the most of them during the successful Administration of myimmediate predecessor) been brought to a satisfactory conclusion; and themost important of those remaining are, I am happy to believe, in a fair wayof being speedily and satisfactorily adjusted. 

With all the powers of the world our relations are those of honorablepeace. Since your adjournment nothing serious has occurred to interrupt orthreaten this desirable harmony. If clouds have lowered above the otherhemisphere, they have not cast their portentous shadows upon our happyshores. Bound by no entangling alliances, yet linked by a common nature andinterest with the other nations of mankind, our aspirations are for thepreservation of peace, in whose solid and civilizing triumphs all mayparticipate with a generous emulation. Yet it behooves us to be preparedfor any event and to be always ready to maintain those just and enlightenedprinciples of national intercourse for which this Government has evercontended. In the shock of contending empires it is only by assuming aresolute bearing and clothing themselves with defensive armor that neutralnations can maintain their independent rights. 

The excitement which grew out of the territorial controversy between theUnited States and Great Britain having in a great measure subsided, it ishoped that a favorable period is approaching for its final settlement. BothGovernments must now be convinced of the dangers with which the question isfraught, and it must be their desire, as it is their interest, that thisperpetual cause of irritation should be removed as speedily as practicable. In my last annual message you were informed that the proposition for acommission of exploration and survey promised by Great Britain had beenreceived, and that a counter project, including also a provision for thecertain and final adjustment of the limits in dispute, was then before theBritish Government for its consideration. The answer of that Government, accompanied by additional propositions of its own, was received through itsminister here since your separation. These were promptly considered, suchas were deemed correct in principle and consistent with a due regard to thejust rights of the United States and of the State of Maine concurred in, and the reasons for dissenting from the residue, with an additionalsuggestion on our part, communicated by the Secretary of State to Mr. Fox. That minister, not feeling himself sufficiently instructed upon some of thepoints raised in the discussion, felt it to be his duty to refer the matterto his own Government for its further decision. Having now been for sometime under its advisement, a speedy answer may be confidently expected. From the character of the points still in difference and the undoubteddisposition of both parties to bring the matter to an early conclusion, Ilook with entire confidence to a prompt and satisfactory termination of thenegotiation. Three commissioners were appointed shortly after theadjournment of Congress under the act of the last session providing for theexploration and survey of the line which separates the States of Maine andNew Hampshire from the British Provinces. They have been actively employeduntil their progress was interrupted by the inclemency of the season, andwill resume their labors as soon as practicable in the ensuing year. 

It is understood that their respective examinations will throw new lightupon the subject in controversy and serve to remove any erroneousimpressions which may have been made elsewhere prejudicial to the rights ofthe United States. It was, among other reasons, with a view of preventingthe embarrassments which in our peculiar system of government impede andcomplicate negotiations involving the territorial rights of a State that Ithought it my duty, as you have been informed on a previous occasion, topropose to the British Government, through its minister at Washington, thatearly steps should be taken to adjust the points of difference on the lineof boundary from the entrance of Lake Superior to the most northwesternpoint of the Lake of the Woods by the arbitration of a friendly power inconformity with the seventh article of the treaty of Ghent. No answer hasyet been returned by the British Government to this proposition. 

With Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the remaining powers of Europe Iam happy to inform you our relations continue to be of the most friendlycharacter. With Belgium a treaty of commerce and navigation, based uponliberal principles of reciprocity and equality, was concluded in Marchlast, and, having been ratified by the Belgian Government, will be dulylaid before the Senate. It is a subject of congratulation that it providesfor the satisfactory adjustment of a long-standing question of controversy, thus removing the only obstacle which could obstruct the friendly andmutually advantageous intercourse between the two nations. A messenger hasbeen dispatched with the Hanoverian treaty to Berlin, where, according tostipulation, the ratifications are to be exchanged. I am happy to announceto you that after many delays and difficulties a treaty of commerce andnavigation between the United States and Portugal was concluded and signedat Lisbon on the 26th of August last by the plenipotentiaries of the twoGovernments. Its stipulations are founded upon those principles of mutualliberality and advantage which the United States have always sought to makethe basis of their intercourse with foreign powers, and it is hoped theywill tend to foster and strengthen the commercial intercourse of the twocountries. 

Under the appropriation of the last session of Congress an agent has beensent to Germany for the purpose of promoting the interests of our tobaccotrade. 

The commissioners appointed under the convention for the adjustment ofclaims of citizens of the United States upon Mexico having met andorganized at Washington in August last, the papers in the possession of theGovernment relating to those claims were communicated to the board. Theclaims not embraced by that convention are now the subject of negotiationbetween the two Governments through the medium of our minister at Mexico. 

Nothing has occurred to disturb the harmony of our relations with thedifferent Governments of South America. I regret, however, to be obliged toinform you that the claims of our citizens upon the late Republic ofColombia have not yet been satisfied by the separate Governments into whichit has been resolved. 

The charge d'affaires of Brazil having expressed the intention of hisGovernment not to prolong the treaty of 1828, it will cease to beobligatory upon either party on the 12th day of December, 1841, when theextensive commercial intercourse between the United States and that vastEmpire will no longer be regulated by express stipulations. 

It affords me pleasure to communicate to you that the Government of Chilihas entered into an agreement to indemnify the claimants in the case of theMacectonian for American property seized in 1819, and to add thatinformation has also been received which justifies the hope of an earlyadjustment of the remaining claims upon that Government. 

The commissioners appointed in pursuance of the convention between theUnited States and Texas for marking the boundary between them have, according to the last report received from our commissioner, surveyed andestablished the whole extent of the boundary north along the western bankof the Sabine River from its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico to thethirty-second degree of north latitude. The commission adjourned on the16th of June last, to reassemble on the 1st of November for the purpose ofestablishing accurately the intersection of the thirty-second degree oflatitude with the western bank of the Sabine and the meridian line thenceto Red River. It is presumed that the work will be concluded in the presentseason. 

The present sound condition of their finances and the success with whichembarrassments in regard to them, at times apparently insurmountable, havebeen overcome are matters upon which the people and Government of theUnited States may well congratulate themselves. An overflowing Treasury, however it may be regarded as an evidence of public prosperity, is seldomconducive to the permanent welfare of any people, and experience hasdemonstrated its incompatibility with the salutary action of politicalinstitutions like those of the United States. Our safest reliance forfinancial efficiency and independence has, on the contrary, been found toconsist in ample resources unencumbered with debt, and in this respect theFederal Government occupies a singularly fortunate and truly enviableposition. 

When I entered upon the discharge of my official duties in March, 1837, theact for the distribution of the surplus revenue was in a course of rapidexecution. Nearly $28, 000, 000 of the public moneys were, in pursuance ofits provisions, deposited with the States in the months of January, April, and July of that year. In May there occurred a general suspension of speciepayments by the banks, including, with very few exceptions, those in whichthe public moneys were deposited and upon whose fidelity the Government hadunfortunately made itself dependent for the revenues which had beencollected from the people and were indispensable to the public service. 

This suspension and the excesses in banking and commerce out of which itarose, and which were greatly aggravated by its occurrence, made to a greatextent unavailable the principal part of the public money then on hand, suspended the collection of many millions accruing on merchants' bonds, andgreatly reduced the revenue arising from customs and the public lands. These effects have continued to operate in various degrees to the presentperiod, and in addition to the decrease in the revenue thus produced twoand a half millions of duties have been relinquished by two biennialreductions under the act of 1833, and probably as much more upon theimportation of iron for railroads by special legislation. 

Whilst such has been our condition for the last four years in relation torevenue, we have during the same period been subjected to an unavoidablecontinuance of large extraordinary expenses necessarily growing out of pasttransactions, and which could not be immediately arrested without greatprejudice to the public interest. Of these, the charge upon the Treasurerin consequence of the Cherokee treaty alone, without adverting to othersarising out of Indian treaties, has already exceeded $5, 000, 000; that forthe prosecution of measures for the removal of the Seminole Indians, whichwere found in progress, has been nearly fourteen millions, and the publicbuildings have required the unusual sum of nearly three millions. 

It affords me, however, great pleasure to be able to say that from thecommencement of this period to the present day every demand upon theGovernment, at home or abroad, has been promptly met. This has been donenot only without creating a permanent debt or a resort to additionaltaxation in any form, but in the midst of a steadily progressive reductionof existing burdens upon the people, leaving still a considerable balanceof available funds which will remain in the Treasury at the end of theyear. The small amount of Treasury notes, not exceeding $4, 500, 000, stilloutstanding, and less by twenty-three millions than the United States havein deposit with the States, is composed of such only as are not yet due orhave not been presented for payment. They may be redeemed out of theaccruing revenue if the expenditures do not exceed the amount within whichthey may, it is thought, be kept without prejudice to the public interest, and the revenue shall prove to be as large as may justly be anticipated. 

Among the reflections arising from the contemplation of thesecircumstances, one, not the least gratifying, is the consciousness that theGovernment had the resolution and the ability to adhere in every emergencyto the sacred obligations of law, to execute all its contracts according tothe requirements of the Constitution, and thus to present when most neededa rallying point by which the business of the whole country might bebrought back to a safe and unvarying standard--a result vitally importantas well to the interests as to the morals of the people. There can surelynow be no difference of opinion in regard to the incalculable evils thatwould have arisen if the Government at that critical moment had suffereditself to be deterred from upholding the only true standard of value, either by the pressure of adverse circumstances or the violence ofunmerited denunciation. The manner in which the people sustained theperformance of this duty was highly honorable to their fortitude andpatriotism. It can not fail to stimulate their agents to adhere under allcircumstances to the line of duty and to satisfy them of the safety withwhich a course really right and demanded by a financial crisis may in acommunity like ours be pursued, however apparently severe its immediateoperation. 

The policy of the Federal Government in extinguishing as rapidly aspossible the national debt, and subsequently in resisting every temptationto create a new one, deserves to be regarded in the same favorable light. Among the many objections to a national debt, the certain tendency ofpublic securities to concentrate ultimately in the coffers of foreignstockholders is one which is every day gathering strength. Already have theresources of many of the States and the future industry of their citizensbeen indefinitely mortgaged to the subjects of European Governments to theamount of twelve millions annually to pay the constantly accruing intereston borrowed money--a sum exceeding half the ordinary revenues of the wholeUnited States. The pretext which this relation affords to foreigners toscrutinize the management of our domestic affairs, if not actually tointermeddle with them, presents a subject for earnest attention, not to sayof serious alarm. Fortunately, the Federal Government, with the exceptionof an obligation entered into in behalf of the District of Columbia, whichmust soon be discharged, is wholly exempt from any such embarrassment. Itis also, as is believed, the only Government which, having fully andfaithfully paid all its creditors, has also relieved itself entirely fromdebt. To maintain a distinction so desirable and so honorable to ournational character should be an object of earnest solicitude. Never shoulda free people, if it be possible to avoid it, expose themselves to thenecessity of having to treat of the peace, the honor, or the safety of theRepublic with the governments of foreign creditors, who, however welldisposed they may be to cultivate with us in general friendly relations, are nevertheless by the law of their own condition made hostile to thesuccess and permanency of political institutions like ours. Mosthumiliating may be the embarrassments consequent upon such a condition. Another objection, scarcely less formidable, to the commencement of a newdebt is its inevitable tendency to increase in magnitude and to fosternational extravagance. He has been an unprofitable observer of events whoneeds at this day to be admonished of the difficulties which a governmenthabitually dependent on loans to sustain its ordinary expenditures has toencounter in resisting the influences constantly exerted in favor ofadditional loans; by capitalists, who enrich themselves by governmentsecurities for amounts much exceeding the money they actually advance--aprolific source of individual aggrandizement in all borrowing countries; bystockholders, who seek their gains in the rise and fall of public stocks;and by the selfish importunities of applicants for appropriations for worksavowedly for the accommodation of the public, but the real objects of whichare too frequently the advancement of private interests. The knownnecessity which so many of the States will be under to impose taxes for thepayment of the interest on their debts furnishes an additional and verycogent reason why the Federal Governments should refrain from creating anational debt, by which the people would be exposed to double taxation fora similar object. We possess within ourselves ample resources for everyemergency, and we may be quite sure that our citizens in no future exigencywill be unwilling to supply the Government with all the means asked for thedefense of the country. In time of peace there can, at all events, be nojustification for the creation of a permanent debt by the FederalGovernment. Its limited range of constitutional duties may certainly undersuch circumstances be performed without such a resort. It has, it is seen, been avoided during four years of greater fiscal difficulties than haveexisted in a similar period since the adoption of the Constitution, and onealso remarkable for the occurrence of extraordinary causes ofexpenditures. 

But to accomplish so desirable an object two things are indispensable:First, that the action of the Federal Government be kept within theboundaries prescribed by its founders, and, secondly, that allappropriations for objects admitted to be constitutional, and theexpenditure of them also, be subjected to a standard of rigid butwell-considered and practical economy. The first depends chiefly on thepeople themselves--the opinions they form of the true construction of theConstitution and the confidence they repose in the political sentiments ofthose they select as their representatives in the Federal Legislature; thesecond rests upon the fidelity with which their more immediaterepresentatives and other public functionaries discharge the trustscommitted to them. The duty of economizing the expenses of the publicservice is admitted on all hands; yet there are few subjects upon whichthere exists a wider difference of opinion than is constantly manifested inregard to the fidelity with which that duty is discharged. Neitherdiversity of sentiment nor even mutual recriminations upon a point inrespect to which the public mind is so justly sensitive can well beentirely avoided, and least so at periods of great political excitement. Anintelligent people, however, seldom fail to arrive in the end at correctconclusions in such a matter. Practical economy in the management of publicaffairs can have no adverse influence to contend with more powerful than alarge surplus revenue, and the unusually large appropriations for 1837 maywithout doubt, independently of the extraordinary requisitions for thepublic service growing out of the state of our Indian relations, be in noinconsiderable degree traced to this source. The sudden and rapiddistribution of the large surplus then in the Treasury and the equallysudden and unprecedentedly severe revulsion in the commerce and business ofthe country, pointing with unerring certainty to a great and protractedreduction of the revenue, strengthened the propriety of the earliestpracticable reduction of the public expenditures. 

But to change a system operating upon so large a surface and applicable tosuch numerous and diversified interests and objects was more than the workof a day. The attention of every department of the Government wasimmediately and in good faith directed to that end, and has been socontinued to the present moment. The estimates and appropriations for theyear 1838 (the first over which I had any control) were somewhatdiminished. The expenditures of 1839 were reduced $6, 000, 000. Those of1840, exclusive of disbursements for public debt and trust claims, willprobably not exceed twenty-two and a half millions, being between two andthree millions less than those of the preceding year and nine or tenmillions less than those of 1837. Nor has it been found necessary in orderto produce this result to resort to the power conferred by Congress ofpostponing certain classes of the public works, except by deferringexpenditures for a short period upon a limited portion of them, and whichpostponement terminated some time since--at the moment the TreasuryDepartment by further receipts from the indebted banks became fully assuredof its ability to meet them without prejudice to the public service inother respects. Causes are in operation which will, it is believed, justifya still further reduction without injury to any important nationalinterest. The expenses of sustaining the troops employed in Florida havebeen gradually and greatly reduced through the persevering efforts of theWar Department, and a reasonable hope may be entertained that the necessityfor military operations in that quarter will soon cease. The removal of theIndians from within our settled borders is nearly completed. The pensionlist, one of the heaviest charges upon the Treasury, is rapidly diminishingby death. The most costly of our public buildings are either finished ornearly so, and we may, I think, safely promise ourselves a continuedexemption from border difficulties. 

The available balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January next isestimated at $ 1, 500, 000. This sum, with the expected receipts from allsources during the next year, will, it is believed, be sufficient to enablethe Government to meet every engagement and have a suitable balance, in theTreasury at the end of the year, if the remedial measures connected withthe customs and the public lands heretofore recommended are adopted and thenew appropriations by Congress shall not carry the expenditures beyond theofficial estimates. 

The new system established by Congress for the safe-keeping of the publicmoney, prescribing the kind of currency to be received for the publicrevenue and providing additional guards and securities against losses, hasnow been several mouths in operation. Although it might be premature uponan experience of such limited duration to form a definite opinion in regardto the extent of its influences in correcting many evils under which theFederal Government and the country have hitherto suffered, especially thosethat have grown out of banking expansions, a depreciated currency, andofficial defalcations, yet it is but right to say that nothing has occurredin the practical operation of the system to weaken in the slightest degree, but much to strengthen, the confident anticipations of its friends. Thegrounds of these have been heretofore so fully explained as to require norecapitulation. In respect to the facility and convenience it affords inconducting the public service, and the ability of the Government todischarge through its agency every duty attendant on the collection, transfer, and disbursement of the public money with promptitude andsuccess, I can say with confidence that the apprehensions of those who feltit to be their duty to oppose its adoption have proved to be unfounded. Onthe contrary, this branch of the fiscal affairs of the Government has been, and it is believed may always be, thus carried on with every desirablefacility and security. A few changes and improvements in the details of thesystem, without affecting any principles involved in it, will be submittedto you by the Secretary of the Treasury, and will, I am sure, receive atyour hands that attention to which they may on examination be found to beentitled. 

I have deemed this brief summary of our fiscal affairs necessary to the dueperformance of a duty specially enjoined upon me by the Constitution. Itwill serve also to illustrate more fully the principles by which I havebeen guided in reference to two contested points in our public policy whichwere earliest in their development and have been more important in theirconsequences than any that have arisen under our complicated and difficult, yet admirable, system of government. I allude to a national debt and anational bank. It was in these that the political contests by which thecountry has been agitated ever since the adoption of the Constitution in agreat measure originated, and there is too much reason to apprehend thatthe conflicting interests and opposing principles thus marshaled willcontinue as heretofore to produce similar if not aggravated consequences. Coming into office the declared enemy of both, I have earnestly endeavoredto prevent a resort to either. 

The consideration that a large public debt affords an apology, and producesin some degree a necessity also, for resorting to a system and extent oftaxation which is not only oppressive throughout, but is likewise so apt tolead in the end to the commission of that most odious of all offensesagainst the principles of republican government, the prostitution ofpolitical power, conferred for the general benefit, to the aggrandizementof particular classes and the gratification of individual cupidity, isalone sufficient, independently of the weighty objections which havealready been urged, to render its creation and existence the sources ofbitter and unappeasable discord. If we add to this its inevitable tendencyto produce and foster extravagant expenditures of the public moneys, bywhich a necessity is created for new loans and new burdens on the people, and, finally, refer to the examples of every government which has existedfor proof, how seldom it is that the system, when once adopted andimplanted in the policy of a country, has failed to expand itself untilpublic credit was exhausted and the people were no longer able to endureits increasing weight, it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that nobenefits resulting from its career, no extent of conquest, no accession ofwealth to particular classes, nor any nor all its combined advantages, cancounterbalance its ultimate but certain results--a splendid government andan impoverished people. 

If a national bank was, as is undeniable, repudiated by the framers of theConstitution as incompatible with the rights of the States and theliberties of the people; if from the beginning it has been regarded bylarge portions of our citizens as coming in direct collision with thatgreat and vital amendment of the Constitution which declares that allpowers not conferred by that instrument on the General Government arereserved to the States and to the people; if it has been viewed by them asthe first great step in the march of latitudinous construction, whichunchecked would render that sacred instrument of as little value as anunwritten constitution, dependent, as it would alone be, for its meaning onthe interested interpretation of a dominant party, and affording nosecurity to the rights of the minority--if such is undeniably the case, what rational grounds could have been conceived for anticipating aught butdetermined opposition to such an institution at the present day. 

Could a different result have been expected when the consequences whichhave flowed from its creation, and particularly from its struggles toperpetuate its existence, had confirmed in so striking a manner theapprehensions of its earliest opponents; when it had been so clearlydemonstrated that a concentrated money power, wielding so vast a capitaland combining such incalculable means of influence, may in those peculiarconjunctures to which this Government is unavoidably exposed prove anovermatch for the political power of the people themselves; when the truecharacter of its capacity to regulate according to its will and itsinterests and the interests of its favorites the value and production ofthe labor and property of every man in this extended country had been sofully and fearfully developed; when it was notorious that all classes ofthis great community had, by means of the power and influence it thuspossesses, been infected to madness with a spirit of heedless speculation;when it had been seen that, secure in the support of the combination ofinfluences by which it was surrounded, it could violate its charter and setthe laws at defiance with impunity; and when, too, it had become mostapparent that to believe that such an accumulation of powers can ever begranted without the certainty of being abused was to indulge in a fataldelusion?

To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequencesI have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy ofconfining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only asare clearly within the constitutional authority of the Federal Government;of excluding from its expenses those improvident and unauthorized grants ofpublic money for works of internal improvement which were so wiselyarrested by the constitutional interposition of my predecessor, and which, if they had not been so checked, would long before this time have involvedthe finances of the General Government in embarrassments far greater thanthose which are now experienced by any of the States; of limiting all ourexpenditures to that simple, unostentatious, and economical administrationof public affairs which is alone consistent with the character of ourinstitutions; of collecting annually from the customs, and the sales ofpublic lands a revenue fully adequate to defray all the expenses thusincurred; but under no pretense whatsoever to impose taxes upon the peopleto a greater amount than was actually necessary to the public serviceconducted upon the principles I have stated. 

In lieu of a national bank or a dependence upon banks of any descriptionfor the management of our fiscal affairs, I recommended the adoption of thesystem which is now in successful operation. That system affords everyrequisite facility for the transaction of the pecuniary concerns of theGovernment; will, it is confidently anticipated, produce in other respectsmany of the benefits which have been from time to time expected from thecreation of a national bank, but which have never been realized; avoid themanifold evils inseparable from such an institution; diminish to a greaterextent than could be accomplished by any other measure of reform thepatronage of the Federal Government--a wise policy in all governments, butmore especially so in one like ours, which works well only in proportion asit is made to rely for its support upon the unbiased and unadulteratedopinions of its constituents; do away forever all dependence on corporatebodies either in the raising, collecting, safekeeping, or disbursing thepublic revenues, and place the Government equally above the temptation offostering a dangerous and unconstitutional institution at home or thenecessity of adapting its policy to the views and interests of a still moreformidable money power abroad. 

It is by adopting and carrying out these principles under circumstances themost arduous and discouraging that the attempt has been made, thus farsuccessfully, to demonstrate to the people of the United States that anational bank at all times, and a national debt except it be incurred at aperiod when the honor and safety of the nation demand the temporarysacrifice of a policy which should only be abandoned in such exigencies, are not merely unnecessary, but in direct and deadly hostility to theprinciples of their Government and to their own permanent welfare. 

The progress made in the development of these positions appears in thepreceding sketch of the past history and present state of the financialconcerns of the Federal Government. The facts there stated fully authorizethe assertion that all the purposes for which this Government wasinstituted have been accomplished during four years of greater pecuniaryembarrassment than were ever before experienced in time of peace, and inthe face of opposition as formidable as any that was ever before arrayedagainst the policy of an Administration; that this has been done when theordinary revenues of the Government were generally decreasing as well fromthe operation of the laws as the condition of the country, without thecreation of a permanent public debt or incurring any liability other thansuch as the ordinary resources of the Government will speedily discharge, and without the agency of a national bank. 

If this view of the proceedings of the Government for the period itembraces be warranted by the facts as they are known to exist; if the Armyand Navy have been sustained to the full extent authorized by law, andwhich Congress deemed sufficient for the defense of the country and theprotection of its rights and its honor; if its civil and diplomatic servicehas been equally sustained; if ample provision has been made for theadministration of justice and the execution of the laws; if the claims uponpublic gratitude in behalf of the soldiers of the Revolution have beenpromptly met and faithfully discharged; if there have been no failures indefraying the very large expenditures growing out of that long-continuedand salutary policy of peacefully removing the Indians to regions ofcomparative safety and prosperity; if the public faith has at all times andeverywhere been most scrupulously maintained by a prompt discharge of thenumerous, extended, and diversified claims on the Treasury--if all thesegreat and permanent objects, with many others that might be stated, havefor a series of years, marked by peculiar obstacles and difficulties, beensuccessfully accomplished without a resort to a permanent debt or the aidof a national bank, have we not a right to expect that a policy the objectof which has been to sustain the public service independently of either ofthese fruitful sources of discord will receive the final sanction of apeople whose unbiased and fairly elicited judgment upon public affairs isnever ultimately wrong?

That embarrassments in the pecuniary concerns of individuals of unexampledextent and duration have recently existed in this as in other commercialnations is undoubtedly true. To suppose it necessary now to trace thesereverses to their sources would be a reflection on the intelligence of myfellow-citizens. Whatever may have been the obscurity in which the subjectwas involved during the earlier stages of the revulsion, there can not nowbe many by whom the whole question is not fully understood. 

Not deeming it within the constitutional powers of the General Governmentto repair private losses sustained by reverses in business having noconnection with the public service, either by direct appropriations fromthe Treasury or by special legislation designed to secure exclusiveprivileges and immunities to individuals or classes in preference to or atthe expense of the great majority necessarily debarred from anyparticipation in them, no attempt to do so has been either made, recommended, or encouraged by the present Executive. 

It is believed, however, that the great purposes for the attainment ofwhich the Federal Government was instituted have not been lost sight of. Intrusted only with certain limited powers, cautiously enumerated, distinctly specified, and defined with a precision and clearness whichwould seem to defy misconstruction, it has been my constant aim to confinemyself within the limits so clearly marked out and so carefully guarded. Having always been of opinion that the best preservative of the union ofthe States is to be found in a total abstinence from the exercise of alldoubtful powers on the part of the Federal Government rather than inattempts to assume them by a loose construction of the Constitution or aningenious perversion of its words, I have endeavored to avoid recommendingany measure which I had reason to apprehend would, in the opinion even of aconsiderable minority of my fellow-citizens, be regarded as trenching onthe rights of the States or the provisions of the hallowed instrument ofour Union. Viewing the aggregate powers of the Federal Government as avoluntary concession of the States, it seemed to me that such only shouldbe exercised as were at the time intended to be given. 

I have been strengthened, too, in the propriety of this course by theconviction that all efforts to go beyond this tend only to producedissatisfaction and distrust, to excite jealousies, and to provokeresistance. Instead of adding strength to the Federal Government, even whensuccessful they must ever prove a source of incurable weakness byalienating a portion of those whose adhesion is indispensable to the greataggregate of united strength and whose voluntary attachment is in myestimation far more essential to the efficiency of a government strong inthe best of all possible strength--the confidence and attachment of allthose who make up its constituent elements. 

Thus believing, it has been my purpose to secure to the whole people and toevery member of the Confederacy, by general, salutary, and equal lawsalone, the benefit of those republican institutions which it was the endand aim of the Constitution to establish, and the impartial influence ofwhich is in my judgment indispensable to their preservation. I can notbring myself to believe that the lasting happiness of the people, theprosperity of the States, or the permanency of their Union can bemaintained by giving preference or priority to any class of citizens in thedistribution of benefits or privileges, or by the adoption of measureswhich enrich one portion of the Union at the expense of another; nor can Isee in the interference of the Federal Government with the locallegislation and reserved rights of the States a remedy for present or asecurity against future dangers. 

The first, and assuredly not the least, important step toward relieving thecountry from the condition into which it had been plunged by excesses intrade, banking, and credits of all kinds was to place the businesstransactions of the Government itself on a solid basis, giving andreceiving in all cases value for value, and neither countenancing norencouraging in others that delusive system of credits from which it hasbeen found so difficult to escape, and which has left nothing behind it butthe wrecks that mark its fatal career. 

That the financial affairs of the Government are now and have been duringthe whole period of these wide-spreading difficulties conducted with astrict and invariable regard to this great fundamental principle, and thatby the assumption and maintenance of the stand thus taken on the verythreshold of the approaching crisis more than by any other cause or causeswhatever the community at large has been shielded from the incalculableevils of a general and indefinite suspension of specie payments, and aconsequent annihilation for the whole period it might have lasted of a justand invariable standard of value, will, it is believed, at this periodscarcely be questioned. 

A steady adherence on the part of the Government to the policy which hasproduced such salutary results, aided by judicious State legislation and, what is not less . Important, by the industry, enterprise, perseverance, andeconomy of the American people, can not fail to raise the whole country atan early period to a state of solid and enduring prosperity, not subject tobe again overthrown by the suspension of banks or the explosion of abloated credit system. It is for the people and their representatives todecide whether or not the permanent welfare of the country (which all goodcitizens equally desire, however widely they may differ as to the means ofits accomplishment) shall be in this way secured, or whether the managementof the pecuniary concerns of the Government, and by consequence to a greatextent those of individuals also, shall be carried back to a condition ofthings which fostered those contractions and expansions of the currency andthose reckless abuses of credit from the baleful effects of which thecountry has so deeply suffered--a return that can promise in the end nobetter results than to reproduce the embarrassments the Government hasexperienced, and to remove from the shoulders of the present to those offresh victims the bitter fruits of that spirit of speculative enterprise towhich our countrymen are so liable and upon which the lessons of experienceare so unavailing. The choice is an important one, and I sincerely hopethat it may be wisely made. 

A report from the Secretary of War, presenting a detailed view of theaffairs of that Department, accompanies this communication. 

The desultory duties connected with the removal of the Indians, in whichthe Army has been constantly engaged on the northern and western frontiersand in Florida, have rendered it impracticable to carry into full effectthe plan recommended by the Secretary for improving its discipline. Inevery instance where the regiments have been concentrated they have madegreat progress, and the best results may be anticipated from a continuanceof this system. During the last season a part of the troops have beenemployed in removing Indians from the interior to the territory assignedthem in the West--a duty which they have performed efficiently and withpraiseworthy humanity--and that portion of them which has been stationed inFlorida continued active operations there throughout the heats of summer. 

The policy of the United States in regard to the Indians, of which asuccinct account is given in my message of 1838, and of the wisdom andexpediency of which I am fully satisfied, has been continued in activeoperation throughout the whole period of my Administration. Since thespring of 1837 more than 40, 000 Indians have been removed to their newhomes west of the Mississippi, and I am happy to add that all accountsconcur in representing the result of this measure as eminently beneficialto that people. 

The emigration of the Seminoles alone has been attended with seriousdifficulty and occasioned bloodshed, hostilities having been commenced bythe Indians in Florida under the apprehension that they would be compelledby force to comply with their treaty stipulations. The execution of thetreaty of Paynes Landing, signed in 1832, but not ratified until 1834, waspostponed at the solicitation of the Indians until 1836, when they againrenewed their agreement to remove peaceably to their new homes in the West. In the face of this solemn and renewed compact they broke their faith andcommenced hostilities by the massacre of Major Dade's command, the murderof their agent, General Thompson, and other acts of cruel treachery. Whenthis alarming and unexpected intelligence reached the seat of Government, every effort appears to have been made to reenforce General Clinch, whocommanded the troops then in Florida. General Eustis was dispatched withreenforcements from Charleston, troops were called out from Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and General Scott was sent to take the command, with ample powers and ample means. At the first alarm General Gainesorganized a force at New Orleans, and without waiting for orders landed inFlorida, where he delivered over the troops he had brought with him toGeneral Scott. 

Governor Call was subsequently appointed to conduct a summer campaign, andat the close of it was replaced by General Jesup. These events and changestook place under the Administration of my predecessor. Notwithstanding theexertions of the experienced officers who had command there for eighteenmonths, on entering upon the administration of the Government I found theTerritory of Florida a prey to Indian atrocities. A strenuous effort wasimmediately made to bring those hostilities to a close, and the army underGeneral Jesup was reenforced until it amounted to 10, 000 men, and furnishedwith abundant supplies of every description. In this campaign a greatnumber of the enemy were captured and destroyed, but the character of thecontest only was changed. The Indians, having been defeated in everyengagement, dispersed in small bands throughout the country and became anenterprising, formidable, and ruthless banditti. General Taylor, whosucceeded General Jesup, used his best exertions to subdue them, and wasseconded in his efforts by the officers under his command; but he toofailed to protect the Territory from their depredations. By an act ofsignal and cruel treachery they broke the truce made with them by GeneralMacGrab, who was sent from Washington for the purpose of carrying intoeffect the expressed wishes of Congress, and have continued theirdevastations ever since. General Armistead, who was in Florida when GeneralTaylor left the army by permission, assumed the command, and after activesummer operations was met by propositions for peace, and from the fortunatecoincidence of the arrival in Florida at the same period of a delegationfrom the Seminoles who are happily settled west of the Mississippi and arenow anxious to persuade their countrymen to join them there hopes were forsome time entertained that the Indians might be induced to leave theTerritory without further difficulty. These hopes have proved fallaciousand hostilities have been renewed throughout the whole of the Territory. That this contest has endured so long is to be attributed to causes beyondthe control of the Government. Experienced generals have had the command ofthe troops, officers and soldiers have alike distinguished themselves fortheir activity, patience, and enduring courage, the army has beenconstantly furnished with supplies of every description, and we must lookfor the causes which have so long procrastinated the issue of the contestin the vast extent of the theater of hostilities, the almost insurmountableobstacles presented by the nature of the country, the climate, and the wilycharacter of the savages. 

The sites for marine hospitals on the rivers and lakes which I wasauthorized to select and cause to be purchased have all been designated, but the appropriation not proving sufficient, conditional arrangements onlyhave been made for their acquisition. It is for Congress to decide whetherthese Conditional purchases shall be sanctioned and the humane intentionsof the law carried into full effect. 

The Navy, as will appear from the accompanying report of the Secretary, hasbeen usefully and honorably employed in the protection of our commerce andcitizens in the Mediterranean, the Pacific, on the coast of Brazil, and inthe Gulf of Mexico. A small squadron, consisting of the frigateConstellation and the sloop of war Boston, under Commodore Kearney, is nowon its way to the China and Indian seas for the purpose of attending to ourinterests in that quarter, and Commander Aulick, in the sloop of warYorktown, has been instructed to visit the Sandwich and Society islands, the coasts of New Zealand and Japan, together with other ports and islandsfrequented by our whale ships, for the purpose of giving them countenanceand protection should they be required. Other smaller vessels have been andstill are employed in prosecuting the surveys of the coast of the UnitedStates directed by various acts of Congress, and those which have beencompleted will shortly be laid before you. 

The exploring expedition at the latest date was preparing to leave the Bayof Islands, New Zealand, in further prosecution of objects which have thusfar been successfully accomplished. The discovery of a new continent, whichwas first seen in latitude 66° 2' south, longitude 154° 27' east, and afterwards in latitude 66° 31' south, longitude 153° 40' east, by Lieutenants Wilkes and Hudson, for an extent of 1, 800 miles, but onwhich they were prevented from landing by vast bodies of ice whichencompassed it, is one of the honorable results of the enterprise. Lieutenant Wilkes bears testimony to the zeal and good conduct of hisofficers and men, and it is but justice to that officer to state that heappears to have performed the duties assigned him with an ardor, ability, and perseverance which give every assurance of an honorable issue to theundertaking. 

The report of the Postmaster-General herewith transmitted will exhibit theservice of that Department the past year and its present condition. Thetransportation has been maintained during the year to the full extentauthorized by the existing laws; some improvements have been effected whichthe public interest seemed urgently to demand, but not involving anymaterial additional expenditure; the contractors have generally performedtheir engagements with fidelity; the postmasters, with few exceptions, haverendered their accounts and paid their quarterly balances with promptitude, and the whole service of the Department has maintained the efficiency forwhich it has for several years been distinguished. 

The acts of Congress establishing new mail routes and requiring moreexpensive services on others and the increasing wants of the country havefor three years past carried the expenditures something beyond the accruingrevenues, the excess having been met until the past year by the surpluswhich had previously accumulated. That surplus having been exhausted andthe anticipated increase in the revenue not having been realized owing tothe depression in the commercial business of the country, the finances ofthe Department exhibit a small deficiency at the close of the last fiscalyear. Its resources, however, are ample, and the reduced rates ofcompensation for the transportation service which may be expected on thefuture lettings from the general reduction of prices, with the increase ofrevenue that may reasonably be anticipated from the revival of commercialactivity, must soon place the finances of the Department in a prosperouscondition. 

Considering the unfavorable circumstances which have existed during thepast year, it is a gratifying result that the revenue has not declined ascompared with the preceding year, but, on the contrary, exhibits a smallincrease, the circumstances referred to having had no other effect than tocheck the expected income. 

It will be seen that the Postmaster-General suggests certain improvementsin the establishment designed to reduce the weight of the mails, cheapenthe transportation, insure greater regularity in the service, and secure aconsiderable reduction in the rates of letter postage--an object highlydesirable. The subject is one of general interest to the community, and isrespectfully recommended to your consideration. 

The suppression of the African slave trade has received the continuedattention of the Government. The brig Dolphin and schooner Grampus havebeen employed during the last season on the coast of Africa for the purposeof preventing such portions of that trade as were said to be prosecutedunder the American flag. After cruising off those parts of the coast mostusually resorted to by slavers until the commencement of the rainy season, these vessels returned to the United States for supplies, and have sincebeen dispatched on a similar service. 

From the reports of the commanding officers it appears that the trade isnow principally carried on under Portuguese colors, and they express theopinion that the apprehension of their presence on the slave coast has in agreat degree arrested the prostitution of the American flag to this inhumanpurpose. It is hoped that by continuing to maintain this force in thatquarter and by the exertions of the officers in command much will be doneto put a stop to whatever portion of this traffic may have been carried onunder the American flag and to prevent its use in a trade which, while itviolates the laws, is equally an outrage on the rights of others and thefeelings of humanity. The efforts of the several Governments who areanxiously seeking to suppress this traffic must, however, be directedagainst the facilities afforded by what are now recognized as legitimatecommercial pursuits before that object can be fully accomplished. 

Supplies of provisions, water casks, merchandise, and articles connectedwith the prosecution of the slave trade are, it is understood, freelycarried by vessels of different nations to the slave factories, and theeffects of the factors are transported openly from one slave station toanother without interruption or punishment by either of the nations towhich they belong engaged in the commerce of that region. I submit to yourjudgments whether this Government, having been the first to prohibit byadequate penalties the slave trade, the first to declare it piracy, shouldnot be the first also to forbid to its citizens all trade with the slavefactories on the coast of Africa, giving an example to all nations in thisrespect which if fairly followed can not fail to produce the most effectiveresults in breaking up those dens of iniquity. 

M. VAN BUREN