A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Part 31

WASHINGTON, _February 22, 1833_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit to the Senate, for its advice and consent as to the ratification of the same, a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States and Russia, concluded and signed at St. Petersburg on the 18th of December, 1832, by the plenipotentiaries of the two parties, with an additional article to the same, concluded and signed on the same day, together with an extract from the dispatch of the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to the Secretary of State, communicating the said treaty and additional article.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _February 26, 1833_.

_To the Senate_:

I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate as to the ratification of the same, a treaty concluded with the Ottawa Indians residing on the Miami of Lake Erie on the 18th instant by the commissioners on the part of the United States,

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1833_.

_To the Senate_:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of the Senate, a report from the Secretary of State, in relation to the consular establishment of the United States.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1833_.

_To the Senate_:

I have made several nominations to offices located within the limits of the State of Mississippi which have not received the approbation of the Senate. Inferring that these nominations have been rejected in pursuance of a resolution adopted by the Senate on the 3d of February, 1831, "that it is inexpedient to appoint a citizen of one State to an office which may be vacated or become vacant in any other State of the Union within which such citizen does not reside, without some evident necessity for such appointment," and regarding that resolution, in effect, as an unconst.i.tutional restraint upon the authority of the President in relation to appointments to office, I think it proper to inform the Senate that I shall feel it my duty to abstain from any further attempt to fill the offices in question.

ANDREW JACKSON.

_The President of the Senate_:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate pa.s.sed the 1st instant, requesting "that the President inform the Senate, if not incompatible with the public interest, what negotiation has been had since the last session of Congress with Great Britain in relation to the northeastern boundary of the United States, and the progress and result thereof; also whether any arrangement, stipulation, or agreement has at any time been made between the Executive of the United States and the government of the State of Maine, or by commissioners or agents on the part of the United States and that State, having reference to any proposed transfer or relinquishment of their right of jurisdiction and territory belonging to that State, together with all doc.u.ments, correspondence, and communications in relation thereto," I inform the Senate that overtures for opening a negotiation for the settlement of the boundary between the United States and the British provinces have been made to the Government of Great Britain since the last session, but that no definitive answer has yet been received to these propositions, and that a conditional arrangement has been made between commissioners appointed by me and others named by the governor of Maine, with the authority of its legislature, which can not take effect without the sanction of Congress and of the legislature aforesaid, and which will be communicated to them as soon as the contingency in which alone it was intended to operate shall happen. In the meantime it is not deemed compatible with the public interest that it should be communicated.

ANDREW JACKSON.

_March 2, 1833_.

VETO MESSAGES.[16]

[Footnote 16: Pocket vetoes.]

WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1832_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I avail myself of this early opportunity to return to the Senate, in which it originated, the bill ent.i.tled "An act providing for the final settlement of the claims of States for interest on advances to the United States made during the last war," with the reasons which induced me to withhold my approbation, in consequence of which it has failed to become a law.

This bill was presented to me for my signature on the last day of your session, and when I was compelled to consider a variety of other bills of greater urgency to the public service. It obviously embraced a principle in the allowance of interest different from that which had been sanctioned by the practice of the accounting officers or by the previous legislation of Congress in regard to the advances by the States, and without any apparent grounds for the change.

Previously to giving my sanction to so great an extension of the practice of allowing interest upon accounts with the Government, and which in its consequences and from a.n.a.logy might not only call for large payments from the Treasury, but disturb the great ma.s.s of individual accounts long since finally settled, I deemed it my duty to make a more thorough investigation of the subject than it was possible for me to do previously to the close of your last session. I adopted this course the more readily from the consideration that as the bill contained no appropriation the States which would have been ent.i.tled to claim its benefits could not have received them without the fuller legislation of Congress.

The principle which this bill authorizes varies not only from the practice uniformly adopted by many of the accounting officers in the case of individual accounts and in those of the States finally settled and closed previously to your last session, but also from that pursued under the act of your last session for the adjustment and settlement of the claims of the State of South Carolina. This last act prescribed no particular mode for the allowance of interest, which, therefore, in conformity with the directions of Congress in previous cases and with the uniform practice of the Auditor by whom the account was settled, was computed on the sums expended by the State of South Carolina for the use and benefit of the United States, and which had been repaid to the State; and the payments made by the United States were deducted from the princ.i.p.al sums, exclusive of the interest, thereby stopping future interest on so much of the princ.i.p.al as had been reimbursed by the payment.

I deem it proper, moreover, to observe that both under the act of the 5th of August, 1790, and that of the 12th of February, 1793, authorizing the settlement of the accounts between the United States and the individual States arising out of the war of the Revolution, the interest on those accounts was computed in conformity with the practice already adverted to, and from which the bill now returned is a departure.

With these reasons and considerations I return the bill to the Senate.

ANDREW JACKSON.

_December 6, 1832_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In addition to the general views I have heretofore expressed to Congress on the subject of internal improvement, it is my duty to advert to it again in stating my objections to the bill ent.i.tled "An act for the improvement of certain harbors and the navigation of certain rivers,"

which was not received a sufficient time before the close of the last session to enable me to examine it before the adjournment.

Having maturely considered that bill within the time allowed me by the Const.i.tution, and being convinced that some of its provisions conflict with the rule adopted for my guide on this subject of legislation, I have been compelled to withhold from it my signature, and it has therefore failed to become a law.

To facilitate as far as I can the intelligent action of Congress upon the subjects embraced in this bill, I transmit herewith a report from the Engineer Department, distinguishing, as far as the information within its possession would enable it, between those appropriations which do and those which do not conflict with the rules by which my conduct in this respect has. .h.i.therto been governed. By that report it will be seen that there is a cla.s.s of appropriations in the bill for the improvement of streams that are not navigable, that are not channels of commerce, and that do not pertain to the harbors or ports of entry designated by law, or have any ascertained connection with the usual establishments for the security of commerce, external or internal.

It is obvious that such appropriations involve the sanction of a principle that concedes to the General Government an unlimited power over the subject of internal improvements, and that I could not, therefore, approve a bill containing them without receding from the positions taken in my veto of the Maysville road bill, and afterwards in my annual message of December 6, 1830.

It is to be regretted that the rules by which the cla.s.sification of the improvements in this bill has been made by the Engineer Department are not more definite and certain, and that embarra.s.sments may not always be avoided by the observance of them, but as neither my own reflection nor the lights derived from other sources have furnished me with a better guide, I shall continue to apply my best exertions to their application and enforcement. In thus employing my best faculties to exercise the power with which I am invested to avoid evils and to effect the greatest attainable good for our common country I feel that I may trust to your cordial cooperation, and the experience of the past leaves me no room to doubt the liberal indulgence and favorable consideration of those for whom we act.

The grounds upon which I have given my a.s.sent to appropriations for the construction of light-houses, beacons, buoys, public piers, and the removal of sand bars, sawyers, and other temporary or partial impediments in our navigable rivers and harbors, and with which many of the provisions of this bill correspond, have been so fully stated that I trust a repet.i.tion of them is unnecessary. Had there been incorporated in the bill no provisions for works of a different description, depending on principles which extend the power of making appropriations to every object which the discretion of the Government may select, and losing sight of the distinctions between national and local character which I had stated would be my future guide on the subject, I should have cheerfully signed the bill.

ANDREW JACKSON.

PROCLAMATION.

BY ANDREW JACKSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Whereas a convention a.s.sembled in the State of South Carolina have pa.s.sed an ordinance by which they declare "that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and more especially" two acts for the same purposes pa.s.sed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, "are unauthorized by the Const.i.tution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and void and no law," nor binding on the citizens of that State or its officers; and by the said ordinance it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the const.i.tuted authorities of the State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to pa.s.s such laws as may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance; and

Whereas by the said ordinance it is further ordained that in no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said State wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be pa.s.sed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take such appeal shall be punished as for contempt of court; and, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard, and that they will consider the pa.s.sage of any act by Congress abolishing or closing the ports of the said State or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the Federal Government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or hara.s.s her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union, and that the people of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent states may of right do; and

Whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws of their country, subversive of its Const.i.tution, and having for its object the destruction of the Union--that Union which, coeval with our political existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glorious independence; that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy Const.i.tution, has brought us, by the favor of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home and high consideration abroad rarely, if ever, equaled in the history of nations:

To preserve this bond of our political existence from destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and to justify the confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, have thought proper to issue this my proclamation, stating my views of the Const.i.tution and laws applicable to the measures adopted by the convention of South Carolina and to the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the course which duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the consequences that must inevitably result from an observance of the dictates of the convention.