A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Part 8

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 27, 1830_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

It is gratifying to me to be able to communicate to the Senate before the termination of its present session, for its advice and consent as to the ratification of it, a convention just received at the Department of State between the United States and His Majesty the King of Denmark, which was negotiated on the part of the former by Mr. Henry Wheaton, their charge d'affaires at the Court of Denmark, and on that of the latter by the Sieurs Henry Count de Schemmelman, his minister of foreign affairs, and Paul Christian de Stemann, president of his chancery, and concluded and signed by these plenipotentiaries at Copenhagen on the 28th of March of the present year.

The convention provides by compromise for the adjustment and payment of indemnities to no inconsiderable amount, long sought from the Government of Denmark by that of the United States, in behalf of their citizens who had preferred claims for the same, relating to the seizure, detention, and condemnation or confiscation of their vessels, cargoes, or property by the public armed ships or by the tribunals of Denmark or in the states subject to the Danish scepter; and there is every reason to believe, as the Senate will infer from the correspondence which accompanies this communication, that the proposed arrangement will prove entirely satisfactory to them.

ANDREW JACKSON.

_May 28, 1830_.

_To the Senate of the United States_.

GENTLEMEN: For the reasons expressed in the inclosed note, I renominate Wharton Rector to be agent for the Shawnee and Delaware Indians.

ANDREW JACKSON.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: The rejection of Colonel Rector by the Senate took place in the absence of Mr. McLean and myself. We were both confined to our rooms by illness. Had we been present his nomination would have been confirmed. I believe that if he were again placed before the Senate his nomination would be confirmed, and should therefore be pleased if he could be again nominated.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant, J. ROWAN.

_May 29, 1830_.

_To the House of Representatives_.

GENTLEMEN: Having approved and signed a resolution, originating in the House of Representatives, which provides "that the pay, subsistence, emoluments, and allowances received by the officers of the Marine Corps previous to the 1st of April, 1829, be, and the same is hereby, directed to be continued to them from that date up to the 28th of February, 1831," it becomes my duty to call the attention of Congress to the fact that the estimates for that branch of the public service submitted to them at the commencement of the present session were made with reference to the pay, subsistence, emoluments, and allowances provided for by law, and excluding those which previously to the 1st of April, 1829, had been made on the authority of the Department alone, and to suggest the propriety of an appropriation to meet the increased expenditure.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 29, 1830_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I submit herewith a report[10] from the Secretary of the Treasury, giving the information called for by a resolution of the Senate of the 3d of March, 1829.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[Footnote 10: Transmitting statements of lands appropriated by Congress for specific objects within the several States, etc.; disburs.e.m.e.nts made within the several States and Territories from the commencement of the Government to December 31, 1828; value of exports from the commencement of the Government to September 30, 1828. ]

_May 30, 1830_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_.

Gentlemen: I have approved and signed the bill ent.i.tled "An act making appropriations for examinations and surveys, and also for certain works of internal improvement," but as the phraseology of the section which appropriates the sum of $8,000 for the road from Detroit to Chicago may be construed to authorize the application of the appropriation for the continuance of the road beyond the limits of the Territory of Michigan, I desire to be understood as having approved this bill with the understanding that the road authorized by this section is not to be extended beyond the limits of the said Territory.

ANDREW JACKSON.

VETO MESSAGES.

_May 27, 1830_.

_To the House of Representatives_.

Gentlemen: I have maturely considered the bill proposing to authorize "a subscription of stock in the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Road Company," and now return the same to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with my objections to its pa.s.sage.

Sincerely friendly to the improvement of our country by means of roads and ca.n.a.ls, I regret that any difference of opinion in the mode of contributing to it should exist between us; and if in stating this difference I go beyond what the occasion may be deemed to call for, I hope to find an apology in the great importance of the subject, an unfeigned respect for the high source from which this branch of it has emanated, and an anxious wish to be correctly understood by my const.i.tuents in the discharge of all my duties. Diversity of sentiment among public functionaries actuated by the same general motives, on the character and tendency of particular measures, is an incident common to all Governments, and the more to be expected in one which, like ours, owes its existence to the freedom of opinion, and must be upheld by the same influence. Controlled as we thus are by a higher tribunal, before which our respective acts will be canva.s.sed with the indulgence due to the imperfections of our nature, and with that intelligence and unbiased judgment which are the true correctives of error, all that our responsibility demands is that the public good should be the measure of our views, dictating alike their frank expression and honest maintenance.

In the message which was presented to Congress at the opening of its present session I endeavored to exhibit briefly my views upon the important and highly interesting subject to which our attention is now to be directed. I was desirous of presenting to the representatives of the several States in Congress a.s.sembled the inquiry whether some mode could not be devised which would reconcile the diversity of opinion concerning the powers of this Government over the subject of internal improvement, and the manner in which these powers, if conferred by the Const.i.tution, ought to be exercised. The act which I am called upon to consider has, therefore, been pa.s.sed with a knowledge of my views on this question, as these are expressed in the message referred to. In that doc.u.ment the following suggestions will be found:

After the extinction of the public debt it is not probable that any adjustment of the tariff upon principles satisfactory to the people of the Union will until a remote period, if ever, leave the Government without a considerable surplus in the Treasury beyond what may be required for its current service. As, then, the period approaches when the application of the revenue to the payment of debt will cease, the disposition of the surplus will present a subject for the serious deliberation of Congress; and it may be fortunate for the country that it is yet to be decided. Considered in connection with the difficulties which have heretofore attended appropriations for purposes of internal improvement, and with those which this experience tells us will certainly arise whenever power over such subjects may be exercised by the General Government, it is hoped that it may lead to the adoption of some plan which will reconcile the diversified interests of the States and strengthen the bonds which unite them. Every member of the Union, in peace and in war, will be benefited by the improvement of inland navigation and the construction of highways in the several States. Let us, then, endeavor to attain this benefit in a mode which will be satisfactory to all. That hitherto adopted has by many of our fellow-citizens been deprecated as an infraction of the Const.i.tution, while by others it has been viewed as inexpedient. All feel that it has been employed at the expense of harmony in the legislative councils.

And adverting to the const.i.tutional power of Congress to make what I considered a proper disposition of the surplus revenue, I subjoined the following remarks:

To avoid these evils it appears to me that the most safe, just, and federal disposition which could be made of the surplus revenue would be its apportionment among the several States according to their ratio of representation, and should this measure not be found warranted by the Const.i.tution that it would be expedient to propose to the States an amendment authorizing it.

The const.i.tutional power of the Federal Government to construct or promote works of internal improvement presents itself in two points of view--the first as bearing upon the sovereignty of the States within whose limits their execution is contemplated, if jurisdiction of the territory which they may occupy be claimed as necessary to their preservation and use; the second as a.s.serting the simple right to appropriate money from the National Treasury in aid of such works when undertaken by State authority, surrendering the claim of jurisdiction.

In the first view the question of power is an open one, and can be decided without the embarra.s.sments attending the other, arising from the practice of the Government. Although frequently and strenuously attempted, the power to this extent has never been exercised by the Government in a single instance. It does not, in my opinion, possess it; and no bill, therefore, which admits it can receive my official sanction.

But in the other view of the power the question is differently situated.

The ground taken at an early period of the Government was "that whenever money has been raised by the general authority and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if not, no such application can be made." The doc.u.ment in which this principle was first advanced is of deservedly high authority, and should be held in grateful remembrance for its immediate agency in rescuing the country from much existing abuse and for its conservative effect upon some of the most valuable principles of the Const.i.tution. The symmetry and purity of the Government would doubtless have been better preserved if this restriction of the power of appropriation could have been maintained without weakening its ability to fulfill the general objects of its inst.i.tution, an effect so likely to attend its admission, notwithstanding its apparent fitness, that every subsequent Administration of the Government, embracing a period of thirty out of the forty-two years of its existence, has adopted a more enlarged construction of the power. It is not my purpose to detain you by a minute recital of the acts which sustain this a.s.sertion, but it is proper that I should notice some of the most prominent in order that the reflections which they suggest to my mind may be better understood.

In the Administration of Mr. Jefferson we have two examples of the exercise of the right of appropriation, which in the considerations that led to their adoption and in their effects upon the public mind have had a greater agency in marking the character of the power than any subsequent events. I allude to the payment of $15,000,000 for the purchase of Louisiana and to the original appropriation for the construction of the c.u.mberland road, the latter act deriving much weight from the acquiescence and approbation of three of the most powerful of the original members of the Confederacy, expressed through their respective legislatures. Although the circ.u.mstances of the latter case may be such as to deprive so much of it as relates to the actual construction of the road of the force of an obligatory exposition of the Const.i.tution, it must, nevertheless, be admitted that so far as the mere appropriation of money is concerned they present the principle in its most imposing aspect. No less than twenty-three different laws have been pa.s.sed, through all the forms of the Const.i.tution, appropriating upward of $2,500,000 out of the National Treasury in support of that improvement, with the approbation of every President of the United States, including my predecessor, since its commencement.

Independently of the sanction given to appropriations for the c.u.mberland and other roads and objects under this power, the Administration of Mr.

Madison was characterized by an act which furnishes the strongest evidence of his opinion of its extent. A bill was pa.s.sed through both Houses of Congress and presented for his approval, "setting apart and pledging certain funds for constructing roads and ca.n.a.ls and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense." Regarding the bill as a.s.serting a power in the Federal Government to construct roads and ca.n.a.ls within the limits of the States in which they were made, he objected to its pa.s.sage on the ground of its unconst.i.tutionality, declaring that the a.s.sent of the respective States in the mode provided by the bill could not confer the power in question; that the only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Const.i.tution, and superadding to these avowals his opinion that "a restriction of the power 'to provide for the common defense and general welfare' to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution."

I have not been able to consider these declarations in any other point of view than as a concession that the right of appropriation is not limited by the power to carry into effect the measure for which the money is asked, as was formerly contended.

The views of Mr. Monroe upon this subject were not left to inference.

During his Administration a bill was pa.s.sed through both Houses of Congress conferring the jurisdiction and prescribing the mode by which the Federal Government should exercise it in the case of the c.u.mberland road. He returned it with objections to its pa.s.sage, and in a.s.signing them took occasion to say that in the early stages of the Government he had inclined to the construction that it had no right to expend money except in the performance of acts authorized by the other specific grants of power, according to a strict construction of them, but that on further reflection and observation his mind had undergone a change; that his opinion then was "that Congress have an unlimited power to raise money, and that in its appropriation they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes of common defense, and of general, not local, national, not State, benefit;" and this was avowed to be the governing principle through the residue of his Administration. The views of the last Administration are of such recent date as to render a particular reference to them unnecessary. It is well known that the appropriating power, to the utmost extent which had been claimed for it, in relation to internal improvements was fully recognized and exercised by it.

This brief reference to known facts will be sufficient to show the difficulty, if not impracticability, of bringing back the operations of the Government to the construction of the Const.i.tution set up in 1798, a.s.suming that to be its true reading in relation to the power under consideration, thus giving an admonitory proof of the force of implication and the necessity of guarding the Const.i.tution with sleepless vigilance against the authority of precedents which have not the sanction of its most plainly defined powers; for although it is the duty of all to look to that sacred instrument instead of the statute book, to repudiate at all times encroachments upon its spirit, which are too apt to be effected by the conjuncture of peculiar and facilitating circ.u.mstances, it is not less true that the public good and the nature of our political inst.i.tutions require that individual differences should yield to a well-settled acquiescence of the people and confederated authorities in particular constructions of the Const.i.tution on doubtful points. Not to concede this much to the spirit of our inst.i.tutions would impair their stability and defeat the objects of the Const.i.tution itself.

The bill before me does not call for a more definite opinion upon the particular circ.u.mstances which will warrant appropriations of money by Congress to aid works of internal improvement, for although the extension of the power to apply money beyond that of carrying into effect the object for which it is appropriated has, as we have seen, been long claimed and exercised by the Federal Government, yet such grants have always been professedly under the control of the general principle that the works which might be thus aided should be "of a general, not local, national, not State," character. A disregard of this distinction would of necessity lead to the subversion of the federal system. That even this is an unsafe one, arbitrary in its nature, and liable, consequently, to great abuses, is too obvious to require the confirmation of experience. It is, however, sufficiently definite and imperative to my mind to forbid my approbation of any bill having the character of the one under consideration. I have given to its provisions all the reflection demanded by a just regard for the interests of those of our fellow-citizens who have desired its pa.s.sage, and by the respect which is due to a coordinate branch of the Government, but I am not able to view it in any other light than as a measure of purely local character; or, if it can be considered national, that no further distinction between the appropriate duties of the General and State Governments need be attempted, for there can be no local interest that may not with equal propriety be denominated national. It has no connection with any established system of improvements; is exclusively within the limits of a State, starting at a point on the Ohio River and running out 60 miles to an interior town, and even as far as the State is interested conferring partial instead of general advantages.

Considering the magnitude and importance of the power, and the embarra.s.sments to which, from the very nature of the thing, its exercise must necessarily be subjected, the real friends of internal improvement ought not to be willing to confide it to accident and chance. What is properly _national_ in its character or otherwise is an inquiry which is often extremely difficult of solution. The appropriations of one year for an object which is considered national may be rendered nugatory by the refusal of a succeeding Congress to continue the work on the ground that it is local. No aid can be derived from the intervention of corporations. The question regards the character of the work, not that of those by whom it is to be accomplished. Notwithstanding the union of the Government with the corporation by whose immediate agency any work of internal improvement is carried on, the inquiry will still remain. Is it national and conducive to the benefit of the whole, or local and operating only to the advantage of a portion of the Union?

But although I might not feel it to be my official duty to interpose the Executive veto to the pa.s.sage of a bill appropriating money for the construction of such works as are authorized by the States and are national in their character, I do not wish to be understood as expressing an opinion that it is expedient at this time for the General Government to embark in a system of this kind; and anxious that my const.i.tuents should be possessed of my views on this as well as on all other subjects which they have committed to my discretion, I shall state them frankly and briefly. Besides many minor considerations, there are two prominent views of the subject which have made a deep impression upon my mind, which, I think, are well ent.i.tled to your serious attention, and will, I hope, be maturely weighed by the people.

From the official communication submitted to you it appears that if no adverse and unforeseen contingency happens in our foreign relations and no unusual diversion be made of the funds set apart for the payment of the national debt we may look with confidence to its entire extinguishment in the short period of four years. The extent to which this pleasing antic.i.p.ation is dependent upon the policy which may be pursued in relation to measures of the character of the one now under consideration must be obvious to all, and equally so that the events of the present session are well calculated to awaken public solicitude upon the subject. By the statement from the Treasury Department and those from the clerks of the Senate and House of Representatives, herewith submitted, it appears that the bills which have pa.s.sed into laws, and those which in all probability will pa.s.s before the adjournment of Congress, antic.i.p.ate appropriations which, with the ordinary expenditures for the support of Government, will exceed considerably the amount in the Treasury for the year 1830. Thus, whilst we are diminishing the revenue by a reduction of the duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa the appropriations for internal improvement are increasing beyond the available means of the Treasury. And if to this calculation be added the amounts contained in bills which are pending before the two Houses, it may be safely affirmed that $10,000,000 would not make up the excess over the Treasury receipts, unless the payment of the national debt be postponed and the means now pledged to that object applied to those enumerated in these bills. Without a well-regulated system of internal improvement this exhausting mode of appropriation is not likely to be avoided, and the plain consequence must be either a continuance of the national debt or a resort to additional taxes.

Although many of the States, with a laudable zeal and under the influence of an enlightened policy, are successfully applying their separate efforts to works of this character, the desire to enlist the aid of the General Government in the construction of such as from their nature ought to devolve upon it, and to which the means of the individual States are inadequate, is both rational and patriotic, and if that desire is not gratified now it does not follow that it never will be. The general intelligence and public spirit of the American people furnish a sure guaranty that at the proper time this policy will be made to prevail under circ.u.mstances more auspicious to its successful prosecution than those which now exist. But great as this object undoubtedly is, it is not the only one which demands the fostering care of the Government. The preservation and success of the republican principle rest with us. To elevate its character and extend its influence rank among our most important duties, and the best means to accomplish this desirable end are those which will rivet the attachment of our citizens to the Government of their choice by the comparative lightness of their public burthens and by the attraction which the superior success of its operations will present to the admiration and respect of the world. Through the favor of an overruling and indulgent Providence our country is blessed with general prosperity and our citizens exempted from the pressure of taxation, which other less favored portions of the human family are obliged to bear; yet it is true that many of the taxes collected from our citizens through the medium of imposts have for a considerable period been onerous. In many particulars these taxes have borne severely upon the laboring and less prosperous cla.s.ses of the community, being imposed on the necessaries of life, and this, too, in cases where the burthen was not relieved by the consciousness that it would ultimately contribute to make us independent of foreign nations for articles of prime necessity by the encouragement of their growth and manufacture at home. They have been cheerfully borne because they were thought to be necessary to the support of Government and the payment of the debts unavoidably incurred in the acquisition and maintenance of our national rights and liberties. But have we a right to calculate on the same cheerful acquiescence when it is known that the necessity for their continuance would cease were it not for irregular, improvident, and unequal appropriations of the public funds? Will not the people demand, as they have a right to do, such a prudent system of expenditure as will pay the debts of the Union and authorize the reduction of every tax to as low a point as the wise observance of the necessity to protect that portion of our manufactures and labor whose prosperity is essential to our national safety and independence will allow? When the national debt is paid, the duties upon those articles which we do not raise may be repealed with safety, and still leave, I trust, without oppression to any section of the country, an acc.u.mulating surplus fund, which may be beneficially applied to some well-digested system of improvement.