satisfactory account of the manner in which the concerns of that
Department have been conducted during the present year. Our position in
relation to the most powerful nations of the earth, and the present
condition of Europe, admonish us to cherish this arm of our national
defense with peculiar care. Separated by wide seas from all those
Governments whose power we might have reason to dread, we have nothing
to apprehend from attempts at conquest. It is chiefly attacks upon our
commerce and harrassing in-roads upon our coast against which we have
to guard. A naval force adequate to the protection of our commerce,
always afloat, with an accumulation of the means to give it a rapid
extension in case of need, furnishes the power by which all such
aggressions may be prevented or repelled. The attention of the
Government has therefore been recently directed more to preserving the
public vessels already built and providing materials to be placed in
depot for future use than to increasing their number. With the aid of
Congress, in a few years the Government will be prepared in case of
emergency to put afloat a powerful navy of new ships almost as soon as
old ones could be repaired.
The modifications in this part of the service suggested in my last
annual message, which are noticed more in detail in the report of the
Secretary of the Navy, are again recommended to your serious attention.
The report of the Post Master General in like manner exhibits a
satisfactory view of the important branch of the Government under his
charge. In addition to the benefits already secured by the operations
of the Post Office Department, considerable improvements within the
present year have been made by an increase in the accommodation
afforded by stage coaches, and in the frequency and celerity of the
mail between some of the most important points of the Union.
Under the late contracts improvements have been provided for the
southern section of the country, and at the same time an annual saving
made of upward of $72,000. Not with standing the excess of expenditure
beyond the current receipts for a few years past, necessarily incurred
in the fulfillment of existing contracts and in the additional expenses
between the periods of contracting to meet the demands created by the
rapid growth and extension of our flourishing country, yet the
satisfactory assurance is given that the future revenue of the
Department will be sufficient to meets its extensive engagements. The
system recently introduced that subjects its receipts and disbursements
to strict regulation has entirely fulfilled its designs. It gives full
assurance of the punctual transmission, as well as the security of the
funds of the Department. The efficiency and industry of its officers
and the ability and energy of contractors justify an increased
confidence in its continued prosperity.
The attention of Congress was called on a former occasion to the
necessity of such a modification in the office of Attorney General of
the United States as would render it more adequate to the wants of the
public service. This resulted in the establishment of the office of
Solicitor of the Treasury, and the earliest measures were taken to give
effect to the provisions of the law which authorized the appointment of
that officer and defined his duties. But it is not believed that this
provision, however useful in itself, is calculated to supersede the
necessity of extending the duties and powers of the Attorney General's
Office. On the contrary, I am convinced that the public interest would
be greatly promoted by giving to that officer the general
superintendence of the various law agents of the Government, and of all
law proceedings, whether civil or criminal, in which the United States
may be interested, allowing him at the same time such compensation as
would enable him to devote his undivided attention to the public
business. I think such a provision is alike due to the public and to
the officer.
Occasions of reference from the different Executive Departments to the
Attorney General are of frequent occurrence, and the prompt decision of
the questions so referred tends much to facilitate the dispatch of
business in those Departments. The report of the Secretary of the
Treasury hereto appended shows also a branch of the public service not
specifically intrusted to any officer which might be advantageously
committed to the Attorney General. But independently of those
considerations this office is now one of daily duty. It was originally
organized and its compensation fixed with a view to occasional service,
leaving to the incumbent time for the exercise of his profession in
private practice. The state of things which warranted such an
organization no longer exists. The frequent claims upon the services of
this officer would render his absence from the seat of Government in
professional attendance upon the courts injurious to the public
service, and the interests of the Government could not fail to be
promoted by charging him with the general superintendence of all its
legal concerns.
Under a strong conviction of the justness of these suggestions, I
recommend it to Congress to make the necessary provisions for giving
effect to them, and to place the Attorney General in regard to
compensation on the same footing with the heads of the several
Executive Departments. To this officer might also be intrusted a
cognizance of the cases of insolvency in public debtors, especially if
the views which I submitted on this subject last year should meet the
approbation of Congress--to which I again solicit your attention.
Your attention is respectfully invited to the situation of the District
of Columbia. Placed by the Constitution under the exclusive
jurisdiction and control of Congress, this District is certainly
entitled to a much greater share of its consideration than it has yet
received. There is a want of uniformity in its laws, particularly in
those of a penal character, which increases the expense of their
administration and subjects the people to all the inconveniences which
result from the operation of different codes in so small a territory.
On different sides of the Potomac the same offense is punishable in
unequal degrees, and the peculiarities of many of the early laws of
Maryland and Virginia remain in force, not with standing their
repugnance in some cases to the improvements which have superseded them
in those States.
Besides a remedy for these evils, which is loudly called for, it is
respectfully submitted whether a provision authorizing the election of
a delegate to represent the wants of the citizens of this District on
the floor of Congress is not due to them and to the character of our
Government. No principles of freedom, and there is none more important
than that which cultivates a proper relation between the governors and
the governed. Imperfect as this must be in this case, yet it is
believed that it would be greatly improved by a representation in
Congress with the same privileges that are allowed to the other
Territories of the United States.
The penitentiary is ready for the reception of convicts, and only
awaits the necessary legislation to put it into operation, as one
object of which I beg leave to recall your attention to the propriety
of providing suitable compensation for the officers charged with its
inspection.
The importance of the principles involved in the inquiry whether it
will be proper to recharter the Bank of the United States requires that
I should again call the attention of Congress to the subject. Nothing
has occurred to lessen in any degree the dangers which many of our
citizens apprehend from that institution as at present organized. In
the spirit of improvement and compromise which distinguishes our
country and its institutions it becomes us to inquire whether it be not
possible to secure the advantages afforded by the present bank through
the agency of a Bank of the United States so modified in its principles
and structures as to obviate constitutional and other objections.
It is thought practicable to organize such a bank with the necessary
officers as a branch of the Treasury Department, based on the public
and individual deposits, without power to make loans or purchase
property, which shall remit the funds of the Government, and the
expense of which may be paid, if thought advisable, by allowing its
officers to sell bills of exchange to private individuals at a moderate
premium. Not being a corporate body, having no stock holders, debtors,
or property, and but few officers, it would not be obnoxious to the
constitutional objections which are urged against the present bank; and
having no means to operate on the hopes, fears, or interests of large
masses of the community, it would be shorn of the influence which makes
that bank formidable. The States would be strengthened by having in
their hands the means of furnishing the local paper currency through
their own banks, while the Bank of the United States, though issuing no
paper, would check the issues of the State banks by taking their notes
in deposit and for exchange only so long as they continue to be
redeemed with specie. In times of public emergency the capacities of
such an institution might be enlarged by legislative provisions.
These suggestions are made not so much as a recommendation as with a
view of calling the attention of Congress to the possible modifications
of a system which can not continue to exist in its present form without
occasional collisions with the local authorities and perpetual
apprehensions and discontent on the part of the States and the people.
In conclusion, fellow citizens, allow me to invoke in behalf of your
deliberations that spirit of conciliation and disinterestedness which
is the gift of patriotism. Under an over-ruling and merciful Providence
the agency of this spirit has thus far been signalized in the
prosperity and glory of our beloved country. May its influence be
eternal.
***
State of the Union Address
Andrew Jackson
December 6, 1831
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
The representation of the people has been renewed for the 22nd time
since the Constitution they formed has been in force. For near half a
century the Chief Magistrates who have been successively chosen have
made their annual communications of the state of the nation to its
representatives. Generally these communications have been of the most
gratifying nature, testifying an advance in all the improvements of
social and all the securities of political life. But frequently and
justly as you have been called on to be grateful for the bounties of
Providence, at few periods have they been more abundantly or
extensively bestowed than at the present; rarely, if ever, have we had
greater reason to congratulate each other on the continued and
increasing prosperity of our beloved country.
Agriculture, the first and most important occupation of man, has
compensated the labors of the husband-man with plentiful crops of all
the varied products of our extensive country. Manufactures have been
established in which the funds of the capitalist find a profitable
investment, and which give employment and subsistence to a numerous and
increasing body of industrious and dexterous mechanics. The laborer is
rewarded by high wages in the construction of works of internal
improvement, which are extending with unprecedented rapidity. Science
is steadily penetrating the recesses of nature and disclosing her
secrets, while the ingenuity of free minds is subjecting the elements
to the power of man and making each new conquest auxiliary to his
comfort. By our mails, whose speed is regularly increased and whose
routes are every year extended, the communication of public
intelligence and private business is rendered frequent and safe; the
intercourse between distant cities, which it formerly required weeks to
accomplish, is now effected in a few days; and in the construction of
rail roads and the application of steam power we have a reasonable
prospect that the extreme parts of our country will be so much
approximated and those most isolated by the obstacles of nature
rendered so accessible as to remove an apprehension some times
entertained that the great extent of the Union would endanger its
permanent existence.
If from the satisfactory view of our agriculture, manufactures, and
internal improvements we turn to the state of our navigation and trade
with foreign nations and between the States, we shall scarcely find
less cause for gratulation. A beneficent Providence has provided for
their exercise and encouragement an extensive coast, indented by
capacious bays, noble rivers, inland seas; with a country productive of
every material for ship building and every commodity for gainful
commerce, and filled with a population active, intelligent,
well-informed, and fearless of danger. These advantages are not
neglected, and an impulse has lately been given to commercial
enterprise, which fills our ship yards with new constructions,
encourages all the arts and branches of industry connected with them,
crowds the wharves of our cities with vessels, and covers the most
distant seas with our canvas.
Let us be grateful for these blessings to the beneficent Being who has
conferred them, and who suffers us to indulge a reasonable hope of
their continuance and extension, while we neglect not the means by
which they may be preserved. If we may dare to judge of His future
designs by the manner in which His past favors have been bestowed, He
has made our national prosperity to depend on the preservation of our
liberties, our national force on our Federal Union, and our individual
happiness on the maintenance of our State rights and wise institutions.
If we are prosperous at home and respected abroad, it is because we are
free, united, industrious, and obedient to the laws. While we continue
so we shall by the blessing of Heaven go on in the happy career we have
begun, and which has brought us in the short period of our political
existence from a population of 3,000,000 to 13,000,000; from 13
separate colonies to 24 united States; from weakness to strength; from
a rank scarcely marked in the scale of nations to a high place in their
respect.
This last advantage is one that has resulted in a great degree from the
principles which have guided our intercourse with foreign powers since
we have assumed an equal station among them, and hence the annual
account which the Executive renders to the country of the manner in
which that branch of his duties has been fulfilled proves instructive
and salutary.
The pacific and wise policy of our Government kept us in a state of
neutrality during the wars that have at different periods since our
political existence been carried on by other powers; but this policy,
while it gave activity and extent to our commerce, exposed it in the
same proportion to injuries from the belligerent nations. Hence have
arisen claims of indemnity for those injuries. England, France, Spain,
Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Naples, and lately Portugal had all in a
greater or less degree infringed our neutral rights. Demands for
reparation were made upon all. They have had in all, and continue to
have in some, cases a leading influence on the nature of our relations
with the powers on whom they were made.
Of the claims upon England it is unnecessary to speak further than to
say that the state of things to which their prosecution and denial gave
rise has been succeeded by arrangements productive of mutual good
feeling and amicable relations between the two countries, which it is
hoped will not be interrupted. One of these arrangements is that
relating to the colonial trade which was communicated to Congress at
the last session; and although the short period during which it has
been in force will not enable me to form an accurate judgment of its
operation, there is every reason to believe that it will prove highly
beneficial. The trade thereby authorized has employed to September
30th, 1831 upward of 30 thousand tons of American and 15 thousand tons
of foreign shipping in the outward voyages, and in the inward nearly an
equal amount of American and 20 thousand only of foreign tonnage.
Advantages, too, have resulted to our agricultural interests from the
state of the trade between Canada and our Territories and States
bordering or the St. Lawrence and the Lakes which may prove more than
equivalent to the loss sustained by the discrimination made to favor
the trade of the northern colonies with the West Indies.
After our transition from the state of colonies to that of an
independent nation many points were found necessary to be settled
between us and Great Britain. Among them was the demarcation of
boundaries not described with sufficient precision in the treaty of
peace. Some of the lines that divide the States and Territories of the
United States from the British Provinces have been definitively fixed.
That, however, which separates us from the Provinces of Canada and New
Brunswick to the North and the East was still in dispute when I came
into office, but I found arrangements made for its settlement over
which I had no control. The commissioners who had been appointed under
the provisions of the treaty of Ghent having been unable to agree, a
convention was made with Great Britain by my immediate predecessor in
office, with the advice and consent of the Senate, by which it was
agreed "that the points of difference which have arisen in the
settlement of the boundary line between the American and British
dominions, as described in the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent,
shall be referred, as therein provided, to some friendly sovereign or
State, who shall be invited to investigate and make a decision upon
such points of difference"; and the King of the Netherlands having by
the late President and His Britannic Majesty been designated as such
friendly sovereign, it became my duty to carry with good faith the
agreement so made into full effect. To this end I caused all the
measures to be taken which were necessary to a full exposition of our
case to the sovereign arbiter, and nominated as minister
plenipotentiary to his Court a distinguished citizen of the State most
interested in the question, and who had been one of the agents
previously employed for settling the controversy.
On January 10th, 1831 His Majesty the King of the Netherlands delivered
to the plenipotentiaries of the United States and of Great Britain his
written opinion on the case referred to him. The papers in relation to
the subject will be communicated by a special message to the proper
branch of the Government with the perfect confidence that its wisdom
will adopt such measures as will secure an amicable settlement of the
controversy without infringing any constitutional right of the States
immediately interested.
It affords me satisfaction to inform you that suggestions made by my
direction to the charge d'affaires of His Britannic Majesty to this
Government have had their desired effect in producing the release of
certain American citizens who were imprisoned for setting up the
authority of the State of Maine at a place in the disputed territory
under the actual jurisdiction of His Britannic Majesty. From this and
the assurances I have received of the desire of the local authorities
to avoid any cause of collision I have the best hopes that a good
understanding will be kept up until it is confirmed by the final
disposition of the subject.
The amicable relations which now subsist between the United States and
Great Britain, the increasing intercourse between their citizens, and
the rapid obliteration of unfriendly prejudices to which former events
naturally gave rise concurred to present this as a fit period for
renewing our endeavors to provide against the recurrence of causes of
irritation which in the event of war between Great Britain and any
other power would inevitably endanger our peace. Animated by the
sincerest desire to avoid such a state of things, and peacefully to
secure under all possible circumstances the rights and honor of the
country, I have given such instructions to the minister lately sent to
the Court of London as will evince that desire, and if met by a
correspondent disposition, which we can not doubt, will put an end to
causes of collision which, without advantage to either, tend to
estrange from each other two nations who have every motive to preserve
not only peace, but an intercourse of the most amicable nature.
In my message at the opening of the last session of Congress I
expressed a confident hope that the justice of our claims upon France,
urged as they were with perseverance and signal ability by our minister
there, would finally be acknowledged. This hope has been realized. A
treaty has been signed which will immediately be laid before the Senate
for its approbation, and which, containing stipulations that require
legislative acts, must have the concurrence of both houses before it
can be carried into effect.
By it the French Government engage to pay a sum which, if not quite
equal to that which may be found due to our citizens, will yet, it is
believed, under all circumstances, be deemed satisfactory by those
interested. The offer of a gross sum instead of the satisfaction of
each individual claim was accepted because the only alternatives were a
rigorous exaction of the whole amount stated to be due on each claim,
which might in some instances be exaggerated by design, in other
over-rated through error, and which, therefore, it would have been both
ungracious and unjust to have insisted on; or a settlement by a mixed
commission, to which the French negotiators were very averse, and which
experience in other cases had shewn to be dilatory and often wholly
inadequate to the end.
A comparatively small sum is stipulated on our part to go to the
extinction of all claims by French citizens on our Government, and a
reduction of duties on our cotton and their wines has been agreed on as
a consideration for the renunciation of an important claim for
commercial privileges under the construction they gave to the treaty
for the cession of Louisiana.
Should this treaty receive the proper sanction, a source of irritation
will be stopped that has for so many years in some degree alienated
from each other two nations who, from interest as well as the
remembrance of early associations, ought to cherish the most friendly
relations; an encouragement will be given for perseverance in the
demands of justice by this new proof that if steadily pursued they will
be listened to, and admonition will be offered to those powers, if any,
which may be inclined to evade them that they will never be abandoned;
above all, a just confidence will be inspired in our fellow citizens
that their Government will exert all the powers with which they have
invested it in support of their just claims upon foreign nations; at
the same time that the frank acknowledgment and provision for the
payment of those which were addressed to our equity, although
unsupported by legal proof, affords a practical illustration of our
submission to the divine rule of doing to others what we desire they
should do unto us.
Sweden and Denmark having made compensation for the irregularities
committed by their vessels or in their ports to the perfect
satisfaction of the parties concerned, and having renewed the treaties
of commerce entered into with them, our political and commercial
relations with those powers continue to be on the most friendly
footing.