instructions were that as soon after the election of the new members as
the charter would permit the legislative Chambers of France should be
called together and the proposition for an appropriation laid before
them; that all the constitutional powers of the King and his cabinet
should be exerted to accomplish the object, and that the result should
be made known early enough to be communicated to Congress at the
commencement of the present session. Relying upon these pledges, and
not doubting that the acknowledged justice of our claims, the promised
exertions of the King and his cabinet, and, above all, that sacred
regard for the national faith and honor for which the French character
has been so distinguished would secure an early execution of the treaty
in all its parts, I did not deem it necessary to call the attention of
Congress to the subject at the last session.
I regret to say that the pledges made through the minister of France
have not been redeemed. The new Chambers met on July 31st, 1834, and
although the subject of fulfilling treaties was alluded to in the
speech from the throne, no attempt was made by the King or his cabinet
to procure an appropriation to carry it into execution. The reasons
given for this omission, although they might be considered sufficient
in an ordinary case, are not consistent with the expectations founded
upon the assurances given here, for there is no constitutional obstacle
to entering into legislative business at the first meeting of the
Chambers. This point, however, might have been over-looked had not the
Chambers, instead of being called to meet at so early a day that the
result of their deliberations might be communicated to me before the
meeting of Congress, been prorogued to December 29th, 1834--a period so
late that their decision can scarcely be made known to the present
Congress prior to its dissolution. To avoid this delay our minister in
Paris, in virtue of the assurance given by the French minister in the
United States, strongly urged the convocation of the Chambers at an
earlier day, but without success. It is proper to remark, however, that
this refusal has been accompanied with the most positive assurances on
the part of the executive government of France of their intention to
press the appropriation at the ensuing session of the Chambers.
The executive branch of this Government has, as matters stand,
exhausted all the authority upon the subject with which it is invested
and which it had any reason to believe could be beneficially employed.
The idea of acquiescing in the refusal to execute the treaty will not,
I am confident, be for a moment entertained by any branch of this
Government, and further negotiation upon the subject is equally out of
the question.
If it shall be the pleasure of Congress to await the further action of
the French Chambers, no further consideration of the subject will at
this session probably be required at your hands. But if from the
original delay in asking for an appropriation, from the refusal of the
Chambers to grant it when asked, from the omission to bring the subject
before the Chambers at their last session, from the fact that,
including that session, there have been five different occasions when
the appropriation might have been made, and from the delay in convoking
the Chambers until some weeks after the meeting of Congress, when it
was well known that a communication of the whole subject to Congress at
the last session was prevented by assurances that it should be disposed
of before its present meeting, you should feel yourselves constrained
to doubt whether it be the intention of the French Government, in all
its branches, to carry the treaty into effect, and think that such
measures as the occasion may be deemed to call for should be now
adopted, the important question arises what those measures shall be.
Our institutions are essentially pacific. Peace and friendly
intercourse with all nations are as much the desire of our Government
as they are the interest of our people. But these objects are not to be
permanently secured by surrendering the rights of our citizens or
permitting solemn treaties for their indemnity, in cases of flagrant
wrong, to be abrogated or set aside.
It is undoubtedly in the power of Congress seriously to affect the
agricultural and manufacturing interests of France by the passage of
laws relating to her trade with the United States. Her products,
manufactures, and tonnage may be subjected to heavy duties in our
ports, or all commercial intercourse with her may be suspended. But
there are powerful and to my mind conclusive objections to this mode of
proceeding.
We can not embarrass or cut off the trade of France without at the same
time in some degree embarrassing or cutting off our own trade. The
injury of such a warfare must fall, though unequally, upon our own
citizens, and could not but impair the means of the Government and
weaken that united sentiment in support of the rights and honor of the
nation which must now pervade every bosom. Nor is it impossible that
such a course of legislation would introduce once more into our
national councils those disturbing questions in relation to the tariff
of duties which have been so recently put to rest. Besides, by every
measure adopted by the Government of the United States with the view of
injuring France the clear perception of right which will induce our own
people and the rulers and people of all other nations, even of France
herself, to pronounce our quarrel just will be obscured and the support
rendered to us in a final resort to more decisive measures will be more
limited and equivocal.
There is but one point of controversy, and upon that the whole
civilized world must pronounce France to be in the wrong. We insist
that she shall pay us a sum of money which she has acknowledged to be
due, and of the justice of this demand there can be but one opinion
among mankind. True policy would seem to dictate that the question at
issue should be kept thus disencumbered and that not the slightest
pretense should be given to France to persist in her refusal to make
payment by any act on our part affecting the interests of her people.
The question should be left, as it is now, in such an attitude that
when France fulfills her treaty stipulations all controversy will be at
an end.
It is my conviction that the United States ought to insist on a prompt
execution of the treaty, and in case it be refused or longer delayed
take redress into their own hands. After the delay on the part of
France of a quarter of a century in acknowledging these claims by
treaty, it is not to be tolerated that another quarter of a century is
to be wasted in negotiating about the payment. The laws of nations
provide a remedy for such occasions. It is a well-settled principle of
the international code that where one nation owes another a liquidated
debt which it refuses or neglects to pay the aggrieved party may seize
on the property belonging to the other, its citizens or subjects,
sufficient to pay the debt without giving just cause of war. This
remedy has been repeatedly resorted to, and recently by France herself
toward Portugal, under circumstances less unquestionable.
The time at which resort should be had to this or any other mode of
redress is a point to be decided by Congress. If an appropriation shall
not be made by the French Chambers at their next session, it may justly
be concluded that the Government of France has finally determined to
disregard its own solemn undertaking and refuse to pay an acknowledged
debt. In that event every day's delay on our part will be a stain upon
our national honor, as well as a denial of justice to our injured
citizens. Prompt measures, when the refusal of France shall be
complete, will not only be most honorable and just, but will have the
best effect upon our national character.
Since France, in violation of the pledges given through her minister
here, has delayed her final action so long that her decision will not
probably be known in time to be communicated to this Congress, I
recommend that a law be passed authorizing reprisals upon French
property in case provision shall not be made for the payment of the
debt at the approaching session of the French Chambers. Her pride and
power are too well known to expect any thing from her fears and
preclude the necessity of a declaration that nothing partaking of the
character of intimidation is intended by us. She ought to look upon it
as the evidence only of an inflexible determination on the part of the
United States to insist on their rights.
That Government, by doing only what it has itself acknowledged to be
just, will be able to spare the United States the necessity of taking
redress into their own hands and save the property of French citizens
from that seizure and sequestration which American citizens so long
endured without retaliation or redress. If she should continue to
refuse that act of acknowledged justice and, in violation of the law of
nations, make reprisals on our part the occasion of hostilities against
the United States, she would but add violence to injustice, and could
not fail to expose herself to the just censure of civilized nations and
to the retributive judgments of Heaven.
Collision with France is the more to be regretted on account of the
position she occupies in Europe in relation to liberal institutions,
but in maintaining our national rights and honor all governments are
alike to us. If by a collision with France in a case where she is
clearly in the wrong the march of liberal principles shall be impeded,
the responsibility for that result as well as every other will rest on
her own head.
Having submitted these considerations, it belongs to Congress to decide
whether after what has taken place it will still await the further
action of the French Chambers or now adopt such provisional measures as
it may deem necessary and best adapted to protect the rights and
maintain the honor of the country. What ever that decision may be, it
will be faithfully enforced by the Executive as far as he is authorized
so to do.
According to the estimate of the Treasury Department, the revenue
accruing from all sources during the present year will amount to
$20,624,717, which, with the balance remaining in the Treasury on
January 1st, 1834 of $11,702,905, produces an aggregate of $32,327,623.
The total expenditure during the year for all objects, including the
public debt, is estimated at $25,591,390, which will leave a balance in
the Treasury on January 1st, 1835 of $6,736,232. In this balance,
however, will be included about $1,150,000 of what was heretofore
reported by the Department as not effective.
Of former appropriations it is estimated that there will remain
unexpended at the close of the year $8,002,925, and that of this sum
there will not be required more than $5,141,964 to accomplish the
objects of all the current appropriations. Thus it appears that after
satisfying all those appropriations and after discharging the last item
of our public debt, which will be done on January 1st, 1835, there will
remain unexpended in the Treasury an effective balance of about
$440,000. That such should be the aspect of our finances is highly
flattering to the industry and enterprise of our population and
auspicious of the wealth and prosperity which await the future
cultivation of their growing resources. It is not deemed prudent,
however, to recommend any change for the present in our impost rates,
the effect of the gradual reduction now in progress in many of them not
being sufficiently tested to guide us in determining the precise amount
of revenue which they will produce.
Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no
complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign
powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most
favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy
which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and
secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.
Among these principles, from our past experience, it can not be doubted
that simplicity in the character of the Federal Government and a rigid
economy in its administration should be regarded as fundamental and
sacred. All must be sensible that the existence of the public debt, by
rendering taxation necessary for its extinguishment, has increased the
difficulties which are inseparable from every exercise of the taxing
power, and that it was in this respect a remote agent in producing
those disturbing questions which grew out of the discussions relating
to the tariff. If such has been the tendency of a debt incurred in the
acquisition and maintenance of our national rights and liberties, the
obligations of which all portions of the Union cheerfully acknowledged,
it must be obvious that what ever is calculated to increase the burdens
of Government without necessity must be fatal to all our hopes of
preserving its true character.
While we are felicitating ourselves, therefore, upon the extinguishment
of the national debt and the prosperous state of our finances, let us
not be tempted to depart from those sound maxims of public policy which
enjoin a just adaptation of the revenue to the expenditures that are
consistent with a rigid economy and an entire abstinence from all
topics of legislation that are not clearly within the constitutional
powers of the Government and suggested by the wants of the country.
Properly regarded under such a policy, every diminution of the public
burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased
power and furnishes to all the members of our happy Confederacy new
motives for patriotic affection and support. But above all, its most
important effect will be found in its influence upon the character of
the Government by confining its action to those objects which will be
sure to secure to it the attachment and support of our fellow citizens.
Circumstances make it my duty to call the attention of Congress to the
Bank of the United States. Created for the convenience of the
Government, that institution has become the scourge of the people. Its
interference to postpone the payment of a portion of the national debt
that it might retain the public money appropriated for that purpose to
strengthen it in a political contest, the extraordinary extension and
contraction of its accommodations to the community, its corrupt and
partisan loans, its exclusion of the public directors from a knowledge
of its most important proceedings, the unlimited authority conferred on
the president to expend its funds in hiring writers and procuring the
execution of printing, and the use made of that authority, the
retention of the pension money and books after the selection of new
agents, the groundless claim to heavy damages in consequence of the
protest of the bill drawn on the French Government, have through
various channels been laid before Congress.
Immediately after the close of the last session the bank, through its
president, announced its ability and readiness to abandon the system of
unparalleled curtailment and the interruption of domestic exchanges
which it had practiced upon from August 1st, 1833 to June 30th, 1834,
and to extend its accommodations to the community. The grounds assumed
in this annunciation amounted to an acknowledgment that the
curtailment, in the extent to which it had been carried, was not
necessary to the safety of the bank, and had been persisted in merely
to induce Congress to grant the prayer of the bank in its memorial
relative to the removal of the deposits and to give it a new charter.
They were substantially a confession that all the real distresses which
individuals and the country had endured for the preceding six or eight
months had been needlessly produced by it, with the view of affecting
through the sufferings of the people the legislative action of
Congress.
It is subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the
virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our
people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations
of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at
the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank
found itself powerless and no longer able to loan out its surplus
means. The community had learned to manage its affairs without its
assistance, and trade had already found new auxiliaries, so that on
October 1st, 1834 the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a
national more than half of whose capital was either lying unproductive
in its vaults or in the hands of foreign bankers.
To the needless distresses brought on the country during the last
session of Congress has since been added the open seizure of the
dividends on the public stock to the amount of $170,041, under pretense
of paying damages, cost, and interest upon the protested French bill.
This sum constituted a portion of the estimated revenues for the year
1834, upon which the appropriations made by Congress were based. It
would as soon have been expected that our collectors would seize on the
customs or the receivers of our land offices on the moneys arising from
the sale of public lands under pretenses of claims against the United
States as that the bank would have retained the dividends. Indeed, if
the principle be established that any one who chooses to set up a claim
against the United States may without authority of law seize on the
public property or money wherever he can find it to pay such claim,
there will remain no assurance that our revenue will reach the Treasury
or that it will be applied after the appropriation to the purposes
designated in the law.
The pay masters of our Army and the pursers of our Navy may under like
pretenses apply to their own use moneys appropriated to set in motion
the public force, and in time of war leave the country without defense.
This measure resorted to by the bank is disorganizing and
revolutionary, and if generally resorted to by private citizens in like
cases would fill the land with anarchy and violence.
It is a constitutional provision "that no money shall be drawn from the
Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law". The
palpable object of this provision is to prevent the expenditure of the
public money for any purpose what so ever which shall not have been 1st
approved by the representatives of the people and the States in
Congress assembled. It vests the power of declaring for what purposes
the public money shall be expended in the legislative department of the
Government, to the exclusion of the executive and judicial, and it is
not within the constitutional authority of either of those departments
to pay it away without law or to sanction its payment.
According to this plain constitutional provision, the claim of the bank
can never be paid without an appropriation by act of Congress. But the
bank has never asked for an appropriation. It attempts to defeat the
provision of the Constitution and obtain payment without an act of
Congress. Instead of awaiting an appropriation passed by both Houses
and approved by the President, it makes an appropriation for itself and
invites an appeal to the judiciary to sanction it. That the money had
not technically been paid into the Treasury does not affect the
principle intended to be established by the Constitution.
The Executive and the judiciary have as little right to appropriate and
expend the public money without authority of law before it is placed to
the credit of the Treasury as to take it from the Treasury. In the
annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and in his
correspondence with the president of the bank, and the opinions of the
Attorney General accompanying it, you will find a further examination
of the claims of the bank and the course it has pursued.
It seems due to the safety of the people funds remaining in that bank
and to the honor of the American people that measures be taken to
separate the Government entirely from an institution so mischievous to
the public prosperity and so regardless of the Constitution and laws.
By transferring the public deposits, by appointing other pension agents
as far as it had the power, by ordering the discontinuance of the
receipt of bank checks in the payment of the public dues after January
1st, 1834, the Executive has exerted all its lawful authority to sever
the connection between the Government and this faithless corporation.
The high-handed career of this institution imposes upon the
constitutional functionaries of this Government duties of the gravest
and most imperative character--duties which they can not avoid and from
which I trust there will be no inclination on the part of any of them
to shrink. My own sense of them is most clear, as is also my readiness
to discharge those which may rightfully fall on me. To continue any
business relations with the Bank of the United States that may be
avoided without a violation of the national faith after that
institution has set at open defiance the conceded right of the
Government to examine its affairs, after it has done all in its power
to deride the public authority in other respects and to bring it into
disrepute at home and abroad, after it has attempted to defeat the
clearly expressed will of the people by turning against them the
immense power intrusted to its hands and by involving a country
otherwise peaceful, flourishing, and happy, in dissension,
embarrassment, and distress, would make the nation itself a party to
the degradation so sedulously prepared for its public agents and do
much to destroy the confidence of man-kind in popular governments and
to bring into contempt their authority and efficiency.
In guarding against an evil of such magnitude consideration of
temporary convenience should be thrown out of the question, and we
should be influenced by such motives only as look to the honor and
preservation of the republican system. Deeply and solemnly impressed
with the justice of these views, I feel it to be my duty to recommend
to you that a law be passed authorizing the sale of the public stock;
that the provision of the charter requiring the receipt of notes of the
bank in payment of public dues shall, in accordance with the power
reserved to Congress in the 14th section of the charter, be suspended
until the bank pays to the Treasury the dividends withheld, and that
all laws connecting the Government or its officers with the bank,
directly or indirectly, be repealed, and that the institution be left
hereafter to its own resources and means.
Events have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the American
people, that the mischiefs and dangers which flow from a national bank
far over-balance all its advantages. The bold effort the present bank
has made to control the Government, the distresses it has wantonly
produced, the violence of which it has been the occasion in one of our
cities famed for its observance of law and order, are but premonitions
of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded
into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another
like it. It is fervently hoped that thus admonished those who have
heretofore favored the establishment of a substitute for the present
bank will be induced to abandon it, as it is evidently better to incur
any inconvenience that may be reasonably expected than to concentrate
the whole moneyed power of the Republic in any form what so ever or
under any restrictions.
Happily it is already illustrated that the agency of such an
institution is not necessary to the fiscal operations of the
Government. The State banks are found fully adequate to the performance
of all services which were required of the Bank of the United States,
quite as promptly and with the same cheapness. They have maintained
themselves and discharged all these duties while the Bank of the United
States was still powerful and in the field as an open enemy, and it is
not possible to conceive that they will find greater difficulties in
their operations when that enemy shall cease to exist.