doctrine was at one time apparently proceeding to its final
establishment with fearful rapidity. The desire to embark the Federal
Government in works of internal improvement prevailed in the highest
degree during the first session of the first Congress that I had the
honor to meet in my present situation. When the bill authorizing a
subscription on the part of the United States for stock in the
Maysville and Lexington Turn Pike Company passed the two houses, there
had been reported by the Committees of Internal Improvements bills
containing appropriations for such objects, inclusive of those for the
Cumberland road and for harbors and light houses, to the amount of
$106,000,000. In this amount was included authority to the Secretary of
the Treasury to subscribe for the stock of different companies to a
great extent, and the residue was principally for the direct
construction of roads by this Government. In addition to these
projects, which had been presented to the two Houses under the sanction
and recommendation of their respective Committees on Internal
Improvements, there were then still pending before the committees, and
in memorials to Congress presented but not referred, different projects
for works of a similar character, the expense of which can not be
estimated with certainty, but must have exceeded $100,000,000.
Regarding the bill authorizing a subscription to the stock of the
Maysville and Lexington Turn Pike Company as the entering wedge of a
system which, however weak at first, might soon become strong enough to
rive the bands of the Union asunder, and believing that if its passage
was acquiesced in by the Executive and the people there would no longer
be any limitation upon the authority of the General Government in
respect to the appropriation of money for such objects, I deemed it an
imperative duty to withhold from it the Executive approval.
Although from the obviously local character of that work I might well
have contented myself with a refusal to approve the bill upon that
ground, yet sensible of the vital importance of the subject, and
anxious that my views and opinions in regard to the whole matter should
be fully understood by Congress and by my constituents, I felt it my
duty to go further. I therefore embraced that early occasion to apprise
Congress that in my opinion the Constitution did not confer upon it the
power to authorize the construction of ordinary roads and canals within
the limits of a State and to say, respectfully, that no bill admitting
such a power could receive my official sanction. I did so in the
confident expectation that the speedy settlement of the public mind
upon the whole subject would be greatly facilitated by the difference
between the two Houses and myself, and that the harmonious action of
the several departments of the Federal Government in regard to it would
be ultimately secured.
So far, at least, as it regards this branch of the subject, my best
hopes have been realized. Nearly four years have elapsed, and several
sessions of Congress have intervened, and no attempt within my
recollection has been made to induce Congress to exercise this power.
The applications for the construction of roads and canals which were
formerly multiplied upon your files are no longer presented, and we
have good reason to infer that the current public sentiment has become
so decided against the pretension as effectually to discourage its
reassertion. So thinking, I derive the greatest satisfaction from the
conviction that thus much at least has been secured upon this important
and embarrassing subject.
From attempts to appropriate the national funds to objects which are
confessedly of a local character we can not, I trust, have anything
further to apprehend. My views in regard to the expediency of making
appropriations for works which are claimed to be of a national
character and prosecuted under State authority--assuming that Congress
have the right to do so--were stated in my annual message to Congress
in 1830, and also in that containing my objections to the Maysville
road bill.
So thoroughly convinced am I that no such appropriations ought to be
made by Congress until a suitable constitutional provision is made upon
the subject, and so essential do I regard the point to the highest
interests of our country, that I could not consider myself as
discharging my duty to my constituents in giving the Executive sanction
to any bill containing such an appropriation. If the people of the
United States desire that the public Treasury shall be resorted to for
the means to prosecute such works, they will concur in an amendment of
the Constitution prescribing a rule by which the national character of
the works is to be tested, and by which the greatest practicable
equality of benefits may be secured to each member of the Confederacy.
The effects of such a regulation would be most salutary in preventing
unprofitable expenditures, in securing our legislation from the
pernicious consequences of a scramble for the favors of Government, and
in repressing the spirit of discontent which must inevitably arise from
an unequal distribution of treasures which belong alike to all.
There is another class of appropriations for what may be called,
without impropriety, internal improvements, which have always been
regarded as standing upon different grounds from those to which I have
referred. I allude to such as have for their object the improvement of
our harbors, the removal of partial and temporary obstructions in our
navigable rivers, for the facility and security of our foreign
commerce. The grounds upon which I distinguished appropriations of this
character from others have already been stated to Congress. I will now
only add that at the 1st session of Congress under the new Constitution
it was provided by law that all expenses which should accrue from and
after the 15th day of August, 1789, in the necessary support and
maintenance and repairs of all light houses, beacons, buoys, and public
piers erected, placed, or sunk before the passage of the act within any
bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the
navigation thereof easy and safe, should be defrayed out of the
Treasury of the United States, and, further, that it should be the duty
of the Secretary of the Treasury to provide by contracts, with the
approbation of the President, for rebuilding when necessary and keeping
in good repair the light houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers in
the several States, and for furnishing them with supplies.
Appropriations for similar objects have been continued from that time
to the present without interruption or dispute. As a natural
consequence of the increase and extension of our foreign commerce,
ports of entry and delivery have been multiplied and established, not
only upon our sea-board but in the interior of the country upon our
lakes and navigable rivers. The convenience and safety of this commerce
have led to the gradual extension of these expenditures; to the
erection of light houses, the placing, planting, and sinking of buoys,
beacons, and piers, and to the removal of partial and temporary
obstructions in our navigable rivers and in the harbors upon our Great
Lakes as well as on the sea-board.
Although I have expressed to Congress my apprehension that these
expenditures have some times been extravagant and disproportionate to
the advantages to be derived from them, I have not felt it to be my
duty to refuse my assent to bills containing them, and have contented
myself to follow in this respect in the foot-steps of all my
predecessors. Sensible, however, from experience and observation of the
great abuses to which the unrestricted exercise of this authority by
Congress was exposed, I have prescribed a limitation for the government
of my own conduct by which expenditures of this character are confined
to places below the ports of entry or delivery established by law. I am
very sensible that this restriction is not as satisfactory as could be
desired, and that much embarrassment may be caused to the executive
department in its execution by appropriations for remote and not
well-understood objects. But as neither my own reflections nor the
lights which I may properly derive from other sources have supplied me
with a better, I shall continue to apply my best exertions to a
faithful application of the rule upon which it is founded.
I sincerely regret that I could not give my assent to the bill
entitled: "An act to improve the navigation of the Wabash River"; but I
could not have done so without receding from the ground which I have,
upon the fullest consideration, taken upon this subject, and of which
Congress has been heretofore apprised, and without throwing the subject
again open to abuses which no good citizen entertaining my opinions
could desire.
I rely upon the intelligence and candor of my fellow citizens, in whose
liberal indulgence I have already so largely participated, for a
correct appreciation on my motives in interposing as I have done on
this and other occasions checks to a course of legislation which,
without in the slightest degree calling in question the motives of
others, I consider as sanctioning improper and unconstitutional
expenditures of public treasure.
I am not hostile to internal improvements, and wish to see them
extended to every part of the country. But I am fully persuaded, if
they are not commenced in a proper manner, confined to proper objects,
and conducted under an authority generally conceded to be rightful,
that a successful prosecution of them can not be reasonably expected.
The attempt will meet with resistance where it might otherwise receive
support, and instead of strengthening the bonds of our Confederacy it
will only multiply and aggravate the causes of disunion.
***
State of the Union Address
Andrew Jackson
December 7, 1835
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
In the discharge of my official duty the again devolves upon me of
communicating with a new Congress. The reflection that the
representation of the Union has been recently renewed, and that the
constitutional term of its service will expire with my own, heightens
the solicitude with which I shall attempt to lay before it the state of
our national concerns and the devout hope which I cherish that its
labors to improve them may be crowned with success.
You are assembled at a period of profound interest to the American
patriot. The unexampled growth and prosperity of our country having
given us a rank in the scale of nations which removes all apprehension
of danger to our integrity and independence from external foes, the
career of freedom is before us, with an earnest from the past that if
true to ourselves there can be no formidable obstacle in the future to
its peaceful and uninterrupted pursuit. Yet, in proportion to the
disappearance of those apprehensions which attended our weakness, as
once contrasted with the power of some of the States of the Old World,
should we now be solicitous as to those which belong to the conviction
that it is to our own conduct we must look for the preservation of
those causes on which depend the excellence and the duration of our
happy system of government.
In the example of other systems founded on the will of the people we
trace to internal dissension the influences which have so often blasted
the hopes of the friends of freedom. The social elements, which were
strong and successful when united against external danger, failed in
the more difficult task of properly adjusting their own internal
organization, and thus gave way the great principle of self-government.
Let us trust that this admonition will never be forgotten by the
Government or the people of the United States, and that the testimony
which our experience thus far holds out to the great human family of
the practicability and the blessings of free government will be
confirmed in all time to come.
We have but to look at the state of our agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce and the unexampled increase of our population to feel the
magnitude of the trust committed to us. Never in any former period of
our history have we had greater reason than we now have to be thankful
to Divine Providence for the blessings of health and general
prosperity. Every branch of labor we see crowned with the most abundant
rewards. In every element of national resources and wealth and of
individual comfort we witness the most rapid and solid improvements.
With no interruptions to this pleasing prospect at home which will not
yield to the spirit of harmony and good will that so strikingly
pervades the mass of the people in every quarter, amidst all the
diversity of interest and pursuits to which they are attached, and with
no cause of solicitude in regard to our external affairs which will
not, it is hoped, disappear before the principles of simple justice and
the forbearance that mark our intercourse with foreign powers, we have
every reason to feel proud of our beloved country.
The general state of our foreign relations has not materially changed
since my last annual message.
In the settlement of the question of the North Eastern boundary little
progress has been made. Great Britain has declined acceding to the
proposition of the United States, presented in accordance with the
resolution of the Senate, unless certain preliminary conditions were
admitted, which I deemed incompatible with a satisfactory and rightful
adjustment of the controversy. Waiting for some distinct proposal from
the Government of Great Britain, which has been invited, I can only
repeat the expression of my confidence that, with the strong mutual
disposition which I believe exists to make a just arrangement, this
perplexing question can be settled with a due regard to the
well-founded pretensions and pacific policy of all the parties to it.
Events are frequently occurring on the North Eastern frontier of a
character to impress upon all the necessity of a speedy and definitive
termination of the dispute. This consideration, added to the desire
common to both to relieve the liberal and friendly relations so happily
existing between the two countries from all embarrassment, will no
doubt have its just influence upon both.
Our diplomatic intercourse with Portugal has been renewed, and it is
expected that the claims of our citizens, partially paid, will be fully
satisfied as soon as the condition of the Queen's Government will
permit the proper attention to the subject of them. That Government
has, I am happy to inform you, manifested a determination to act upon
the liberal principles which have marked our commercial policy. The
happiest effects upon the future trade between the United States and
Portugal are anticipated from it, and the time is not thought to be
remote when a system of perfect reciprocity will be established.
The installments due under the convention with the King of the Two
Sicilies have been paid with that scrupulous fidelity by which his
whole conduct has been characterized, and the hope is indulged that the
adjustment of the vexed question of our claims will be followed by a
more extended and mutually beneficial intercourse between the two
countries.
The internal contest still continues in Spain. Distinguished as this
struggle has unhappily been by incidents of the most sanguinary
character, the obligations of the late treaty of indemnification with
us have been, never the less, faithfully executed by the Spanish
Government.
No provision having been made at the last session of Congress for the
ascertainment of the claims to be paid and the apportionment of the
funds under the convention made with Spain, I invite your early
attention to the subject. The public evidences of the debt have,
according to the terms of the convention and in the forms prescribed by
it, been placed in the possession of the United States, and the
interest as it fell due has been regularly paid upon them. Our
commercial intercourse with Cuba stands as regulated by the act of
Congress. No recent information has been received as to the disposition
of the Government of Madrid, and the lamented death of our recently
appointed minister on his way to Spain, with the pressure of their
affairs at home, renders it scarcely probable that any change is to be
looked for during the coming year.
Further portions of the Florida archives have been sent to the United
States, although the death of one of the commissioners at a critical
moment embarrassed the progress of the delivery of them. The higher
officers of the local government have recently shown an anxious desire,
in compliance with the orders from the parent Government, to facilitate
the selection and delivery of all we have a right to claim.
Negotiations have been opened at Madrid for the establishment of a
lasting peace between Spain and such of the Spanish American
Governments of this hemisphere as have availed themselves of the
intimation given to all of them of the disposition of Spain to treat
upon the basis of their entire independence. It is to be regretted that
simultaneous appointments by all of ministers to negotiate with Spain
had not been made. The negotiation itself would have been simplified,
and this long-standing dispute, spreading over a large portion of the
world, would have been brought to a more speedy conclusion.
Our political and commercial relations with Austria, Prussia, Sweden,
and Denmark stand on the usual favorable bases. One of the articles of
our treaty with Russia in relation to the trade on the North-West coast
of America having expired, instructions have been given to our minister
at St. Petersburg to negotiate a renewal of it. The long and unbroken
amity between the two Governments gives every reason for supposing the
article will be renewed, if stronger motives do not exist to prevent it
than with our view of the subject can be anticipated here. I ask your
attention to the message of my predecessor at the opening of the second
session of the 19th Congress, relative to our commercial intercourse
with Holland, and to the documents connected with that subject,
communicated to the House of Representatives on the 10th of January,
1825, and 18th of January, 1827.
Coinciding in the opinion of my predecessor that Holland is not, under
the regulations of her present system, entitled to have her vessels and
their cargoes received into the United States on the footing of
American vessels and cargoes as regards duties of tonnage and impost, a
respect for his reference of it to the Legislature has alone prevented
me from acting on the subject. I should still have waited without
comment for the action of Congress, but recently a claim has been made
by Belgian subjects to admission into our ports for their ships and
cargoes on the same footing as American, with the allegation we could
not dispute that our vessels received in their ports the identical
treatment shewn to them in the ports of Holland, upon whose vessels no
discrimination is made in the ports of the United States.
Given the same privileges the Belgians expected the same benefits--
benefits that were, in fact, enjoyed when Belgium and Holland were
united under one Government. Satisfied with the justice of their
pretension to be placed on the same footing with Holland, I could not,
never the less, without disregard to the principle of our laws, admit
their claim to be treated as Americans, and at the same time a respect
for Congress, to whom the subject had long since been referred, has
prevented me from producing a just equality by taking from the vessels
of Holland privileges conditionally granted by acts of Congress,
although the condition upon which the grant was made has, in my
judgment, failed since 1822. I recommend, therefore, a review of the
act of 1824, and such modification of it as will produce an equality on
such terms as Congress shall think best comports with our settled
policy and the obligations of justice to two friendly powers.
With the Sublime Porte and all the Governments on the coast of Barbary
our relations continue to be friendly. The proper steps have been taken
to renew our treaty with Morocco.
The Argentine Republic has again promised to send within the current
year a minister to the United States.
A convention with Mexico for extending the time for the appointment of
commissioners to run the boundary line has been concluded and will be
submitted to the Senate. Recent events in that country have awakened
the liveliest solicitude in the United States. Aware of the strong
temptations existing and powerful inducements held out to the citizens
of the United States to mingle in the dissensions of our immediate
neighbors, instructions have been given to the district attorneys of
the United States where indications warranted it to prosecute without
respect to persons all who might attempt to violate the obligations of
our neutrality, while at the same time it has been thought necessary to
apprise the Government of Mexico that we should require the integrity
of our territory to be scrupulously respected by both parties.
From our diplomatic agents in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Central America,
Venezuela, and New Granada constant assurances are received of the
continued good understanding with the Governments to which they are
severally accredited. With those Governments upon which our citizens
have valid and accumulating claims, scarcely an advance toward a
settlement of them is made, owing mainly to their distracted state or
to the pressure of imperative domestic questions. Our patience has been
and will probably be still further severely tried, but our fellow
citizens whose interests are involved may confide in the determination
of the Government to obtain for them eventually ample retribution.
Unfortunately, many of the nations of this hemisphere are still
self-tormented by domestic dissensions. Revolution succeeds revolution;
injuries are committed upon foreigners engaged in lawful pursuits; much
time elapses before a government sufficiently stable is erected to
justify expectation of redress; ministers are sent and received, and
before the discussions of past injuries are fairly begun fresh troubles
arise; but too frequently new injuries are added to the old, to be
discussed together with the existing government after it has proved its
ability to sustain the assaults made upon it, or with its successor if
overthrown. If this unhappy condition of things continues much longer,
other nations will be under the painful necessity of deciding whether
justice to their suffering citizens does not require a prompt redress
of injuries by their own power, without waiting for the establishment
of a government competent and enduring enough to discuss and to make
satisfaction for them.
Since the last session of Congress the validity of our claims upon
France, as liquidated by the treaty of 1831, has been acknowledged by
both branches of her legislature, and the money has been appropriated
for their discharge; but the payment is, I regret to inform you, still
withheld.
A brief recapitulation of the most important incidents in this
protracted controversy will shew how utterly untenable are the grounds
upon which this course is attempted to be justified.