WASHINGTON, _April 30, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
In compliance with your resolution of the 29th instant, I have the honor
to transmit the reports of Messrs. Kelley and Steuart, two of the
commissioners originally appointed, along with Mr. Poindexter, to
investigate the affairs of the custom-house of New York, together with
all the correspondence and testimony accompanying the same, and also the
report of Mr. Poindexter, to which is annexed two letters, subscribed by
Mr. Poindexter and Mr. Bradley. The last-named gentleman was substituted
in the place of Mr. Kelley, whose inclinations and duties called him to
his residence in Ohio after the return of the commissioners to this
city, about the last of August. One of the letters just mentioned was
addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and bears date the 12th of
April instant, and the other to myself, dated the 20th of this month.
From the former you will learn that a most interesting portion of
the inquiry instituted by this Department (viz, that relating to
light-houses, buoys, beacons, revenue cutters, and revenue boats) is
proposed to be made the subject of a further report by Messrs. Bradley
and Poindexter. You will also learn, through the accompanying letter
from Mr. Steuart, the reasons which have delayed him in making a
supplemental and additional report to that already made by himself and
Mr. Kelley, embracing his views and opinions upon the developments made
subsequent to the withdrawal of Mr. Kelley from the commission and the
substitution of Mr. Bradley in his place. I also transmit two documents
furnished by Mr. Steuart, and which were handed by him to the Secretary
of the Treasury on the 7th instant, the one being "memoranda of
proceedings," etc., marked No. 1, and the other "letters accompanying
memoranda," etc., marked No. 2.
The commission was instituted for the purpose of ascertaining existing
defects in the custom-house regulations, to trace to their true causes
past errors, to detect abuses, and by wholesome reforms to guard
in future not only against fraud and peculation, but error and
mismanagement. For these purposes a selection was made of persons of
acknowledged intelligence and industry, and upon this task they have
been engaged for almost an entire year, and their labors remain yet to
be completed. The character of those labors may be estimated by the
extent of Messrs. Kelley and Steuart's report, embracing about 100
pages of closely written manuscript, the voluminous memoranda and
correspondence of Mr. Steuart, the great mass of evidence accompanying
Messrs. Kelley and Steuart's report, and the report of Mr. Poindexter,
extending over 394 pages, comprised in the volume accompanying this,
and additional reports still remaining to be made, as before stated.
I should be better pleased to have it in my power to communicate the
entire mass of reports made and contemplated to be made at one and the
same time, and still more should I have been gratified if time could
have been allowed me, consistently with the apparent desire of the House
of Representatives to be put into immediate possession of these papers,
to have compared or even to have read with deliberation the views
presented by the commissioners as to proposed reforms in the revenue
laws, together with the mass of documentary evidence and information by
which they have been explained and enforced and which do not admit of a
satisfactory comparison until the whole circle of reports be completed.
Charges of malfeasance against some of those now in office will devolve
upon the Executive a rigid investigation into their extent and
character, and will in due season claim my attention. The readiness,
however, with which the House proposes to enter upon the grave and
difficult subjects which these papers suggest having anticipated that
consideration of them by the Executive which their importance demands,
it only remains for me, in lieu of specific recommendations, which under
other circumstances it would have been my duty to make, to urge upon
Congress the importance and necessity of introducing the earliest
reforms in existing laws and usages, so as to guard the country in
future against frauds in the collection of the revenues and the Treasury
against peculation, to relieve trade and commerce from oppressive
regulations, and to guard law and morality against violation and abuse.
As from their great volume it has been necessary to transmit the
original papers to the House, I have to suggest the propriety of the
House taking order for their restoration to the Treasury Department
at such time as may comport with its pleasure.