descent to favor their emigration, with a view to such colonization as
was contemplated in recent acts of Congress. Other parties, at home and
abroad--some from interested motives, others upon patriotic
considerations, and still others influenced by philanthropic
sentiments--have suggested similar measures, while, on the other hand,
several of the Spanish American Republics have protested against the
sending of such colonies to their respective territories. Under these
circumstances I have declined to move any such colony to any state
without first obtaining the consent of its government, with an
agreement on its part to receive and protect such emigrants in all the
rights of freemen; and I have at the same time offered to the several
States situated within the Tropics, or having colonies there, to
negotiate with them, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate,
to favor the voluntary emigration of persons of that class to their
respective territories, upon conditions which shall be equal, just, and
humane. Liberia and Hayti are as yet the only countries to which
colonists of African descent from here could go with certainty of being
received and adopted as citizens; and I regret to say such persons
contemplating colonization do not seem so willing to migrate to those
countries as to some others, nor so willing as I think their interest
demands. I believe, however, opinion among them in this respect is
improving, and that ere long there will be an augmented and
considerable migration to both these countries from the United States.
The new commercial treaty between the United States and the Sultan of
Turkey has been carried into execution.
A commercial and consular treaty has been negotiated, subject to the
Senate's consent, with Liberia, and a similar negotiation is now
pending with the Republic of Hayti. A considerable improvement of the
national commerce is expected to result from these measures. Our
relations with Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Prussia,
Denmark, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Rome, and the other
European States remain undisturbed. Very favorable relations also
continue to be maintained with Turkey, Morocco, China, and Japan.
During the last year there has not only been no change of our previous
relations with the independent States of our own continent, but more
friendly sentiments than have heretofore existed are believed to be
entertained by these neighbors, whose safety and progress are so
intimately connected with our own. This statement especially applies to
Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Peru, and Chile. The
commission under the convention with the Republic of New Granada closed
its session without having audited and passed upon all the claims which
were submitted to it. A proposition is pending to revive the
convention, that it may be able to do more complete justice. The joint
commission between the United States and the Republic of Costa Rica has
completed its labors and submitted its report. I have favored the
project for connecting the United States with Europe by an Atlantic
telegraph, and a similar project to extend the telegraph from San
Francisco to connect by a Pacific telegraph with the line which is
being extended across the Russian Empire. The Territories of the United
States, with unimportant exceptions have remained undisturbed by the
civil war; and they are exhibiting such evidence of prosperity as
justifies an expectation that some of them will soon be in a condition
to be organized as States and be constitutionally admitted into the
Federal Union.
The immense mineral resources of some of those Territories ought to be
developed as rapidly as possible. Every step in that direction would
have a tendency to improve the revenues of the Government and diminish
the burdens of the people. It is worthy of your serious consideration
whether some extraordinary measures to promote that end can not be
adopted. The means which suggests itself as most likely to be effective
is a scientific exploration of the mineral regions in those Territories
with a view to the publication of its results at home and in foreign
countries--results which can not fail to be auspicious.
The condition of the finances will claim your most diligent
consideration. The vast expenditures incident to the military and naval
operations required for the suppression of the rebellion have hitherto
been met with a promptitude and certainty unusual in similar
circumstances, and the public credit has been fully maintained. The
continuance of the war, however, and the increased disbursements made
necessary by the augmented forces now in the field demand your best
reflections as to the best modes of providing the necessary revenue
without injury to business and with the least possible burdens upon
labor.
The suspension of specie payments by the banks soon after the
commencement of your last session made large issues of United States
notes unavoidable. In no other way could the payment of the troops and
the satisfaction of other just demands be so economically or so well
provided for. The judicious legislation of Congress, securing the
receivability of these notes for loans and internal duties and making
them a legal tender for other debts, has made them an universal
currency, and has satisfied, partially at least, and for the time, the
long-felt want of an uniform circulating medium, saving thereby to the
people immense sums in discounts and exchanges.
A return to specie payments, however, at the earliest period compatible
with due regard to all interests concerned should ever be kept in view.
Fluctuations in the value of currency are always injurious, and to
reduce these fluctuations to the lowest possible point will always be a
leading purpose in wise legislation. Convertibility, prompt and certain
convertibility, into coin is generally acknowledged to be the best and
surest safeguard against them; and it is extremely doubtful whether a
circulation of United States notes payable in coin and sufficiently
large for the wants of the people can be permanently, usefully, and
safely maintained.
Is there, then, any other mode in which the necessary provision for the
public wants can be made and the great advantages of a safe and uniform
currency secured?
I know of none which promises so certain results and is at the same
time so unobjectionable as the organization of banking associations,
under a general act of Congress, well guarded in its provisions. To
such associations the Government might furnish circulating notes, on
the security of United States bonds deposited in the Treasury. These
notes, prepared under the supervision of proper officers, being uniform
in appearance and security and convertible always into coin, would at
once protect labor against the evils of a vicious currency and
facilitate commerce by cheap and safe exchanges.
A moderate reservation from the interest on the bonds would compensate
the United States for the preparation and distribution of the notes and
a general supervision of the system, and would lighten the burden of
that part of the public debt employed as securities. The public credit,
moreover, would be greatly improved and the negotiation of new loans
greatly facilitated by the steady market demand for Government bonds
which the adoption of the proposed system would create. It is an
additional recommendation of the measure, of considerable weight, in my
judgment, that it would reconcile as far as possible all existing
interests by the opportunity offered to existing institutions to
reorganize under the act, substituting only the secured uniform
national circulation for the local and various circulation, secured and
unsecured, now issued by them.
The receipts into the treasury from all sources, including loans and
balance from the preceding year, for the fiscal year ending on the 30th
June, 1862, were $583,885,247.06, of which sum $49,056,397.62 were
derived from customs; $1,795,331.73 from the direct tax; from public
lands, $152,203.77; from miscellaneous sources, $931,787.64; from loans
in all forms, $529,692,460.50. The remainder, :$2,257,065.80, was the
balance from last year.
The disbursements during the same period were: For Congressional,
executive, and judicial purposes, $5,939.009.29; for foreign
intercourse, $1,339,710.35; for miscellaneous expenses, including the
mints, loans, Post-Office deficiencies, collection of revenue, and
other like charges, $14,129,771.50; for expenses under the Interior
Department, 985.52; under the War Department, $394,368,407.36; under
the Navy Department, $42,674,569.69; for interest on public debt,
$13,190,324.45; and for payment of public debt, including reimbursement
of temporary loan and redemptions, $96,096,922.09; making an aggregate
of $570,841,700.25, and leaving a balance in the Treasury on the 1st
day of July, 1862, of $13,043,546.81.
It should be observed that the sum of $96,096,922.09, expended for
reimbursements and redemption of public debt, being included also in
the loans made, may be properly deducted both from receipts and
expenditures, leaving the actual receipts for the year $487,788,324.97,
and the expenditures $474,744,778.16.
Other information on the subject of the finances will be found in the
report of the Secretary of the Treasury, to whose statements and views
I invite your most candid and considerate attention.
The reports of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy are herewith
transmitted. These reports, though lengthy, are scarcely more than
brief abstracts of the very numerous and extensive transactions and
operations conducted through those Departments. Nor could I give a
summary of them here upon any principle which would admit of its being
much shorter than the reports themselves. I therefore content myself
with laying the reports before you and asking your attention to them.
It gives me pleasure to report a decided improvement in the financial
condition of the Post-Office Department as compared with several
preceding years. The receipts for the fiscal year 1861 amounted to
$8,349,296.40, which embraced the revenue from all the States of the
Union for three quarters of that year. Notwithstanding the cessation of
revenue from the so-called seceded States during the last fiscal year,
the increase of the correspondence of the loyal States has been
sufficient to produce a revenue during the same year of $8,299,820.90,
being only $50,000 less than was derived from all the States of the
Union during the previous year. The expenditures show a still more
favorable result. The amount expended in 1861 was $13,606,759.11. For
the last year the amount has been reduced to $11,125,364.13, showing a
decrease of about $2,481,000 in the expenditures as compared with the
preceding year, and about $3,750,000 as compared with the fiscal year
1860. The deficiency in the Department for the previous year was
$4,551,966.98. For the last fiscal year it was reduced to
$2,112,814.57. These favorable results are in part owing to the
cessation of mail service in the insurrectionary States and in part to
a careful review of all expenditures in that Department in the interest
of economy. The efficiency of the postal service, it is believed, has
also been much improved. The Postmaster-General has also opened a
correspondence through the Department of State with foreign governments
proposing a convention of postal representatives for the purpose of
simplifying the rates of foreign postage and to expedite the foreign
mails. This proposition, equally important to our adopted citizens and
to the commercial interests of this country, has been favorably
entertained and agreed to by all the governments from whom replies have
been received.
I ask the attention of Congress to the suggestions of the
Postmaster-General in his report respecting the further legislation
required, in his opinion, for the benefit of the postal service.
The Secretary of the Interior reports as follows in regard to the
public lands: The public lands have ceased to be a source of revenue.
From the 1st July, 1861, to the 30th September, 1862, the entire cash
receipts from the sale of lands were $137,476.26--a sum much less than
the expenses of our land system during the same period. The homestead
law, which will take effect on the 1st of January next, offers such
inducements to settlers that sales for cash can not be expected to an
extent sufficient to meet the expenses of the General Land Office and
the cost of surveying and bringing the land into market.
The discrepancy between the sum here stated as arising from the sales
of the public lands and the sum derived from the same source as
reported from the Treasury Department arises, as I understand, from the
fact that the periods of time, though apparently, were not really
coincident at the beginning point, the Treasury report including a
considerable sum now which had previously been reported from the
Interior, sufficiently large to greatly overreach the sum derived from
the three months now reported upon by the Interior and not by the
Treasury. The Indian tribes upon our frontiers have during the past
year manifested a spirit of insubordination, and at several points have
engaged in open hostilities against the white settlements in their
vicinity. The tribes occupying the Indian country south of Kansas
renounced their allegiance to the United States and entered into
treaties with the insurgents. Those who remained loyal to the United
States were driven from the country. The chief of the Cherokees has
visited this city for the purpose of restoring the former relations of
the tribe with the United States. He alleges that they were constrained
by superior force to enter into treaties with the insurgents, and that
the United States neglected to furnish the protection which their
treaty stipulations required.
In the month of August last the Sioux Indians in Minnesota attacked the
settlements in their vicinity with extreme ferocity, killing
indiscriminately men, women, and children. This attack was wholly
unexpected, and therefore no means of defense had been prodded. It is
estimated that not less than 800 persons were killed by the Indians,
and a large amount of property was destroyed. How this outbreak was
induced is not definitely known, and suspicions, which may be unjust,
need not to be stated. Information was received by the Indian Bureau
from different sources about the time hostilities were commenced that a
simultaneous attack was to be made upon the white settlements by all
the tribes between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The
State of Minnesota has suffered great injury from this Indian war. A
large portion of her territory has been depopulated, and a severe loss
has been sustained by the destruction of property. The people of that
State manifest much anxiety for the removal of the tribes beyond the
limits of the State as a guaranty against future hostilities. The
Commissioner of Indian Affairs will furnish full details. I submit for
your especial consideration whether our Indian system shall not be
remodeled. Many wise and good men have impressed me with the belief
that this can be profitably done.
I submit a statement of the proceedings of commissioners, which shows
the progress that has been made in the enterprise of constructing the
Pacific Railroad. And this suggests the earliest completion of this
road, and also the favorable action of Congress upon the projects now
pending before them for enlarging the capacities of the great canals in
New York and Illinois, as being of vital and rapidly increasing
importance to the whole nation, and especially to the vast interior
region hereinafter to be noticed at some greater length. I purpose
having prepared and laid before you at an early day some interesting
and valuable statistical information upon this subject. The military
and commercial importance of enlarging the Illinois and Michigan Canal
and improving the Illinois River is presented in the report of Colonel
Webster to the Secretary of War, and now transmitted to Congress. I
respectfully ask attention to it.
To carry out the provisions of the act of Congress of the 15th of May
last, I have caused the Department of Agriculture of the United States
to be organized.
The Commissioner informs me that within the period of a few months this
Department has established an extensive system of correspondence and
exchanges, both at home and abroad, which promises to effect highly
beneficial results in the development of a correct knowledge of recent
improvements in agriculture, in the introduction of new products, and
in the collection of the agricultural statistics of the different
States.
Also, that it will soon be prepared to distribute largely seeds,
cereals, plants, and cuttings, and has already published and liberally
diffused much valuable information in anticipation of a more elaborate
report, which will in due time be furnished, embracing some valuable
tests in chemical science now in progress in the laboratory.
The creation of this Department was for the more immediate benefit of a
large class of our most valuable citizens, and I trust that the liberal
basis upon which it has been organized will not only meet your
approbation, but that it will realize at no distant day all the fondest
anticipations of its most sanguine friends and become the fruitful
source of advantage to all our people.
On the 22d day of September last a proclamation was issued by the
Executive, a copy of which is herewith submitted. In accordance with
the purpose expressed in the second paragraph of that paper, I now
respectfully recall your attention to what may be called "compensated
emancipation."
A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its
laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability.
"One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the
earth abideth forever." It is of the first importance to duly consider
and estimate this ever-enduring part. That portion of the earth's
surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States
is well adapted to be the home of one national family, and it is not
well adapted for two or more. Its vast extent and its variety of
climate and productions are of advantage in this age for one people,
whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and
intelligence have brought these to be an advantageous combination for
one united people.
In the inaugural address I briefly pointed out the total inadequacy of
disunion as a remedy for the differences between the people of the two
sections. I did so in language which I can not improve, and which,
therefore, I beg to repeat: One section of our country believes slavery
is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong
and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The
fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the
suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced,
perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of
the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the
people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break
over in each. This I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be
worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before.
The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be
ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive
slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all
by the other. Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not
remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable
wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of
our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is
it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more
satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties
easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully
enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to
war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides
and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions,
as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you. There is no line,
straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to
divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line between the
free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than one-third
of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, or soon to
be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining
length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk back and
forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of this line
can be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper or
parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separation, if it comes,
gives up on the part of the seceding section the fugitive-slave clause,
along with all other constitutional obligations upon the section
seceded from, while I should expect no treaty stipulation would ever be
made to take its place.
But there is another difficulty. The great interior region bounded east
by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky
Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and
cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Tennessee,
all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois,
Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota,
Nebraska, and part of Colorado, already has above 10,000,000 people,
and will have 50,000,000 within fifty years if not prevented by any
political folly or mistake. It contains more than one-third of the
country owned by the United States--certainly more than 1,000,000
square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts already is, it
would have more than 75,000,000 people. A glance at the map shows that,
territorially speaking, it is the great body of the Republic. The other
parts are but marginal borders to it. The magnificent region sloping
west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific being the deepest and also
the richest in undeveloped resources. In the production of provisions
grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them this great interior
region is naturally one of the most important in the world. Ascertain
from the statistics the small proportion of the region which has as yet
been brought into cultivation, and also the large and rapidly
increasing amount of its products, and we shall be overwhelmed with the
magnitude of the prospect presented. And yet this region has no
seacoast--touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one nation, its people
now find, and may forever find, their way to Europe by New York, to
South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco;
but separate our common country into two nations, as designed by the
present rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is
thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets, not perhaps by
a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade regulations.
And this is true, wherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed.
Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of
Kentucky or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south
of it can trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it
can trade to any port or place south of it, except upon terms dictated
by a government foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and south,
are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting and to
inhabit this vast interior region. Which of the three may be the best
is no proper question. All are better than either, and all of right
belong to that people and to their successors forever. True to
themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but
will vow rather that there shall be no such line. Nor are the marginal
regions less interested in these communications to and through them to
the great outside world. They, too, and each of them, must have access
to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the crossing of any
national boundary.
Our national strife springs not from our permanent part; not from the
land we inhabit: not from our national homestead. There is no possible
severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us. In
all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors
separation. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of
blood and treasure the separation might have cost. Our strife pertains
to ourselves--to the passing generations of men--and it can without
convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.