LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT JACKSON.
At the opening of the second Session of the twenty-fourth Congress, President Jackson delivered his last Annual Message, and under circumstances to be grateful to his heart. The powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he saw full majorities of ardent and tried friends in each House. We were in peace and friendship with all the world, and all exciting questions quieted at home. Industry in all its branches was prosperous. The revenue was abundant—too much so. The people were happy. His message, of course, was first a recapitulation of this auspicious state of things, at home and abroad; and then a reference to the questions of domestic interest and policy which required attention, and might call for action. At the head of these measures stood the deposit act of the last session—the act which under the insidious and fabulous title of a deposit of a surplus of revenue with the States—made an actual distribution of that surplus; and was intended by its contrivers to do so. His notice of this measure went to two points—his own regrets for having signed the act, and his misgivings in relation to its future observation. He said:
"The consequences apprehended, when the deposit act of the last session received a reluctant approval, have been measurably realized. Though an act merely for the deposit of the surplus moneys of the United States in the State Treasuries, for safe keeping, until they may be wanted for the service of the general government, it has been extensively spoken of as an act to give the money to the several States, and they have been advised to use it as a gift, without regard to the means of refunding it when called for. Such a suggestion has doubtless been made without a due consideration of the obligation of the deposit act, and without a proper attention to the various principles and interests which are affected by it. It is manifest that the law itself cannot sanction such a suggestion, and that, as it now stands, the States have no more authority to receive and use these deposits without intending to return them, than any deposit bank, or any individual temporarily charged with the safe-keeping or application of the public money, would now have for converting the same to their private use, without the consent and against the will of the government. But, independently of the violation of public faith and moral obligation which are involved in this suggestion, when examined in reference to the terms of the present deposit act, it is believed that the considerations which should govern the future legislation of Congress on this subject, will be equally conclusive against the adoption of any measure recognizing the principles on which the suggestion has been made."
This misgiving was well founded. Before the session was over there was actually a motion to release the States from their obligation to restore the money—to lay which motion on the table there were seventy-three resisting votes—an astonishing number in itself, and the more so as given by the same members, sitting in the same seats, who had voted for the act as a deposit a few months before. Such a vote was ominous of the fate of the money; and that fate was not long delayed. Akin to this measure, and in fact the parent of which it was the bastard progeny, was distribution itself, under its own proper name; and which it was evident was soon to be openly attempted, encouraged as its advocates were by the success gained in the deposit act. The President, with his characteristic frankness and firmness, impugned that policy in advance; and deprecated its effects under every aspect of public and private justice, and of every consideration of a wise or just policy. He said:
"To collect revenue merely for distribution to the States, would seem to be highly impolitic, if not as dangerous as the proposition to retain it in the Treasury. The shortest reflection must satisfy every one that to require the people to pay taxes to the government merely that they may be paid back again, is sporting with the substantial interests of the country, and no system which produces such a result can be expected to receive the public countenance. Nothing could be gained by it, even if each individual who contributed a portion of the tax could receive back promptly the same portion. But it is apparent that no system of the kind can ever be enforced, which will not absorb a considerable portion of the money, to be distributed in salaries and commissions to the agents employed in the process, and in the various losses and depreciations which arise from other causes; and the practical effect of such an attempt must ever be to burden the people with taxes, not for purposes beneficial to them, but to swell the profits of deposit banks, and support a band of useless public officers. A distribution to the people is impracticable and unjust in other respects. It would be taking one man's property and giving it to another. Such would be the unavoidable result of a rule of equality (and none other is spoken of, or would be likely to be adopted), inasmuch as there is no mode by which the amount of the individual contributions of our citizens to the public revenue can be ascertained. We know that they contribute unequally, and a rule therefore that would distribute to them equally, would be liable to all the objections which apply to the principle of an equal division of property. To make the general government the instrument of carrying this odious principle into effect, would be at once to destroy the means of its usefulness, and change the character designed for it by the framers of the constitution."
There was another consideration connected with this policy of distribution which the President did not name, and could not, in the decorum and reserve of an official communication to Congress: it was the intended effect of these distributions—to debauch the people with their own money, and to gain presidential votes by lavishing upon them the spoils of their country. To the honor of the people this intended effect never occurred; no one of those contriving these distributions ever reaching the high object of their ambition. Instead of distribution—instead of raising money from the people to be returned to the people, with all the deductions which the double operation of collecting and dividing would incur, and with the losses which unfaithful agents might inflict—instead of that idle and wasteful process, which would have been childish if it had not been vicious, he recommended a reduction of taxes on the comforts and necessaries of life, and the levy of no more money than was necessary for the economical administration of the government; and said:
"In reducing the revenue to the wants of the government, your particular attention is invited to those articles which constitute the necessaries of life. The duty on salt was laid as a war tax, and was no doubt continued to assist in providing for the payment of the war debt. There is no article the release of which from taxation would be felt so generally and so beneficially. To this may be added all kinds of fuel and provisions. Justice and benevolence unite in favor of releasing the poor of our cities from burdens which are not necessary to the support of our government, and tend only to increase the wants of the destitute."
The issuance of the "Treasury Circular" naturally claimed a place in the President's message; and received it. The President gave his reason for the measure in the necessity of saving the public domain from being exchanged for bank paper money, which was not wanted, and might be of little value or use when wanted; and expressed himself thus:
"The effects of an extension of bank credits, and over-issues of bank paper, have been strikingly illustrated in the sales of the public lands. From the returns made by the various registers and receivers in the early part of last summer it was perceived that the receipts arising from the sales of the public lands, were increasing to an unprecedented amount. In effect, however, these receipts amounted to nothing more than credits in bank. The banks lent out their notes to speculators; they were paid to the receivers, and immediately returned to the banks, to be lent out again and again; being mere instruments to transfer to speculators the most valuable public land, and pay the government by a credit on the books of the banks. Those credits on the books of some of the western banks, usually called deposits, were already greatly beyond their immediate means of payment, and were rapidly increasing. Indeed each speculation furnished means for another; for no sooner had one individual or company paid in the notes, than they were immediately lent to another for a like purpose; and the banks were extending their business and their issues so largely, as to alarm considerate men, and render it doubtful whether these bank credits, if permitted to accumulate, would ultimately be of the least value to the government. The spirit of expansion and speculation was not confined to the deposit banks, but pervaded the whole multitude of banks throughout the Union, and was giving rise to new institutions to aggravate the evil. The safety of the public funds, and the interest of the people generally, required that these operations should be checked; and it became the duty of every branch of the general and State governments to adopt all legitimate and proper means to produce that salutary effect. Under this view of my duty, I directed the issuing of the order which will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury, requiring payment for the public lands sold to be made in specie, with an exception until the 15th of the present month, in favor of actual settlers. This measure has produced many salutary consequences. It checked the career of the Western banks, and gave them additional strength in anticipation of the pressure which has since pervaded our Eastern as well as the European commercial cities. By preventing the extension of the credit system, it measurably cut off the means of speculation, and retarded its progress in monopolizing the most valuable of the public lands. It has tended to save the new States from a non-resident proprietorship, one of the greatest obstacles to the advancement of a new country, and the prosperity of an old one. It has tended to keep open the public lands for the entry of emigrants at government prices, instead of their being compelled to purchase of speculators at double or treble prices. And it is conveying into the interior large sums in silver and gold, there to enter permanently into the currency of the country, and place it on a firmer foundation. It is confidently believed that the country will find in the motives which induced that order, and the happy consequences which will have ensued, much to commend and nothing to condemn."
The people were satisfied with the Treasury Circular; they saw its honesty and good effects; but the politicians were not satisfied with it. They thought they saw in it a new exercise of illegal power in the President—a new tampering with the currency—a new destruction of the public prosperity; and commenced an attack upon it the moment Congress met, very much in the style of the attack upon the order for the removal of the deposits; and with fresh hopes from the resentment of the "thousand banks," whose notes had been excluded, and from the discontent of many members of Congress whose schemes of speculation had been balked. And notwithstanding the democratic majorities in the two Houses, the attack upon the "Circular" had a great success, many members being interested in the excluded banks, and partners in schemes for monopolizing the lands. A bill intended to repeal the Circular was actually passed through both Houses; but not in direct terms. That would have been too flagrant. It was a bad thing, and could not be fairly done, and therefore gave rise to indirection and ambiguity of provisions, and complication of phrases, and a multiplication of amphibologies, which brought the bill to a very ridiculous conclusion when it got to the hands of General Jackson. But of this hereafter.