A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 2: John Tyler

by Unknown

JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, March 25, 1842.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

Notwithstanding the urgency with which I have on more than one occasion felt it my duty to press upon Congress the necessity of providing the Government with the means of discharging its debts and maintaining inviolate the public faith, the increasing embarrassments of the Treasury impose upon me the indispensable obligation of again inviting your most serious attention to the condition of the finances. Fortunately for myself in thus bringing this important subject to your view for a deliberate and comprehensive examination in all its bearings, and I trust I may add for a final adjustment of it to the common advantage of the whole Union, I am permitted to approach it with perfect freedom and candor. As few of the burdens for which provision is now required to be made have been brought upon the country during my short administration of its affairs, I have neither motive nor wish to make them a matter of crimination against any of my predecessors. I am disposed to regard, as I am bound to treat, them as facts which can not now be undone, and as deeply interesting to us all, and equally imposing upon all the most solemn duties; and the only use I would make of the errors of the past is by a careful examination of their causes and character to avoid if possible the repetition of them in future. The condition of the country, indeed, is such as may well arrest the conflict of parties.

The conviction seems at length to have made its way to the minds of all that the disproportion between the public responsibilities and the means provided for meeting them is no casual nor transient evil. It is, on the contrary, one which for some years to come, notwithstanding a resort to all reasonable retrenchments and the constant progress of the country in population and productive power, must continue to increase under existing laws, unless we consent to give up or impair all our defenses in war and peace. But this is a thought which I am persuaded no patriotic mind would for a moment entertain. Without affecting an alarm, which I do not feel, in regard to our foreign relations, it may safely be affirmed that they are in a state too critical and involve too many momentous issues to permit us to neglect in the least, much less to abandon entirely, those means of asserting our rights without which negotiation is without dignity and peace without security.

In the report of the Secretary of the Treasury submitted to Congress at the commencement of the present session it is estimated that after exhausting all the probable resources of the year there will remain a deficit of about $14,000,000. With a view partly to a permanent system of revenue and partly to immediate relief from actual embarrassment, that officer recommended, together with a plan for establishing a Government exchequer, some expedients of a more temporary character, viz, the issuing of Treasury notes and the extension of the time for which the loan authorized to be negotiated by the act of the last session should be taken. Congress accordingly provided for an issue of Treasury notes to the amount of $5,000,000, but subject to the condition that they should not be paid away below par.

No measure connected with the last of the two objects above mentioned was introduced until recently into the House of Representatives. Should the loan bill now pending before that body pass into a law for its present amount, there would still remain a deficit of $2,500,000. It requires no argument to show that such a condition of the Treasury is incompatible not only with a high state of public credit, but with anything approaching to efficiency in the conduct of public affairs. It must be obvious even to the most inexperienced minds that, to say nothing of any particular exigency, actual or imminent, there should be at all times in the Treasury of a great nation, with a view to contingencies of ordinary occurrence, a surplus at least equal in amount to the above deficiency. But that deficiency, serious as it would be in itself, will, I am compelled to say, rather be increased than diminished without the adoption of measures adequate to correct the evil at once. The stagnation of trade and business, in some degree incident to the derangement of the national finances and the state of the revenue laws, holds out but little prospect of relief, in the ordinary course of things, for some time to come.

Under such circumstances I am deeply impressed with the necessity of meeting the crisis with a vigor and decision which it imperatively demands at the hands of all intrusted with the conduct of public affairs. The gravity of the evil calls for a remedy proportioned to it. No slight palliatives or occasional expedients will give the country the relief it needs. Such measures, on the contrary, will in the end, as is now manifest to all, too surely multiply its embarrassments. Relying, as I am bound to do, on the representatives of a people rendered illustrious among nations by having paid off its whole public debt, I shall not shrink from the responsibility imposed upon me by the Constitution of pointing out such measures as will in my opinion insure adequate relief. I am the more encouraged to recommend the course which necessity exacts by the confidence which I have in its complete success. The resources of the country in everything that constitutes the wealth and strength of nations are so abundant, the spirit of a most industrious, enterprising, and intelligent people is so energetic and elastic, that the Government will be without the shadow of excuse for its delinquency if the difficulties which now embarrass it be not speedily and effectually removed.

From present indications it is hardly doubtful that Congress will find it necessary to lay additional duties on imports in order to meet the ordinary current expenses of the Government. In the exercise of a sound discrimination having reference to revenue, but at the same time necessarily affording incidental protection to manufacturing industry, it seems equally probable that duties on some articles of importation will have to be advanced above 20 per cent. In performing this important work of revising the tariff of duties, which in the present emergency would seem to be indispensable, I can not too strongly recommend the cultivation of a spirit of mutual harmony and concession, to which the Government itself owes its origin, and without the continued exercise of which jarring and discord would universally prevail.

An additional reason for the increase of duties in some instances beyond the rate of 20 per cent will exist in fulfilling the recommendations already made, and now repeated, of making adequate appropriations for the defenses of the country.