350

CLAIMS ON FRANCE ADJUSTED.

business in many places, and a great number of petitions from citizens in various parts of the Union were addressed to the president praying for the restoration of the deposits to the bank. But with his usual firmness of purpose, he maintained the position which he had taken; and the deposits were not restored. When the temporary panic had passed away, however, business speedily recovered its usual activity.

In his message to congress at the opening of the session of 1834-5, the president adverted to certain claims on the French government for spoliations on our commerce committed under the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon, which had been adjusted by a treaty fixing the amount at 25,000,000 francs, but had never been paid. A suggestion was thrown out in the message as to the propriety of making reprisals on French property in case of further delay. The French government of course took fire at this intimation, and assumed an attitude which seemed to threaten war. Neither nation, however, was in a situation to render this desirable; and the president having in his message of 1835, without compromising his own dignity, or that of his country, given such explanations of his previous declarations as he thought consistent with truth and propriety, the French ministry gladly availed themselves of the opportunity thus afforded of satisfying the American claims without delay.

In the winter of 1835, the Seminole Indians commenced hostilities in Florida, ravaging the plantations and killing great numbers of the inhabitants. A considerable force of regular troops and volunteers was sent against them without success, until it became necessary to order the greater part of the regular army to the defence of the southern border. The war, however, has not yet been terminated, (October 1836,) but the Creeks and several other tribes having united their arms with those of the Seminoles are still engaged in hostilities with the people of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Great numbers of them have been destroyed, and others captured and transported to the western territories of the United States; but the nature of the country affords them great facilities for retreat and concealment; and the resolution which they evince, while it renders this the most obstinate of any of the numerous Indian wars in which the United States have been engaged, gives little reason to hope

EXTINCTION OF THE PUBLIC DEBT.

351

for its termination without effecting their removal en masse to the regions beyond the Mississippi.

During the present administration, the whole of the public debt of the United States has been extinguished, and in the summer of the present year, (1836,) congress passed a bill for distributing the surplus revenue among the several states of the Union, which received the sanction of the president, and became a law.

APPENDIX.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

JULY 4, 1776.

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled.

WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident;-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evince a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future

security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation, till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalisation of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and to eat out their substance.