revulsions which, during the last and the present year, have overwhelmed the industry and paralyzed the credit and commerce of so many great and enlighened nations of Europe.

Severe commercial revulsions abroad have always heretofore operated to depress, and often to affect disastrously, almost every branch of American industry. The temporary depression of a portion of our manufacturing interests is the effect of foreign causes, and is far less severe than has prevailed on all former similar occasions.

"It is believed that, looking to the great aggregate of all our interests, the whole country was never more prosperous than at the present period, and never more rapidly advancing in wealth and population. Neither the foreign war in which we have been involved, nor the loans which have absorbed so large a portion of our capital, nor the commercial revulsion in Great Britain in 1847, nor the paralysis of credit and commerce through out Europe in 1848, have affected injuriously, to any considerable extent, any of the great interests of the country, or arrested our onward march to greatness, wealth, and power.

"Had the disturbances in Europe not occurred, our commerce would undoubtedly have been still more extended, and would have added still more to the national wealth and public prosperity. But, notwithstanding these disturbances, the operations of the revenue system established by the Tariff Act of 1846 have been so generally beneficial to the government and the business of the country, that no change in its provisions is demanded by a wise public policy, and none is recommended.

"The operations of the constitutional treasury, established by the Act of the 6th of August, 1846, in the receipt, custody, and disbursement of the public money, have continued to be successful. Under this system the public finances have been carried through a foreign war, involving the necessity of loans and extraordinary expenditures, and requiring distant transfers and disbursements, without embarrassment, and no loss has occurred of any of the public money deposited under its provisions. Whilst it has proved to be safe and useful to the Government, its efforts have been most beneficial upon the business of the country; it has tended powerfully to secure an exemption from that inflation and fluctuation of the paper currency so injurious to domestic industry, and rendering so uncertain the rewards of labour; and it is believed has largely contributed to preserve the whole country from a serious commercial revulsion, such as often occurred under the bank deposit system.

"In my message of the 6th of July last, transmitting to Congress the ratified treaty of peace with Mexico, I recommended the adoption of measures for the speedy payment of the public debt. In reiterating that recommendation, I refer you to the considerations presented in that message in its support. The public debt, including that authorized to be negotiated in pursuance of existing laws, and including Treasury notes, amounted at that time to 65,778,450 dollars, 41 cents.

"Funded stock of the United States, amounting to about half a million of dollars, has been purchased, as authorized by law, since that period, and the public debt [2 G 2]

has thus been reduced, the details of which will be presented in the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury.

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The estimates of expenditures for the next fiscal year, submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury, it is believed will be ample for all necessary purposes. If the ap propriations made by Congress shall not exceed the amount estimated, the means in the treasury will be sufficient to defray the expenses of the Government, to pay off the next instalment of 3,000,000 dollars to Mexico, which will fall due on the 30th of May next, and still a considerable surplus will remain, which should be applied to the further purchase of the public stock and reduction of the debt. Should enlarged appropriations be made, the necessary consequences will be to postpone the payment of the debt. Though our debt, as compared with that of most other nations, is small, it is our true policy, and in harmony with the genius of our institutions, that we should present to the world the rare spectacle of a great republic, possess ing vast resources and wealth, wholly exempt from public indebtedness. This would add still more to our strength, and give to us a still more commanding position among the nations of the earth." American System. Nothing can retard the onward progress of our country, and prevent us from assuming and maintaining the first rank among nations, but a disregard of the experience of the past, and a recurrence to an unwise public policy. We have just closed a foreign war by an honourable peace, -a war rendered necessary and unavoidable in vindication of the national rights and honour.

The present condition of the country is similar, in some respects, to that which existed immediately after the close of the war with Great Britain in 1815, and the occasion is deemed to be a proper one to take a retrospect of the measures of the public policy which followed that war. There was at that period of our history a departure from our earlier policy. The enlargement of the powers of the federal government by construction which obtained was not warranted by any just interpretation of the constitution. A few years after the close of that war, a series of measures was adopted which, united and combined, constituted what was termed by their authors and advocates the American system.'

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The introduction of the new policy was for a time favoured by the condition of the country; by the heavy debt which had been contracted during the war; by the depression of the public credit; by the deranged state of the finances and the currency; and by the commercial and pecuniary embarrassment which extensively prevailed. These were not the only causes which led to its establishment. The events of the war with Great Britain, and the embarrassments which had attended its prosecution, had left on the minds of many of our statesmen the impression that our Government was not strong enough, and that to wield its resources successfully, in great emergencies, and especially in war, more power should be concentrated in its hands. This increased power they did not seek to obtain by the legitimate and prescribed mode-an amendment of the constitution-but by construction. They saw Governments

in the old world based upon different orders of society, and so constituted as to throw the whole power of nations into the hands of a few, who taxed and controlled the many without responsibility or restraint. In that arrangement they conceived the strength of nations in war consisted. There was also something fascinating in the ease, luxury, and display of the higher orders, who drew their wealth from the toil of the labouring millions. The authors of the system drew their ideas of political economy from what they had witnessed in Europe, and particularly in Great Britain. They had viewed the enormous wealth concentrated in few hands, and had seen the splendour of the overgrown esta blishments of an aristocracy which was upheld by the restrictive policy. They forgot to look down upon the poorer classes of the English population, upon whose daily and yearly labour the great establishments they so much admired were sustained and supported. They failed to perceive that the scantily-fed and half-clad operatives were not only in abject poverty, but were bound in chains of oppressive servitude for the benefit of favoured classes, who were the exclusive objects of the care of the Government.

"It was not possible to reconstruct society in the United States upon the European plan. Here there was a written constitution, by which orders and titles were not recognised or tolerated. A system of measures was therefore devised, calculated, if not intended, to withdraw power gradually and silently from the states and the mass of the people, and by construction to approximate our

Government to the European models, substituting an aristocracy of wealth for that of orders and titles.

"Without reflecting upon the dissimilarity of our institutions, and of the condition of our people and those of Europe, they conceived the vain idea of building up in the United States a system similar to that which they admired abroad. Great Britain had a national bank of large capital, in whose hands was concentrated the controlling monetary and financial power of the nation; an institution wielding almost kingly power, and exerting vast influence upon all the operations of trade, and upon the policy of the Government itself. Great Britain had an enormous public debt, and it had become a part of her public policy to regard this as a public blessing.' Great Britain had also a restrictive policy, which placed fetters and burdens on trade, and trammelled the productive industry of the mass of the nation. By her combined system of policy, the landlords and other property holders were protected and enriched by the enormous taxes which were levied upon the labour of the country for their advantage.

"Imitating this foreign policy, the first step in establishing the new system in the United States was the creation of a national bank. Not foreseeing the dangerous power and countless evils which such an institution might entail on the country, nor perceiving the connexion which it was designed to form between the bank and the other branches of the miscalled 'American system,' but feeling the embarrassments of the Treasury, and of the business of the country, consequent upon the war, some of our statesmen who had held dif

ferent and sounder views were induced to yield their scruples, and, indeed, settled conviction of its unconstitutionality, and to give it their sanction as an expedient which they vainly hoped might produce relief. It was a most unfortunate error, as the subsequent history and final catastrophe of that dangerous and corrupt institution have abundantly proved. The bank, with its numerous branches ramified into the states, soon brought many of the active political and commercial men in different sections of the country into the relation of debtors to it, and dependants upon it for pecuniary favours; thus diffusing throughout the mass of society a great number of individuals of power and influence to give tone to public opinion, and to act in concert in cases of emergency. The corrupt power of such a political engine is no longer a matter of speculation, having been displayed in numerous instances, but most signally in the political struggles of 1832, 1833, and 1834, in opposition to the public will, represented by a fearless and patriotic President.

"The whole system was resisted from its inception by many of our ablest statesmen, some of whom doubted its constitutionality and its expediency, while others believed it was, in all its branches, a flagrant and dangerous infraction of the constitution.

"I entertain the solemn conviction that if the internal improvement branch of the American system' be not firmly resisted at this time, the whole series of mea sures composing it will be speedily re-established, and the country be thrown back from its present high state of prosperity, which the existing policy has produced, and be

destined again to witness all the evils, commercial revulsions, depression of prices, and pecuniary embarrassments, through which we have passed during the last 25 years.

"To guard against consequences so ruinous is an object of high national importance, involving, in my judgment, the continued prosperity of the country."

Presidential veto." I have felt it to be an imperative obligation to withhold my constitutional sanction from two bills which had passed to the two Houses of Congress, involving the principle of the internal improvement branch of the American system, and conflicting in their provisions with the views here expressed.

"This power, conferred upon the President by the constitution, I have on three occasions during my administration of the executive department of the Government deemed it my duty to exercise, and on this last occasion of making to Congress an annual communication of the state of the Union,' it is not deemed inappropriate to review the principles and considerations which have governed my action. I deem this the more necessary, because, after the lapse of near 60 years since the adoption of the constitution, the propriety of the exercise of this undoubted constitutional power by the President has for the first time been drawn seriously in question by a portion of my fellow-citizens.

"The constitution provides that 'every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but, if not, he shall return it with his objec

tions to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it.'

"The preservation of the constitution from infraction is the President's highest duty. He is bound to discharge that duty at whatever hazard of incurring the displeasure of those who may differ from him in opinion. He is bound to discharge it, as well by his obligations to the people who have clothed him with his exalted trust, as by his oath of office, which he may not disregard. Nor are the obligations of the President in any degree lessened by the prevalence of views different from his own in one or both Houses of Congress. It is not alone hasty and inconsiderate legislation that he is required to check, but if at any time Congress shall, after apparently full deliberation, resolve on measures which he deems subversive of the constitution, or of the vital interests of the country, it is his solemn duty to stand in the breach and resist them. The President is bound to approve or disapprove every bill which passes Congress and is presented to him for his signature. The constitution makes this his duty, and he cannot escape it if he would. He has no election. In deciding upon any bill presented to him, he must exercise his own best judgment. If he cannot approve, the constitution commands him to return the bill to the House in which it originated, with his objections; and if he fail to do this within 10 days (Sundays excepted), it shall become a law without his signature. Right or wrong, he may be overruled by a vote of two-thirds of each house; and in that event the bill becomes

a law without his sanction. If his objections be not thus overruled the subject is only postponed, and is referred to the states and the people for their consideration and decision. The President's power is negative merely, and not affirmative. He can enact no law. The only effect, therefore, of his withholding his approval of a bill passed by the Congress, is to suffer the existing laws to remain unchanged, and the delay occasioned is only that required to enable the states and the people to consider and act upon the subject in the election of public agents who will carry out their wishes and instructions. Any attempt to coerce the President to yield his sanction to measures which he cannot approve would be a violation of the spirit of the constitution palpable and flagrant; and, if successful, would break down the dependence of the Executive department, and make the President, elected by the people and clothed by the constitution with power to defend their rights, the mere instrument of a majority of Congress. A surrender on his part of the powers with which the constitution has invested his office would effect a practical alteration of that instrument, without resorting to the prescribed process of amendment.

"But it is, in point of fact, untrue that an act passed by Congress is conclusive evidence that it is an emanation of the popular will. A majority of the whole number elected to each House of Congress constitutes a quorum, and a majority of that quorum is competent to pass laws. It might happen that a quorum of the House of Representatives, consisting of a single member more than half of the whole number elected to that