Part 70

Fortunately for us at this moment, when the balance of trade is greatly against us and the difficulty of meeting it enhanced by the disturbed state of our money affairs, the bounties of Providence have come to relieve us from the consequences of past errors. A faithful application of the immense results of the labors of the last season will afford partial relief for the present, and perseverance in the same course will in due season accomplish the rest. We have had full experience in times past of the extraordinary results which can in this respect be brought about in a short period by the united and well-directed efforts of a community like ours. Our surplus profits, the energy and industry of our population, and the wonderful advantages which Providence has bestowed upon our country in its climate, its various productions, indispensable to other nations, will in due time afford abundant means to perfect the most useful of those objects for which the States have been plunging themselves of late in embarrassment and debt, without imposing on ourselves or our children such fearful burdens.

But let it be indelibly engraved on our minds that relief is not to be found in expedients. Indebtedness can not be lessened by borrowing more money or by changing the form of the debt. The balance of trade is not to be turned in our favor by creating new demands upon us abroad. Our currency can not be improved by the creation of new banks or more issues from those which now exist. Although these devices sometimes appear to give temporary relief, they almost invariably aggravate the evil in the end. It is only by retrenchment and reform--by curtailing public and private expenditures, by paying our debts, and by reforming our banking system--that we are to expect effectual relief, security for the future, and an enduring prosperity. In shaping the institutions and policy of the General Government so as to promote as far as it can with its limited powers these important ends, you may rely on my most cordial cooperation.

That there should have been in the progress of recent events doubts in many quarters and in some a heated opposition to every change can not surprise us. Doubts are properly attendant on all reform, and it is peculiarly in the nature of such abuses as we are now encountering to seek to perpetuate their power by means of the influence they have been permitted to acquire. It is their result, if not their object, to gain for the few an ascendency over the many by securing to them a monopoly of the currency, the medium through which most of the wants of mankind are supplied; to produce throughout society a chain of dependence which leads all classes to look to privileged associations for the means of speculation and extravagance; to nourish, in preference to the manly virtues that give dignity to human nature, a craving desire for luxurious enjoyment and sudden wealth, which renders those who seek them dependent on those who supply them; to substitute for republican simplicity and economical habits a sickly appetite for effeminate indulgence and an imitation of that reckless extravagance which impoverished and enslaved the industrious people of foreign lands, and at last to fix upon us, instead of those equal political rights the acquisition of which was alike the object and supposed reward of our Revolutionary struggle, a system of exclusive privileges conferred by partial legislation. To remove the influences which had thus gradually grown up among us, to deprive them of their deceptive advantages, to test them by the light of wisdom and truth, to oppose the force which they concentrate in their support--all this was necessarily the work of time, even among a people so enlightened and pure as that of the United States. In most other countries, perhaps, it could only be accomplished through that series of revolutionary movements which are too often found necessary to effect any great and radical reform; but it is the crowning merit of our institutions that they create and nourish in the vast majority of our people a disposition and a power peaceably to remedy abuses which have elsewhere caused the effusion of rivers of blood and the sacrifice of thousands of the human race. The result thus far is most honorable to the self-denial, the intelligence, and the patriotism of our citizens; it justifies the confident hope that they will carry through the reform which has been so well begun, and that they will go still further than they have yet gone in illustrating the important truth that a people as free and enlightened as ours will, whenever it becomes necessary, show themselves to be indeed capable of self-government by voluntarily adopting appropriate remedies for every abuse, and submitting to temporary sacrifices, however great, to insure their permanent welfare.

My own exertions for the furtherance of these desirable objects have been bestowed throughout my official career with a zeal that is nourished by ardent wishes for the welfare of my country, and by an unlimited reliance on the wisdom that marks its ultimate decision on all great and controverted questions. Impressed with the solemn obligations imposed upon me by the Constitution, desirous also of laying before my fellow-citizens, with whose confidence and support I have been so highly honored, such measures as appear to me conducive to their prosperity, and anxious to submit to their fullest consideration the grounds upon which my opinions are formed, I have on this as on preceding occasions freely offered my views on those points of domestic policy that seem at the present time most prominently to require the action of the Government. I know that they will receive from Congress that full and able consideration which the importance of the subjects merits, and I can repeat the assurance heretofore made that I shall cheerfully and readily cooperate with you in every measure that will tend to promote the welfare of the Union.

M. VAN BUREN.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

CITY OF WASHINGTON, December 4, 1839.

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

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, exhibiting certain transfers of appropriations that have been made in that Department in pursuance of the powers vested in the President of the United States by the act of Congress of the 3d of March, 1809, entitled "An act further to amend the several acts for the establishment and regulation of the Treasury, War, and Navy Departments."

M. VAN BUREN.

CITY OF WASHINGTON, December 4, 1839.

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

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, which exhibits certain transfers of appropriations made in the War Department under the authority conferred upon the President of the United States by the acts of Congress of March 3, 1809, and May 1, 1820, passed in addition to and to amend the several acts for the establishment and regulation of the Treasury, War, and Navy Departments.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, December 11, 1839.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit for the consideration and advice of the Senate a treaty concluded on the 3d day of September last with the Stockbridge and Munsee tribes of Indians, with a report from the Secretary of War and other documents in relation to it.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, December 12, 1839.

To the Senate of the United States:

I nominate the persons named in the accompanying list for promotion and appointment in the Army to the several grades annexed to their names, as proposed by the Secretary of War.

M. VAN BUREN.

WAR DEPARTMENT, December 11, 1839.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: In submitting the accompanying list of promotions and appointments, which I respectfully recommend for your approval, I beg leave to call your attention to that part of it which relates to the Quartermaster's Department.

The seventh section of the act of 2d of March, 1821, fixing the military peace establishment, provides "that there shall be one Quartermaster-General; that there shall be two quartermasters with the rank, pay, and emoluments of majors of cavalry, and ten assistant quartermasters, who shall, in addition to their pay in the line, receive a sum not less than ten nor more than twenty dollars per month, to be regulated by the Secretary of War."

The third section of the act of the 18th May, 1826, provides for "two additional quartermasters and ten assistant quartermasters, to be taken from the line of the Army, who shall have the same rank and compensation as are provided for like grades by the act of the 2d March, 1821," above quoted; that is to say, the two additional quartermasters shall have the "rank, pay, and emoluments of majors of cavalry," and the ten additional assistant quartermasters "shall, in addition to their pay in the line, receive a sum not less than $10 nor more than $20 per month."

The ninth section of the act of the 5th July, 1838, provides "that the President of the United States be authorized, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to add to the Quartermaster's Department not exceeding two assistant quartermasters-general with the rank of colonel, two deputy quartermasters-general with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and eight assistant quartermasters with the rank of captain; that the assistant quartermasters now in service shall have the same rank as is provided by this act for those hereby authorized: ... Provided, That all the appointments in the Quartermaster's Department shall be made from the Army, ... and that promotions in said Department shall take place as in regiments and corps."