Part 3

Since the last session of Congress numerous frauds on the Treasury have been discovered, which I thought it my duty to bring under the cognizance of the United States court for this district by a criminal prosecution. It was my opinion and that of able counsel who were consulted that the cases came within the penalties of the act of the 17th Congress approved March 3d, 1823, providing for punishment of frauds committed on the Government of the United States. Either from some defect in the law or in its administration every effort to bring the accused to trial under its provisions proved ineffectual, and the Government was driven to the necessity of resorting to the vague and inadequate provisions of the common law. It is therefore my duty to call your attention to the laws which have been passed for the protection of the Treasury. If, indeed, there be no provision by which those who may be unworthily intrusted with its guardianship can be punished for the most flagrant violation of duty, extending even to the most fraudulent appropriation of the public funds to their own use, it is time to remedy so dangerous an omission; or if the law has been perverted from its original purposes, and criminals deserving to be punished under its provisions have been rescued by legal subtleties, it ought to be made so plain by amendatory provisions as to baffle the arts of perversion and accomplish the ends of its original enactment.

In one of the most flagrant causes the court decided that the prosecution was barred by the statute which limits prosecutions for fraud to two years. In this case all the evidences of the fraud, and, indeed, all knowledge that a fraud had been committed, were in possession of the party accused until after the two years had elapsed. Surely the statute ought not to run in favor of any man while he retains all the evidences of his crime in his own possession, and least of all in favor of a public officer who continues to defraud the Treasury and conceal the transaction for the brief term of two years. I would therefore recommend such an alteration of the law as will give the injured party and the Government two years after the disclosure of the fraud or after the accused is out of office to commence their prosecution.

In connection with this subject I invite the attention of Congress to a general and minute inquiry into the condition of the Government, with a view to ascertain what offices can be dispensed with, what expenses retrenched, and what improvements may be made in the organization of its various parts to secure the proper responsibility of public agents and promote efficiency and justice in all its operations.

The report of the Secretary of War will make you acquainted with the condition of our Army, fortifications, arsenals, and Indian affairs. The proper discipline of the Army, the training and equipment of the militia, the education bestowed at West Point, and the accumulation of the means of defense applicable to the naval force will tend to prolong the peace we now enjoy, and which every good citizen, more especially those who have felt the miseries of even a successful warfare, must ardently desire to perpetuate.

The returns from the subordinate branches of this service exhibit a regularity and order highly creditable to its character. Both officers and soldiers seem imbued with a proper sense of duty, and conform to the restraints of exact discipline with that cheerfulness which becomes the profession of arms. There is need, however, of further legislation to obviate the inconveniences specified in the report under consideration, to some of which it is proper that I should call your particular attention.

The act of Congress of March 2d, 1821, to reduce and fix the military establishment, remaining unexecuted as it regards the command of one of the regiments of artillery, can not now be deemed a guide to the Executive in making the proper appointment. An explanatory act, designating the class of officers out of which the grade is to be filled--whether from the military list as existing prior to the act of 1821 or from it as it has been fixed by that act--would remove this difficulty. It is also important that the laws regulating the pay and emoluments of officers generally should be more specific than they now are. Those, for example, in relation to the Pay Master and Surgeon General assign to them an annual salary of $2.500, but are silent as to allowances which in certain exigencies of the service may be deemed indispensable to the discharge of their duties. This circumstance has been the authority for extending to them various allowances at different times under former Administrations, but no uniform rule has been observed on the subject. Similar inconveniences exist in other cases, in which the construction put upon the laws by the public accountants may operate unequally, produce confusion, and expose officers to the odium of claiming what is not their due.

I recommend to your fostering care, as one of our safest means of national defense, the Military Academy. This institution has already exercised the happiest influence upon the moral and intellectual character of our Army; and such of the graduates as from various causes may not pursue the profession of arms will be scarcely less useful as citizens. Their knowledge of the military art will be advantageously employed in the militia service, and in a measure secure to that class of troops the advantages which in this respect belong to standing armies.

I would also suggest a review of the pension law, for the purpose of extending its benefits to every Revolutionary soldier who aided in establishing our liberties, and who is unable to maintain himself in comfort. These relics of the War of Independence have strong claims upon their country's gratitude and bounty. The law is defective in not embracing within its provisions all those who were during the last war disabled from supporting themselves by manual labor. Such an amendment would add but little to the amount of pensions, and is called for by the sympathies of the people as well as by considerations of sound policy.

It will be perceived that a large addition to the list of pensioners has been occasioned by an order of the late Administration, departing materially from the rules which had previously prevailed. Considering it an act of legislation, I suspended its operation as soon as I was informed that it had commenced. Before this period, however, applications under the new regulation had been preferred to the number of 154, of which, on March 27, the date of its revocation, 87 were admitted. For the amount there was neither estimate nor appropriation; and besides this deficiency, the regular allowances, according to the rules which have heretofore governed the Department, exceed the estimate of its late Secretary by about $50,000, for which an appropriation is asked.

Your particular attention is requested to that part of the report of the Secretary of War which relates to the money held in trust for the Seneca tribe of Indians. It will be perceived that without legislative aid the Executive can not obviate the embarrassments occasioned by the diminution of the dividends on that fund, which originally amounted to $100,000, and has recently been invested in United States 3% stock.

The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of our States have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians in general, receding farther and farther to the west, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians, which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection.

Under these circumstances the question presented was whether the General Government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions. The Constitution declares that "no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State" without the consent of its legislature. If the General Government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union against her consent, much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there.

Georgia became a member of the Confederacy which eventuated in our Federal Union as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits, which, having been originally defined in her colonial charter and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States in the articles of cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress.

There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision which allows them less power over the Indians within their borders than is possessed by Maine or New York. Would the people of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an independent government within their State? And unless they did would it not be the duty of the General Government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the people of New York permit each remnant of the six Nations within her borders to declare itself an independent people under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? And if they were so disposed would it be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are reversed, and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.

Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States, and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States.

Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast over-taking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the bounds of new States, whose limits they could control. That step can not be retraced. A State can not be dismembered by Congress or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power. But the people of those States and of every State, actuated by feelings of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question whether something can not be done, consistently with the rights of the States, to preserve this much-injured race. As a means of effecting this end I suggest for your consideration the propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race and to attest the humanity and justice of this Government.

This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to suppose that in this state of things claims can be allowed on tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely because they have seen them from the mountain or passed them in the chase. Submitting to the laws of the States, and receiving, like other citizens, protection in their persons and property, they will ere long become merged in the mass of our population.

The accompanying report of the Secretary of the Navy will make you acquainted with the condition and useful employment of that branch of our service during the present year. Constituting as it does the best standing security of this country against foreign aggression, it claims the especial attention of Government. In this spirit the measures which since the termination of the last war have been in operation for its gradual enlargement were adopted, and it should continue to be cherished as the off-spring of our national experience. It will be seen, however, that not withstanding the great solicitude which has been manifested for the perfect organization of this arm and the liberality of the appropriations which that solicitude has suggested, this object has in many important respects not been secured.

In time of peace we have need of no more ships of war than are requisite to the protection of our commerce. Those not wanted for this object must lay in the harbors, where without proper covering they rapidly decay, and even under the best precautions for their preservation must soon become useless. Such is already the case with many of our finest vessels, which, though unfinished, will now require immense sums of money to be restored to the condition in which they were when committed to their proper element.

On this subject there can be but little doubt that our best policy would be to discontinue the building of ships of the first and second class, and look rather to the possession of ample materials, prepared for the emergencies of war, than to the number of vessels which we can float in a season of peace, as the index of our naval power. Judicious deposits in navy yards of timber and other materials, fashioned under the hands of skillful work-men and fitted for prompt application to their various purposes, would enable us at all times to construct vessels as fast as they can be manned, and save the heavy expense of repairs, except to such vessels as must be employed in guarding our commerce.

The proper points for the establishment of these yards are indicated with so much force in the report of the Navy Board that in recommending it to your attention I deem it unnecessary to do more than express my hearty concurrence in their views. The yard in this District, being already furnished with most of the machinery necessary for ship building, will be competent to the supply of the two selected by the Board as the best for the concentration of materials, and, from the facility and certainty of communication between them, it will be useless to incur at those depots the expense of similar machinery, especially that used in preparing the usual metallic and wooden furniture of vessels.

Another improvement would be effected by dispensing altogether with the Navy Board as now constituted, and substituting in its stead bureaux similar to those already existing in the War Department. Each member of the Board, transferred to the head of a separate bureau charged with specific duties, would feel in its highest degree that wholesome responsibility which can not be divided without a far more than proportionate diminution of its force. Their valuable services would become still more so when separately appropriated to distinct portions of the great interests of the Navy, to the prosperity of which each would be impelled to devote himself by the strongest motives. Under such an arrangement every branch of this important service would assume a more simple and precise character, its efficiency would be increased, and scrupulous economy in the expenditure of public money promoted.

I would also recommend that the Marine Corps be merged in the artillery or infantry, as the best mode of curing the many defects in its organization. But little exceeding in number any of the regiments of infantry, that corps has, besides its lieutenant-colonel commandant, five brevet lieutenant-colonels, who receive the full pay and emoluments of their brevet rank, without rendering proportionate service. Details for marine service could as well be made from the artillery or infantry, there being no peculiar training requisite for it.

With these improvements, and such others as zealous watchfulness and mature consideration may suggest, there can be little doubt that under an energetic administration of its affairs the Navy may soon be made every thing that the nation wishes it to be. Its efficiency in the suppression of piracy in the West India seas, and wherever its squadrons have been employed in securing the interests of the country, will appear from the report of the Secretary, to which I refer you for other interesting details. Among these I would bespeak the attention of Congress for the views presented in relation to the inequality between the Army and Navy as to the pay of officers. No such inequality should prevail between these brave defenders of their country, and where it does exist it is submitted to Congress whether it ought not to be rectified.

The report of the Post Master General is referred to as exhibiting a highly satisfactory administration of that Department. Abuses have been reformed, increased expedition in the transportation of the mail secured, and its revenue much improved. In a political point of view this Department is chiefly important as affording the means of diffusing knowledge. It is to the body politic what the veins and arteries are to the natural--conveying rapidly and regularly to the remotest parts of the system correct information of the operations of the Government, and bringing back to it the wishes and feelings of the people. Through its agency we have secured to ourselves the full enjoyment of the blessings of a free press.

In this general survey of our affairs a subject of high importance presents itself in the present organization of the judiciary. An uniform operation of the Federal Government in the different States is certainly desirable, and existing as they do in the Union on the basis of perfect equality, each State has a right to expect that the benefits conferred on the citizens of others should be extended to hers. The judicial system of the United States exists in all its efficiency in only fifteen members of the Union; to three others the circuit courts, which constitute an important part of that system, have been imperfectly extended, and to the remaining six altogether denied. The effect has been to withhold from the inhabitants of the latter the advantages afforded (by the Supreme Court) to their fellow citizens in other States in the whole extent of the criminal and much of the civil authority of the Federal judiciary. That this state of things ought to be remedied, if it can be done consistently with the public welfare, is not to be doubted. Neither is it to be disguised that the organization of our judicial system is at once a difficult and delicate task. To extend the circuit courts equally throughout the different parts of the Union, and at the same time to avoid such a multiplication of members as would encumber the supreme appellate tribunal, is the object desired. Perhaps it might be accomplished by dividing the circuit judges into two classes, and providing that the Supreme Court should be held by these classes alternately, the Chief Justice always presiding.

If an extension of the circuit court system to those States which do not now enjoy its benefits should be determined upon, it would of course be necessary to revise the present arrangement of the circuits; and even if that system should not be enlarged, such a revision is recommended.

A provision for taking the census of the people of the United States will, to insure the completion of that work within a convenient time, claim the early attention of Congress.