Chapter CIX

MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE OPENING OF THE REGULAR SESSION OF 1842-3.

The treaty with Great Britain, and its commendation, was the prominent topic in the forepart of the message. The President repeated, in a more condensed form, the encomiums which had been passed upon it by its authors, but without altering the public opinion of its character--which was that it was really a _British_ treaty, Great Britain getting every thing settled which she wished, and all to her own satisfaction; while all the subjects of interest to the United States were adjourned to an indefinite future time, as well known then as now never to occur. One of these deferred subjects was a matter of too much moment, and pregnant with too grave consequences, to escape general reprobation in the United States: it was that of the Columbia River, exclusively possessed by the British under a joint-occupation treaty: and which possession only required time to ripen it into a valid title. The indefinite adjournment of that question was giving Great Britain the time she wanted; and the danger of losing the country was turning the attention of the Western people towards saving it by sending emigrants to occupy it. Many emigrants had gone: more were going: a tide was setting in that direction. In fact the condition of this great American territory was becoming a topic of political discussion, and entering into the contests of party; and the President found it necessary to make further excuses for omitting to settle it in the Ashburton treaty, and a necessity to attempt to do something to soothe the public mind. He did so in this message:

"It would have furnished additional cause for congratulation, if
the treaty could have embraced all subjects calculated in future
to lead to a misunderstanding between the two governments. The
territory of the United States, commonly called the Oregon
Territory, lying on the Pacific Ocean, north of the forty-second
degree of latitude, to a portion of which Great Britain lays
claim, begins to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens;
and the tide of population, which has reclaimed what was so
lately an unbroken wilderness in more contiguous regions, is
preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch
from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In advance of
the acquirement of individual rights to these lands, sound
policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the
two governments to settle their respective claims. It became
manifest, at an early hour of the late negotiations, that
any attempt, for the time being, satisfactorily to determine
those rights, would lead to a protracted discussion which
might embrace, in its failure, other more pressing matters;
and the Executive did not regard it as proper to waive all the
advantages of an honorable adjustment of other difficulties of
great magnitude and importance, because this, not so immediately
pressing, stood in the way. Although the difficulty referred to
may not, for several years to come, involve the peace of the two
countries, yet I shall not delay to urge on Great Britain the
importance of its early settlement."

The excuse given for the omission of this subject in the Ashburton negotiations is lame and insufficient. Protracted discussion is incident to all negotiations, and as to losing other matters of more pressing importance, all that were of importance to the United States were given up any way, and without getting any equivalents for them. The promise to urge an early settlement could promise but little fruit after Great Britain had got all she wanted; and the discouragement of settlement, by denying land titles to the emigrants until an adjustment could be made, was the effectual way to abandon the country to Great Britain. But this subject will have an appropriate chapter in the history of the proceedings of Congress to encourage that emigration which the President would repress.

The termination of the Florida war was a subject of just congratulation with the President, and was appropriately communicated to Congress.

"The vexatious, harassing, and expensive war which so long
prevailed with the Indian tribes inhabiting the peninsula of
Florida, has happily been terminated; whereby our army has been
relieved from a service of the most disagreeable character, and
the Treasury from a large expenditure. Some casual outbreaks may
occur, such as are incident to the close proximity of border
settlers and the Indians; but these, as in all other cases,
may be left to the care of the local authorities, aided, when
occasion may require, by the forces of the United States."

The President does not tell by what treaty of peace this war was terminated, nor by what great battle it was brought to a conclusion: and there were none such to be told--either of treaty negotiated, or of battle fought. The war had died out of itself under the arrival of settlers attracted to its theatre by the Florida armed occupation act. No sooner did the act pass, giving land to each settler who should remain in the disturbed part of the territory five years, than thousands repaired to the spot. They went with their arms and ploughs--the weapons of war in one hand and the implements of husbandry in the other--their families, flocks and herds, established themselves in blockhouses, commenced cultivation, and showed that they came to stay, and intended to stay. Bred to the rifle and the frontier, they were an overmatch for the Indians in their own mode of warfare; and, interested in the peace of the country, they soon succeeded in obtaining it. The war died out under their presence, and no person could tell when, nor how; for there was no great treaty held, or great battle fought, to signalize its conclusion. And this is the way to settle all Indian wars--the cheap, effectual and speedy way to do it: land to the armed settler, and rangers, when any additional force is wanted--rangers, not regulars.

But a government bank, under the name of exchequer, was the prominent and engrossing feature of the message. It was the same paper-money machine, borrowed from the times of Sir Robert Walpole, which had been recommended to Congress at the previous session and had been so unanimously repulsed by all parties. Like its predecessor it ignored a gold and silver currency, and promised paper. The phrases "sound currency"--"sound circulating medium"--"safe bills convertible at will into specie," figured throughout the scheme; and to make this government paper a local as well as a national currency, the denomination of its notes was to be carried down at the start to the low figure of five dollars--involving the necessity of reducing it to one dollar as soon as the banishment of specie which it would create should raise the usual demand for smaller paper. To do him justice, his condensed argument in favor of this government paper, and against the gold and silver currency of the constitution, is here given:

"There can be but three kinds of public currency: 1st. Gold
and silver; 2d. The paper of State institutions; or, 3d. A
representative of the precious metals, provided by the general
government, or under its authority. The sub-treasury system
rejected the last, in any form; and, as it was believed that no
reliance could be placed on the issues of local institutions,
for the purposes of general circulation, it necessarily and
unavoidably adopted specie as the exclusive currency for its
own use. And this must ever be the case, unless one of the
other kinds be used. The choice, in the present state of public
sentiment, lies between an exclusive specie currency on the one
hand, and government issues of some kind on the other. That
these issues cannot be made by a chartered institution, is
supposed to be conclusively settled. They must be made, then,
directly by government agents. For several years past, they have
been thus made in the form of treasury notes, and have answered
a valuable purpose. Their usefulness has been limited by their
being transient and temporary; their ceasing to bear interest
at given periods, necessarily causes their speedy return, and
thus restricts their range of circulation; and being used only
in the disbursements of government, they cannot reach those
points where they are most required. By rendering their use
permanent, to the moderate extent already mentioned, by offering
no inducement for their return, and by exchanging them for coin
and other values, they will constitute, to a certain extent, the
general currency so much needed to maintain the internal trade
of the country. And this is the exchequer plan, so far as it may
operate in furnishing a currency."

It would seem impossible to carry a passion for paper money, and of the worst kind, that of government paper, farther than President Tyler did; but he found it impossible to communicate his passion to Congress, which repulsed all the exchequer schemes with the promptitude which was due to an unconstitutional, pernicious, and gratuitous novelty. The low state of the public credit, the impossibility of making a loan, and the empty state of the Treasury, were the next topics in the message.

"I cannot forego the occasion to urge its importance to the
credit of the government in a financial point of view. The
great necessity of resorting to every proper and becoming
expedient, in order to place the Treasury on a footing of the
highest respectability, is entirely obvious. The credit of the
government may be regarded as the very soul of the government
itself--a principle of vitality, without which all its movements
are languid, and all its operations embarrassed. In this
spirit the Executive felt itself bound, by the most imperative
sense of duty, to submit to Congress, at its last session,
the propriety of making a specific pledge of the land fund,
as the basis for the negotiation of the loans authorized to
be contracted. I then thought that such an application of the
public domain would, without doubt, have placed at the command
of the government ample funds to relieve the Treasury from
the temporary embarrassments under which it labored. American
credit had suffered a considerable shock in Europe, from the
large indebtedness of the States, and the temporary inability of
some of them to meet the interest on their debts. The utter and
disastrous prostration of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania
had contributed largely to increase the sentiment of distrust,
by reason of the loss and ruin sustained by the holders of its
stock--a large portion of whom were foreigners, and many of
whom were alike ignorant of our political organization, and of
our actual responsibilities. It was the anxious desire of the
Executive that, in the effort to negotiate the loan abroad, the
American negotiator might be able to point the money-lender
to the fund mortgaged for the redemption of the principal and
interest of any loan he might contract, and thereby vindicate
the government from all suspicion of bad faith, or inability
to meet its engagements. Congress differed from the Executive
in this view of the subject. It became, nevertheless, the duty
of the Executive to resort to every expedient in its power to
negotiate the authorized loan. After a failure to do so in
the American market, a citizen of high character and talent
was sent to Europe--with no better success; and thus the
mortifying spectacle has been presented, of the inability of
this government to obtain a loan so small as not in the whole to
amount to more than one-fourth of its ordinary annual income;
at a time when the governments of Europe, although involved in
debt, and with their subjects heavily burdened with taxation,
readily obtain loans of any amount at a greatly reduced rate of
interest. It would be unprofitable to look further into this
anomalous state of things; but I cannot conclude without adding,
that, for a government which has paid off its debts of two
wars with the largest maritime power of Europe, and now owing
a debt which is almost next to nothing, when compared with its
boundless resources--a government the strongest in the world,
because emanating from the popular will, and firmly rooted in
the affections of a great and free people--and whose fidelity to
its engagements has never been questioned--for such a government
to have tendered to the capitalists of other countries an
opportunity for a small investment of its stock, and yet to
have failed, implies either the most unfounded distrust in its
good faith, or a purpose, to obtain which, the course pursued
is the most fatal which could have been adopted. It has now
become obvious to all men that the government must look to its
own means for supplying its wants; and it is consoling to know
that these means are altogether adequate for the object. The
exchequer, if adopted, will greatly aid in bringing about this
result. Upon what I regard as a well-founded supposition, that
its bills would be readily sought for by the public creditors,
and that the issue would, in a short time, reach the maximum of
$15,000,000, it is obvious that $10,000,000 would thereby be
added to the available means of the treasury, without cost or
charge. Nor can I fail to urge the great and beneficial effects
which would be produced in aid of all the active pursuits
of life. Its effects upon the solvent State banks, while it
would force into liquidation those of an opposite character,
through its weekly settlements, would be highly beneficial;
and, with the advantages of a sound currency, the restoration
of confidence and credit would follow, with a numerous train of
blessings. My convictions are most strong that these benefits
would flow from the adoption of this measure; but, if the result
should be adverse, there is this security in connection with
it--that the law creating it may be repealed at the pleasure of
the legislature, without the slightest implication of its good
faith."

It is impossible to read this paragraph without a feeling of profound mortification at seeing the low and miserable condition to which the public credit had sunk, both at home and abroad; and equally mortifying to see the wretched expedients which were relied upon to restore it: a government bank, issuing paper founded on its credit and revenues, and a hypothecation of the lands, their proceeds to help to bolster up the slippery and frail edifice of governmental paper: the United States unable to make a loan to the amount of one-fourth of its revenues! unable to borrow five millions of dollars! unable to borrow any thing, while the overloaded governments of Europe could borrow as much as they pleased. It was indeed a low point of depressed credit--the lowest that the United States had ever seen since the declaration of Independence. It was a state of humiliation and disgrace which could not be named without offering some reason for its existence; and that reason was given: it was the "disastrous prostration," as it was called--the crimes and bankruptcy, as should have been called, of the Pennsylvania Bank of the United States! that bank which, in adding Pennsylvania to its name, did not change its identity, or its nature; and which for ten long years had been the cherished idol of the President, his Secretary of State, and his exchequer orator on the floor of the House--for which General Jackson had been condemned and vituperated--and on the continued existence of which the whole prosperity of the government and the people, and their salvation from poverty and misery, was made to depend. That bank was now given as the cause of the woful plight into which the public credit was fallen--and truly so given! for while its plunderings were enormous, its crimes were still greater: and the two put together--an hundred millions plundered, and a mass of crimes committed--the effect upon the American name was such as to drive it with disgrace from every exchange in Europe. And the former champions of the bank, uninstructed by experience, unabashed by previous appalling mistakes, now lavish the same encomiums on an exchequer bank which they formerly did on a national bank; and challenge the same faith for one which they had invoked for the other. The exchequer is now, according to them, the sole hope of the country: the independent treasury and hard money, its only danger. Yet the exchequer was repulsed--the independent treasury and gold was established: and the effect, that that same country which was unable to borrow five millions of dollars, has since borrowed many ten millions, and is now paying a premium of 20 per centum--actually paying twenty dollars on the hundred--to purchase the privilege of paying loans before they are due.