A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents | Page 6

its adversaries. I communicate all material information on this
subject, that in the exercise of this important function confided by the
Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form
itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of
weight.
I wish I could say that our situation with all the other Barbary States
was entirely satisfactory. Discovering that some delays had taken place
in the performance of certain articles stipulated by us, I thought it my
duty, by immediate measures for fulfilling them, to vindicate to
ourselves the right of considering the effect of departure from
stipulation on their side. From the papers which will be laid before you
you will be enabled to judge whether our treaties are regarded by them
as fixing at all the measure of their demands or as guarding from the
exercise of force our vessels within their power, and to consider how
far it will be safe and expedient to leave our affairs with them in their
present posture.
I lay before you the result of the census lately taken of our inhabitants,
to a conformity with which we are now to reduce the ensuing ratio of
representation and taxation. You will perceive that the increase of
numbers during the last ten years, proceeding in geometrical ratio,
promises a duplication in little more than twenty-two years. We
contemplate this rapid growth and the prospect it holds up to us, not
with a view to the injuries it may enable us to do others in some future
day, but to the settlement of the extensive country still remaining
vacant within our limits to the multiplication of men susceptible of
happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government,
and valuing its blessings above all price.

Other circumstances, combined with the increase of numbers, have
produced an augmentation of revenue arising from consumption in a
ratio far beyond that of population alone; and though the changes in
foreign relations now taking place so desirably for the whole world
may for a season affect this branch of revenue, yet weighing all
probabilities of expense as well as of income, there is reasonable
ground of confidence that we may now safely dispense with all the
internal taxes, comprehending excise, stamps, auctions, licenses,
carriages, and refined sugars, to which the postage on newspapers may
be added to facilitate the progress of information, and that the
remaining sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the
support of Government, to pay the interest of the public debts, and to
discharge the principals within shorter periods than the laws or the
general expectation had contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward
events may change this prospect of things and call for expenses which
the imposts could not meet; but sound principles will not justify our
taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for
wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps,
happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure.
These views, however, of reducing our burthens are formed on the
expectation that a sensible and at the same time a salutary reduction
may take place in our habitual expenditures. For this purpose those of
the civil Government, the Army, and Navy will need revisal.
When we consider that this Government is charged with the external,
and mutual relations only of these States; that the States themselves
have principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation,
constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt
whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive;
whether offices and officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily and
sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to promote. I will
cause to be laid before you an essay toward a statement of those who,
under public employment of various kinds, draw money from the
Treasury or from our citizens. Time has not permitted a perfect
enumeration, the ramifications of office being too multiplied and
remote to be completely traced in a first trial. Among those who are

dependent on Executive discretion I have begun the reduction of what
was deemed unnecessary. The expenses of diplomatic agency have
been considerably diminished. The inspectors of internal revenue who
were found to obstruct the accountability of the institution have been
discontinued. Several agencies created by Executive authority, on
salaries fixed by that also, have been suppressed, and should suggest
the expediency of regulating that power by law, so as to subject its
exercises to legislative inspection and sanction. Other reformations of
the same kind will be pursued with that caution which is requisite in
removing useless things, not to injure what is retained. But the great
mass of public offices is established by law, and therefore by law alone
can be abolished. Should the Legislature think it expedient