A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents | Page 9

some measure
inseparably connected with its success, will doubtless claim the
attention of Congress. Among such, a distribution of the proceeds of
the sales of the public lands, provided such distribution does not force
upon Congress the necessity of imposing upon commerce heavier
burthens than those contemplated by the act of 1833, would act as an
efficient remedial measure by being brought directly in aid of the States.
As one sincerely devoted to the task of preserving a just balance in our
system of Government by the maintenance of the States in a condition

the most free and respectable and in the full possession of all their
power, I can no otherwise than feel desirous for their emancipation
from the situation to which the pressure on their finances now subjects
them. And while I must repudiate, as a measure founded in error and
wanting constitutional sanction, the slightest approach to an assumption
by this Government of the debts of the States, yet I can see in the
distribution adverted to much to recommend it. The compacts between
the proprietor States and this Government expressly guarantee to the
States all the benefits which may arise from the sales. The mode by
which this is to be effected addresses itself to the discretion of
Congress as the trustee for the States, and its exercise after the most
beneficial manner is restrained by nothing in the grants or in the
Constitution so long as Congress shall consult that equality in the
distribution which the compacts require. In the present condition of
some of the States the question of distribution may be regarded as
substantially a question between direct and indirect taxation. If the
distribution be not made in some form or other, the necessity will daily
become more urgent with the debtor States for a resort to an oppressive
system of direct taxation, or their credit, and necessarily their power
and influence, will be greatly diminished. The payment of taxes after
the most inconvenient and oppressive mode will be exacted in place of
contributions for the most part voluntarily made, and therefore
comparatively unoppressive. The States are emphatically the
constituents of this Government, and we should be entirely regardless
of the objects held in view by them in the creation of this Government
if we could be indifferent to their good. The happy effects of such a
measure upon all the States would immediately be manifested. With the
debtor States it would effect the relief to a great extent of the citizens
from a heavy burthen of direct taxation, which presses with severity on
the laboring classes, and eminently assist in restoring the general
prosperity. An immediate advance would take place in the price of the
State securities, and the attitude of the States would become once more,
as it should ever be, lofty and erect. With States laboring under no
extreme pressure from debt, the fund which they would derive from
this source would enable them to improve their condition in an eminent
degree. So far as this Government is concerned, appropriations to
domestic objects approaching in amount the revenue derived from the

land sales might be abandoned, and thus a system of unequal, and
therefore unjust, legislation would be substituted by one dispensing
equality to all the members of this Confederacy. Whether such
distribution should be made directly to the States in the proceeds of the
sales or in the form of profits by virtue of the operations of any fiscal
agency having those proceeds as its basis, should such measure be
contemplated by Congress, would well deserve its consideration. Nor
would such disposition of the proceeds of the sales in any manner
prevent Congress from time to time from passing all necessary
preemption laws for the benefit of actual settlers, or from making any
new arrangement as to the price of the public lands which might in
future be esteemed desirable.
I beg leave particularly to call your attention to the accompanying
report from the Secretary of War. Besides the present state of the war
which has so long afflicted the Territory of Florida, and the various
other matters of interest therein referred to, you will learn from it that
the Secretary has instituted an inquiry into abuses, which promises to
develop gross enormities in connection with Indian treaties which have
been negotiated, as well as in the expenditures for the removal and
subsistence of the Indians. He represents also other irregularities of a
serious nature that have grown up in the practice of the Indian
Department, which will require the appropriation of upward of
$200,000 to correct, and which claim the immediate attention of
Congress.
In reflecting on the proper means of defending the country we can not
shut our eyes to the consequences which the introduction and use of the