The Project Gutenberg EBook of State of the Union Addresses
by Andrew Johnson
(#16 in our series of US Presidential State of the Union Addresses)

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson

Author: Andrew Johnson

Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5025]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 11, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF ADDRESSES BY ANDREW JOHNSON ***




This eBook was produced by James Linden.

The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***

Dates of addresses by Andrew Johnson in this eBook:
  December 4, 1865
  December 3, 1866
  December 3, 1867
  December 9, 1868



***

State of the Union Address
Andrew Johnson
December 4, 1865

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

To express gratitude to God in the name of the people for the preservation
of the United States is my first duty in addressing you. Our thoughts next
revert to the death of the late President by an act of parricidal treason.
The grief of the nation is still fresh. It finds some solace in the
consideration that he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by
entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy to which he had been
elected; that he brought the civil war substantially to a close; that his
loss was deplored in all parts of the Union, and that foreign nations have
rendered justice to his memory. His removal cast upon me a heavier weight
of cares than ever devolved upon any one of his predecessors. To fulfill my
trust I need the support and confidence of all who are associated with me
in the various departments of Government and the support and confidence of
the people. There is but one way in which I can hope to gain their
necessary aid. It is to state with frankness the principles which guide my
conduct, and their application to the present state of affairs, well aware
that the efficiency of my labors will in a great measure depend on your and
their undivided approbation.

The Union of the United States of America was intended by its authors to
last as long as the States themselves shall last. "The Union shall be
perpetual" are the words of the Confederation. "To form a more perfect
Union," by an ordinance of the people of the United States, is the declared
purpose of the Constitution. The hand of Divine Providence was never more
plainly visible in the affairs of men than in the framing and the adopting
of that instrument. It is beyond comparison the greatest event in American
history, and, indeed, is it not of all events in modern times the most
pregnant with consequences for every people of the earth? The members of
the Convention which prepared it brought to their work the experience of
the Confederation, of their several States, and of other republican
governments, old and new; but they needed and they obtained a wisdom
superior to experience. And when for its validity it required the approval
of a people that occupied a large part of a continent and acted separately
in many distinct conventions, what is more wonderful than that, after
earnest contention and long discussion, all feelings and all opinions were
ultimately drawn in one way to its support? The Constitution to which life
was thus imparted contains within itself ample resources for its own
preservation. It has power to enforce the laws, punish treason, and insure
domestic tranquillity. In case of the usurpation of the government of a
State by one man or an oligarchy, it becomes a duty of the United States to
make good the guaranty to that State of a republican form of government,
and so to maintain the homogeneousness of all. Does the lapse of time
reveal defects? A simple mode of amendment is provided in the Constitution
itself, so that its conditions can always be made to conform to the
requirements of advancing civilization. No room is allowed even for the
thought of a possibility of its coming to an end. And these powers of
self-preservation have always been asserted in their complete integrity by
every patriotic Chief Magistrate by Jefferson and Jackson not less than by
Washington and Madison. The parting advice of the Father of his Country,
while yet President, to the people of the United States was that the free
Constitution, which was the work of their hands, might be sacredly
maintained; and the inaugural words of President Jefferson held up "the
preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor as
the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad." The Constitution
is the work of "the people of the United States," and it should be as
indestructible as the people.

It is not strange that the framers of the Constitution, which had no model
in the past, should not have fully comprehended the excellence of their own
work. Fresh from a struggle against arbitrary power, many patriots suffered
from harassing fears of an absorption of the State governments by the
General Government, and many from a dread that the States would break away
from their orbits. But the very greatness of our country should allay the
apprehension of encroachments by the General Government. The subjects that
come unquestionably within its jurisdiction are so numerous that it must
ever naturally refuse to be embarrassed by questions that lie beyond it.
Were it otherwise the Executive would sink beneath the burden, the channels
of justice would be choked, legislation would be obstructed by excess, so
that there is a greater temptation to exercise some of the functions of the
General Government through the States than to trespass on their rightful
sphere. The "absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority" was at
the beginning of the century enforced by Jefferson as "the vital principle
of republics;" and the events of the last four years have established, we
will hope forever, that there lies no appeal to force.

The maintenance of the Union brings with it "the support of the State
governments in all their rights," but it is not one of the rights of any
State government to renounce its own place in the Union or to nullify the
laws of the Union. The largest liberty is to be maintained in the
discussion of the acts of the Federal Government, but there is no appeal
from its laws except to the various branches of that Government itself, or
to the people, who grant to the members of the legislative and of the
executive departments no tenure but a limited one, and in that manner
always retain the powers of redress.

"The sovereignty of the States" is the language of the Confederacy, and not
the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the emphatic words--
This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance thereof, and all treaties

made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall
be the supreme law of the land,

and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the

contrary notwithstanding. Certainly the Government of the United States is
a limited government, and so is every State government a limited
government. With us this idea of limitation spreads through every form of
administration--general, State, and municipal--and rests on the great
distinguishing principle of the recognition of the rights of man. The
ancient republics absorbed the individual in the state--prescribed his
religion and controlled his activity. The American system rests on the
assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all
his faculties. As a consequence the State government is limited--as to the
General Government in the interest of union, as to the individual citizen
in the interest of freedom.

States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to the existence of
the Constitution of the United States. At the very commencement, when we
assumed a place among the powers of the earth, the Declaration of
Independence was adopted by States; so also were the Articles of
Confederation: and when "the people of the United States" ordained and
established the Constitution it was the assent of the States, one by one,
which gave it vitality. In the event, too, of any amendment to the
Constitution, the proposition of Congress needs the confirmation of States.
Without States one great branch of the legislative government would be
wanting. And if we look beyond the letter of the Constitution to the
character of our country, its capacity for comprehending within its
jurisdiction a vast continental empire is due to the system of States. The
best security for the perpetual existence of the States is the "supreme
authority" of the Constitution of the United States. The perpetuity of the
Constitution brings with it the perpetuity of the States; their mutual
relation makes us what we are, and in our political system their connection
is indissoluble. The whole can not exist without the parts, nor the parts
without the whole. So long as the Constitution of the United States
endures, the States will endure. The destruction of the one is the
destruction of the other; the preservation of the one is the preservation
of the other.

I have thus explained my views of the mutual relations of the Constitution
and the States, because they unfold the principles on which I have sought
to solve the momentous questions and overcome the appalling difficulties
that met me at the very commencement of my Administration. It has been my
steadfast object to escape from the sway of momentary passions and to
derive a healing policy from the fundamental and unchanging principles of
the Constitution.

I found the States suffering from the effects of a civil war. Resistance to
the General Government appeared to have exhausted itself. The United States
had recovered possession of their forts and arsenals, and their armies were
in the occupation of every State which had attempted to secede. Whether the
territory within the limits of those States should be held as conquered
territory, under military authority emanating from the President as the
head of the Army, was the first question that presented itself for
decision.

Now military governments, established for an indefinite period, would have
offered no security for the early suppression of discontent, would have
divided the people into the vanquishers and the vanquished, and would have
envenomed hatred rather than have restored affection. Once established, no
precise limit to their continuance was conceivable. They would have
occasioned an incalculable and exhausting expense. Peaceful emigration to
and from that portion of the country is one of the best means that can be
thought of for the restoration of harmony, and that emigration would have
been prevented; for what emigrant from abroad, what industrious citizen at
home, would place himself willingly under military rule? The chief persons
who would have followed in the train of the Army would have been dependents
on the General Government or men who expected profit from the miseries of
their erring fellow-citizens. The powers of patronage and rule which would
have been exercised under the President, over a vast and populous and
naturally wealthy region are greater than, unless under extreme necessity,
I should be willing to intrust to any one man. They are such as, for
myself, I could never, unless on occasions of great emergency, consent to
exercise. The willful use of such powers, if continued through a period of
years, would have endangered the purity of the general administration and
the liberties of the States which remained loyal.

Besides, the policy of military rule over a conquered territory would have
implied that the States whose inhabitants may have taken part in the
rebellion had by the act of those inhabitants ceased to exist. But the true
theory is that all pretended acts of secession were from the beginning null
and void. The States can not commit treason nor screen the individual
citizens who may have committed treason any more than they can make valid
treaties or engage in lawful commerce with any foreign power. The States
attempting to secede placed themselves in a condition where their vitality
was impaired, but not extinguished; their functions suspended, but not
destroyed.

But if any State neglects or refuses to perform its offices there is the
more need that the General Government should maintain all its authority and
as soon as practicable resume the exercise of all its functions. On this
principle I have acted, and have gradually and quietly, and by almost
imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful energy of the General
Government and of the States. To that end provisional governors have been
appointed for the States, conventions called, governors elected,
legislatures assembled, and Senators and Representatives chosen to the
Congress of the United States. At the same time the courts of the United
States, as far as could be done, have been reopened, so that the laws of
the United States may be enforced through their agency. The blockade has
been removed and the custom-houses reestablished in ports of entry, so that
the revenue of the United States may be collected. The Post-Office
Department renews its ceaseless activity, and the General Government is
thereby enabled to communicate promptly with its officers and agents. The
courts bring security to persons and property; the opening of the ports
invites the restoration of industry and commerce; the post-office renews
the facilities of social intercourse and of business. And is it not happy
for us all that the restoration of each one of these functions of the
General Government brings with it a blessing to the States over which they
are extended? Is it not a sure promise of harmony and renewed attachment to
the Union that after all that has happened the return of the General
Government is known only as a beneficence?

I know very well that this policy is attended with some risk; that for its
success it requires at least the acquiescence of the States which it
concerns; that it implies an invitation to those States, by renewing their
allegiance to the United States, to resume their functions as States of the
Union. But it is a risk that must be taken. In the choice of difficulties
it is the smallest risk; and to diminish and if possible to remove all
danger, I have felt it incumbent on me to assert one other power of the
General Government--the power of pardon. As no State can throw a defense
over the crime of treason, the power of pardon is exclusively vested in the
executive government of the United States. In exercising that power I have
taken every precaution to connect it with the clearest recognition of the
binding force of the laws of the United States and an unqualified
acknowledgment of the great social change of condition in regard to slavery
which has grown out of the war.

The next step which I have taken to restore the constitutional relations of
the States has been an invitation to them to participate in the high office
of amending the Constitution. Every patriot must wish for a general amnesty
at the earliest epoch consistent with public safety. For this great end
there is need of a concurrence of all opinions and the spirit of mutual
conciliation. All parties in the late terrible conflict must work together
in harmony. It is not too much to ask, in the name of the whole people,
that on the one side the plan of restoration shall proceed in conformity
with a willingness to cast the disorders of the past into oblivion, and
that on the other the evidence of sincerity in the future maintenance of
the Union shall be put beyond any doubt by the ratification of the proposed
amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the abolition of slavery
forever within the limits of our country. So long as the adoption of this
amendment is delayed, so long will doubt and jealousy and uncertainty
prevail. This is the measure which will efface the sad memory of the past;
this is the measure which will most certainly call population and capital
and security to those parts of the Union that need them most. Indeed, it is
not too much to ask of the States which are now resuming their places in
the family of the Union to give this pledge of perpetual loyalty and peace.
Until it is done the past, however much we may desire it, will not be
forgotten, The adoption of the amendment reunites us beyond all power of
disruption; it heals the wound that is still imperfectly closed: it removes
slavery, the element which has so long perplexed and divided the country;
it makes of us once more a united people, renewed and strengthened, bound
more than ever to mutual affection and support.

The amendment to the Constitution being adopted, it would remain for the
States whose powers have been so long in abeyance to resume their places in
the two branches of the National Legislature, and thereby complete the work
of restoration. Here it is for you, fellow-citizens of the Senate, and for
you, fellow-citizens of the House of Representatives, to judge, each of you
for yourselves, of the elections, returns, and qualifications of your own
members.

The full assertion of the powers of the General Government requires the
holding of circuit courts of the United States within the districts where
their authority has been interrupted. In the present posture of our public
affairs strong objections have been urged to holding those courts in any of
the States where the rebellion has existed; and it was ascertained by
inquiry, that the circuit court of the United States would not be held
within the district of Virginia during the autumn or early winter, nor
until Congress should have "an opportunity to consider and act on the whole
subject." To your deliberations the restoration of this branch of the civil
authority of the United States is therefore necessarily referred, with the
hope that early provision will be made for the resumption of all its
functions. It is manifest that treason, most flagrant in character, has
been committed. Persons who are charged with its commission should have
fair and impartial trials in the highest civil tribunals of the country, in
order that the Constitution and the laws may be fully vindicated, the truth
dearly established and affirmed that treason is a crime, that traitors
should be punished and the offense made infamous, and, at the same time,
that the question may be judicially settled, finally and forever, that no
State of its own will has the right to renounce its place in the Union.

The relations of the General Government toward the 4,000,000 inhabitants
whom the war has called into freedom have engaged my most serious
consideration. On the propriety of attempting to make the freedmen electors
by the proclamation of the Executive I took for my counsel the Constitution
itself, the interpretations of that instrument by its authors and their
contemporaries, and recent legislation by Congress. When, at the first
movement toward independence, the Congress of the United States instructed
the several States to institute governments of their own, they left each
State to decide for itself the conditions for the enjoyment of the elective
franchise. During the period of the Confederacy there continued to exist a
very great diversity in the qualifications of electors in the several
States, and even within a State a distinction of qualifications prevailed
with regard to the officers who were to be chosen. The Constitution of the
United States recognizes these diversities when it enjoins that in the
choice of members of the House of Representatives of the United States "the
electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors
of the most numerous branch of the State legislature." After the formation
of the Constitution it remained, as before, the uniform usage for each
State to enlarge the body of its electors according to its own judgment,
and under this system one State after another has proceeded to increase the
number of its electors, until now universal suffrage, or something very
near it, is the general rule. So fixed was this reservation of power in the
habits of the people and so unquestioned has been the interpretation of the
Constitution that during the civil war the late President never harbored
the purpose--certainly never evowed the purpose--of disregarding it; and in
the acts of Congress during that period nothing can be found which, during
the continuance of hostilities much less after their close, would have
sanctioned any departure by the Executive from a policy which has so
uniformly obtained. Moreover, a concession of the elective franchise to the
freedmen by act of the President of the United States must have been
extended to all colored men, wherever found, and so must have established a
change of suffrage in the Northern, Middle, and Western States, not less
than in the Southern and Southwestern. Such an act would have created a new
class of voters, and would have been an assumption of power by the
President which nothing in the Constitution or laws of the United States
would have warranted.

On the other hand, every danger of conflict is avoided when the settlement
of the question is referred to the several States. They can, each for
itself, decide on the measure, and whether it is to be adopted at once and
absolutely or introduced gradually and with conditions. In my judgment the
freedmen, if they show patience and manly virtues, will sooner obtain a
participation in the elective franchise through the States than through the
General Government, even if it had power to intervene. When the tumult of
emotions that have been raised by the suddenness of the social change shall
have subsided, it may prove that they will receive the kindest usage from
some of those on whom they have heretofore most closely depended.

But while I have no doubt that now, after the close of the war, it is not
competent for the General Government to extend the elective franchise in
the several States, it is equally clear that good faith requires the
security of the freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right
to labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor. I can
not too strongly urge a dispassionate treatment of this subject, which
should be carefully kept aloof from all party strife. We must equally avoid
hasty assumptions of any natural impossibility for the two races to live
side by side in a state of mutual benefit and good will. The experiment
involves us in no inconsistency; let us, then, go on and make that
experiment in good faith, and not be too easily disheartened. The country
is in need of labor, and the freedmen are in need of employment, culture,
and protection. While their right of voluntary migration and expatriation
is not to be questioned, I would not advise their forced removal and
colonization. Let us rather encourage them to honorable and useful
industry, where it may be beneficial to themselves and to the country; and,
instead of hasty anticipations of the certainty of failure, let there be
nothing wanting to the fair trial of the experiment. The change in their
condition is the substitution of labor by contract for the status of
slavery. The freedman can not fairly be accused of unwillingness to work so
long as a doubt remains about his freedom of choice in his pursuits and the
certainty of his recovering his stipulated wages. In this the interests of
the employer and the employed coincide. The employer desires in his workmen
spirit and alacrity, and these can be permanently secured in no other way.
And if the one ought to be able to enforce the contract, so ought the
other. The public interest will be best promoted if the several States will
provide adequate protection and remedies for the freedmen. Until this is in
some way accomplished there is no chance for the advantageous use of their
labor, and the blame of ill success will not rest on them.

I know that sincere philanthropy is earnest for the immediate realization
of its remotest aims; but time is always an element in reform. It is one of
the greatest acts on record to have brought 4,000,000 people into freedom.
The career of free industry must be fairly opened to them, and then their
future prosperity and condition must, after all, rest mainly on themselves.
If they fail, and so perish away, let us be careful that the failure shall
not be attributable to any denial of justice. In all that relates to the
destiny of the freedmen we need not be too anxious to read the future; many
incidents which, from a speculative point of view, might raise alarm will
quietly settle themselves. Now that slavery is at an end, or near its end,
the greatness of its evil in the point of view of public economy becomes
more and more apparent. Slavery was essentially a monopoly of labor, and as
such locked the States where it prevailed against the incoming of free
industry. Where labor was the property of the capitalist, the white man was
excluded from employment, or had but the second best chance of finding it;
and the foreign emigrant turned away from the region where his condition
would be so precarious. With the destruction of the monopoly free labor
will hasten from all pans of the civilized world to assist in developing
various and immeasurable resources which have hitherto lain dormant. The
eight or nine States nearest the Gulf of Mexico have a soil of exuberant
fertility, a climate friendly to long life, and can sustain a denser
population than is found as yet in any part of our country. And the future
influx of population to them will be mainly from the North or from the most
cultivated nations in Europe. From the sufferings that have attended them
during our late struggle let us look away to the future, which is sure to
be laden for them with greater prosperity than has ever before been known.
The removal of the monopoly of slave labor is a pledge that those regions
will be peopled by a numerous and enterprising population, which will vie
with any in the Union in compactness, inventive genius, wealth, and
industry.

Our Government springs from and was made for the people--not the people for
the Government. To them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its
courage, strength, and wisdom. But while the Government is thus bound to
defer to the people, from whom it derives its existence, it should, from
the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of resistance
to the establishment of inequalities. Monopolies, perpetuities, and class
legislation are contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to
be allowed. Here there is no room for favored classes or monopolies; the
principle of our Government is that of equal laws and freedom of industry.
Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger,
discord, and trouble. We shall but fulfill our duties as legislators by
according "equal and exact justice to all men," special privileges to none.
The Government is subordinate to the people; but, as the agent and
representative of the people, it must be held superior to monopolies, which
in themselves ought never to be granted, and which, where they exist, must
be subordinate and yield to the Government.

The Constitution confers on Congress the right to regulate commerce among
the several States. It is of the first necessity, for the maintenance of
the Union, that that commerce should be free and unobstructed. No State can
be justified in any device to tax the transit of travel and commerce
between States. The position of many States is such that if they were
allowed to take advantage of it for purposes of local revenue the commerce
between States might be injuriously burdened, or even virtually prohibited.
It is best, while the country is still young and while the tendency to
dangerous monopolies of this kind is still feeble, to use the power of
Congress so as to prevent any selfish impediment to the free circulation of
men and merchandise. A tax on travel and merchandise in their transit
constitutes one of the worst forms of monopoly, and the evil is increased
if coupled with a denial of the choice of route. When the vast extent of
our country is considered, it is plain that every obstacle to the free
circulation of commerce between the States ought to be sternly guarded
against by appropriate legislation within the limits of the Constitution.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior explains the condition of the
public lands, the transactions of the Patent Office and the Pension Bureau,
the management of our Indian affairs, the progress made in the construction
of the Pacific Railroad, and furnishes information in reference to matters
of local interest in the District of Columbia. It also presents evidence of
the successful operation of the homestead act, under the provisions of
which 1,160,533 acres of the public lands were entered during the last
fiscal year--more than one-fourth of the whole number of acres sold or
otherwise disposed of during that period. It is estimated that the receipts
derived from this source are sufficient to cover the expenses incident to
the survey and disposal of the lands entered under this act, and that
payments in cash to the extent of from 40 to 50 per cent will be made by
settlers who may thus at any time acquire title before the expiration of
the period at which it would otherwise vest. The homestead policy was
established only after long and earnest resistance; experience proves its
wisdom. The lands in the hands of industrious settlers, whose labor creates
wealth and contributes to the public resources, are worth more to the
United States than if they had been reserved as a solitude for future
purchasers.

The lamentable events of the last four years and the sacrifices made by the
gallant men of our Army and Navy have swelled the records of the Pension
Bureau to an unprecedented extent. On the 30th day of June last the total
number of pensioners was 85,986, requiring for their annual pay, exclusive
of expenses, the sum of $8,023,445. The number of applications that have
been allowed since that date will require a large increase of this amount
for the next fiscal year. The means for the payment of the stipends due
under existing laws to our disabled soldiers and sailors and to the
families of such as have perished in the service of the country will no
doubt be cheerfully and promptly granted. A grateful people will not
hesitate to sanction any measures having for their object the relief of
soldiers mutilated and families made fatherless in the efforts to preserve
our national existence.

The report of the Postmaster-General presents an encouraging exhibit of the
operations of the Post-Office Department during the year. The revenues of
the past year, from the loyal States alone, exceeded the maximum annual
receipts from all the States previous to the rebellion in the sum of
$6,038,091; and the annual average increase of revenue during the last four
years, compared with the revenues of the four years immediately preceding
the rebellion, was $3,533,845. The revenues of the last fiscal year
amounted to $14,556,158 and the expenditures to $13,694,728, leaving a
surplus of receipts over expenditures of $861,430. Progress has been made
in restoring the postal service in the Southern States. The views presented
by the Postmaster-General against the policy of granting subsidies to the
ocean mail steamship lines upon established routes and in favor of
continuing the present system, which limits the compensation for ocean
service to the postage earnings, are recommended to the careful
consideration of Congress.

It appears from the report of the Secretary of the Navy that while at the
commencement of the present year there were in commission 530 vessels of
all classes and descriptions, armed with 3,000 guns and manned by 51,000
men, the number of vessels at present in commission is 117, with 830 guns
and 12,128 men. By this prompt reduction of the naval forces the expenses
of the Government have been largely diminished, and a number of vessels
purchased for naval purposes from the merchant marine have been returned to
the peaceful pursuits of commerce. Since the suppression of active
hostilities our foreign squadrons have been reestablished, and consist of
vessels much more efficient than those employed on similar service previous
to the rebellion. The suggestion for the enlargement of the navy-yards, and
especially for the establishment of one in fresh water for ironclad
vessels, is deserving of consideration, as is also the recommendation for a
different location and more ample grounds for the Naval Academy.

In the report of the Secretary of War a general summary is given of the
military campaigns of 1864 and 1865, ending in the suppression of armed
resistance to the national authority in the insurgent States. The
operations of the general administrative bureaus of the War Department
during the past year are detailed and an estimate made of the
appropriations that will be required for military purposes in the fiscal
year commencing the 1st day of July, 1866. The national military force on
the 1st of May, 1865, numbered 1,000,516 men. It is proposed to reduce the
military establishment to a peace footing, comprehending 50,000 troops of
all arms, organized so as to admit of an enlargement by filling up the
ranks to 82,600 if the circumstances of the country should require an
augmentation of the Army. The volunteer force has already been reduced by
the discharge from service of over 800,000 troops, and the Department is
proceeding rapidly in the work of further reduction. The war estimates are
reduced from $516,240,131 to $33,814,461, which amount, in the opinion of
the Department, is adequate for a peace establishment. The measures of
retrenchment in each bureau and branch of the service exhibit a diligent
economy worthy of commendation. Reference is also made in the report to the
necessity of providing for a uniform militia system and to the propriety of
making suitable provision for wounded and disabled officers and soldiers.

The revenue system of the country is a subject of vital interest to its
honor and prosperity, and should command the earnest consideration of
Congress. The Secretary of the Treasury will lay before you a full and
detailed report of the receipts and disbursements of the last fiscal year,
of the first quarter of the present fiscal year, of the probable receipts
and expenditures for the other three quarters, and the estimates for the
year following the 30th of June, 1866. I might content myself with a
reference to that report, in which you will find all the information
required for your deliberations and decision, but the paramount importance
of the subject so presses itself on my own mind that I can not but lay
before you my views of the measures which are required for the good
character, and I might almost say for the existence, of this people. The
life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence
of its citizens; but it is equally true that a good revenue system is the
life of an organized government. I meet you at a time when the nation has
voluntarily burdened itself with a debt unprecedented in our annals. Vast
as is its amount, it fades away into nothing when compared with the
countless blessings that will be conferred upon our country and upon man by
the preservation of the nation's life. Now, on the first occasion of the
meeting of Congress since the return of peace, it is of the utmost
importance to inaugurate a just policy, which shall at once be put in
motion, and which shall commend itself to those who come after us for its
continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the complete effacement of
the financial evils that necessarily followed a state of civil war. We must
endeavor to apply the earliest remedy to the deranged state of the
currency, and not shrink from devising a policy which, with-out being
oppressive to the people, shall immediately begin to effect a reduction of
the debt, and, if persisted in, discharge it fully within a definitely
fixed number of years.

It is our first duty to prepare in earnest for our recovery from the
ever-increasing evils of an irredeemable currency without a sudden
revulsion, and yet without untimely procrastination. For that end we must
each, in our respective positions, prepare the way. I hold it the duty of
the Executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditures, and a sparing
economy is itself a great national resource. Of the banks to which
authority has been given to issue notes secured by bonds of the United
States we may require the greatest moderation and prudence, and the law
must be rigidly enforced when its limits are exceeded. We may each one of
us counsel our active and enterprising countrymen to be constantly on their
guard, to liquidate debts contracted in a paper currency, and by conducting
business as nearly as possible on a system of cash payments or short
credits to hold themselves prepared to return to the standard of gold and
silver. To aid our fellow-citizens in the prudent management of their
monetary affairs, the duty devolves on us to diminish by law the amount of
paper money now in circulation. Five years ago the bank-note circulation of
the country amounted to not much more than two hundred millions; now the
circulation, bank and national, exceeds seven hundred millions. The simple
statement of the fact recommends more strongly than any words of mine could
do the necessity of our restraining this expansion. The gradual reduction
of the currency is the only measure that can save the business of the
country from disastrous calamities, and this can be almost imperceptibly
accomplished by gradually funding the national circulation in securities
that may be made redeemable at the pleasure of the Government.

Our debt is doubly secure--first in the actual wealth and still greater
undeveloped resources of the country, and next in the character of our
institutions. The most intelligent observers among political economists
have not failed to remark that the public debt of a country is safe in
proportion as its people are free; that the debt of a republic is the
safest of all. Our history confirms and establishes the theory, and is, I
firmly believe, destined to give it a still more signal illustration. The
secret of this superiority springs not merely from the fact that in a
republic the national obligations are distributed more widely through
countless numbers in all classes of society; it has its root in the
character of our laws. Here all men contribute to the public welfare and
bear their fair share of the public burdens. During the war, under the
impulses of patriotism, the men of the great body of the people, without
regard to their own comparative want of wealth, thronged to our armies and
filled our fleets of war, and held themselves ready to offer their lives
for the public good. Now, in their turn, the property and income of the
country should bear their just proportion of the burden of taxation, while
in our impost system, through means of which increased vitality is
incidentally imparted to all the industrial interests of the nation, the
duties should be so adjusted as to fall most heavily on articles of luxury
leaving the necessaries of life as free from taxation as the absolute wants
of the Government economically administered will justify. No favored class
should demand freedom from assessment, and the taxes should be so
distributed as not to fall unduly on the poor, but rather on the
accumulated wealth of the country. We should look at the national debt just
as it is--not as a national blessing, but as a heavy burden on the industry
of the country, to be discharged without unnecessary delay.

It is estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury that the expenditures for
the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, 1866, will exceed the receipts
$112,194,947. It is gratifying, however, to state that it is also estimated
that the revenue for the year ending the 30th of June, 1867, will exceed
the expenditures in the sum of $111,682,818. This amount, or so much as may
be deemed sufficient for the purpose, may be applied to the reduction of
the public debt, which on the 31st day of October, 1865, was
$2,740,854,750. Every reduction will diminish the total amount of interest
to be paid, and so enlarge the means of still further reductions, until the
whole shall be liquidated; and this, as will be seen from the estimates of
the Secretary of the Treasury, may be accomplished by annual payments even
within a period not exceeding thirty years. I have faith that we shall do
all this within a reasonable time; that as we have amazed the world by the
suppression of a civil war which was thought to be beyond the control of
any government, so we shall equally show the superiority of our
institutions by the prompt and faithful discharge of our national
obligations.

The Department of Agriculture under its present direction is accomplishing
much in developing and utilizing the vast agricultural capabilities of the
country, and for information respecting the details of its management
reference is made to the annual report of the Commissioner.

I have dwelt thus fully on our domestic affairs because of their
transcendent importance. Under any circumstances our great extent of
territory and variety of climate, producing almost everything that is
necessary for the wants and even the comforts of man, make us singularly
independent of the varying policy of foreign powers and protect us against
every temptation to "entangling alliances," while at the present moment the
reestablishment of harmony and the strength that comes from harmony will be
our best security against "nations who feel power and forget right." For
myself, it has been and it will be my constant aim to promote peace and
amity with all foreign nations and powers, and I have every reason to
believe that they all, without exception, are animated by the same
disposition. Our relations with the Emperor of China, so recent in their
origin, are most friendly. Our commerce with his dominions is receiving new
developments, and it is very pleasing to find that the Government of that
great Empire manifests satisfaction with our policy and reposes just
confidence in the fairness which marks our intercourse. The unbroken
harmony between the United States and the Emperor of Russia is receiving a
new support from an enterprise designed to carry telegraphic lines across
the continent of Asia, through his dominions, and so to connect us with all
Europe by a new channel of intercourse. Our commerce with South America is
about to receive encouragement by a direct line of mail steamships to the
rising Empire of Brazil. The distinguished party of men of science who have
recently left our country to make a scientific exploration of the natural
history and rivers and mountain ranges of that region have received from
the Emperor that generous welcome which was to have been expected from his
constant friendship for the United States and his well-known zeal in
promoting the advancement of knowledge. A hope is entertained that our
commerce with the rich and populous countries that border the Mediterranean
Sea may be largely increased. Nothing will be wanting on the part of this
Government to extend the protection of our flag over the enterprise of our
fellow-citizens. We receive from the powers in that region assurances of
good will; and it is worthy of note that a special envoy has brought us
messages of condolence on the death of our late Chief Magistrate from the
Bey of Tunis, whose rule includes the old dominions of Carthage, on the
African coast.

Our domestic contest, now happily ended, has left some traces in our
relations with one at least of the great maritime powers. The formal
accordance of belligerent rights to the insurgent States was unprecedented,
and has not been justified by the issue. But in the systems of neutrality
pursued by the powers which made that concession there was a marked
difference. The materials of war for the insurgent States were furnished,
in a great measure, from the workshops of Great Britain, and British ships,
manned by British subjects and prepared for receiving British armaments,
sallied from the ports of Great Britain to make war on American commerce
under the shelter of a commission from the insurgent States. These ships,
having once escaped from British ports, ever afterwards entered them in
every part of the world to refit, and so to renew their depredations. The
consequences of this conduct were most disastrous to the States then in
rebellion, increasing their desolation and misery by the prolongation of
our civil contest. It had, moreover, the effect, to a great extent, to
drive the American flag from the sea, and to transfer much of our shipping
and our commerce to the very power whose subjects had created the necessity
for such a change. These events took place before I was called to the
administration of the Government. The sincere desire for peace by which I
am animated led me to approve the proposal, already made, to submit the
question which had thus arisen between the countries to arbitration. These
questions are of such moment that they must have commanded the attention of
the great powers, and are so interwoven with the peace and interests of
every one of them as to have insured an impartial decision. I regret to
inform you that Great Britain declined the arbitrament, but, on the other
hand, invited us to the formation of a joint commission to settle mutual
claims between the two countries, from which those for the depredations
before mentioned should be excluded. The proposition, in that very
unsatisfactory form, has been declined.

The United States did not present the subject as an impeachment of the good
faith of a power which was professing the most friendly dispositions, but
as involving questions of public law of which the settlement is essential
to the peace of nations; and though pecuniary reparation to their injured
citizens would have followed incidentally on a decision against Great
Britain, such compensation was not their primary object. They had a higher
motive, and it was in the interests of peace and justice to establish
important principles of international law. The correspondence will be
placed before you. The ground on which the British minister rests his
justification is, substantially, that the municipal law of a nation and the
domestic interpretations of that law are the measure of its duty as a
neutral, and I feel bound to declare my opinion before you and before the
world that that justification can not be sustained before the tribunal of
nations. At the same time; I do not advise to any present attempt at
redress by acts of legislation. For the future, friendship between the two
countries must rest on the basis of mutual justice.

From the moment of the establishment of our free Constitution the civilized
world has been convulsed by revolutions in the interests of democracy or of
monarchy, but through all those revolutions the United States have wisely
and firmly refused to become propagandists of republicanism. It is the only
government suited to our condition; but we have never sought to impose it
on others, and we have consistently followed the advice of Washington to
recommend it only by the careful preservation and prudent use of the
blessing. During all the intervening period the policy of European powers
and of the United States has, on the whole, been harmonious. Twice, indeed,
rumors of the invasion of some parts of America in the interest of monarchy
have prevailed; twice my predecessors have had occasion to announce the
views of this nation in respect to such interference. On both occasions the
remonstrance of the United States was respected from a deep conviction on
the part of European Governments that the system of noninterference and
mutual abstinence from propagandism was the true rule for the two
hemispheres. Since those times we have advanced in wealth and power, but we
retain the same purpose to leave the nations of Europe to choose their own
dynasties and form their own systems of government. This consistent
moderation may justly demand a corresponding moderation. We should regard
it as a great calamity to ourselves, to the cause of good government, and
to the peace of the world should any European power challenge the American
people, as it were, to the defense of republicanism against foreign
interference. We can not foresee and are unwilling to consider what
opportunities might present themselves, what combinations might offer to
protect ourselves against designs inimical to our form of government. The
United States desire to act in the future as they have ever acted
heretofore; they never will be driven from that course but by the
aggression of European powers, and we rely on the wisdom and justice of
those powers to respect the system of noninterference which has so long
been sanctioned by time, and which by its good results has approved itself
to both continents.

The correspondence between the United States and France in reference to
questions which have become subjects of discussion between the two
Governments will at a proper time be laid before Congress.

When, on the organization of our Government under the Constitution, the
President of the United States delivered his inaugural address to the two
Houses of Congress, he said to them, and through them to the country and to
mankind, that-- The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the
destiny of the republican model of government are justly

considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment
intrusted to the hands of the American

people. And the House of Representatives answered Washington by the voice
of Madison: We adore the Invisible Hand which has led the American people,
through so many difficulties, to cherish a

conscious responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty. More than
seventy-six years have glided away since these words were spoken; the
United States have passed through severer trials than were foreseen; and
now, at this new epoch in our existence as one nation, with our Union
purified by sorrows and strengthened by conflict and established by the
virtue of the people, the greatness of the occasion invites us once more to
repeat with solemnity the pledges of our fathers to hold ourselves
answerable before our fellow-men for the success of the republican form of
government. Experience has proved its sufficiency in peace and in war; it
has vindicated its authority through dangers and afflictions, and sudden
and terrible emergencies, which would have crushed any system that had been
less firmly fixed in the hearts of the people. At the inauguration of
Washington the foreign relations of the country were few and its trade was
repressed by hostile regulations; now all the civilized nations of the
globe welcome our commerce, and their governments profess toward us amity.
Then our country felt its way hesitatingly along an untried path, with
States so little bound together by rapid means of communication as to be
hardly known to one another, and with historic traditions extending over
very few years; now intercourse between the States is swift and intimate;
the experience of centuries has been crowded into a few generations, and
has created an intense, indestructible nationality. Then our jurisdiction
did not reach beyond the inconvenient boundaries of the territory which had
achieved independence; now, through cessions of lands, first colonized by
Spain and France, the country has acquired a more complex character, and
has for its natural limits the chain of lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and on
the east and the west the two great oceans. Other nations were wasted by
civil wars for ages before they could establish for themselves the
necessary degree of unity; the latent conviction that our form of
government is the best ever known to the world has enabled us to emerge
from civil war within four years with a complete vindication of the
constitutional authority of the General Government and with our local
liberties and State institutions unimpaired.

The throngs of emigrants that crowd to our shores are witnesses of the
confidence of all peoples in our permanence. Here is the great land of free
labor, where industry is blessed with unexampled rewards and the bread of
the workingman is sweetened by the consciousness that the cause of the
country "is his own cause, his own safety, his own dignity." Here everyone
enjoys the free use of his faculties and the choice of activity as a
natural right. Here, under the combined influence of a fruitful soil,
genial climes, and happy institutions, population has increased
fifteen-fold within a century. Here, through the easy development of
boundless resources, wealth has increased with twofold greater rapidity
than numbers, so that we have become secure against the financial
vicissitudes of other countries and, alike in business and in opinion, are
self-centered and truly independent. Here more and more care is given to
provide education for everyone born on our soil. Here religion, released
from political connection with the civil government, refuses to subserve
the craft of statesmen, and becomes in its independence the spiritual life
of the people. Here toleration is extended to every opinion, in the quiet
certainty that truth needs only a fair field to secure the victory. Here
the human mind goes forth unshackled in the pursuit of science, to collect
stores of knowledge and acquire an ever-increasing mastery over the forces
of nature. Here the national domain is offered and held in millions of
separate freeholds, so that our fellow-citizens, beyond the occupants of
any other part of the earth, constitute in reality a people. Here exists
the democratic form of government; and that form of government, by the
confession of European statesmen," gives a power of which no other form is
capable, because it incorporates every man with the state and arouses
everything that belongs to the soul."

Where in past history. does a parallel exist to the public happiness which
is within the reach of the people of the United States? Where in any part
of the globe can institutions be found so suited to their habits or so
entitled to their love as their own free Constitution? Every one of them,
then, in whatever part of the land he has his home, must wish its
perpetuity. Who of them will not now acknowledge, in the words of
Washington, that "every step by which the people of the United States have
advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been
distinguished by some token of providential agency"? Who will not join with
me in the prayer that the Invisible Hand which has led us through the
clouds that gloomed around our path will so guide us onward to a perfect
restoration of fraternal affection that we of this day may be able to
transmit our great inheritance of State governments in all their rights, of
the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, to our posterity,
and they to theirs through countless generations?

***

State of the Union Address
Andrew Johnson
December 3, 1866

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

After a brief interval the Congress of the United States resumes its annual
legislative labors. An all-wise and merciful Providence has abated the
pestilence which visited our shores, leaving its calamitous traces upon
some portions of our country. Peace, order, tranquillity, and civil
authority have been formally declared to exist throughout the whole of the
United States. In all of the States civil authority has superseded the
coercion of arms, and the people, by their voluntary action, are
maintaining their governments in full activity and complete operation. The
enforcement of the laws is no longer "obstructed in any State by
combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of
judicial proceedings," and the animosities engendered by the war are
rapidly yielding to the beneficent influences of our free institutions and
to the kindly effects of unrestricted social and commercial intercourse. An
entire restoration of fraternal feeling must be the earnest wish of every
patriotic heart; and we will have accomplished our grandest national
achievement when, forgetting the sad events of the past and remembering
only their instructive lessons, we resume our onward career as a free,
prosperous, and united people.

In my message of the 4th of December, 1865, Congress was informed of the
measures which had been instituted by the Executive with a view to the
gradual restoration of the States in which the insurrection occurred to
their relations with the General Government. Provisional governors had been
appointed, conventions called, governors elected, legislatures assembled,
and Senators and Representatives chosen to the Congress of the United
States. Courts had been opened for the enforcement of laws long in
abeyance. The blockade had been removed, custom-houses reestablished, and
the internal-revenue laws put in force, in order that the people might
contribute to the national income. Postal operations had been renewed, and
efforts were being made to restore them to their former condition of
efficiency. The States themselves had been asked to take Dart in the high
function of amending the Constitution, and of thus sanctioning the
extinction of African slavery as one of the legitimate results of our
internecine struggle.

Having progressed thus far, the executive department found that it had
accomplished nearly all that was within the scope of its constitutional
authority. One thing, however, yet remained to be done before the work of
restoration could be completed, and that was the admission to Congress of
loyal Senators and Representatives from the States whose people had
rebelled against the lawful authority of the General Government. This
question devolved upon the respective Houses, which by the Constitution are
made the judges of the elections, returns, and qualifications of their own
members, and its consideration at once engaged the attention of Congress.

In the meantime the executive department--no other plan having been
proposed by Congress--continued its efforts to perfect, as far as was
practicable, the restoration of the proper relations between the citizens
of the respective States, the States, and the Federal Government, extending
from time to time, as the public interests seemed to require, the judicial,
revenue, and postal systems of the country. With the advice and consent of
the Senate, the necessary officers were appointed and appropriations made
by Congress for the payment of their salaries. The proposition to amend the
Federal Constitution, so as to prevent the existence of slavery within the
United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction, was ratified by
the requisite number of States, and on the 18th day of December, 1865, it
was officially declared to have become valid as a part of the Constitution
of the United States. All of the States in which the insurrection had
existed promptly amended their constitutions so as to make them conform to
the great change thus effected in the organic law of the land; declared
null and void all ordinances and laws of secession; repudiated all
pretended debts and obligations created for the revolutionary purposes of
the insurrection, and proceeded in good faith to the enactment of measures
for the protection and amelioration of the condition of the colored race.
Congress, however, yet hesitated to admit any of these States to
representation, and it was not until toward the close of the eighth month
of the session that an exception was made in favor of Tennessee by the
admission of her Senators and Representatives.

I deem it a subject of profound regret that Congress has thus far failed to
admit to seats loyal Senators and Representatives from the other States
whose inhabitants, with those of Tennessee, had engaged in the rebellion.
Ten States--more than one-fourth of the whole number--remain without
representation; the seats of fifty members in the House of Representatives
and of twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by their own
consent, not by a failure of election, but by the refusal of Congress to
accept their credentials. Their admission, it is believed, would have
accomplished much toward the renewal and strengthening of our relations as
one people and removed serious cause for discontent on the part of the
inhabitants of those States. It would have accorded with the great
principle enunciated in the Declaration of American Independence that no
people ought to bear the burden of taxation and yet be denied the right of
representation. It would have been in consonance with the express
provisions of the Constitution that "each State shall have at least one
Representative" and "that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived
of its equal suffrage in the Senate." These provisions were intended to
secure to every State and to the people of every State the right of
representation in each House of Congress; and so important was it deemed by
the framers of the Constitution that the equality of the States in the
Senate should be preserved that not even by an amendment of the
Constitution can any State, without its consent, be denied a voice in that
branch of the National Legislature.

It is true it has been assumed that the existence of the States was
terminated by the rebellious acts of their inhabitants, and that, the
insurrection having been suppressed, they were thenceforward to be
considered merely as conquered territories. The legislative, executive, and
judicial departments of the Government have, however, with Heat
distinctness and uniform consistency, refused to sanction an assumption so
incompatible with the nature of our republican system and with the
professed objects of the war. Throughout the recent legislation of Congress
the undeniable fact makes itself apparent that these ten political
communities are nothing less than States of this Union. At the very
commencement of the rebellion each House declared, with a unanimity as
remarkable as it was significant, that the war was not "waged upon our part
in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or
subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or
established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the
supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and
to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the
several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects" were
"accomplished the war ought to cease." In some instances Senators were
permitted to continue their legislative functions, while in other instances
Representatives were elected and admitted to seats after their States had
formally declared their right to withdraw from the Union and were
endeavoring to maintain that right by force of arms. All of the States
whose people were in insurrection, as States, were included in the
apportionment of the direct tax of $20,000,000 annually laid upon the
United States by the act approved 5th August, 1861. Congress, by the act of
March 4, 1862, and by the apportionment of representation thereunder also
recognized their presence as States in the Union; and they have, for
judicial purposes, been divided into districts, as States alone can be
divided. The same recognition appears in the recent legislation in
reference to Tennessee, which evidently rests upon the fact that the
functions of the State were not destroyed by the rebellion, but merely
suspended; and that principle is of course applicable to those States
which, like Tennessee, attempted to renounce their places in the Union.

The action of the executive department of the Government upon this subject
has been equally definite and uniform, and the purpose of the war was
specifically stated in the proclamation issued by my predecessor on the 22d
day of September, 1862. It was then solemnly proclaimed and declared "that
hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of
practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States
and each of the States and the people thereof in which States that relation
is or may be suspended or disturbed."

The recognition of the States by the judicial department of the Government
has also been dear and conclusive in all proceedings affecting them as
States had in the Supreme, circuit, and district courts. In the admission
of Senators and Representatives from any and all of the States there can be
no just ground of apprehension that persons who are disloyal will be
clothed with the powers of legislation, for this could not happen when the
Constitution and the laws are enforced by a vigilant and faithful Congress.
Each House is made the "judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications
of its own members," and may, "with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a
member." When a Senator or Representative presents his certificate of
election, he may at once be admitted or rejected; or, should there be any
question as to his eligibility, his credentials may be referred for
investigation to the appropriate committee. If admitted to a seat, it must
be upon evidence satisfactory to the House of which he thus becomes a
member that he possesses the requisite constitutional and legal
qualifications. If refused admission as a member for want of due allegiance
to the Government and returned to his constituents, they are admonished
that none but persons loyal to the United States will be allowed a voice in
the legislative councils of the nation, and the political power and moral
influence of Congress are thus effectively exerted in the interests of
loyalty to the Government and fidelity to the Union. Upon this question, so
vitally affecting the restoration of the Union and the permanency of our
present form of government, my convictions, heretofore expressed, have
undergone no change, but, on the contrary, their correctness has been
confirmed by reflection and time. If the admission of loyal members to
seats in the respective Houses of Congress was wise and expedient a year
ago, it is no less wise and expedient now. If this anomalous condition is
right now--if in the exact condition of these States at the present time it
is lawful to exclude them from representation--I do not see that the
question will be changed by the efflux of time. Ten years hence. if these
States remain as they are, the right of representation will be no stronger,
the right of exclusion will be no weaker.

The Constitution of the United States makes it the duty of the President to
recommend to the consideration of Congress "such measures as he shall judge
necessary and expedient." I know of no measure more imperatively demanded
by every consideration of national interest, sound policy, and equal
justice than the admission of loyal members from the now unrepresented
States. This would consummate the work of restoration and exert a most
salutary influence in the reestablishment of peace, harmony, and fraternal
feeling. It would tend greatly to renew the confidence of the American
people in the vigor and stability of their institutions. It would bind us
more closely together as a nation and enable us to show to the world the
inherent and recuperative power of a government founded upon the will of
the people and established upon the principles of liberty, justice, and
intelligence. Our increased strength and enhanced prosperity would
irrefragably demonstrate the fallacy of the arguments against free
institutions drawn from our recent national disorders by the enemies of
republican government. The admission of loyal members from the States now
excluded from Congress, by allaying doubt and apprehension, would turn
capital now awaiting an opportunity for investment into the channels of
trade and industry. It would alleviate the present troubled condition of
those States, and by inducing emigration aid in the settlement of fertile
regions now uncultivated and lead to an increased production of those
staples which have added so greatly to the wealth of the nation and
commerce of the world. New fields of enterprise would be opened to our
progressive people and soon the devastations of war would be repaired and
all traces of our domestic differences effaced from the minds of our
countrymen.

In our efforts to preserve "the unity of government which constitutes as
one people" by restoring the States to the condition which they held prior
to the rebellion, we should be cautious, lest, having rescued our nation
from perils of threatened disintegration, we resort to consolidation, and
in the end absolute despotism, as a remedy for the recurrence of similar
troubles. The war having terminated, and with it all occasion for the
exercise of powers of doubtful constitutionality, we should hasten to bring
legislation within the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution and to
return to the ancient landmarks established by our fathers for the guidance
of succeeding generations. The constitution which at any time exists till
changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is

sacredly obligatory upon all. If in the opinion of the people the
distribution or modification of the

constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an
amendment in the way which the

Constitution designates; but let there be no change by usurpation, for it
is the customary weapon by which

free governments are destroyed. Washington spoke these words to his
countrymen when, followed by their love and gratitude, he voluntarily
retired from the cares of public life. "To keep in all things within the
pale of our constitutional powers and cherish the Federal Union as the only
rock of safety" were prescribed by Jefferson as rules of action to endear
to his "countrymen the true principles of their Constitution and promote a
union of sentiment and action, equally auspicious to their happiness and
safety." Jackson held that the action of the General Government should
always be strictly confined to the sphere of its appropriate duties, and
justly and forcibly urged that our Government is not to be maintained nor
our Union preserved "by invasions of the rights and powers of the several
States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it
weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much
as possible to themselves; in making itself felt, not in its power, but in
its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding
the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move
unobstructed in its proper constitutional orbit." These are the teachings
of men whose deeds and services have made them illustrious, and who, long
since withdrawn from the scenes of life, have left to their country the
rich legacy of their example, their wisdom, and their patriotism. Drawing
fresh inspiration from their lessons, let us emulate them in love of
country and respect for the Constitution and the laws.

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury affords much information
respecting the revenue and commerce of the country. His views upon the
currency and with reference to a proper adjustment of our revenue system,
internal as well as impost, are commended to the careful consideration of
Congress. In my last annual message I expressed my general views upon these
subjects. I need now only call attention to the necessity of carrying into
every department of the Government a system of rigid accountability,
thorough retrenchment, and wise economy. With no exceptional nor unusual
expenditures, the oppressive burdens of taxation can be lessened by such a
modification of our revenue laws as will be consistent with the public
faith and the legitimate and necessary wants of the Government.

The report presents a much more satisfactory condition of our finances than
one year ago the most sanguine could have anticipated. During the fiscal
year ending the 30th June, 1865 (the last year of the war), the public debt
was increased $941,902,537, and on the 31st of October, 1865, it amounted
to $2,740,854,750. On the 31st day of October, 1866, it had been reduced to
$2,552,310,006, the diminution during a period of fourteen months,
commencing September 1, 1865, and ending October 31, 1866, having been
$206,379,565. In the last annual report on the state of the finances it was
estimated that during the three quarters of the fiscal year ending the 30th
of June last the debt would be increased $112,194,947. During that period,
however, it was reduced $31,196,387, the receipts of the year having been
$89,905,905 more and the expenditures $200,529,235 less than the estimates.
Nothing could more clearly indicate than these statements the extent and
availability of the national resources and the rapidity and safety with
which under our form of government, great military and naval establishments
can be disbanded and expenses reduced from a war to a peace footing.

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, the receipts were $558,032,620
and the expenditures $520,750,940, leaving an available surplus of
$37,281,680. It is estimated that the receipts for the fiscal year ending
the 30th June, 1867, will be $475,061.386, and that the expenditures will
reach the sum of $316,428,078, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of
$158,633,308. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886, it is estimated
that the receipts will amount to $436,000,000 and that the expenditures
will be $350,247,641, showing an excess of $85,752,359 in favor of the
Government. These estimated receipts may be diminished by a reduction of
excise and import duties, but after all necessary reductions shall have
been made the revenue of the present and of following years will doubtless
be sufficient to cover all legitimate charges upon the Treasury and leave a
large annual surplus to be applied to the payment of the principal of the
debt. There seems now to be no good reason why taxes may not be reduced as
the country advances in population and wealth, and yet the debt be
extinguished within the next quarter of a century.

The report of the Secretary of War furnishes valuable and important
information in reference to the operations of his Department during the
past year. Few volunteers now remain in the service, and they are being
discharged as rapidly as they can be replaced by regular troops. The Army
has been promptly paid, carefully provided with medical treatment, well
sheltered and subsisted, and is to be furnished with breech-loading small
arms. The military strength of the nation has been unimpaired by the
discharge of volunteers, the disposition of unserviceable or perishable
stores, and the retrenchment of expenditure. Sufficient war material to
meet any emergency has been retained, and from the disbanded volunteers
standing ready to respond to the national call large armies can be rapidly
organized, equipped, and concentrated. Fortifications on the coast and
frontier have received or are being prepared for more powerful armaments;
lake surveys and harbor and river improvements are in course of energetic
prosecution. Preparations have been made for the payment of the additional
bounties authorized during the recent session of Congress, under such
regulations as will protect the Government from fraud and secure to the
honorably discharged soldier the well-earned reward of his faithfulness and
gallantry. More than 6,000 maimed soldiers have received artificial limbs
or other surgical apparatus. and 41 national cemeteries, containing the
remains of 104,526 Union soldiers, have already been established. The total
estimate of military appropriations is $25,205,669.

It is stated in the report of the Secretary of the Navy that the naval
force at this time consists of 278 vessels, armed with 2,351 guns. Of
these, 115 vessels, carrying 1,029 guns, are in commission, distributed
chiefly among seven squadrons. The number of men in the service is 13,600.
Great activity and vigilance have been displayed by all the squadrons, and
their movements have been judiciously and efficiently arranged in such
manner as would best promote American commerce and protect the rights and
interests of our countrymen abroad. The vessels unemployed are undergoing
repairs or are laid up until their services may be required. Most of the
ironclad fleet is at League Island, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, a
place which, until decisive action should be taken by Congress, was
selected by the Secretary of the Navy as the most eligible location for
that class of vessels. It is important that a suitable public station
should be provided for the ironclad fleet. It is intended that these
vessels shall be in proper condition for any emergency, and it is desirable
that the bill accepting League Island for naval purposes, which passed the
House of Representatives at its last session, should receive final action
at an early period, in order that there may be a suitable public station
for this class of vessels, as well as a navy-yard of area sufficient for
the wants of the service on the Delaware River. The naval pension fund
amounts to $11,750,000, having been increased $2,750,000 during the year.
The expenditures of the Department for the fiscal year ending 30th June
last were $43,324,526, and the estimates for the coming year amount to
$23,568,436. Attention is invited to the condition of our seamen and the
importance of legislative measures for their relief and improvement. The
suggestions in behalf of this deserving class of our fellow-citizens are
earnestly recommended to the favorable attention of Congress.

The report of the Postmaster-General presents a most satisfactory condition
of the postal service and submits recommendations which deserve the
consideration of Congress. The revenues of the Department for the year
ending June 30, 1866, were $14,386,986 and the expenditures $15,352,079,
showing an excess of the latter of $965,093. In anticipation of this
deficiency, however, a special appropriation was made by Congress in the
act approved July 28, 1866. Including the standing appropriation of
$700,000 for free mail matter as a legitimate portion of the revenues, yet
remaining unexpended, the actual deficiency for the past year is only
$265,093--a sum within $51,141 of the amount estimated in the annual report
of 1864. The decrease of revenue compared with the previous year was 1 1/5
per cent, and the increase of expenditures, owing principally to the
enlargement of the mail service in the South, was 12 per cent. On the 30th
of June last there were in operation 6,930 mail routes, with an aggregate
length of 180,921 miles, an aggregate annual transportation of 71,837,914
miles, and an aggregate annual cost, including all expenditures, of
$8,410,184. The length of railroad routes is 32,092 miles and the annual
transportation 30,609,467 miles. The length of steamboat routes is 14,346
miles and the annual transportation 3,411,962 miles. The mail servce is
rapidly increasing throughout the whole country, and its steady extension
in the Southern States indicates their constantly improving condition. The
growing importance of the foreign service also merits attention. The
post-office department of Great Britain and our own have agreed upon a
preliminary basis for a new postal convention, which it is believed will
prove eminently beneficial to the commercial interests of the United
States, inasmuch as it contemplates a reduction of the international letter
postage to one-half the existing rates: a reduction of postage with all
other countries to and from which correspondence is transmitted in the
British mail, or in closed mails through the United Kingdom; the
establishment of uniform and reasonable charges for the sea and territorial
transit of correspondence in closed mails; and an allowance to each
post-office department of the right to use all mail communications
established under the authority of the other for the dispatch of
correspondence, either in open or closed mails, on the same terms as those
applicable to the inhabitants of the country providing the means of
transmission.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the condition of those
branches of the public service which are committed to his supervision.
During the last fiscal year 4,629,312 acres of public land were disposed
of, 1,892,516 acres of which were entered under the homestead act. The
policy originally adopted relative to the public lands has undergone
essential modifications. Immediate revenue, and not their rapid settlement,
was the cardinal feature of our land system. Long experience and earnest
discussion have resulted in the conviction that the early development of
our agricultural resources and the diffusion of an energetic population
over our vast territory are objects of far greater importance to the
national growth and prosperity than the proceeds of the sale of the land to
the highest bidder in open market. The preemption laws confer upon the
pioneer who complies with the terms they impose the privilege of purchasing
a limited portion of "unoffered lands" at the minimum price. The homestead
enactments relieve the settler from the payment of purchase money, and
secure him a permanent home upon the condition of residence for a term of
years. This liberal policy invites emigration from the Old and from the
more crowded portions of the New World. Its propitious results are
undoubted, and will be more signally manifested when time shall have given
to it a wider development.

Congress has made liberal grants of public land to corporations in aid of
the construction of railroads and other internal improvements. Should this
policy hereafter prevail, more stringent provisions will be required to
secure a faithful application of the fund. The title to the lands should
not pass, by patent or otherwise, but remain in the Government and subject
to its control until some portion of the road has been actually built.
Portions of them might then from time to time be conveyed to the
corporation, but never in a greater ratio to the whole quantity embraced by
the grant than the completed parts bear to the entire length of the
projected improvement. This restriction would not operate to the prejudice
of any undertaking conceived in good faith and executed with reasonable
energy, as it is the settled practice to withdraw from market the lands
falling within the operation of such grants, and thus to exclude the
inception of a subsequent adverse right. A breach of the conditions which
Congress may deem proper to impose should work a forfeiture of claim to the
lands so withdrawn but unconveyed, and of title to the lands conveyed which
remain unsold.

Operations on the several lines of the Pacific Railroad have been
prosecuted with unexampled vigor and success. Should no unforeseen causes
of delay occur, it is confidently anticipated that this great thoroughfare
will be completed before the expiration of the period designated by
Congress.

During the last fiscal year the amount paid to pensioners, including the
expenses of disbursement, was $13,459,996, and 50,177 names were added to
the pension rolls. The entire number of pensioners June 30, 1866, was
126,722. This fact furnishes melancholy and striking proof of the
sacrifices made to vindicate the constitutional authority of the Federal
Government and to maintain inviolate the integrity of the Union They impose
upon us corresponding obligations. It is estimated that $33,000,000 will be
required to meet the exigencies of this branch of the service during the
next fiscal year.

Treaties have been concluded with the Indians, who, enticed into armed
opposition to our Government at the outbreak of the rebellion, have
unconditionally submitted to our authority and manifested an earnest desire
for a renewal of friendly relations.

During the year ending September 30, 1866, 8,716 patents for useful
inventions and designs were issued, and at that date the balance in the
Treasury to the credit of the patent fund was $228,297.

As a subject upon which depends an immense amount of the production and
commerce of the country, I recommend to Congress such legislation as may be
necessary for the preservation of the levees of the Mississippi River. It
is a matter of national importance that early steps should be taken, not
only to add to the efficiency of these barriers against destructive
inundations, but for the removal of all obstructions to the free and safe
navigation of that great channel of trade and commerce.

The District of Columbia under existing laws is not entitled to that
representation in the national councils which from our earliest history has
been uniformly accorded to each Territory established from time to time
within our limits. It maintains peculiar relations to Congress, to whom the
Constitution has granted the power of exercising exclusive legislation over
the seat of Government. Our fellow-citizens residing in the District, whose
interests are thus confided to the special guardianship of Congress, exceed
in number the population of several of our Territories, and no just reason
is perceived why a Delegate of their choice should not be admitted to a
seat in the House of Representatives. No mode seems so appropriate and
effectual of enabling them to make known their peculiar condition and wants
and of securing the local legislation adapted to them. I therefore
recommend the passage of a law authorizing the electors of the District of
Columbia to choose a Delegate, to be allowed the same rights and privileges
as a Delegate representing a Territory. The increasing enterprise and rapid
progress of improvement in the District are highly gratifying, and I trust
that the efforts of the municipal authorities to promote the prosperity of
the national metropolis will receive the efficient and generous cooperation
of Congress.

The report of the Commissioner of Agriculture reviews the operations of his
Department during the past year, and asks the aid of Congress in its
efforts to encourage those States which, scourged by war, are now earnestly
engaged in the reorganization of domestic industry.

It is a subject of congratulation that no foreign combinations against our
domestic peace and safety or our legitimate influence among the nations
have been formed or attempted. While sentiments of reconciliation, loyalty,
and patriotism have increased at home, a more just consideration of our
national character and rights has been manifested by foreign nations.

The entire success of the Atlantic telegraph between the coast of Ireland
and the Province of Newfoundland is an achievement which has been justly
celebrated in both hemispheres as the opening of an era in the progress of
civilization. There is reason to expect that equal success will attend and
even greater results follow the enterprise for connecting the two
continents through the Pacific Ocean by the projected line of telegraph
between Kamchatka and the Russian possessions in America.

The resolution of Congress protesting against pardons by foreign
governments of persons convicted of infamous offenses on condition of
emigration to our country has been communicated to the states with which we
maintain intercourse, and the practice, so justly the subject of complaint
on our part, has not been renewed.

The congratulations of Congress to the Emperor of Russia upon his escape
from attempted assassination have been presented to that humane and
enlightened ruler and received by him with expressions of grateful
appreciation.

The Executive, warned of an attempt by Spanish American adventurers to
induce the emigration of freedmen of the United States to a foreign
country, protested against the project as one which, if consummated, would
reduce them to a bondage even more oppressive than that from which they
have just been relieved. Assurance has been received from the Government of
the State in which the plan was matured that the proceeding will meet
neither its encouragement nor approval. It is a question worthy of your
consideration whether our laws upon this subject are adequate to the
prevention or punishment of the crime thus meditated.

In the month of April last, as Congress is aware, a friendly arrangement
was made between the Emperor of France and the President of the United
States for the withdrawal from Mexico of the French expeditionary military
forces. This withdrawal was to be effected in three detachments, the first
of which, it was understood, would leave Mexico in November, now past, the
second in March next, and the third and last in November, 1867. Immediately
upon the completion of the evacuation the French Government was to assume
the same attitude of nonintervention in regard to Mexico as is held by the
Government of the United States. Repeated assurances have been given by the
Emperor since that agreement that he would complete the promised evacuation
within the period mentioned, or sooner.

It was reasonably expected that the proceedings thus contemplated would
produce a crisis of great political interest in the Republic of Mexico. The
newly appointed minister of the United States, Mr. Campbell, was therefore
sent forward on the 9th day of November last to assume his proper functions
as minister plenipotentiary of the United States to that Republic. It was
also thought expedient that he should be attended in the vicinity of Mexico
by the Lieutenant-General of the Army of the United States, with the view
of obtaining such information as might be important to determine the course
to be pursued by the United States in reestablishing and maintaining
necessary and proper intercourse with the Republic of Mexico. Deeply
interested in the cause of liberty and humanity, it seemed an obvious duty
on our part to exercise whatever influence we possessed for the restoration
and permanent establishment in that country of a domestic and republican
form of government.

Such was the condition of our affairs in regard to Mexico when, on the 22d
of November last, official information was received from Paris that the
Emperor of France had some time before decided not to withdraw a detachment
of his forces in the month of November past, according to engagement, but
that this decision was made with the purpose of withdrawing the whole of
those forces in the ensuing spring. Of this determination, however, the
United States had not received any notice or intimation, and so soon as the
information was received by the Government care was taken to make known its
dissent to the Emperor of France.

I can not forego the hope that France will reconsider the subject and adopt
some resolution in regard to the evacuation of Mexico which will conform as
nearly as practicable with the existing engagement, and thus meet the just
expectations of the United States. The papers relating to the subject will
be laid before you. It is believed that with the evacuation of Mexico by
the expeditionary forces no subject for serious differences between France
and the United States would remain. The expressions of the Emperor and
people of France warrant a hope that the traditionary friendship between
the two countries might in that case be renewed and permanently restored.

A claim of a citizen of the United States for indemnity for spoliations
committed on the high seas by the French authorities in the exercise of a
belligerent power against Mexico has been met by the Government of France
with a proposition to defer settlement until a mutual convention for the
adjustment of all claims of citizens and subjects of both countries arising
out of the recent wars on this continent shall be agreed upon by the two
countries. The suggestion is not deemed unreasonable. but it belongs to
Congress to direct the manner in which claims for indemnity by foreigners
as well as by citizens of the United States arising out of the late civil
war shall be adjudicated and determined. I have no doubt that the subject
of all such claims will engage your attention at a convenient and proper
time.

It is a matter of regret that no considerable advance has been made toward
an adjustment of the differences between the United States and Great
Britain arising out of the depredations upon our national commerce and
other trespasses committed during our civil war by British subjects, in
violation of international law and treaty obligations. The delay, however,
may be believed to have resulted in no small degree from the domestic
situation of Great Britain. An entire change of ministry occurred in that
country during the last session of Parliament. The attention of the new
ministry was called to the subject at an early day, and there is some
reason to expect that it will now be considered in a becoming and friendly
spirit. The importance of an early disposition of the question can not be
exaggerated. Whatever might be the wishes of the two Governments, it is
manifest that good will and friendship between the two countries can not be
established until a reciprocity in the practice of good faith and
neutrality shall be restored between the respective nations.

On the 6th of June last, in violation of our neutrality laws, a military
expedition and enterprise against the British North American colonies was
projected and attempted to be carried on within the territory and
jurisdiction of the United States. In obedience to the obligation imposed
upon the Executive by the Constitution to see that the laws are faithfully
executed, all citizens were warned by proclamation against taking part in
or aiding such unlawful proceedings, and the proper civil, military, and
naval officers were directed to take all necessary measures for the
enforcement of the laws. The expedition failed, but it has not been without
its painful consequences. Some of our citizens who, it was alleged, were
engaged in the expedition were captured, and have been brought to trial as
for a capital offense in the Province of Canada. Judgment and sentence of
death have been pronounced against some, while others have been acquitted.
Fully believing in the maxim of government that severity of civil
punishment for misguided persons who have engaged in revolutionary attempts
which have disastrously failed is unsound and unwise, such representations
have been made to the British Government in behalf of the convicted persons
as, being sustained by an enlightened and humane judgment, will, it is
hoped, induce in their cases an exercise of clemency and a judicious
amnesty to all who were engaged in the movement. Counsel has been employed
by the Government to defend citizens of the United States on trial for
capital offenses in Canada, and a discontinuance of the prosecutions which
were instituted in the courts of the United States against those who took
part in the expedition has been directed.

I have regarded the expedition as not only political in its nature, but as
also in a great measure foreign from the United States in its causes,
character, and objects. The attempt was understood to be made in sympathy
with an insurgent party in Ireland, and by striking at a British Province
on this continent was designed to aid in obtaining redress for political
grievances which, it was assumed, the people of Ireland had suffered at the
hands of the British Government during a period of several centuries. The
persons engaged in it were chiefly natives of that country, some of whom
had, while others had not, become citizens of the United States under our
general laws of naturalization. Complaints of misgovernment in Ireland
continually engage the attention of the British nation, and so great an
agitation is now prevailing in Ireland that the British Government have
deemed it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in that country.
These circumstances must necessarily modify the opinion which we might
otherwise have entertained in regard to an expedition expressly prohibited
by our neutrality laws. So long as those laws remain upon our statute books
they should be faithfully executed, and if they operate harshly, unjustly,
or oppressively Congress alone can apply the remedy by their modification
or repeal.

Political and commercial interests of the United States are not unlikely to
be affected in some degree by events which are transpiring in the eastern
regions of Europe, and the time seems to have come when our Government
ought to have a proper diplomatic representation in Greece.

This Government has claimed for all persons not convicted or accused or
suspected of crime an absolute political right of self-expatriation and a
choice of new national allegiance. Most of the European States have
dissented from this principle, and have claimed a right to hold such of
their subjects as have emigrated to and been naturalized in the United
States and afterwards returned on transient visits to their native
countries to the performance of military service in like manner as resident
subjects. Complaints arising from the claim in this respect made by foreign
states have heretofore been matters of controversy between the United
States and some of the European powers, and the irritation consequent upon
the failure to settle this question increased during the war in which
Prussia, Italy, and Austria were recently engaged. While Great Britain has
never acknowledged the right of expatriation, she has not for some years
past practically insisted upon the opposite doctrine. France has been
equally forbearing, and Prussia has proposed a compromise, which, although
evincing increased liberality, has not been accepted by the United States.
Peace is now prevailing everywhere in Europe, and the present seems to be a
favorable time for an assertion by Congress of the principle so long
maintained by the executive department that naturalization by one state
fully exempts the native-born subject of any other state from the
performance of military service under any foreign government, so long as he
does not voluntarily renounce its rights and benefits.

In the performance of a duty imposed upon me by the Constitution I have
thus submitted to the representatives of the States and of the people such
information of our domestic and foreign affairs as the public interests
seem to require. Our Government is now undergoing its most trying ordeal,
and my earnest prayer is that the peril may be successfully and finally
passed without impairing its original strength and symmetry. The interests
of the nation are best to be promoted by the revival of fraternal
relations, the complete obliteration of our past differences, and the
reinauguration of all the pursuits of peace. Directing our efforts to the
early accomplishment of these great ends, let us endeavor to preserve
harmony between the coordinate departments of the Government, that each in
its proper sphere may cordially cooperate with the other in securing the
maintenance of the Constitution, the preservation of the Union, and the
perpetuity of our free institutions.

***

State of the Union Address
Andrew Johnson
December 3, 1867

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

The continued disorganization of the Union, to which the President has so
often called the attention of Congress, is yet a subject of profound and
patriotic concern. We may, however, find some relief from that anxiety in
the reflection that the painful political situation, although before
untried by ourselves, is not new in the experience of nations. Political
science, perhaps as highly perfected in our own time and country as in any
other, has not yet disclosed any means by which civil wars can be
absolutely prevented. An enlightened nation, however, with a wise and
beneficent constitution of free government, may diminish their frequency
and mitigate their severity by directing all its proceedings in accordance
with its fundamental law.

When a civil war has been brought to a close, it is manifestly the first
interest and duty of the state to repair the injuries which the war has
inflicted, and to secure the benefit of the lessons it teaches as fully and
as speedily as possible. This duty was, upon the termination of the
rebellion, promptly accepted not only by the executive department, but by
the insurrectionary States themselves, and restoration in the first moment
of peace was believed to be as easy and certain as it was indispensable.
The expectations, however, then so reasonably and confidently entertained
were disappointed by legislation from which I felt constrained by my
obligations to the Constitution to withhold my assent.

It is therefore a source of profound regret that in complying with the
obligation imposed upon the President by the Constitution to give to
Congress from time to time information of the state of the Union I am
unable to communicate any definitive adjustment satisfactory to the
American people, of the questions which since the close of the rebellion
have agitated the public mind. On the contrary, candor compels me to
declare that at this time there is no Union as our fathers understood the
term, and as they meant it to be understood by us. The Union which they
established can exist only where all the States are represented in both
Houses of Congress; where one State is as free as another to regulate its
internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of the
central Government, strictly confined to matters of national jurisdiction,
apply with equal force to all the people of every section. That such is not
the present "state of the Union" is a melancholy fact, and we must all
acknowledge that the restoration of the States to their proper legal
relations with the Federal Government and with one another, according to
the terms of the original compact, would be the greatest temporal blessing
which God, in His kindest providence, could bestow upon this nation. It
becomes our imperative duty to consider whether or not it is impossible to
effect this most desirable consummation.

The Union and the Constitution are inseparable. As long as one is obeyed by
all parties, the other will be preserved; and if one is destroyed, both
must perish together. The destruction of the Constitution will be followed
by other and still greater calamities. It was ordained not only to form a
more perfect union between the States, but to "establish justice, insure
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity." Nothing but implicit obedience to its requirements in all parts
of the country will accomplish these great ends. Without that obedience we
can look forward only to continual outrages upon individual rights,
incessant breaches of the public peace, national weakness, financial
dishonor, the total loss of our prosperity, the general corruption of
morals, and the final extinction of popular freedom. To save our country
from evils so appalling as these, we should renew our efforts again and
again.

To me the process of restoration seems perfectly plain and simple. It
consists merely in a faithful application of the Constitution and laws. The
execution of the laws is not now obstructed or opposed by physical force.
There is no military or other necessity, real or pretended, which can
prevent obedience to the Constitution, either North or South. All the
rights and all the obligations of States and individuals can be protected
and enforced by means perfectly consistent with the fundamental law. The
courts may be everywhere open, and if open their process would be
unimpeded. Crimes against the United States can be prevented or punished by
the proper judicial authorities in a manner entirely practicable and legal.
There is therefore no reason why the Constitution should not be obeyed,
unless those who exercise its powers have determined that it shall be
disregarded and violated. The mere naked will of this Government, or of
some one or more of its branches, is the only obstacle that can exist to a
perfect union of all the States.

On this momentous question and some of the measures growing out of it I
have had the misfortune to differ from Congress, and have expressed my
convictions without reserve, though with becoming deference to the opinion
of the legislative department. Those convictions are not only unchanged,
but strengthened by subsequent events and further reflection The
transcendent importance of the subject will be a sufficient excuse for
calling your attention to some of the reasons which have so strongly
influenced my own judgment. The hope that we may all finally concur in a
mode of settlement consistent at once with our true interests and with our
sworn duties to the Constitution is too natural and too just to be easily
relinquished.

It is clear to my apprehension that the States lately in rebellion are
still members of the National Union. When did they cease to be so? The
"ordinances of secession" adopted by a portion (in most of them a very
small portion) of their citizens were mere nullities. If we admit now that
they were valid and effectual for the purpose intended by their authors, we
sweep from under our feet the whole ground upon which we justified the war.
Were those States afterwards expelled from the Union by the war? The direct
contrary was averred by this Government to be its purpose, and was so
understood by all those who gave their blood and treasure to aid in its
prosecution. It can not be that a successful war, waged for the
preservation of the Union, had the legal effect of dissolving it. The
victory of the nation's arms was not the disgrace of her policy; the defeat
of secession on the battlefield was not the triumph of its lawless
principle. Nor could Congress, with or without the consent of the
Executive, do anything which would have the effect, directly or indirectly,
of separating the States from each other. To dissolve the Union is to
repeal the Constitution which holds it together, and that is a power which
does not belong to any department of this Government, or to all of them
united.

This is so plain that it has been acknowledged by all branches of the
Federal Government. The Executive (my predecessor as well as myself) and
the heads of all the Departments have uniformly acted upon the principle
that the Union is not only undissolved, but indissoluble. Congress
submitted an amendment of the Constitution to be ratified by the Southern
States, and accepted their acts of ratification as a necessary and lawful
exercise of their highest function. If they were not States, or were States
out of the Union, their consent to a change in the fundamental law of the
Union would have been nugatory, and Congress in asking it committed a
political absurdity. The judiciary has also given the solemn sanction of
its authority to the same view of the case. The judges of the Supreme Court
have included the Southern States in their circuits, and they are
constantly, in banc and elsewhere, exercising jurisdiction which does not
belong to them unless those States are States of the Union.

If the Southern States are component parts of the Union, the Constitution
is the supreme law for them, as it is for all the other States. They are
bound to obey it, and so are we. The right of the Federal Government, which
is clear and unquestionable. to enforce the Constitution upon them implies
the correlative obligation on our part to observe its limitations and
execute its guaranties. Without the Constitution we are nothing; by,
through, and under the Constitution we are what it makes us. We may doubt
the wisdom of the law, we may not approve of its provisions, but we can not
violate it merely because it seems to confine our powers within limits
narrower than we could wish. It is not a question of individual or class or
sectional interest, much less of party predominance, but of duty--of high
and sacred duty--which we are all sworn to perform. If we can not support
the Constitution with the cheerful alacrity of those who love and believe
in it, we must give to it at least the fidelity of public servants who act
under solemn obligations and commands which they dare not disregard.

The constitutional duty is not the only one which requires the States to be
restored. There is another consideration which, though of minor importance,
is yet of great weight. On the 22d day of July, 1861, Congress declared by
an almost unanimous vote of both Houses that the war should be conducted
solely for the purpose of preserving the Union and maintaining the
supremacy of the Federal Constitution and laws, without impairing the
dignity, equality, and rights of the States or of individuals. and that
when this was done the war should cease. I do not say that this declaration
is personally binding on those who joined in making it, any more than
individual members of Congress are personally bound to pay a public debt
created under a law for which they voted. But it was a solemn. public,
official pledge of the national honor, and I can not imagine upon what
grounds the repudiation of it is to be justified. If it be said that we are
not bound to keep faith with rebels, let it be remembered that this promise
was not made to rebels only. Thousands of true men in the South were drawn
to our standard by it, and hundreds of thousands in the North gave their
lives in the belief that it would be carried out. It was made on the day
after the first great battle of the war had been fought and lost. All
patriotic and intelligent men then saw the necessity of giving such an
assurance, and believed that without it the war would end in disaster to
our cause. Having given that assurance in the extremity of our peril, the
violation of it now, in the day of our power, would be a rude rending of
that good faith which holds the moral world together; our country would
cease to have any claim upon the confidence of men; it would make the war
not only a failure, but a fraud.

Being sincerely convinced that these views are correct, I would be
unfaithful to my duty if I did not recommend the repeal of the acts of
Congress which place ten of the Southern States under the domination of
military masters. If calm reflection shall satisfy a majority of your
honorable bodies that the acts referred to are not only a violation of the
national faith, but in direct conflict with the Constitution, I dare not
permit myself to doubt that you will immediately strike them from the
statute book.

To demonstrate the unconstitutional character of those acts I need do no
more than refer to their general provisions. It must be seen at once that
they are not authorized. To dictate what alterations shall be made in the
constitutions of the several States; to control the elections of State
legislators and State officers, members of Congress and electors of
President and Vice-President, by arbitrarily declaring who shall vote and
who shall be excluded from that privilege; to dissolve State legislatures
or prevent them from assembling; to dismiss judges and other civil
functionaries of the State and appoint others without regard to State law;
to organize and operate all the political machinery of the States; to
regulate the whole administration of their domestic and local affairs
according to the mere will of strange and irresponsible agents, sent among
them for that purpose--these are powers not granted to the Federal
Government or to any one of its branches. Not being granted, we violate our
trust by assuming them as palpably as we would by acting in the face of a
positive interdict; for the Constitution forbids us to do whatever it does
not affirmatively authorize, either by express words or by clear
implication. If the authority we desire to use does not come to us through
the Constitution, we can exercise it only by usurpation, and usurpation is
the most dangerous of political crimes. By that crime the enemies of free
government in all ages have worked out their designs against public liberty
and private right. It leads directly and immediately to the establishment
of absolute rule, for undelegated power is always unlimited and
unrestrained.

The acts of Congress in question are not only objectionable for their
assumption of ungranted power, but many of their provisions are in conflict
with the direct prohibitions of the Constitution. The Constitution commands
that a republican form of government shall be guaranteed to all the States;
that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law, arrested without a judicial warrant, or punished without a
fair trial before an impartial jury; that the privilege of habeas corpus
shall not be denied in time of peace, and that no bill of attainder shall
be passed even against a single individual. Yet the system of measures
established by these acts of Congress does totally subvert and destroy the
form as well as the substance of republican government in the ten States to
which they apply. It binds them hand and foot in absolute slavery, and
subjects them to a strange and hostile power, more unlimited and more
likely to be abused than any other now known among civilized men. It
tramples down all those rights in which the essence of liberty consists,
and which a free government is always most careful to protect. It denies
the habeas corpus and the trial by jury. Personal freedom, property, and
life, if assailed by the passion, the prejudice, or the rapacity of the
ruler, have no security whatever. It has the effect of a bill of attainder
or bill of pains and penalties, not upon a few individuals, but upon whole
masses, including the millions who inhabit the subject States, and even
their unborn children. These wrongs, being expressly forbidden, can not be
constitutionally inflicted upon any portion of our people, no matter how
they may have come within our jurisdiction, and no matter whether they live
in States, Territories, or districts.

I have no desire to save from the proper and just consequences of their
great crime those who engaged in rebellion against the Government, but as a
mode of punishment the measures under consideration are the most
unreasonable that could be invented. Many of those people are perfectly
innocent; many kept their fidelity to the Union untainted to the last; many
were incapable of any legal offense; a large proportion even of the persons
able to bear arms were forced into rebellion against their will, and of
those who are guilty with their own consent the degrees of guilt are as
various as the shades of their character and temper. But these acts of
Congress confound them all together in one common doom. Indiscriminate
vengeance upon classes, sects, and parties, or upon whole communities, for
offenses committed by a portion of them against the governments to which
they owed obedience was common in the barbarous ages of the world; but
Christianity and civilization have made such progress that recourse to a
punishment so cruel and unjust would meet with the condemnation of all
unprejudiced and right-minded men. The punitive justice of this age, and
especially of this country, does not consist in stripping whole States of
their liberties and reducing all their people, without distinction, to the
condition of slavery. It deals separately with each individual, confines
itself to the forms of law, and vindicates its own purity by an impartial
examination of every case before a competent judicial tribunal. If this
does not satisfy all our desires with regard to Southern rebels, let us
console ourselves by reflecting that a free Constitution, triumphant in war
and unbroken in peace, is worth far more to us and our children than the
gratification of any present feeling.

I am aware it is assumed that this system of government for the Southern
States is not to be perpetual. It is true this military government is to be
only provisional, but it is through this temporary evil that a greater evil
is to be made perpetual. If the guaranties of the Constitution can be
broken provisionally to serve a temporary purpose, and in a part only of
the country, we can destroy them everywhere and for all time. Arbitrary
measures often change, but they generally change for the worse. It is the
curse of despotism that it has no halting place. The intermitted exercise
of its power brings no sense of security to its subjects, for they can
never know what more they will be called to endure when its red right hand
is armed to plague them again. Nor is it possible to conjecture how or
where power, unrestrained by law, may seek its next victims. The States
that are still free may be enslaved at any moment; for if the Constitution
does not protect all, it protects none.

It is manifestly and avowedly the object of these laws to confer upon
Negroes the privilege of voting and to disfranchise such a number of white
citizens as will give the former a clear majority at all elections in the
Southern States. This, to the minds of some persons, is so important that a
violation of the Constitution is justified as a means of bringing it about.
The morality is always false which excuses a wrong because it proposes to
accomplish a desirable end. We are not permitted to do evil that good may
come. But in this case the end itself is evil, as well as the means. The
subjugation of the States to Negro domination would be worse than the
military despotism under which they are now suffering. It was believed
beforehand that the people would endure any amount of military oppression
for any length of time rather than degrade themselves by subjection to the
Negro race. Therefore they have been left without a choice. Negro suffrage
was established by act of Congress, and the military officers were
commanded to superintend the process of clothing the Negro race with the
political privileges torn from white men.

The blacks in the South are entitled to be well and humanely governed, and
to have the protection of just laws for all their rights of person and
property. If it were practicable at this time to give them a Government
exclusively their own, under which they might manage their own affairs in
their own way, it would become a grave question whether we ought to do so,
or whether common humanity would not require us to save them from
themselves. But under the circumstances this is only a speculative point.
It is not proposed merely that they shall govern themselves, but that they
shall rule the white race, make and administer State laws, elect Presidents
and members of Congress, and shape to a greater or less extent the future
destiny of the whole country. Would such a trust and power be safe in such
hands?

The peculiar qualities which should characterize any people who are fit to
decide upon the management of public affairs for a great state have seldom
been combined. It is the glory of white men to know that they have had
these qualities in sufficient measure to build upon this continent a great
political fabric and to preserve its stability for more than ninety years,
while in every other part of the world all similar experiments have failed.
But if anything can be proved by known facts, if all reasoning upon
evidence is not abandoned, it must be acknowledged that in the progress of
nations Negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race
of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful
in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own
devices they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism. In
the Southern States, however, Congress has undertaken to confer upon them
the privilege of the ballot. Just released from slavery, it may be doubted
whether as a class they know more than their ancestors how to organize and
regulate civil society. indeed, it is admitted that the blacks of the South
are not only regardless of the rights of property, but so utterly ignorant
of public affairs that their voting can consist in nothing more than
carrying a ballot to the place where they are directed to deposit it. I
need not remind you that the exercise of the elective franchise is the
highest attribute of an American citizen, and that when guided by virtue,
intelligence, patriotism, and a proper appreciation of our free
institutions it constitutes the true basis of a democratic form of
government, in which the sovereign power is lodged in the body of the
people. A trust artificially created, not for its own sake, but solely as a
means of promoting the general welfare, its influence for good must
necessarily depend upon the elevated character and true allegiance of the
elector. It ought, therefore, to be reposed in none except those who are
fitted morally and mentally to administer it well; for if conferred upon
persons who do not justly estimate its value and who are indifferent as to
its results, it will only serve as a means of placing power in the hands of
the unprincipled and ambitious, and must eventuate in the complete
destruction of that liberty of which it should be the most powerful
conservator. I have therefore heretofore urged upon your attention the
great danger-- to be apprehended from an untimely extension of the elective
franchise to any new class in our country,

especially when the large majority of that class, in wielding the power
thus placed in their hands, can not be

expected correctly to comprehend the duties and responsibilities which
pertain to suffrage. Yesterday, as it

were, 4,000,000 persons were held in a condition of slavery that had
existed for generations; to-day they are

freemen and are assumed by law to be citizens. It can not be presumed, from
their previous condition of

servitude, that as a class they are as well informed as to the nature of
our Government as the intelligent

foreigner who makes our land the home of his choice. In the case of the
latter neither a residence of five years

and the knowledge of our institutions which it gives nor attachment to the
principles of the Constitution are the

only conditions upon which he can be admitted to citizenship; he must prove
in addition a good moral character,

and thus give reasonable ground for the belief that he will be faithful to
the obligations which he assumes as a

citizen of the Republic. Where a people--the source of all political
power--speak by their suffrages through the

instrumentality of the ballot box, it must be carefully guarded against the
control of those who are corrupt in

principle and enemies of free institutions, for it can only become to our
political and social system a safe

conductor of healthy popular sentiment when kept free from demoralizing
influences. Controlled

through fraud and usurpation by the designing, anarchy and despotism must
inevitably follow. In the hands of

the patriotic and worthy our Government will be preserved upon the
principles of the Constitution inherited

from our fathers. It follows, therefore, that in admitting to the ballot
box a new class of voters not qualified for

the exercise of the elective franchise we weaken our system of government
instead of adding to its strength

and durability.

I yield to no one in attachment to that rule of general suffrage which
distinguishes our policy as a nation. But

there is a limit, wisely observed hitherto, which makes the ballot a
privilege and a trust, and which requires of

some classes a time suitable for probation and preparation. To give it
indiscriminately to a new class, wholly

unprepared by previous habits and opportunities to perform the trust which
it demands, is to degrade it, and

finally to destroy its power, for it may be safely assumed that no
political truth is better established than that

such indiscriminate and all-embracing extension of popular suffrage must
end at last in its destruction. I repeat the expression of my willingness
to join in any plan within the scope of our constitutional authority which
promises to better the condition of the Negroes in the South, by
encouraging them in industry, enlightening their minds, improving their
morals, and giving protection to all their just rights as freedmen. But the
transfer of our political inheritance to them would, in my opinion, be an
abandonment of a duty which we owe alike to the memory of our fathers and
the rights of our children.

The plan of putting the Southern States wholly and the General Government
partially into the hands of Negroes is proposed at a time peculiarly
unpropitious. The foundations of society have been broken up by civil war.
Industry must be reorganized, justice reestablished, public credit
maintained, and order brought out of confusion. To accomplish these ends
would require all the wisdom and virtue of the great men who formed our
institutions originally. I confidently believe that their descendants will
be equal to the arduous task before them, but it is worse than madness to
expect that Negroes will perform it for us. Certainly we ought not to ask
their assistance till we despair of our own competency.

The great difference between the two races in physical, mental, and moral
characteristics will prevent an amalgamation or fusion of them together in
one homogeneous mass. If the inferior obtains the ascendency over the
other, it will govern with reference only to its own interests for it will
recognize no common interest--and create such a tyranny as this continent
has never yet witnessed. Already the Negroes are influenced by promises of
confiscation and plunder. They are taught to regard as an enemy every white
man who has any respect for the rights of his own race. If this continues
it must become worse and worse, until all order will be subverted, all
industry cease, and the fertile fields of the South grow up into a
wilderness. Of all the dangers which our nation has yet encountered, none
are equal to those which must result from the success of the effort now
making to Africanize the half of our country.

I would not put considerations of money in competition with justice and
right; but the expenses incident to "reconstruction" under the system
adopted by Congress aggravate what I regard as the intrinsic wrong of the
measure itself. It has cost uncounted millions already, and if persisted in
will add largely to the weight of taxation, already too oppressive to be
borne without just complaint, and may finally reduce the Treasury of the
nation to a condition of bankruptcy. We must not delude ourselves. It will
require a strong standing army and probably more than $200,000,000 per
annum to maintain the supremacy of Negro governments after they are
established. The sum thus thrown away would, if properly used, form a
sinking fund large enough to pay the whole national debt in less than
fifteen years. It is vain to hope that Negroes will maintain their
ascendency themselves. Without military power they are wholly incapable of
holding in subjection the white people of the South.

I submit to the judgment of Congress whether the public credit may not be
injuriously affected by a system of measures like this. With our debt and
the vast private interests which are complicated with it, we can not be too
cautious of a policy which might by possibility impair the confidence of
the world in our Government. That confidence can only be retained by
carefully inculcating the principles of justice and honor on the popular
mind and by the most scrupulous fidelity to all our engagements of every
sort. Any serious breach of the organic law, persisted in for a
considerable time, can not but create fears for the stability of our
institutions. Habitual violation of prescribed rules, which we bind
ourselves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our only standard of
civil duty being set at naught, the sheet anchor of our political morality
is lost, the public conscience swings from its moorings and yields to every
impulse of passion and interest. If we repudiate the Constitution, we will
not be expected to care much for mere pecuniary obligations. The violation
of such a pledge as we made on the 22d day of July, 1861, will assuredly
diminish the market value of our other promises. Besides, if we acknowledge
that the national debt was created, not to hold the States in the Union, as
the taxpayers were led to suppose, but to expel them from it and hand them
over to be governed by Negroes, the moral duty to pay it may seem much less
clear. I say it may seem so, for I do not admit that this or any other
argument in favor of repudiation can be entertained as sound; but its
influence on some classes of minds may well be apprehended. The financial
honor of a great commercial nation, largely indebted and with a republican
form of government administered by agents of the popular choice, is a thing
of such delicate texture and the destruction of it would be followed by
such unspeakable calamity that every true patriot must desire to avoid
whatever might expose it to the slightest danger.

The great interests of the country require immediate relief from these
enactments. Business in the South is paralyzed by a sense of general
insecurity, by the terror of confiscation, and the dread of Negro
supremacy. The Southern trade, from which the North would have derived so
great a profit under a government of law, still languishes, and can never
be revived until it ceases to be fettered by the arbitrary power which
makes all its operations unsafe. That rich country--the richest in natural
resources the world ever saw--is worse than lost if it be not soon placed
under the protection of a free constitution. Instead of being, as it ought
to be, a source of wealth and power, it will become an intolerable burden
upon the rest of the nation.

Another reason for retracing our steps will doubtless be seen by Congress
in the late manifestations of public opinion upon this subject. We live in
a country where the popular will always enforces obedience to itself,
sooner or later. It is vain to think of opposing it with anything short of
legal authority backed by overwhelming force. It can not have escaped your
attention that from the day on which Congress fairly and formally presented
the proposition to govern the Southern States by military force, with a
view to the ultimate establishment of Negro supremacy, every expression of
the general sentiment has been more or less adverse to it. The affections
of this generation can not be detached from the institutions of their
ancestors. Their determination to preserve the inheritance of free
government in their own hands and transmit it undivided and unimpaired to
their own posterity is too strong to be successfully opposed. Every weaker
passion will disappear before that love of liberty and law for which the
American people are distinguished above all others in the world.

How far the duty of the President "to preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution" requires him to go in opposing an unconstitutional act of
Congress is a very serious and important question, on which I have
deliberated much and felt extremely anxious to reach a proper conclusion.
Where an act has been passed according to the forms of the Constitution by
the supreme legislative authority, and is regularly enrolled among the
public statutes of the country, Executive resistance to it, especially in
times of high party excitement, would be likely to produce violent
collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the
Government. This would be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted
to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to
provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious
magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to
perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not
adopt forcible measures, or such as might lead to force, as long as those
which are peaceable remain open to him or to his constituents. It is true
that cases may occur in which the Executive would be compelled to stand on
its rights, and maintain them regardless of all consequences. If Congress
should pass an act which is not only in palpable conflict with the
Constitution, but will certainly, if carried out, produce immediate and
irreparable injury to the organic structure of the Government, and if there
be neither judicial remedy for the wrongs it inflicts nor power in the
people to protect themselves without the official aid of their elected
defender--if, for instance, the legislative department should pass an act
even through all the forms of law to abolish a coordinate department of the
Government--in such a case the President must take the high
responsibilities of his office and save the life of the nation at all
hazards. The so-called reconstruction acts, though as plainly
unconstitutional as any that can be imagined, were not believed to be
within the class last mentioned. The people were not wholly dis-armed of
the power of self-defense. In all the Northern States they still held in
their hands the sacred right of the ballot, and it was safe to believe that
in due time they would come to the rescue of their own institutions. It
gives me pleasure to add that the appeal to our common constituents was not
taken in vain, and that my confidence in their wisdom and virtue seems not
to have been misplaced.

It is well and publicly known that enormous frauds have been perpetrated on
the Treasury and that colossal fortunes have been made at the public
expense. This species of corruption has increased, is increasing, and if
not diminished will soon bring us into total ruin and disgrace. The public
creditors and the taxpayers are alike interested in an honest
administration of the finances, and neither class will long endure the
large-handed robberies of the recent past. For this discreditable state of
things there are several causes. Some of the taxes are so laid as to
present an irresistible temptation to evade payment. The great sums which
officers may win by connivance at fraud create a pressure which is more
than the virtue of many can withstand, and there can be no doubt that the
open disregard of constitutional obligations avowed by some of the highest
and most influential men in the country has greatly weakened the moral
sense of those who serve in subordinate places. The expenses of the United
States, including interest on the public debt, are more than six times as
much as they were seven years ago. To collect and disburse this vast amount
requires careful supervision as well as systematic vigilance. The system,
never perfected, was much disorganized by the "tenure-of-office bill,"
which has almost destroyed official accountability. The President may be
thoroughly convinced that an officer is incapable, dishonest, or unfaithful
to the Constitution, but under the law which I have named the utmost he can
do is to complain to the Senate and ask the privilege of supplying his
place with a better man. If the Senate be regarded as personally or
politically hostile to the President, it is natural, and not altogether
unreasonable, for the officer to expect that it will take his part as far
as possible, restore him to his place, and give him a triumph over his
Executive superior. The officer has other chances of impunity arising from
accidental defects of evidence, the mode of investigating it, and the
secrecy of the hearing. It is not wonderful that official malfeasance
should become bold in proportion as the delinquents learn to think
themselves safe. I am entirely persuaded that under such a rule the
President can not perform the great duty assigned to him of seeing the laws
faithfully executed, and that it disables him most especially from
enforcing that rigid accountability which is necessary to the due execution
of the revenue laws.

The Constitution invests the President with authority to decide whether a
removal should be made in any given case; the act of Congress declares in
substance that he shall only accuse such as he supposes to be unworthy of
their trust. The Constitution makes him sole judge in the premises, but the
statute takes away his jurisdiction, transfers it to the Senate, and leaves
him nothing but the odious and sometimes impracticable duty of becoming a
prosecutor. The prosecution is to be conducted before a tribunal whose
members are not, like him, responsible to the whole people, but to separate
constituent bodies, and who may hear his accusation with great disfavor.
The Senate is absolutely without any known standard of decision applicable
to such a case. Its judgment can not be anticipated, for it is not governed
by any rule. The law does not define what shall be deemed good cause for
removal. It is impossible even to conjecture what may or may not be so
considered by the Senate. The nature of the subject forbids clear proof. If
the charge be incapacity, what evidence will support it? Fidelity to the
Constitution may be understood or misunderstood in a thousand different
ways, and by violent party men, in violent party times, unfaithfulness to
the Constitution may even come to be considered meritorious. If the officer
be accused of dishonesty, how shall it be made out? Will it be inferred
from acts unconnected with public duty, from private history, or from
general reputation, or must the President await the commission of an actual
misdemeanor in office? Shall he in the meantime risk the character and
interest of the nation in the hands of men to whom he can not give his
confidence? Must he forbear his complaint until the mischief is done and
can not be prevented? If his zeal in the public service should impel him to
anticipate the overt act, must he move at the peril of being tried himself
for the offense of slandering his subordinate? In the present circumstances
of the country someone must be held responsible for official delinquency of
every kind. It is extremely difficult to say where that responsibility
should be thrown if it be not left where it has been placed by the
Constitution. But all just men will admit that the President ought to be
entirely relieved from such responsibility if he can not meet it by reason
of restrictions placed by law upon his action.

The unrestricted power of removal from office is a very great one to be
trusted even to a magistrate chosen by the general suffrage of the whole
people and accountable directly to them for his acts. It is undoubtedly
liable to abuse, and at some periods of our history perhaps has been
abused. If it be thought desirable and constitutional that it should be so
limited as to make the President merely a common informer against other
public agents, he should at least be permitted to act in that capacity
before some open tribunal, independent of party politics, ready to
investigate the merits of every case, furnished with the means of taking
evidence, and bound to decide according to established rules. This would
guarantee the safety of the accuser when he acts in good faith, and at the
same time secure the rights of the other party. I speak, of course, with
all proper respect for the present Senate, but it does not seem to me that
any legislative body can be so constituted as to insure its fitness for
these functions.

It is not the theory of this Government that public offices are the
property of those who hold them. They are given merely as a trust for the
public benefit, sometimes for a fixed period, sometimes during good
behavior, but generally they are liable to be terminated at the pleasure of
the appointing power, which represents the collective majesty and speaks
the will of the people. The forced retention in office of a single
dishonest person may work great injury to the public interests. The danger
to the public service comes not from the power to remove, but from the
power to appoint. Therefore it was that the framers of the Constitution
left the power of removal unrestricted, while they gave the Senate a fight
to reject all appointments which in its opinion were not fit to be made. A
little reflection on this subject will probably satisfy all who have the
good of the country at heart that our best course is to take the
Constitution for our guide, walk in the path marked out by the founders of
the Republic, and obey the rules made sacred by the observance of our great
predecessors.

The present condition of our finances and circulating medium is one to
which your early consideration is invited.

The proportion which the currency of any country should bear to the whole
value of the annual produce circulated by its means is a question upon
which political economists have not agreed. Nor can it be controlled by
legislation, but must be left to the irrevocable laws which everywhere
regulate commerce and trade. The circulating medium will ever irresistibly
flow to those points where it is in greatest demand. The law of demand and
supply is as unerring as that which regulates the tides of the ocean; and,
indeed, currency, like the tides, has its ebbs and flows throughout the
commercial world.

At the beginning of the rebellion the bank-note circulation of the country
amounted to not much more than $200,000,000; now the circulation of
national-bank notes and those known as "legal-tenders" is nearly seven
hundred millions. While it is urged by some that this amount should be
increased, others contend that a decided reduction is absolutely essential
to the best interests of the country. In view of these diverse opinions, it
may be well to ascertain the real value of our paper issues when compared
with a metallic or convertible currency. For this purpose let us inquire
how much gold and silver could be purchased by the seven hundred millions
of paper money now in circulation. Probably not more than half the amount
of the latter, showing that when our paper currency is compared with gold
and silver its commercial value is compressed into three hundred and fifty
millions. This striking fact makes it the obvious duty of the Government,
as early as may be consistent with the principles of sound political
economy, to take such measures as will enable the holder of its notes and
those of the national banks to convert them without loss into specie or its
equivalent. A reduction of our paper circulating medium need not
necessarily follow. This, however, would depend upon the law of demand and
supply, though it should be borne in mind that by making legal-tender and
bank notes convertible into coin or its equivalent their present specie
value in the hands of their holders would be enhanced 100 per cent.

Legislation for the accomplishment of a result so desirable is demanded by
the highest public considerations. The Constitution contemplates that the
circulating medium of the country shall be uniform in quality and value. At
the time of the formation of that instrument the country had just emerged
from the War of the Revolution, and was suffering from the effects of a
redundant and worthless paper currency. The sages of that period were
anxious to protect their posterity from the evils that they themselves had
experienced. Hence in providing a circulating medium they conferred upon
Congress the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, at the
same time prohibiting the States from making anything but gold and silver a
tender in payment of debts.

The anomalous condition of our currency is in striking contrast with that
which was originally designed. Our circulation now embraces, first, notes
of the national banks, which are made receivable for all dues to the
Government, excluding imposts, and by all its creditors, excepting in
payment of interest upon its bonds and the securities themselves; second,
legal-tender notes, issued by the United States, and which the law requires
shall be received as well in payment of all debts between citizens as of
all Government dues, excepting imposts; and, third. gold and silver coin.
By the operation of our present system of finance, however, the metallic
currency, when collected, is reserved only for one class of Government
creditors, who, holding its bonds, semiannually receive their interest in
coin from the National Treasury. They are thus made to occupy an invidious
position, which may be used to strengthen the arguments of those who would
bring into disrepute the obligations of the nation. In the payment of all
its debts the plighted faith of the Government should be inviolably
maintained. But while it acts with fidelity toward the bondholder who
loaned his money that the integrity of the Union might be preserved, it
should at the same time observe good faith with the great masses of the
people, who, having rescued the Union from the perils of rebellion, now
bear the burdens of taxation, that the Government may be able to fulfill
its engagements. There is no reason which will be accepted as satisfactory
by the people why those who defend us on the land and protect us on the
sea; the pensioner upon the gratitude of the nation, bearing the scars and
wounds received while in its service; the public servants in the various
Departments of the Government; the farmer who supplies the soldiers of the
Army and the sailors of the Navy; the artisan who toils in the nation's
workshops, or the mechanics and laborers who build its edifices and
construct its forts and vessels of war, should, in payment of their just
and hard-earned dues, receive depreciated paper, while another class of
their countrymen, no more deserving, are paid in coin of gold and silver.
Equal and exact justice requires that all the creditors of the Government
should be paid in a currency possessing a uniform value. This can only be
accomplished by the restoration of the currency to the standard established
by the Constitution; and by this means we would remove a discrimination
which may, if it has not already done so, create a prejudice that may
become deep rooted and widespread and imperil the national credit.

The feasibility of making our currency correspond with the constitutional
standard may be seen by reference to a few facts derived from our
commercial statistics.

The production of precious metals in the United States from 1849 to 1857,
inclusive, amounted to $579,000,000; from 1858 to 1860, inclusive, to
$137,500,000, and from 1861 to 1867, inclusive, to $457,500,000--making the
grand aggregate of products since 1849 $1,174,000,000. The amount of specie
coined from 1849 to 1857 inclusive, was $439,000,000; from 1858 to 1860,
inclusive, $125,000,000, and from 1861 to 1867, inclusive,
$310,000,000--making the total coinage since 1849 $874,000,000. From 1849
to 1857, inclusive, the net exports of specie amounted to $271,000,000;
from 1858 to 1860, inclusive, to $148,000,000, and from 1861 to 1867,
inclusive, $322,000,000--making the aggregate of net exports since 1849
$741,000,000. These figures show an excess of product over net exports of
$433,000,000. There are in the Treasury $111,000,000 in coin, something
more than $40,000,000 in circulation on the Pacific Coast, and a few
millions in the national and other banks--in all about $160,000,000. This,
however, taking into account the specie in the country prior to 1849 leaves
more than $300,000,000 which have not been accounted for by exportation,
and therefore may yet remain in the country.

These are important facts and show how completely the inferior currency
will supersede the better, forcing it from circulation among the masses and
causing it to be exported as a mere article of trade, to add to the money
capital of foreign lands. They show the necessity of retiring our paper
money, that the return of gold and silver to the avenues of trade may be
invited and a demand created which will cause the retention at home of at
least so much of the productions of our rich and inexhaustible gold-bearing
fields as may be sufficient for purposes of circulation. It is unreasonable
to expect a return to a sound currency so long as the Government by
continuing to issue irredeemable notes fills the channels of circulation
with depreciated paper. Notwithstanding a coinage by our mints, since 1849,
of $874,000,000, the people are now strangers to the currency which was
designed for their use and benefit, and specimens of the precious metals
bearing the national device are seldom seen, except when produced to
gratify the interest excited by their novelty. If depreciated paper is to
be continued as the permanent currency of the country, and all our coin is
to become a mere article of traffic and speculation, to the enhancement in
price of all that is indispensable to the comfort of the people, it would
be wise economy to abolish our mints thus saving the nation the care and
expense incident to such establishments, and let all our precious metals be
exported in bullion. The time has come, however, when the Government and
national banks should be required to take the most efficient steps and make
all necessary arrangements for a resumption of specie payments at the
earliest practicable period. Specie payments having been once resumed by
the Government and banks, all notes or bills of paper issued by either of a
less denomination than $20 should by law be excluded from circulation, so
that the people may have the benefit and convenience of a gold and silver
currency which in all their business transactions will be uniform in value
at home and abroad. Every man of property or industry, every man who
desires to preserve what he honestly possesses or to obtain

what he can honestly earn, has a direct interest in maintaining a safe
circulating medium--such a medium as

shall be real and substantial, not liable to vibrate with opinions, not
subject to be blown up or blown down by the

breath of speculation, but to be made stable and secure. A disordered
currency is one of the greatest political

evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social
system and encourages propensities

destructive of its happiness; it wars against industry, frugality, and
economy, and it fosters the evil spirits of

extravagance and speculation. It has been asserted by one of our profound
and most gifted statesmen that-- Of all the contrivances for cheating the
laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that

which deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of
inventions to fertilize the rich man's fields

by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression,
excessive taxation--these bear lightly on

the happiness of the mass of the community compared with a fraudulent
currency and the robberies committed

by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded for our instruction
enough, and more than enough, of the

demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the
virtuous and well disposed of a

degraded paper currency authorized by law or in any way countenanced by
government. It is one of the most successful devices, in times of peace or
war, expansions or revulsions, to accomplish the transfer of all the
precious metals from the great mass of the people into the hands of the
few, where they are hoarded in secret places or deposited in strong boxes
under bolts and bars, while the people are left to endure all the
inconvenience, sacrifice, and demoralization resulting from the use of a
depreciated and worthless paper money.

The condition of our finances and the operations of our revenue system are
set forth and fully explained in the able and instructive report of the
Secretary of the Treasury. On the 30th of June, 1866, the public debt
amounted to $2,783,425,879; on the 30th of June last it was $2,692,199,215,
showing a reduction during the fiscal year of $91,226,664. During the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1867, the receipts were $490,634,010 and the
expenditures $346,729,129, leaving an available surplus of $143,904,880. It
is estimated that the receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868,
will be $417,161,928 and that the expenditures will reach the sum of
$393,269,226, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of $23,892,702. For the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, it is estimated that the receipts will
amount to $381,000,000 and that the expenditures will be $372,000,000,
showing an excess of $9,000,000 in favor of the Government.

The attention of Congress is earnestly invited to the necessity of a
thorough revision of our revenue system. Our internal-revenue laws and
impost system should be so adjusted as to bear most heavily on articles of
luxury, leaving the necessaries of life as free from taxation as may be
consistent with the real wants of the Government, economically
administered. Taxation would not then fall unduly on the man of moderate
means; and while none would be entirely exempt from assessment, all, in
proportion to their pecuniary abilities, would contribute toward the
support of the State. A modification of the internal-revenue system, by a
large reduction in the number of articles now subject to tax, would be
followed by results equally advantageous to the citizen and the Government.
It would render the execution of the law less expensive and more certain,
remove obstructions to industry, lessen the temptations to evade the law,
diminish the violations and frauds perpetrated upon its provisions, make
its operations less inquisitorial, and greatly reduce in numbers the army
of taxgatherers created by the system, who "take from the mouth of honest
labor the bread it has earned." Retrenchment, reform, and economy should be
carried into every branch of the public service, that the expenditures of
the Government may be reduced and the people relieved from oppressive
taxation; a sound currency should be restored, and the public faith in
regard to the national debt sacredly observed. The accomplishment of these
important results, together with the restoration of the Union of the States
upon the principles of the Constitution, would inspire confidence at home
and abroad in the stability of our institutions and bring to the nation
prosperity, peace, and good will.

The report of the Secretary of War ad interim exhibits the operations of
the Army and of the several bureaus of the War Department. The aggregate
strength of our military force on the 30th of September last was 56,315.
The total estimate for military appropriations is $77,124,707, including a
deficiency in last year's appropriation of $13,600,000. The payments at the
Treasury on account of the service of the War Department from January 1 to
October 29, 1867--a period of ten months--amounted to $109,807,000. The
expenses of the military establishment, as well as the numbers of the Army,
are now three times as great as they have ever been in time of peace, while
the discretionary, power is vested in the Executive to add millions to this
expenditure by an increase of the Army to the maximum strength allowed by
the law.

The comprehensive report of the Secretary of the Interior furnishes
interesting information in reference to the important branches of the
public service connected with his Department. The menacing attitude of some
of the warlike bands of Indians inhabiting the district of country between
the Arkansas and Platte rivers and portions of Dakota Territory required
the presence of a large military force in that region. Instigated by real
or imaginary grievances, the Indians occasionally committed acts of
barbarous violence upon emigrants and our frontier settlements; but a
general Indian war has been providentially averted. The commissioners under
the act of 20th July, 1867, were invested with full power to adjust
existing difficulties, negotiate treaties with the disaffected bands, and
select for them reservations remote from the traveled routes between the
Mississippi and the Pacific. They entered without delay upon the execution
of their trust, but have not yet made any official report of their
proceedings. It is of vital importance that our distant Territories should
be exempt from Indian outbreaks, and that the construction of the Pacific
Railroad, an object of national importance, should not be interrupted by
hostile tribes. These objects, as well as the material interests and the
moral and intellectual improvement of the Indians, can be most effectually
secured by concentrating them upon portions of country set apart for their
exclusive use and located at points remote from our highways and
encroaching white settlements.

Since the commencement of the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress
510 miles of road have been constructed on the main line and branches of
the Pacific Railway. The line from Omaha is rapidly approaching the eastern
base of the Rocky Mountains, while the terminus of the last section of
constructed road in California, accepted by the Government on the 24th day
of October last, was but 11 miles distant from the summit of the Sierra
Nevada. The remarkable energy evinced by the companies offers the strongest
assurance that the completion of the road from Sacramento to Omaha will not
be long deferred.

During the last fiscal year 7,041,114 acres of public land were disposed
of, and the cash receipts from sales and fees exceeded by one-half million
dollars the sum realized from those sources during the preceding year. The
amount paid to pensioners, including expenses of disbursements, was
$18,619,956, and 36,482 names were added to the rolls. The entire number of
pensioners on the 30th of June last was 155,474. Eleven thousand six
hundred. and fifty-five patents and designs were issued during the year
ending September 30, 1867, and at that date the balance in the Treasury to
the credit of the patent fund was $286,607.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy states that we have seven squadrons
actively and judiciously employed, under efficient and able commanders, in
protecting the persons and property of American citizens, maintaining the
dignity and power of the Government, and promoting the commerce and
business interests of our countrymen in every part of the world. Of the 238
vessels composing the present Navy of the United States, 56, carrying 507
guns, are in squadron service. During the year the number of vessels in
commission has been reduced 12, and there are 13 less on squadron duty than
there were at the date of the last report. A large number of vessels were
commenced and in the course of construction when the war terminated, and
although Congress had made the necessary appropriations for their
completion, the Department has either suspended work upon them or limited
the slow completion of the steam vessels, so as to meet the contracts for
machinery made with private establishments. The total expenditures of the
Navy Department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1867, were $31,034,011.
No appropriations have been made. or required since the close of the war
for the construction and repair of vessels, for steam machinery, ordnance,
provisions and clothing, fuel, hemp, etc., the balances under these several
heads having been more than sufficient for current expenditures. It should
also be stated to the credit of the Department that, besides asking no
appropriations for the above objects for the last two years, the Secretary
of the Navy, on the 30th of September last, in accordance with the act of
May 1, 1820, requested the Secretary of the Treasury to carry to the
surplus fund the sum of $65,000.000, being the amount received from the
sales of vessels and other war property and the remnants of former
appropriations.

The report of the Postmaster-General shows the business of the Post-Office
Department and the condition of the postal service in a very favorable
light, and the attention of Congress is called to its practical
recommendations. The receipts of the Department for the year ending June
30, 1867, including all special appropriations for sea and land service and
for free mail matter, were $19,978,693. The expenditures for all purposes
were $19,235,483, leaving an unexpended balance in favor of the Department
of $743,210, which can be applied toward the expenses of the Department for
the current year. The increase of postal revenue, independent of specific
appropriations, for the year 1867 over that of 1866 was $850,040. The
increase of revenue from the sale of stamps and stamped envelopes was
$783,404. The increase of expenditures for 1867 over those of the previous
year was owing chiefly to the extension of the land and ocean mail service.
During the past year new postal conventions have been ratified and
exchanged with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, the North German Union, Italy, and the
colonial government at Hong Kong, reducing very largely the rates of ocean
and land postages to and from and within those countries.

The report of the Acting Commissioner of Agriculture concisely presents the
condition, wants, and progress of an interest eminently worthy the
fostering care of Congress, and exhibits a large measure of useful results
achieved during the year to which it refers.

The reestablishment of peace at home and the resumption of extended trade,
travel, and commerce abroad have served to increase the number and variety
of questions in the Department for Foreign Affairs. None of these
questions, however, have seriously disturbed our relations with other
states.

The Republic of Mexico, having been relieved from foreign intervention, is
earnestly engaged in efforts to reestablish her constitutional system of
government. A good understanding continues to exist between our Government
and the Republics of Hayti and San Domingo, and our cordial relations with
the Central and South American States remain unchanged. The tender, made in
conformity with a resolution of Congress, of the good offices of the
Government with a view to an amicable adjustment of peace between Brazil
and her allies on one side and Paraguay on the other, and between Chile and
her allies on the one side and Spain on the other, though kindly received,
has in neither case been fully accepted by the belligerents. The war in the
valley of the Parana is still vigorously maintained. On the other hand,
actual hostilities between the Pacific States and Spain have been more than
a year suspended. I shall, on any proper occasion that may occur, renew the
conciliatory recommendations which have been already made. Brazil, with
enlightened sagacity and comprehensive statesmanship, has opened the great
channels of the Amazon and its tributaries to universal commerce. One thing
more seems needful to assure a rapid and cheering progress in South
America. I refer to those peaceful habits without which states and nations
can not in this age well expect material prosperity or social advancement.

The Exposition of Universal Industry at Paris has passed, and seems to have
fully realized the high expectations of the French Government. If due
allowance be made for the recent political derangement of industry here,
the part which the United States has borne in this exhibition of invention
and art may be regarded with very high satisfaction. During the exposition
a conference was held of delegates from several nations, the United States
being one, in which the inconveniences of commerce and social intercourse
resulting from the diverse standards of money value were very fully
discussed, and plans were developed for establishing by universal consent a
common principle for the coinage of gold. These conferences are expected to
be renewed, with the attendance of many foreign states not hitherto
represented. A report of these interesting proceedings will be submitted to
Congress, which will, no doubt, justly appreciate the great object and be
ready to adopt any measure which may tend to facilitate its ultimate
accomplishment.

On the 25th of February, 1862, Congress declared by law that Treasury
notes, without interest, authorized by that act should be legal tender in
payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States. An
annual remittance of $30,000, less stipulated expenses, accrues to
claimants under the convention made with Spain in 1834. These remittances,
since the passage of that act, have been paid in such notes. The claimants
insist that the Government ought to require payment in coin. The subject
may be deemed worthy of your attention.

No arrangement has yet been reached for the settlement of our claims for
British depredations upon the commerce of the United States. I have felt it
my duty to decline the proposition of arbitration made by Her Majesty's
Government, because it has hitherto been accompanied by reservations and
limitations incompatible with the rights, interest, and honor of our
country. It is not to be apprehended that Great Britain will persist in her
refusal to satisfy these just and reasonable claims, which involve the
sacred principle of nonintervention--a principle henceforth not more
important to the United States than to all other commercial nations.

The West India islands were settled and colonized by European States
simultaneously with the settlement and colonization of the American
continent. Most of the colonies planted here became independent nations in
the close of the last and the beginning of the present century. Our own
country embraces communities which at one period were colonies of Great
Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and Russia. The people in the West
Indies, with the exception of those of the island of Hayti, have neither
attained nor aspired to independence, nor have they become prepared for
self-defense. Although possessing considerable commercial value, they have
been held by the several European States which colonized or at some time
conquered them, chiefly for purposes of military and naval strategy in
carrying out European policy and designs in regard to this continent. In
our Revolutionary War ports and harbors in the West India islands were used
by our enemy, to the great injury and embarrassment of the United States.
We had the same experience in our second war with Great Britain. The same
European policy for a long time excluded us even from trade with the West
Indies, while we were at peace with all nations. In our recent civil war
the rebels and their piratical and blockade-breaking allies found
facilities in the same ports for the work, which they too successfully
accomplished, of injuring and devastating the commerce which we are now
engaged in rebuilding. We labored especially under this disadvantage, that
European steam vessels employed by our enemies found friendly shelter,
protection, and supplies in West Indian ports, while our naval operations
were necessarily carried on from our own distant shores. There was then a
universal feeling of the want of an advanced naval outpost between the
Atlantic coast and Europe. The duty of obtaining such an outpost peacefully
and lawfully, while neither doing nor menacing injury to other states,
earnestly engaged the attention of the executive department before the
close of the war, and it has not been lost sight of since that time. A not
entirely dissimilar naval want revealed itself during the same period on
the Pacific coast. The required foothold there was fortunately secured by
our late treaty with the Emperor of Russia, and it now seems imperative
that the more obvious necessities of the Atlantic coast should not be less
carefully provided for. A good and convenient port and harbor, capable of
easy defense, will supply that want. With the possession of such a station
by the United States, neither we nor any other American nation need longer
apprehend injury or offense from any transatlantic enemy. I agree with our
early statesmen that the West Indies naturally gravitate to, and may be
expected ultimately to be absorbed by, the continental States, including
our own. I agree with them also that it is wise to leave the question of
such absorption to this process of natural political gravitation. The
islands of St. Thomas and St. John, which constitute a part of the group
called the Virgin Islands, seemed to offer us advantages immediately
desirable, while their acquisition could be secured in harmony with the
principles to which I have alluded. A treaty has therefore been concluded
with the King of Denmark for the cession of those islands, and will be
submitted to the Senate for consideration.

It will hardly be necessary to call the attention of Congress to the
subject of providing for the payment to Russia of the sum stipulated in the
treaty for the cession of Alaska. Possession having been formally delivered
to our commissioner, the territory remains for the present in care of a
military force, awaiting such civil organization as shall be directed by
Congress.

The annexation of many small German States to Prussia and the
reorganization of that country under a new and liberal constitution have
induced me to renew the effort to obtain a just and prompt settlement of
the long-vexed question concerning the claims of foreign states for
military service from their subjects naturalized in the United States.

In connection with this subject the attention of Congress is respectfully
called to a singular and embarrassing conflict of laws. The executive
department of this Government has hitherto uniformly held, as it now holds,
that naturalization in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the
United States absolves the recipient from his native allegiance. The courts
of Great Britain hold that allegiance to the British Crown is indefensible,
and is not absolved by our laws of naturalization. British judges cite
courts and law authorities of the United States in support of that theory
against the position held by the executive authority of the United States.
This conflict perplexes the public mind concerning the rights of
naturalized citizens and impairs the national authority abroad. I called
attention to this subject in my last annual message, and now again
respectfully appeal to Congress to declare the national will unmistakably
upon this important question.

The abuse of our laws by the clandestine prosecution of the African slave
trade from American ports or by American citizens has altogether ceased,
and under existing circumstances no apprehensions of its renewal in this
part of the world are entertained. Under these circumstances it becomes a
question whether we shall not propose to Her Majesty's Government a
suspension or discontinuance of the stipulations for maintaining a naval
force for the suppression of that trade.

***

State of the Union Address
Andrew Johnson
December 9, 1868

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Upon the reassembling of Congress it again becomes my duty to call your
attention to the state of the Union and to its continued disorganized
condition under the various laws which have been passed upon the subject of
reconstruction.

It may be safely assumed as an axiom in the government of states that the
greatest wrongs inflicted upon a people are caused by unjust and arbitrary
legislation, or by the unrelenting decrees of despotic rulers. and that the
timely revocation of injurious and oppressive measures is the greatest good
that can be conferred upon a nation. The legislator or ruler who has the
wisdom and magnanimity to retrace his steps when convinced of error will
sooner or later be rewarded with the respect and gratitude of an
intelligent and patriotic people.

Our own history, although embracing a period less than a century, affords
abundant proof that most, if not all, of our domestic troubles are directly
traceable to violations of the organic law and excessive legislation. The
most striking illustrations of this fact are furnished by the enactments of
the past three years upon the question of reconstruction. After a fair
trial they have substantially failed and proved pernicious in their
results, and there seems to be no good reason why they should longer remain
upon the statute book. States to which the Constitution guarantees a
republican form of government have been reduced to military dependencies in
each of which the people have been made subject to the arbitrary will of
the commanding general. Although the Constitution requires that each State
shall be represented in Congress, Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas are yet
excluded from the two Houses, and, contrary to the express provisions of
that instrument were denied participation in the recent election for a
President and Vice-President of the United States. The attempt to place the
white population under the domination of persons of color in the South has
impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously
existed between them: and mutual distrust has engendered a feeling of
animosity which leading in some instances to collision and bloodshed, has
prevented that cooperation between the two races so essential to the
success of industrial enterprise in the Southern States. Nor have the
inhabitants of those States alone suffered from the disturbed condition of
affairs growing out of these Congressional enactments. The entire Union has
been agitated by grave apprehensions of troubles which might again involve
the peace of the nation; its interests have been injuriously affected by
the derangement of business and labor, and the consequent want of
prosperity throughout that portion of the country.

The Federal Constitution--the magna charta of American rights, under whose
wise and salutary provisions we have successfully conducted all our
domestic and foreign affairs, sustained ourselves in peace and in war, and
become a great nation among the powers of the earth--must assuredly be now
adequate to the settlement of questions growing out of the civil war, waged
alone for its vindication. This great fact is made most manifest by the
condition of the country when Congress assembled in the month of December,
1865. Civil strife had ceased, the spirit of rebellion had spent its entire
force, in the Southern States the people had warmed into national life, and
throughout the whole country a healthy reaction in public sentiment had
taken place. By the application of the simple yet effective provisions of
the Constitution the executive department, with the voluntary aid of the
States, had brought the work of restoration as near completion as was
within the scope of its authority, and the nation was encouraged by the
prospect of an early and satisfactory adjustment of all its difficulties.
Congress, however, intervened, and, refusing to perfect the work so nearly
consummated, declined to admit members from the unrepresented States,
adopted a series of measures which arrested the progress of restoration,
frustrated all that had been so successfully accomplished, and, after three
years of agitation and strife, has left the country further from the
attainment of union and fraternal feeling than at the inception of the
Congressional plan of reconstruction. It needs no argument to show that
legislation which has produced such baneful consequences should be
abrogated, or else made to conform to the genuine principles of republican
government.

Under the influence of party passion and sectional prejudice, other acts
have been passed not warranted by the Constitution. Congress has already
been made familiar with my views respecting the "tenure-of-office bill."
Experience has proved that its repeal is demanded by the best interests of
the country, and that while it remains in force the President can not
enjoin that rigid accountability of public officers so essential to an
honest and efficient execution of the laws. Its revocation would enable the
executive department to exercise the power of appointment and removal in
accordance with the original design of the Federal Constitution.

The act of March 2, 1867, making appropriations for the support of the Army
for the year ending June 30, 1868, and for other purposes, contains
provisions which interfere with the President's constitutional functions as
Commander in Chief of the Army and deny to States of the Union the right to
protect themselves by means of their own militia. These provisions should
be at once annulled; for while the first might, in times of great
emergency, seriously embarrass the Executive in efforts to employ and
direct the common strength of the nation for its protection and
preservation, the other is contrary to the express declaration of the
Constitution that "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security
of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed."

It is believed that the repeal of all such laws would be accepted by the
American people as at least a partial return to the fundamental principles
of the Government, and an indication that hereafter the Constitution is to
be made the nation's safe and unerring guide. They can be productive of no
permanent benefit to the country, and should not be permitted to stand as
so many monuments of the deficient wisdom which has characterized our
recent legislation.

The condition of our finances demands the early and earnest consideration
of Congress. Compared with the growth of our population, the public
expenditures have reached an amount unprecedented in our history.

The population of the United States in 1790 was nearly 4,000,000 people.
Increasing each decade about 33 per cent, it reached in 1860 31,000,000, an
increase of 700 per cent on the population in 1790. In 1869 it is estimated
that it will reach 38,000,000, or an increase of 868 per cent in
seventy-nine years.

The annual expenditures of the Federal Government in 1791 were $4,200,000;
in 1820, $18.200,000; in 1850, forty-one millions; in 1860, sixty-three
millions; in 1865, nearly thirteen hundred millions; and in 1869 it is
estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his last annual report, that
they will be three hundred and seventy-two millions.

By comparing the public disbursements of 1869, as estimated, with those of
1791, it will be seen that the increase of expenditure since the beginning
of the Government has been 8,618 per cent, while the increase of the
population for the same period was only 868 per cent. Again, the expenses
of the Government in 1860, the year of peace immediately preceding the war,
were only sixty--three millions, while in 1869, the year of peace three
years after the war it is estimated they will be three hundred and
seventy-two millions, an increase of 489 per cent, while the increase of
population was only 21 per cent for the same period.

These statistics further show that in 1791 the annual national expenses,
compared with the population, were little more than $1 per capita, and in
1860 but $2 per capita; while in 1869 they will reach the extravagant sum
of $9.78 per capita.

It will be observed that all these statements refer to and exhibit the
disbursements of peace periods. It may, therefore, be of interest to
compare the expenditures of the three war periods--the war with Great
Britain, the Mexican War, and the War of the Rebellion.

In 1814 the annual expenses incident to the War of 1812 reached their
highest amount--about thirty-one millions--while our population slightly
exceeded 8,000,000, showing an expenditure of only $3.80 per capita. In
1847 the expenditures growing out of the war with Mexico reached fifty-five
millions, and the population about 21,000,000, giving only $2.60 per capita
for the war expenses of that year. In 1865 the expenditures called for by
the rebellion reached the vast amount of twelve hundred and ninety
millions, which, compared with a population of 34,000,000, gives $38.20 per
capita.

From the 4th day of March, 1789, to the 30th of June, 1861, the entire
expenditures of the Government were $1,700,000,000. During that period we
were engaged in wars with Great Britain and Mexico, and were involved in
hostilities with powerful Indian tribes; Louisiana was purchased from
France at a cost of $15,000,000; Florida was ceded to us by Spain for five
millions; California was acquired from Mexico for fifteen millions, and the
territory of New Mexico was obtained from Texas for the sum of ten
millions. Early in 1861 the War of the Rebellion commenced; and from the
1st of July of that year to the 30th of June, 1865, the public expenditures
reached the enormous aggregate of thirty-three hundred millions. Three
years of peace have intervened, and during that time the disbursements of
the Government have successively been five hundred and twenty millions,
three hundred and forty-six millions, and three hundred and ninety-three
millions. Adding to these amounts three hundred and seventy-two millions,
estimated as necessary for the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, 1869,
we obtain a total expenditure of $1,600,000,000 during the four years
immediately succeeding the war, or nearly as much as was expended during
the seventy-two years that preceded the rebellion and embraced the
extraordinary expenditures already named.

These startling facts clearly illustrate the necessity of retrenchment in
all branches of the public service. Abuses which were tolerated during the
war for the preservation of the nation will not be endured by the people,
now that profound peace prevails. The receipts from internal revenues and
customs have during the past three years gradually diminished, and the
continuance of useless and extravagant expenditures will involve us in
national bankruptcy, or else make inevitable an increase of taxes. already
too onerous and in many respects obnoxious on account of their
inquisitorial character. One hundred millions annually are expended for the
military force, a large portion of which is employed in the execution of
laws both unnecessary and unconstitutional; one hundred and fifty millions
are required each year to pay the interest on the public debt: an army of
taxgatherers impoverishes the nation, and public agents, placed by Congress
beyond the control of the Executive, divert from their legitimate purposes
large sums of money which they collect from the people in the name of the
Government. Judicious legislation and prudent economy can alone remedy
defects and avert evils which, if suffered to exist, can not fail to
diminish confidence in the public councils and weaken the attachment and
respect of the people toward their political institutions. Without proper
care the small balance which it is estimated will remain in the Treasury at
the close of the present fiscal year will not be realized, and additional
millions be added to a debt which is now enumerated by billions.

It is shown by the able and comprehensive report of the Secretary of the
Treasury that the receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, were
$405,638,083, and that the expenditures for the same period were
$377,340,284, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of $28,297,798. It is
estimated that the receipts during the present fiscal year, ending June 30,
1869, will be $341,392,868 and the expenditures $336,152,470, showing a
small balance of $5,240,398 in favor of the Government. For the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1870, it is estimated that the receipts will amount to
$327,000,000 and the expenditures to $303,000,000, leaving an estimated
surplus of $24,000,000.

It becomes proper in this connection to make a brief reference to our
public indebtedness, which has accumulated with such alarming rapidity and
assumed such colossal proportions.

In 1789, when the Government commenced operations under the Federal
Constitution, it was burdened with an indebtedness of $75,000,000, created
during the War of the Revolution. This amount had been reduced to
$45,000,000 when, in 1812, war was declared against Great Britain. The
three years' struggle that followed largely increased the national
obligations, and in 1816 they had attained the sum of $127,000,000. Wise
and economical legislation, however, enabled the Government to pay the
entire amount within a period of twenty years, and the extinguishment of
the national debt filled the land with rejoicing and was one of the great
events of President Jackson's Administration. After its redemption a large
fund remained in the Treasury, which was deposited for safe-keeping with
the several States. on condition that it should be returned when required
by the public wants. In 1849--the year after the termination of an
expensive war with Mexico--we found ourselves involved in a debt of
$64,000,000; and this was the amount owed by the Government in 1860, just
prior to the outbreak of the rebellion. In the spring of 1861 our civil war
commenced. Each year of its continuance made an enormous addition to the
debt: and when. in the spring of 1865, the nation successfully emerged from
the conflict, the obligations of the Government had reached the immense sum
of $2.873,992,909. The Secretary of the Treasury shows that on the 1st day
of November, 1867, this amount had been reduced to $2,491,504,450; but at
the same time his report exhibits an increase during the past year of
$35,625,102, for the debt on the 1st day of November last is stated to have
been $2,527,129,552. It is estimated by the Secretary that the returns for
the past month will add to our liabilities the further sum of $11,000,000,
making a total increase during thirteen months of $46,500,000.

In my message to Congress December 4, 1865, it was suggested that a policy
should be devised which, without being oppressive to the people, would at
once begin to effect a reduction of the debt, and, if persisted in,
discharge it fully within a definite number of years. The Secretary of the
Treasury forcibly recommends legislation of this character, and justly
urges that the longer it is deferred the more difficult must become its
accomplishment. We should follow the wise precedents established in 1789
and 1816, and without further delay make provision for the payment of our
obligations at as early a period as may be practicable. The fruits of their
labors should be enjoyed by our citizens rather than used to build up and
sustain moneyed monopolies in our own and other lands. Our foreign debt is
already computed by the Secretary of the Treasury at $850,000,000; citizens
of foreign countries receive interest upon a large portion of our
securities, and American taxpayers are made to contribute large sums for
their support. The idea that such a debt is to become permanent should be
at all times discarded as involving taxation too heavy to be borne. and
payment once in every sixteen years, at the present rate of interest, of an
amount equal to the original sum. This vast debt, if permitted to become
permanent and increasing, must eventually be gathered into the hands of a
few, and enable them to exert a dangerous and controlling power in the
affairs of the Government. The borrowers would become servants to the
lenders, the lenders the masters of the people. We now pride ourselves upon
having given freedom to 4,000,000 of the colored race; it will then be our
shame that 40,000,000 of people, by their own toleration of usurpation and
profligacy, have suffered themselves to become enslaved, and merely
exchanged slave owners for new taskmasters in the shape of bondholders and
taxgatherers. Besides, permanent debts pertain to monarchical governments,
and, tending to monopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation, are
totally irreconcilable with free institutions. introduced into our
republican system, they would gradually but surely sap its foundations,
eventually subvert our governmental fabric, and erect upon its ruins a
moneyed aristocracy. It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our
posterity the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the
founders of the Republic. and by our example teach those who are to follow
us carefully to avoid the dangers which threaten a free and independent
people.

Various plans have been proposed for the payment of the public debt.
However they may have varied as to the time and mode in which it should be
redeemed. there seems to be a general concurrence as to the propriety and
justness of a reduction in the present rate of interest. The Secretary of
the Treasury in his report recommends 5 per cent; Congress, in a bill
passed prior to adjournment on the 27th of July last. agreed upon 4 and 4
1/2 per cent; while by many 3 per cent has been held to be an amply
sufficient return for the investment. The general impression as to the
exorbitancy of the existing rate of interest has led to an inquiry in the
public mind respecting the consideration which the Government has actually
received for its bonds, and the conclusion is becoming prevalent that the
amount which it obtained was in real money three or four hundred per cent
less than the obligations which it issued in return. It can not be denied
that we are paying an extravagant percentage for the use of the money
borrowed, which was paper currency, greatly depreciated below the value of
coin. This fact is made apparent when we consider that bondholders receive
from the Treasury upon each dollar they own in Government securities 6 per
cent in gold, which is nearly or quite equal to 9 per cent in currency;
that the bonds are then converted into capital for the national banks, upon
which those institutions issue their circulation, bearing 6 per cent
interest; and that they are exempt from taxation by the Government and the
States, and thereby enhanced 2 per cent in the hands of the holders. We
thus have an aggregate of 17 per cent which may be received upon each
dollar by the owners of Government securities. A system that produces such
results is justly regarded as favoring a few at the expense of the many,
and has led to the further inquiry whether our bondholders, in view of the
large profits which they have enjoyed, would themselves be averse to a
settlement of our indebtedness upon a plan which would yield them a fair
remuneration and at the same time be just to the taxpayers of the nation.
Our national credit should be sacredly observed, but in making provision
for our creditors we should not forget what is due to the masses of the
people. It may be assumed that the holders of our securities have already
received upon their bonds a larger amount than their original investment,
measured by a gold standard. Upon this statement of facts it would seem but
just and equitable that the 6 per cent interest now paid by the Government
should be applied to the reduction of the principal in semiannual
installments, which in sixteen years and eight months would liquidate the
entire national debt. Six per cent in gold would at present rates be equal
to 9 per cent in currency, and equivalent to the payment of the debt one
and a half times in a fraction less than seventeen years. This, in
connection with all the other advantages derived from their investment,
would afford to the public creditors a fair and liberal compensation for
the use of their capital, and with this they should be satisfied. The
lessons of the past admonish the lender that it is not well to be
over-anxious in exacting from the borrower rigid compliance with the letter
of the bond.

If provision be made for the payment of the indebtedness of the Government
in the manner suggested, our nation will rapidly recover its wonted
prosperity. Its interests require that some measure should be taken to
release the large amount of capital invested in the securities of the
Government. It is not now merely unproductive, but in taxation annually
consumes $150,000,000, which would otherwise be used by our enterprising
people in adding to the wealth of the nation. Our commerce, which at one
time successfully rivaled that of the great maritime powers, has rapidly
diminished, and our industrial interests are in a depressed and languishing
condition. The development of our inexhaustible resources is checked, and
the fertile fields of the South are becoming waste for want of means to
till them. With the release of capital, new life would be infused into the
paralyzed energies of our people and activity and vigor imparted to every
branch of industry. Our people need encouragement in their efforts to
recover from the effects of the rebellion and of injudicious legislation,
and it should be the aim of the Government to stimulate them by the
prospect of an early release from the burdens which impede their
prosperity. If we can not take the burdens from their shoulders, we should
at least manifest a willingness to help to bear them.

In referring to the condition of the circulating medium, I shall merely
reiterate substantially that portion of my last annual message which
relates to that subject.

The proportion which the currency of any country should bear to the whole
value of the annual produce circulated by its means is a question upon
which political economists have not agreed. Nor can it be controlled by
legislation, but must be left to the irrevocable laws which everywhere
regulate commerce and trade. The circulating medium will ever irresistibly
flow to those points where it is in greatest demand. The law of demand and
supply is as unerring as that which regulates the tides of the ocean; and,
indeed, currency, like the tides, has its ebbs and flows throughout the
commercial world.

At the beginning of the rebellion the bank-note circulation of the country
amounted to not much more than $200,000,000; now the circulation of
national-bank notes and those known as "legal-tenders" is nearly seven
hundred millions. While it is urged by some that this amount should be
increased, others contend that a decided reduction is absolutely essential
to the best interests of the country. In view of these diverse opinions, it
may be well to ascertain the real value of our paper issues when compared
with a metallic or convertible currency. For this purpose let us inquire
how much gold and silver could be purchased by the seven hundred millions
of paper money now in circulation. Probably not more than half the amount
of the latter; showing that when our paper currency is compared with gold
and silver its commercial value is compressed into three hundred and fifty
millions. This striking fact makes it the obvious duty of the Government,
as early as may be consistent with the principles of sound political
economy, to take such measures as will enable the holders of its notes and
those of the national banks to convert them, without loss, into specie or
its equivalent. A reduction of our paper circulating medium need not
necessarily follow. This, however, would depend upon the law of demand and
supply, though it should be borne in mind that by making legal-tender and
bank notes convertible into coin or its equivalent their present specie
value in the hands of their holders would be enhanced 100 per cent.

Legislation for the accomplishment of a result so desirable is demanded by
the highest public considerations. The Constitution contemplates that the
circulating medium of the country shall be uniform in quality and value. At
the time of the formation of that instrument the country had just emerged
from the War of the Revolution, and was suffering from the effects of a
redundant and worthless paper currency. The sages of that period were
anxious to protect their posterity from the evils which they themselves had
experienced. Hence in providing a circulating medium they conferred upon
Congress the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, at the
same time prohibiting the States from making anything but gold and silver a
tender in payment of debts.

The anomalous condition of our currency is in striking contrast with that
which was originally designed. Our circulation now embraces, first, notes
of the national banks, which are made receivable for all dues to the
Government, excluding imposts, and by all its creditors, excepting in
payment of interest upon its bonds and the securities themselves; second,
legal tender, issued by the United States, and which the law requires shall
be received as well in payment of all debts between citizens as of all
Government dues, excepting imposts; and, third, gold and silver coin. By
the operation of our present system of finance however, the metallic
currency, when collected, is reserved only for one class of Government
creditors, who, holding its bonds, semiannually receive their interest in
coin from the National Treasury. There is no reason which will be accepted
as satisfactory by the people why those who defend us on the land and
protect us on the sea; the pensioner upon the gratitude of the nation,
bearing the scars and wounds received while in its service; the public
servants in the various departments of the Government; the farmer who
supplies the soldiers of the Army and the sailors of the Navy; the artisan
who toils in the nation's workshops, or the mechanics and laborers who
build its edifices and construct its forts and vessels of war, should, in
payment of their just and hard-earned dues, receive depreciated paper,
while another class of their countrymen, no more deserving are paid in coin
of gold and silver. Equal and exact justice requires that all the creditors
of the Government should be paid in a currency possessing a uniform value.
This can only be accomplished by the restoration of the currency to the
standard established by the Constitution, and by this means we would remove
a discrimination which may, if it has not already done so, create a
prejudice that may become deep-rooted and widespread and imperil the
national credit.

The feasibility of making our currency correspond with the constitutional
standard may be seen by reference to a few facts derived from our
commercial statistics.

The aggregate product of precious metals in the United States from 1849 to
1867 amounted to $1,174,000,000, while for the same period the net exports
of specie were $741,000,000. This shows an excess of product over net
exports of $433,000,000. There are in the Treasury $103,407,985 in coin; in
circulation in the States on the Pacific Coast about $40,000,000, and a few
millions in the national and other banks--in all less than $160,000,000.
Taking into consideration the specie in the country prior to 1849 and that
produced since 1867, and we have more than $300,000,000 not accounted for
by exportation or by returns of the Treasury, and therefore most probably
remaining in the country.

These are important facts, and show how completely the inferior currency
will supersede the better, forcing it from circulation among the masses and
causing it to be exported as a mere article of trade, to add to the money
capital of foreign lands. They show the necessity of retiring our paper
money, that the return of gold and silver to the avenues of trade may be
invited and a demand created which will cause the retention at home of at
least so much of the productions of our rich and inexhaustible gold-bearing
fields as may be sufficient for purposes of circulation. It is unreasonable
to expect a return to a sound currency so long as the Government and banks,
by continuing to issue irredeemable notes, fill the channels of circulation
with depreciated paper. Notwithstanding a coinage by our mints since 1849
of $874,000,000, the people are now strangers to the currency which was
designed for their use and benefit, and specimens of the precious metals
bearing the national device are seldom seen, except when produced to
gratify the interest excited by their novelty. If depreciated paper is to
be continued as the permanent currency of the country, and all our coin is
to become a mere article of traffic and speculation. to the enhancement in
price of all that is indispensable to the comfort of the people. it would
be wise economy to abolish our mints, thus saving the nation the care and
expense incident to such establishments, and let our precious metals be
exported in bullion. The time has come, however, when the Government and
national banks should be required to take the most efficient steps and make
all necessary arrangements for a resumption of specie payments. Let specie
payments once be earnestly inaugurated by the Government and banks, and the
value of the paper circulation would directly approximate a specie
standard.

Specie payments having been resumed by the Government and banks, all notes
or bills of paper issued by either of a less denomination than $20 should
by law be excluded from circulation, so that the people may have the
benefit and convenience of a gold and silver currency which in all their
business transactions will be uniform in value at home and abroad. Every
man of property or industry, every man who desires to preserve what he
honestly possesses or to obtain what he can honestly earn, has a direct
interest in maintaining a safe circulating medium--such a medium as shall
be real and substantial, not liable to vibrate with opinions, not subject
to be blown up or blown down by the breath of speculation, but to be made
stable and secure. A disordered currency is one of the greatest political
evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social
system and encourages propensities destructive of its happiness; it wars
against industry, frugality, and economy, and it fosters the evil spirits
of extravagance and speculation. It has been asserted by one of our
profound and most gifted statesmen that-- Of all the contrivances for
cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than
that which deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of
inventions to fertilize the rich man's fields by the sweat of the poor
man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation--these bear
lightly on the happiness of the mass of the community compared with a
fraudulent currency and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our
own history has recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough,
of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice. and the intolerable oppression
on the virtuous and well-disposed of a degraded paper currency authorized
by law or in any way countenanced by government. It is one of the most
successful devices, in times of peace or war, of expansions or revulsions,
to accomplish the transfer of all the precious metals from the great mass
of the people into the hands of the few, where they are hoarded in secret
places or deposited under bolts and bars, while the people are left to
endure all the inconvenience, sacrifice, and demoralization resulting from
the use of depreciated and worthless paper.

The Secretary of the Interior in his report gives valuable information in
reference to the interests confided to the supervision of his Department,
and reviews the operations of the Land Office, Pension Office, Patent
Office, and Indian Bureau.

During the fiscal year ending June 30. 1868, 6,655,700 acres of public land
were disposed of. The entire cash receipts of the General Land Office for
the same period were $1,632,745, being greater by $284,883 than the amount
realized from the same sources during the previous year. The entries under
the homestead law cover 2,328,923 acres, nearly one-fourth of which was
taken under the act of June 21, 1866, which applies only to the States of
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida.

On the 30th of June, 1868, 169,643 names were borne on the pension rolls,
and during the year ending on that day the total amount paid for pensions,
including the expenses of disbursement, was $24,010,982, being $5,391,025
greater than that expended for like purposes during the preceding year.

During the year ending the 30th of September last the expenses of the
Patent Office exceeded the receipts by $171, and, including reissues and
designs, 14,153 patents were issued.

Treaties with various Indian tribes have been concluded, and will be
submitted to the Senate for its constitutional action. I cordially sanction
the stipulations which provide for reserving lands for the various tribes,
where they may be encouraged to abandon their nomadic habits and engage in
agricultural and industrial pursuits. This policy, inaugurated many years
since, has met with signal success whenever it has been pursued in good
faith and with becoming liberality by the United States. The necessity for
extending it as far as practicable in our relations with the aboriginal
population is greater now than at any preceding period. Whilst we furnish
subsistence and instruction to the Indians and guarantee the undisturbed
enjoyment of their treaty rights, we should habitually insist upon the
faithful observance of their agreement to remain within their respective
reservations. This is the only mode by which collisions with other tribes
and with the whites can be avoided and the safety of our frontier
settlements secured.

The companies constructing the railway from Omaha to Sacramento have been
most energetically engaged in prosecuting the work, and it is believed that
the line will be completed before the expiration of the next fiscal year.
The 6 per cent bonds issued to these companies amounted on the 5th instant
to $44,337,000, and additional work had been performed to the extent of
$3,200,000.

The Secretary of the Interior in August last invited my attention to the
report of a Government director of the Union Pacific Railroad Company who
had been specially instructed to examine the location, construction, and
equipment of their road. I submitted for the opinion of the
Attorney-General certain questions in regard to the authority of the
Executive which arose upon this report and those which had from time to
time been presented by the commissioners appointed to inspect each
successive section of the work. After carefully considering the law of the
case, he affirmed the right of the Executive to order, if necessary, a
thorough revision of the entire road. Commissioners were thereupon
appointed to examine this and other lines, and have recently submitted a
statement of their investigations, of which the report of the Secretary of
the Interior furnishes specific information.

The report of the Secretary of War contains information of interest and
importance respecting the several bureaus of the War Department and the
operations of the Army. The strength of our military force on the 30th of
September last was 48,000 men, and it is computed that by the 1st of
January next this number will be decreased to 43,000. It is the opinion of
the Secretary of War that within the next year a considerable diminution of
the infantry force may be made without detriment to the interests of the
country; and in view of the great expense attending the military peace
establishment and the absolute necessity of retrenchment wherever it can be
applied, it is hoped that Congress will sanction the reduction which his
report recommends. While in 1860 sixteen thousand three hundred men cost
the nation $16,472,000, the sum of $65,682,000 is estimated as necessary
for the support of the Army during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1870.
The estimates of the War Department for the last two fiscal years were, for
1867, $33,814,461, and for 1868 $25,205,669. The actual expenditures during
the same periods were, respectively, $95,224,415 and $123,246,648. The
estimate submitted in December last for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1869, was $77,124,707; the expenditures for the first quarter, ending the
30th of September last, were $27,219,117, and the Secretary of the Treasury
gives $66,000,000 as the amount which will probably be required during the
remaining three quarters, if there should be no reduction of the
Army--making its aggregate cost for the year considerably in excess of
ninety-three millions. The difference between the estimates and
expenditures for the three fiscal years which have been named is thus shown
to be $175,545,343 for this single branch of the public service.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy exhibits the operations of that
Department and of the Navy during the year. A considerable reduction of the
force has been effected. There are 42 vessels, carrying 411 guns, in the
six squadrons which are established in different parts of the world. Three
of these vessels are returning to the United States and 4 are used as
storeships, leaving the actual cruising force 35 vessels, carrying 356
guns. The total number of vessels in the Navy is 206, mounting 1,743 guns.
Eighty-one vessels of every description are in use, armed with 696 guns.
The number of enlisted men in the service, including apprentices, has been
reduced to 8,500. An increase of navy-yard facilities is recommended as a
measure which will in the event of war be promotive of economy and
security. A more thorough and systematic survey of the North Pacific Ocean
is advised in view of our recent acquisitions, our expanding commerce, and
the increasing intercourse between the Pacific States and Asia. The naval
pension fund, which consists of a moiety of the avails of prizes captured
during the war, amounts to $14,000,000. Exception is taken to the act of
23d July last, which reduces the interest on the fund loaned to the
Government by the Secretary, as trustee, to 3 per cent instead of 6 per
cent, which was originally stipulated when the investment was made. An
amendment of the pension laws is suggested to remedy omissions and defects
in existing enactments. The expenditures of the Department during the last
fiscal year were $20,120,394, and the estimates for the coming year amount
to $20,993,414.

The Postmaster-General's report furnishes a full and clear exhibit of the
operations and condition of the postal service. The ordinary postal revenue
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868. was $16,292,600, and the total
expenditures, embracing all the service for which special appropriations
have been made by Congress, amounted to $22,730,592, showing an excess of
expenditures of $6,437,991. Deducting from the expenditures the sum of
$1,896,525, the amount of appropriations for ocean-steamship and other
special service, the excess of expenditures was $4,541,466. By using an
unexpended balance in the Treasury of $3,800,000 the actual sum for which a
special appropriation is required to meet the deficiency is $741,466. The
causes which produced this large excess of expenditure over revenue were
the restoration of service in the late insurgent States and the putting
into operation of new service established by acts of Congress, which
amounted within the last two years and a half to about 48,700 miles--equal
to more than one-third of the whole amount of the service at the close of
the war. New postal conventions with Great Britain, North Germany, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy, respectively, have been carried
into effect. Under their provisions important improvements have resulted in
reduced rates of international postage and enlarged mail facilities with
European countries. The cost of the United States transatlantic ocean mail
service since January 1, 1868, has been largely lessened under the
operation of these new conventions, a reduction of over one-half having
been effected under the new arrangements for ocean mail steamship service
which went into effect on that date. The attention of Congress is invited
to the practical suggestions and recommendations made in his report by the
Postmaster-General.

No important question has occurred during the last year in our accustomed
cordial and friendly intercourse with Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, San
Salvador, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Rome, Greece, Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Liberia,
Morocco, Tripoli, Tunis, Muscat, Siam, Borneo, and Madagascar.

Cordial relations have also been maintained with the Argentine and the
Oriental Republics. The expressed wish of Congress that our national good
offices might be tendered to those Republics, and also to Brazil and
Paraguay, for bringing to an end the calamitous war which has so long been
raging in the valley of the La Plata, has been assiduously complied with
and kindly acknowledged by all the belligerents. That important
negotiation, however, has thus far been without result.

Charles A. Washburn, late United States minister to Paraguay, having
resigned. and being desirous to return to the United States, the
rear-admiral commanding the South Atlantic Squadron was early directed to
send a ship of war to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, to receive Mr.
Washburn and his family and remove them from a situation which was
represented to be endangered by faction and foreign war. The Brazilian
commander of the allied invading forces refused permission to the Wasp to
pass through the blockading forces, and that vessel returned to its
accustomed anchorage. Remonstrance having been made against this refusal,
it was promptly overruled, and the Wasp therefore resumed her errand,
received Mr. Washburn and his family, and conveyed them to a safe and
convenient seaport. In the meantime an excited controversy had arisen
between the President of Paraguay and the late United States minister,
which, it is understood, grew out of his proceedings in giving asylum in
the United States legation to alleged enemies of that Republic. The
question of the right to give asylum is one always difficult and often
productive of great embarrassment. In states well organized and
established, foreign powers refuse either to concede or exercise that
right, except as to persons actually belonging to the diplomatic service.
On the other hand, all such powers insist upon exercising the right of
asylum in states where the law of nations is not fully acknowledged,
respected. and obeyed.

The President of Paraguay is understood to have opposed to Mr. Washburn's
proceedings the injurious and very improbable charge of personal complicity
in insurrection and treason. The correspondence, however, has not yet
reached the United States.

Mr. Washburn, in connection with this controversy, represents that two
United States citizens attached to the legation were arbitrarily seized at
his side, when leaving the capital of Paraguay, committed to prison, and
there subjected to torture for the purpose of procuring confessions of
their own criminality and testimony to support the President' s allegation.
against the United States minister. Mr. McMahon, the newly appointed
minister to Paraguay, having reached the La Plata, has been instructed to
proceed without delay to Asuncion, there to investigate the whole subject.
The rear-admiral commanding the United States South Atlantic Squadron has
been directed to attend the new minister with a proper naval force to
sustain such just demands as the occasion may require, and to vindicate the
rights of the United States citizens referred to and of any others who may
be exposed to danger in the theater of war. With these exceptions, friendly
relations have been maintained between the United States and Brazil and
Paraguay.

Our relations during the past year with Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile
have become especially friendly and cordial. Spain and the Republics of
Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador have expressed their willingness to accept the
mediation of the United States for terminating the war upon the South
Pacific coast. Chile has not finally declared upon the question. In the
meantime the conflict has practically exhausted itself, since no
belligerent or hostile movement has been made by either party during the
last two years, and there are no indications of a present purpose to resume
hostilities on either side. Great Britain and France have cordially
seconded our proposition of mediation, and I do not forego the hope that it
may soon be accepted by all the belligerents and lead to a secure
establishment of peace and friendly relations between the Spanish American
Republics of the Pacific and Spain--a result which would be attended with
common benefits to the belligerents and much advantage to all commercial
nations. I communicate, for the consideration of Congress, a correspondence
which shows that the Bolivian Republic has established the extremely
liberal principle of receiving into its citizenship any citizen of the
United States, or of any other of the American Republics, upon the simple
condition of voluntary registry.

The correspondence herewith submitted will be found painfully replete with
accounts of the ruin and wretchedness produced by recent earthquakes, of
unparalleled severity, in the Republics of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The
diplomatic agents and naval officers of the United States who were present
in those countries at the time of those disasters furnished all the relief
in their power to the sufferers, and were promptly rewarded with grateful
and touching acknowledgments by the Congress of Peru. An appeal to the
charity of our fellow-citizens has been answered by much liberality. In
this connection I submit an appeal which has been made by the Swiss
Republic, whose Government and institutions are kindred to our own, in
behalf of its inhabitants, who are suffering extreme destitution, produced
by recent devastating inundations.

Our relations with Mexico during the year have been marked by an increasing
growth of mutual confidence. The Mexican Government has not yet acted upon
the three treaties celebrated here last summer for establishing the rights
of naturalized citizens upon a liberal and just basis, for regulating
consular powers, and for the adjustment of mutual claims.

All commercial nations, as well as all friends of republican institutions,
have occasion to regret the frequent local disturbances which occur in some
of the constituent States of Colombia. Nothing has occurred, however, to
affect the harmony and cordial friendship which have for several years
existed between that youthful and vigorous Republic and our own.

Negotiations are pending with a view to the survey and construction of a
ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, under the auspices of the United
States. I hope to be able to submit the results of that negotiation to the
Senate during its present session.

The very liberal treaty which was entered into last year by the United
States and Nicaragua has been ratified by the latter Republic.

Costa Rica, with the earnestness of a sincerely friendly neighbor, solicits
a reciprocity of trade, which I commend to the consideration of Congress.

The convention created by treaty between the United States and Venezuela in
July, 1865, for the mutual adjustment of claims, has been held, and its
decisions have been received at the Department of State. The
heretofore-recognized Government of the United States of Venezuela has been
subverted. A provisional government having been instituted under
circumstances which promise durability, it has been formally recognized.

I have been reluctantly obliged to ask explanation and satisfaction for
national injuries committed by the President of Hayti. The political and
social condition of the Republics of Hayti and St. Domingo is very
unsatisfactory. and painful. The abolition of slavery, which has been
carried into effect throughout the island of St. Domingo and the entire
West Indies, except the Spanish islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, has been
followed by a profound popular conviction of the rightfulness of republican
institutions and an intense desire to secure them. The attempt, however, to
establish republics there encounters many obstacles, most of which may be
supposed to result from long-indulged habits of colonial supineness and
dependence upon European monarchical powers. While the United States have
on all occasions professed a decided unwillingness that any part of this
continent or of its adjacent islands shall be made a theater for a new
establishment of monarchical power, too little has been done by us, on the
other hand, to attach the communities by which we are surrounded to our own
country, or to lend even a moral support to the efforts they are so
resolutely and so constantly making to secure republican institutions for
themselves. It is indeed a question of grave consideration whether our
recent and present example is not calculated to check the growth and
expansion of free principles, and make those communities distrust, if not
dread, a government which at will consigns to military domination States
that are integral parts of our Federal Union, and, while ready to resist
any attempts by other nations to extend to this hemisphere the monarchical
institutions of Europe, assumes to establish over a large portion of its
people a rule more absolute, harsh, and tyrannical than any known to
civilized powers.

The acquisition of Alaska was made with the view of extending national
jurisdiction and republican principles in the American hemisphere.
Believing that a further step could be taken in the same direction, I last
year entered into a treaty with the King of Denmark for the purchase of the
islands of St. Thomas and St. John, on the best terms then attainable, and
with the express consent of the people of those islands. This treaty still
remains under consideration in the Senate. A new convention has been
entered into with Denmark, enlarging the time fixed for final ratification
of the original treaty.

Comprehensive national policy would seem to sanction the acquisition and
incorporation into our Federal Union of the several adjacent continental
and insular communities as speedily as it can be done peacefully, lawfully,
and without any violation of national justice, faith, or honor. Foreign
possession or control of those communities has hitherto hindered the growth
and impaired the influence of the United States. Chronic revolution and
anarchy there would be equally injurious. Each one of them, when firmly
established as an independent republic, or when incorporated into the
United States, would be a new source of strength and power. Conforming my
Administration to these principles, I have or no occasion lent support or
toleration to unlawful expeditions set on foot upon the plea of republican
propagandism or of national extension or aggrandizement. The necessity,
however, of repressing such unlawful movements clearly indicates the duty
which rests upon us of adapting our legislative action to the new
circumstances of a decline of European monarchical power and influence and
the increase of American republican ideas, interests, and sympathies.

It can not be long before it will become necessary for this Government to
lend some effective aid to the solution of the political and social
problems which are continually kept before the world by the two Republics
of the island of St. Domingo, and which are now disclosing themselves more
distinctly than heretofore in the island of Cuba. The subject is commended
to your consideration with all the more earnestness because I am satisfied
that the time has arrived when even so direct a proceeding as a proposition
for an annexation of the two Republics of the island of St. Domingo would
not only receive the consent of the people interested, but would also give
satisfaction to all other foreign nations.

I am aware that upon the question of further extending our possessions it
is apprehended by some that our political system can not successfully be
applied to an area more extended than our continent; but the conviction is
rapidly gaining ground in the American mind that with the increased
facilities for intercommunication between all portions of the earth the
principles of free government, as embraced in our Constitution, if
faithfully maintained and carried out, would prove of sufficient strength
and breadth to comprehend within their sphere and influence the civilized
nations of the world.

The attention of the Senate and of Congress is again respectfully invited
to the treaty for the establishment of commercial reciprocity with the
Hawaiian Kingdom entered into last year, and already ratified by that
Government. The attitude of the United States toward these islands is not
very different from that in which they stand toward the West Indies. It is
known and felt by the Hawaiian Government and people that their Government
and institutions are feeble and precarious; that the United States, being
so near a neighbor, would be unwilling to see the islands pass under
foreign control. Their prosperity is continually disturbed by expectations
and alarms of unfriendly political proceedings, as well from the United
States as from other foreign powers. A reciprocity treaty, while it could
not materially diminish the revenues of the United States, would be a
guaranty of the good will and forbearance of all nations until the people
of the islands shall of themselves, at no distant day, voluntarily apply
for admission into the Union.

The Emperor of Russia has acceded to the treaty negotiated here in January
last for the security of trade-marks in the interest of manufacturers and
commerce. I have invited his attention to the importance of establishing,
now while it seems easy and practicable, a fair and equal regulation of the
vast fisheries belonging to the two nations in the waters of the North
Pacific Ocean.

The two treaties between the United States and Italy for the regulation of
consular powers and the extradition of criminals, negotiated and ratified
here during the last session of Congress, have been accepted and confirmed
by the Italian Government. A liberal consular convention which has been
negotiated with Belgium will be submitted to the Senate. The very important
treaties which were negotiated between the United States and North Germany
and Bavaria for the regulation of the rights of naturalized citizens have
been duly ratified and exchanged, and similar treaties have been entered
into with the Kingdoms of Belgium and Wurtemberg and with the Grand Duchies
of Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt. I hope soon to be able to submit equally
satisfactory conventions of the same character now in the course of
negotiation with the respective Governments of Spain, Italy, and the
Ottoman Empire.

Examination of claims against the United States by the Hudsons Bay Company
and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, on account of certain possessory
rights in the State of Oregon and Territory of Washington, alleged by those
companies in virtue of provisions of the treaty between the United States
and Great Britain of June 15, 1846, has been diligently prosecuted, under
the direction of the joint international commission to which they were
submitted for adjudication by treaty between the two Governments of July 1,
1863, and will, it is expected, be concluded at an early day.

No practical regulation concerning colonial trade and the fisheries can be
accomplished by treaty between the United States and Great Britain until
Congress shall have expressed their judgment concerning the principles
involved. Three other questions, however, between the United States and
Great Britain remain open for adjustment. These are the mutual rights of
naturalized citizens, the boundary question involving the title to the
island of San Juan, on the Pacific coast, and mutual claims arising since
the year 1853 of the citizens and subjects of the two countries for
injuries and depredations committed under the authority of their respective
Governments. Negotiations upon these subjects are pending, and I am not
without hope of being able to lay before the Senate, for its consideration
during the present session, protocols calculated to bring to an end these
justly exciting and long-existing controversies.

We are not advised of the action of the Chinese Government upon the liberal
and auspicious treaty which was recently celebrated with its
plenipotentiaries at this capital.

Japan remains a theater of civil war, marked by religious incidents and
political severities peculiar to that long-isolated Empire. The Executive
has hitherto maintained strict neutrality among the belligerents, and
acknowledges with pleasure that it has been frankly and fully sustained in
that course by the enlightened concurrence and cooperation of the other
treaty powers, namely Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, North
Germany, and Italy.

Spain having recently undergone a revolution marked by extraordinary
unanimity and preservation of order, the provisional government established
at Madrid has been recognized, and the friendly intercourse which has so
long happily existed between the two countries remains unchanged.

I renew the recommendation contained in my communication to Congress dated
the 18th July last--a copy of which accompanies this message that the
judgment of the people should be taken on the propriety of so amending the
Federal Constitution that it shall provide--

First. For an election of President and Vice-President by a direct vote of
the people, instead of through the agency of electors, and making them
ineligible for reelection to a second term.

Second. For a distinct designation of the person who shall discharge the
duties of President in the event of a vacancy in that office by the death,
resignation, or removal of both the President and Vice-President.

Third. For the election of Senators of the United States directly by the
people of the several States, instead of by the legislatures; and

Fourth. For the limitation to a period of years of the terms of Federal
judges.

Profoundly impressed with the propriety of making these important
modifications in the Constitution, I respectfully submit them for the early
and mature consideration of Congress. We should, as far as possible, remove
all pretext for violations of the organic law, by remedying such
imperfections as time and experience may develop, ever remembering that
"the constitution which at any time exists until changed by an explicit and
authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all."

In the performance of a duty imposed upon me by the Constitution, I have
thus communicated to Congress information of the state of the Union and
recommended for their consideration such measures as have seemed to me
necessary and expedient. If carried into effect, they will hasten the
accomplishment of the great and beneficent purposes for which the
Constitution was ordained, and which it comprehensively states were "to
form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." In Congress are
vested all legislative powers, and upon them devolves the responsibility as
well for framing unwise and excessive laws as for neglecting to devise and
adopt measures absolutely demanded by the wants of the country. Let us
earnestly hope that before the expiration of our respective terms of
service, now rapidly drawing to a close, an all-wise Providence will so
guide our counsels as to strengthen and preserve the Federal Unions,
inspire reverence for the Constitution, restore prosperity and happiness to
our whole people, and promote "on earth peace, good will toward men."



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF ADDRESSES BY ANDREW JOHNSON ***

This file should be named sujoh10.txt or sujoh10.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, sujoh11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sujoh10a.txt

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:
http://gutenberg.net or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).


Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04

Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

    1  1971 July
   10  1991 January
  100  1994 January
 1000  1997 August
 1500  1998 October
 2000  1999 December
 2500  2000 December
 3000  2001 November
 4000  2001 October/November
 6000  2002 December*
 9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word
     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
     let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*