State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce
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Franklin Pierce >> State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce
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In the administration of the Post-Office Department for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1853, the gross expenditure was $7,982,756, and the gross
receipts during the same period $5,942,734, showing that the current
revenue failed to meet the current expenses of the Department by the sum of
$2,042,032. The causes which, under the present postal system and laws, led
inevitably to this result are fully explained by the report of the
Postmaster-General, one great cause being the enormous rates the Department
has been compelled to pay for mail service rendered by railroad companies.
The exhibit in the report of the Postmaster-General of the income and
expenditures by mail steamers will be found peculiarly interesting and of a
character to demand the immediate action of Congress.
Numerous and flagrant frauds upon the Pension Bureau have been brought to
light within the last year, and in some instances merited punishments
inflicted; but, unfortunately, in others guilty parties have escaped, not
through the want of sufficient evidence to warrant a conviction, but in
consequence of the provisions of limitation in the existing laws.
From the nature of these claims, the remoteness of the tribunals to pass
upon them, and the mode in which the proof is of necessity furnished,
temptations to crime have been greatly stimulated by the obvious
difficulties of detection. The defects in the law upon this subject are so
apparent and so fatal to the ends of justice that your early action
relating to it is most desirable.
During the last fiscal year 9,819,411 acres of the public lands have been
surveyed and 10,363,891 acres brought into market. Within the same period
the sales by public purchase and private entry amounted to 1,083,495 acres;
located under military bountys and warrants, 6,142,360 acres; located under
other certificates, 9,427 acres; ceded to the States as swamp lands,
16,684,253 acres; selected for railroad and other objects under acts of
Congress, 1,427,457 acres: total amount of lands disposed of within the
fiscal year, 25,346,992 acres, which is an increase in quantity sold and
located under land warrants and grants of 12,231, 818 acres over the fiscal
year immediately preceding. The quantity of land sold during the second and
third quarters of 1852 was 334,451 acres; the amount received therefor was
$623,687. The quantity sold the second and third quarters of the year 1853
was 1,609,919 acres, and the amount received therefor $2,226,876.
The whole number of land warrants issued under existing laws prior to the
30th of September last was 266,042, of which there were outstanding at that
date 66,947. The quantity of land required to satisfy these outstanding
warrants is 4,778,120 acres. Warrants have been issued to 30th of September
last under the act of 11th February, 1847, calling for 12,879,280 acres,
under acts of September 28, 1850, and March 22, 1852, calling for
12,505,360 acres, making a total of 25,384,640 acres.
It is believed that experience has verified the wisdom and justice of the
present system with regard to the public domain in most essential
particulars.
You will perceive from the report of the Secretary of the Interior that
opinions which have often been expressed in relation to the operation of
the land system as not being a source of revenue to the Federal Treasury
were erroneous. The net profits from the sale of the public lands to June
30, 1853, amounted to the sum of $53,289,465.
I recommend the extension of the land system over the Territories of Utah
and New Mexico, with such modifications as their peculiarities may
require.
Regarding our public domain as chiefly valuable to provide homes for the
industrious and enterprising, I am not prepared to recommend any essential
change in the land system, except by modifications in favor of the actual
settler and an extension of the preemption principle in certain cases, for
reasons and on grounds which will be fully developed in the reports to be
laid before you.
Congress, representing the proprietors of the territorial domain and
charged especially with power to dispose of territory belonging to the
United States, has for a long course of years, beginning with the
Administration of Mr. Jefferson, exercised the power to construct roads
within the Territories, and there are so many and obvious distinctions
between this exercise of power and that of making roads within the States
that the former has never been considered subject to such objections as
apply to the latter; and such may now be considered the settled
construction of the power of the Federal Government upon the subject.
Numerous applications have been and no doubt will continue to be made for
grants of land in aid of the construction of railways. It is not believed
to be within the intent and meaning of the Constitution that the power to
dispose of the public domain should be used otherwise than might be
expected from a prudent proprietor and therefore that grants of land to aid
in the construction of roads should be restricted to cases where it would
be for the interest of a proprietor under like circumstances thus to
contribute to the construction of these works. For the practical operation
of such grants thus far in advancing the interests ot the States in which
the works are located, and at the same time the substantial interests of
all the other States, by enhancing the value and promoting the rapid sale
of the public domain, I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the
Interior. A careful examination, however, will show that this experience is
the result of a just discrimination and will be far from affording
encouragement to a reckless or indiscriminate extension of the principle.
I commend to your favorable consideration the men of genius of our country
who by their inventions and discoveries in science and arts have
contributed largely to the improvements of the age without, in many
instances, securing for themselves anything like an adequate reward. For
many interesting details upon this subject I refer you to the appropriate
reports, and especially urge upon your early attention the apparently
slight, but really important, modifications of existing laws therein
suggested.
The liberal spirit which has so long marked the action of Congress in
relation to the District of Columbia will, I have no doubt, continue to be
manifested.
The erection of an asylum for the insane of the District of Columbia and of
the Army and Navy of the United States has been somewhat retarded by the
great demand for materials and labor during the past summer, but full
preparation for the reception of patients before the return of another
winter is anticipated; and there is the best reason to believe, from the
plan and contemplated arrangements which have been devised, with the large
experience furnished within the last few years in relation to the nature
and treatment of the disease, that it will prove an asylum indeed to this
most helpless and afflicted class of sufferers and stand as a noble
monument of wisdom and mercy. Under the acts of Congress of August 31,
1852, and of March 3, 1853, designed to secure for the cities of Washington
and Georgetown an abundant supply of good and wholesome water, it became my
duty to examine the report and plans of the engineer who had charge of the
surveys under the act first named. The best, if not the only, plan
calculated to secure permanently the object sought was that which
contemplates taking the water from the Great Falls of the Potomac, and
consequently I gave to it my approval.
For the progress and present condition of this important work and for its
demands so far as appropriations are concerned I refer you to the report of
the Secretary of War.
The present judicial system of the United States has now been in operation
for so long a period of time and has in its general theory and much of its
details become so familiar to the country and acquired so entirely the
public confidence that if modified in any respect it should only be in
those particulars which may adapt it to the increased extent, population,
and legal business of the United States. In this relation the organization
of the courts is now confessedly inadequate to the duties to be performed
by them, in consequence of which the States of Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa,
Texas, and California, and districts of other States, are in effect
excluded from the full benefits of the general system by the functions of
the circuit court being devolved on the district judges in all those States
or parts of States. The spirit of the Constitution and a due regard to
justice require that all the States of the Union should be placed on the
same footing in regard to the judicial tribunals. I therefore commend to
your consideration this important subject, which in my judgment demands the
speedy action of Congress. I will present to you, if deemed desirable, a
plan which I am prepared to recommend for the enlargement and modification
of the present judicial system.
The act of Congress establishing the Smithsonian Institution provided that
the President of the United States and other persons therein designated
should constitute an "establishment" by that name, and that the members
should hold stated and special meetings for the supervision of the affairs
of the Institution. The organization not having taken place, it seemed to
me proper that it should be effected without delay. This has been done; and
an occasion was thereby presented for inspecting the condition of the
Institution and appreciating its successful progress thus far and its high
promise of great and general usefulness.
I have omitted to ask your favorable consideration for the estimates of
works of a local character in twenty-seven of the thirty-one States,
amounting to $1,754,500, because, independently of the grounds which have
so often been urged against the application of the Federal revenue for
works of this character, inequality, with consequent injustice, is inherent
in the nature of the proposition, and because the plan has proved entirely
inadequate to the accomplishment of the objects sought.
The subject of internal improvements, claiming alike the interest and good
will of all, has, nevertheless, been the basis of much political discussion
and has stood as a deep-graven line of division between statesmen of
eminent ability and patriotism. The rule of strict construction of all
powers delegated by the States to the General Government has arrayed itself
from time to time against the rapid progress of expenditures from the
National Treasury on works of a local character within the States.
Memorable as an epoch in the history of this subject is the message of
President Jackson of the 27th of May, 1830, which met the system of
internal improvements in its comparative infancy; but so rapid had been its
growth that the projected appropriations in that year for works of this
character had risen to the alarming amount of more than $100,000,000
In that message the President admitted the difficulty of bringing back the
operations of the Government to the construction of the Constitution set up
in 1798, and marked it as an admonitory proof of the necessity of guarding
that instrument with sleepless vigilance against the authority of
precedents which had not the sanction of its most plainly defined powers.
Our Government exists under a written compact between sovereign States,
uniting for specific objects and with specific grants to their general
agent. If, then, in the progress of its administration there have been
departures from the terms and intent of the compact, it is and will ever be
proper to refer back to the fixed standard which our fathers left us and to
make a stern effort to conform our action to it. It would seem that the
fact of a principle having been resisted from the first by many of the
wisest and most patriotic men of the Republic, and a policy having provoked
constant strife without arriving at a conclusion which can be regarded as
satisfactory to its most earnest advocates, should suggest the inquiry
whether there may not be a plan likely to be crowned by happier results.
Without perceiving any sound distinction or intending to assert any
principle as opposed to improvements needed for the protection of internal
commerce which does not equally apply to improvements upon the seaboard for
the protection of foreign commerce, I submit to you whether it may not be
safely anticipated that if the policy were once settled against
appropriations by the General Government for local improvements for the
benefit of commerce, localities requiring expenditures would not, by modes
and means clearly legitimate and proper, raise the fund necessary for such
constructions as the safety or other interests of their commerce might
require.
If that can be regarded as a system which in the experience of mere than
thirty years has at no time so commanded the public judgment as to give it
the character of a settled policy; which, though it has produced some works
of conceded importance, has been attended with an expenditure quite
disproportionate to their value and has resulted in squandering large sums
upon objects which have answered no valuable purpose, the interests of all
the States require it to be abandoned unless hopes may be indulged for the
future which find no warrant in the past.
With an anxious desire for the completion of the works which are regarded
by all good citizens with sincere interest, I have deemed it my duty to ask
at your hands a deliberate reconsideration of the question, with a hope
that, animated by a desire to promote the permanent and substantial
interests of the country, your wisdom may prove equal to the task of
devising and maturing a plan which, applied to this subject, may promise
something better than constant strife, the suspension of the powers of
local enterprise, the exciting of vain hopes, and the disappointment of
cherished expectations.
In expending the appropriations made by the last Congress several cases
have arisen in relation to works for the improvement of harbors which
involve questions as to the right of soil and jurisdiction, and have
threatened conflict between the authority of the State and General
Governments. The right to construct a breakwater, jetty, or dam would seem
necessarily to carry with it the power to protect and preserve such
constructions. This can only be effectually done by having jurisdiction
over the soil. But no clause of the Constitution is found on which to rest
the claim of the United States to exercise jurisdiction over the soil of a
State except that conferred by the eighth section of the first article of
the Constitution. It is, then, submitted whether, in all cases where
constructions are to be erected by the General Government, the right of
soil should not first be obtained and legislative provision be made to
cover all such cases. For the progress made in the construction of roads
within the Territories, as provided for in the appropriations of the last
Congress, I refer you to the report of the Secretary of War.
There is one subject of a domestic nature which, from its intrinsic
importance and the many interesting questions of future policy which it
involves, can not fail to receive your early attention. I allude to the
means of communication by which different parts of the wide expanse of our
country are to be placed in closer connection for purposes both of defense
and commercial intercourse, and more especially such as appertain to the
communication of those great divisions of the Union which lie on the
opposite sides of the Rocky Mountains. That the Government has not been
unmindful of this heretofore is apparent from the aid it has afforded
through appropriations for mail facilities and other purposes. But the
general subject will now present itself under aspects more imposing and
more purely national by reason of the surveys ordered by Congress, and now
in the process of completion, for communication by railway across the
continent, and wholly within the limits of the United States.
The power to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and
maintain a navy, and to call forth the militia to execute the laws,
suppress insurrections, and repel invasions was conferred upon Congress as
means to provide for the common defense and to protect a territory and a
population now widespread and vastly multiplied. As incidental to and
indispensable for the exercise of this power, it must sometimes be
necessary to construct military roads and protect harbors of refuge. To
appropriations by Congress for such objects no sound objection can be
raised. Happily for our country, its peaceful policy and rapidly increasing
population impose upon us no urgent necessity for preparation, and leave
but few trackless deserts between assailable points and a patriotic people
ever ready and generally able to protect them. These necessary links the
enterprise and energy of our people are steadily and boldly struggling to
supply. All experience affirms that wherever private enterprise will avail
it is most wise for the General Government to leave to that and individual
watchfulness the location and execution of all means of communication.
The surveys before alluded to were designed to ascertain the most
practicable and economical route for a railroad from the river Mississippi
to the Pacific Ocean. Parties are now in the field making explorations,
where previous examinations had not supplied sufficient data and where
there was the best reason to hope the object sought might be found. The
means and time being both limited, it is not to be expected that all the
accurate knowledge desired will be obtained, but it is hoped that much and
important information will be added to the stock previously possessed, and
that partial, if not full, reports of the surveys ordered will be received
in time for transmission to the two Houses of Congress on or before the
first Monday in February next, as required by the act of appropriation. The
magnitude of the enterprise contemplated has aroused and will doubtless
continue to excite a very general interest throughout the country. In its
political, its commercial, and its military bearings it has varied, great,
and increasing claims to consideration. The heavy expense, the great delay,
and, at times, fatality attending travel by either of the Isthmus routes
have demonstrated the advantage which would result from interterritorial
communication by such safe and rapid means as a railroad would supply.
These difficulties, which have been encountered in a period of peace, would
be magnified and still further increased in time of war. But whilst the
embarrassments already encountered and others under new contingencies to be
anticipated may serve strikingly to exhibit the importance of such a work,
neither these nor all considerations combined can have an appreciable value
when weighed against the obligation strictly to adhere to the Constitution
and faithfully to execute the powers it confers.
Within this limit and to the extent of the interest of the Government
involved it would seem both expedient and proper if an economical and
practicable route shall be found to aid by all constitutional means in the
construction of a road which will unite by speedy transit the populations
of the Pacific and Atlantic States. To guard against misconception, it
should be remarked that although the power to construct or aid in the
construction of a road within the limits of a Territory is not embarrassed
by that question of jurisdiction which would arise within the limits of a
State, it is, nevertheless, held to be of doubtful power and more than
doubtful propriety, even within the limits of a Territory, for the General
Government to undertake to administer the affairs of a railroad, a canal,
or other similar construction, and therefore that its connection with a
work of this character should be incidental rather than primary. I will
only add at present that, fully appreciating the magnitude of the subject
and solicitous that the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the Republic may be
bound together by inseparable ties of common interest, as well as of common
fealty and attachment to the Union, I shall be disposed, so far as my own
action is concerned, to follow the lights of the Constitution as expounded
and illustrated by those whose opinions and expositions constitute the
standard of my political faith in regard to the powers of the Federal
Government. It is, I trust, not necessary to say that no grandeur of
enterprise and no present urgent inducement promising popular favor will
lead me to disregard those lights or to depart from that path which
experience has proved to be safe, and which is now radiant with the glow of
prosperity and legitimate constitutional progress. We can afford to wait,
but we can not afford to overlook the ark of our security.
It is no part of my purpose to give prominence to any subject which may
properly be regarded as set at rest by the deliberate judgment of the
people. But while the present is bright with promise and the future full of
demand and inducement for the exercise of active intelligence, the past can
never be without useful lessons of admonition and instruction. If its
dangers serve not as beacons, they will evidently fail to fulfill the
object of a wise design. When the grave shall have closed over all who are
now endeavoring to meet the obligations of duty, the year 1850 will be
recurred to as a period filled with anxious apprehension. A successful war
had just terminated. Peace brought with it a vast augmentation of
territory. Disturbing questions arose bearing upon the domestic
institutions of one portion of the Confederacy and involving the
constitutional rights of the States. But notwithstanding differences of
opinion and sentiment which then existed in relation to details and
specific provisions, the acquiescence of distinguished citizens, whose
devotion to the Union can never be doubted, has given renewed vigor to our
institutions and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind
throughout the Confederacy. That this repose is to suffer no shock during
my official term, if I have power to avert it, those who placed me here may
be assured. The wisdom of men who knew what independence cost, who had put
all at stake upon the issue of the Revolutionary struggle, disposed of the
subject to which I refer in the only way consistent with the Union of these
States and with the march of power and prosperity which has made us what we
are. It is a significant fact that from the adoption of the Constitution
until the officers and soldiers of the Revolution had passed to their
graves, or, through the infirmities of age and wounds, had ceased to
participate actively in public affairs, there was not merely a quiet
acquiescence in, but a prompt vindication of, the constitutional rights of
the States. The reserved powers were scrupulously respected. No statesman
put forth the narrow views of casuists to justify interference and
agitation, but the spirit of the compact was regarded as sacred in the eye
of honor and indispensable for the great experiment of civil liberty,
which, environed by inherent difficulties, was yet borne forward in
apparent weakness by a power superior to all obstacles. There is no
condemnation which the voice of freedom will not pronounce upon us should
we prove faithless to this great trust. While men inhabiting different
parts of this vast continent can no more be expected to hold the same
opinions or entertain the same sentiments than every variety of climate or
soil can be expected to furnish the same agricultural products, they can
unite in a common object and sustain common principles essential to the
maintenance of that object. The gallant men of the South and the North
could stand together during the struggle of the Revolution; they could
stand together in the more trying period which succeeded the clangor of
arms. As their united valor was adequate to all the trials of the camp and
dangers of the field, so their united wisdom proved equal to the greater
task of founding upon a deep and broad basis institutions which it has been
our privilege to enjoy and will ever be our most sacred duty to sustain. It
is but the feeble expression of a faith strong and universal to say that
their sons, whose blood mingled so often upon the same field during the War
of 1812 and who have more recently borne in triumph the flag of the country
upon a foreign soil, will never permit alienation of feeling to weaken the
power of their united efforts nor internal dissensions to paralyze the
great arm of freedom, uplifted for the vindication of self-government.
I have thus briefly presented such suggestions as seem to me especially
worthy of your consideration. In providing for the present you can hardly
fail to avail yourselves of the light which the experience of the past
casts upon the future.
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