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State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant

U >> Ulysses S. Grant >> State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant



This eBook was produced by James Linden.

The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***

Dates of addresses by Ulysses S. Grant in this eBook:
December 6, 1869
December 5, 1870
December 4, 1871
December 2, 1872
December 1, 1873
December 7, 1874
December 7, 1875
December 5, 1876



***

State of the Union Address
Ulysses S. Grant
December 6, 1869

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

In coming before you for the first time as Chief Magistrate of this great
nation, it is with gratitude to the Giver of All Good for the many benefits
we enjoy. We are blessed with peace at home, and are without entangling
alliances abroad to forebode trouble; with a territory unsurpassed in
fertility, of an area equal to the abundant support of 500,000,000 people,
and abounding in every variety of useful mineral in quantity sufficient to
supply the world for generations; with exuberant crops; with a variety of
climate adapted to the production of every species of earth's riches and
suited to the habits, tastes, and requirements of every living thing; with
a population of 40,000,000 free people, all speaking one language; with
facilities for every mortal to acquire an education; with institutions
closing to none the avenues to fame or any blessing of fortune that may be
coveted; with freedom of the pulpit, the press, and the school; with a
revenue flowing into the National Treasury beyond the requirements of the
Government. Happily, harmony is being rapidly restored within our own
borders. Manufactures hitherto unknown in our country are springing up in
all sections, producing a degree of national independence unequaled by that
of any other power.

These blessings and countless others are intrusted to your care and mine
for safe-keeping for the brief period of our tenure of office. In a short
time we must, each of us, return to the ranks of the people, who have
conferred upon us our honors, and account to them for our stewardship. I
earnestly desire that neither you nor I may be condemned by a free and
enlightened constituency nor by our own consciences.

Emerging from a rebellion of gigantic magnitude, aided, as it was, by the
sympathies and assistance of nations with which we were at peace, eleven
States of the Union were, four years ago, left without legal State
governments. A national debt had been contracted; American commerce was
almost driven from the seas; the industry of one-half of the country had
been taken from the control of the capitalist and placed where all labor
rightfully belongs--in the keeping of the laborer. The work of restoring
State governments loyal to the Union, of protecting and fostering free
labor, and providing means for paying the interest on the public debt has
received ample attention from Congress. Although your efforts have not met
with the success in all particulars that might have been desired, yet on
the whole they have been more successful than could have been reasonably
anticipated.

Seven States which passed ordinances of secession have been fully restored
to their places in the Union. The eighth (Georgia) held an election at
which she ratified her constitution, republican in form, elected a
governor, Members of Congress, a State legislature, and all other officers
required. The governor was duly installed, and the legislature met and
performed all the acts then required of them by the reconstruction acts of
Congress. Subsequently, however, in violation of the constitution which
they had just ratified (as since decided by the supreme court of the
State), they unseated the colored members of the legislature and admitted
to seats some members who are disqualified by the third clause of the
fourteenth amendment to the Constitution--an article which they themselves
had contributed to ratify. Under these circumstances I would submit to you
whether it would not be wise, without delay, to enact a law authorizing the
governor of Georgia to convene the members originally elected to the
legislature, requiring each member to take the oath prescribed by the
reconstruction acts, and none to be admitted who are ineligible under the
third clause of the fourteenth amendment.

The freedmen, under the protection which they have received, are making
rapid progress in learning, and no complaints are heard of lack of industry
on their part where they receive fair remuneration for their labor. The
means provided for paying the interest on the public debt, with all other
expenses of Government, are more than ample. The loss of our commerce is
the only result of the late rebellion which has not received sufficient
attention from you. To this subject I call your earnest attention. I will
not now suggest plans by which this object may be effected, but will, if
necessary, make it the subject of a special message during the session of
Congress.

At the March term Congress by joint resolution authorized the Executive to
order elections in the States of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas, to
submit to them the constitutions which each had previously, in convention,
framed, and submit the constitutions, either entire or in separate parts,
to be voted upon, at the discretion of the Executive. Under this authority
elections were called. In Virginia the election took place on the 6th of
July, 1869. The governor and lieutenant-governor elected have been
installed. The legislature met and did all required by this resolution and
by all the reconstruction acts of Congress, and abstained from all doubtful
authority. I recommend that her Senators and Representatives be promptly
admitted to their seats, and that the State be fully restored to its place
in the family of States. Elections were called in Mississippi and Texas, to
commence on the 30th of November, 1869, and to last two days in Mississippi
and four days in Texas. The elections have taken place, but the result is
not known. It is to be hoped that the acts of the legislatures of these
States, when they meet, will be such as to receive your approval, and thus
close the work of reconstruction.

Among the evils growing out of the rebellion, and not yet referred to, is
that of an irredeemable currency. It is an evil which I hope will receive
your most earnest attention. It is a duty, and one of the highest duties,
of Government to secure to the citizen a medium of exchange of fixed,
unvarying value. This implies a return to a specie basis, and no substitute
for it can be devised. It should be commenced now and reached at the
earliest practicable moment consistent with a fair regard to the interests
of the debtor class. Immediate resumption, if practicable, would not be
desirable. It would compel the debtor class to pay, beyond their contracts,
the premium on gold at the date of their purchase and would bring
bankruptcy and ruin to thousands. Fluctuation, however, in the paper value
of the measure of all values (gold) is detrimental to the interests of
trade. It makes the man of business an involuntary gambler, for in all
sales where future payment is to be made both parties speculate as to what
will be the value of the currency to be paid and received. I earnestly
recommend to you, then, such legislation as will insure a gradual return to
specie payments and put an immediate stop to fluctuations in the value of
currency.

The methods to secure the former of these results are as numerous as are
the speculators on political economy. To secure the latter I see but one
way, and that is to authorize the Treasury to redeem its own paper, at a
fixed price, whenever presented, and to withhold from circulation all
currency so redeemed until sold again for gold.

The vast resources of the nation, both developed and undeveloped, ought to
make our credit the best on earth. With a less burden of taxation than the
citizen has endured for six years past, the entire public debt could be
paid in ten years. But it is not desirable that the people should be taxed
to pay it in that time. Year by year the ability to pay increases in a
rapid ratio. But the burden of interest ought to be reduced as rapidly as
can be done without the violation of contract. The public debt is
represented in great part by bonds having from five to twenty and from ten
to forty years to run, bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent and 5 per
cent, respectively. It is optional with the Government to pay these bonds
at any period after the expiration of the least time mentioned upon their
face. The time has already expired when a great part of them may be taken
up, and is rapidly approaching when all may be. It is believed that all
which are now due may be replaced by bonds bearing a rate of interest not
exceeding 4 1/2 per cent, and as rapidly as the remainder become due that
they may be replaced in the same way. To accomplish this it may be
necessary to authorize the interest to be paid at either of three or four
of the money centers of Europe, or by any assistant treasurer of the United
States, at the option of the holder of the bond. I suggest this subject for
the consideration of Congress, and also, simultaneously with this, the
propriety of redeeming our currency, as before suggested, at its market
value at the time the law goes into effect, increasing the rate at which
currency shall be bought and sold from day to day or week to week, at the
same rate of interest as Government pays upon its bonds.

The subjects of tariff and internal taxation will necessarily receive your
attention. The revenues of the country are greater than the requirements,
and may with safety be reduced. But as the funding of the debt in a 4 or a
4 1/2 per cent loan would reduce annual current expenses largely, thus,
after funding, justifying a greater reduction of taxation than would be now
expedient, I suggest postponement of this question until the next meeting
of Congress.

It may be advisable to modify taxation and tariff in instances where unjust
or burdensome discriminations are made by the present laws, but a general
revision of the laws regulating this subject I recommend the postponement
of for the present. I also suggest the renewal of the tax on incomes, but
at a reduced rate, say of 3 per cent, and this tax to expire in three
years.

With the funding of the national debt, as here suggested, I feel safe in
saying that taxes and the revenue from imports may be reduced safely from
sixty to eighty millions per annum at once, and may be still further
reduced from year to year, as the resources of the country are developed.

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury shows the receipts of the
Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, to be $370,943,747,
and the expenditures, including interest, bounties, etc., to be
$321,490,597. The estimates for the ensuing year are more favorable to the
Government, and will no doubt show a much larger decrease of the public
debt.

The receipts in the Treasury beyond expenditures have exceeded the amount
necessary to place to the credit of the sinking fund, as provided by law.
To lock up the surplus in the Treasury and withhold it from circulation
would lead to such a contraction of the currency as to cripple trade and
seriously affect the prosperity of the country. Under these circumstances
the Secretary of the Treasury and myself heartily concurred in the
propriety of using all the surplus currency in the Treasury in the purchase
of Government bonds, thus reducing the interest-bearing indebtedness of the
country, and of submitting to Congress the question of the disposition to
be made of the bonds so purchased. The bonds now held by the Treasury
amount to about seventy-five millions, including those belonging to the
sinking fund. I recommend that the whole be placed to the credit of the
sinking fund.

Your attention is respectfully invited to the recommendations of the
Secretary of the Treasury for the creation of the office of commissioner of
customs revenue; for the increase of salaries to certain classes of
officials; the substitution of increased national-bank circulation to
replace the outstanding 3 per cent certificates; and most especially to his
recommendation for the repeal of laws allowing shares of fines, penalties,
forfeitures, etc., to officers of the Government or to informers.

The office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue is one of the most arduous
and responsible under the Government. It falls but little, if any, short of
a Cabinet position in its importance and responsibilities. I would ask for
it, therefore, such legislation as in your judgment will place the office
upon a footing of dignity commensurate with its importance and with the
character and qualifications of the class of men required to fill it
properly.

As the United States is the freest of all nations, so, too, its people
sympathize with all people struggling for liberty and self-government; but
while so sympathizing it is due to our honor that we should abstain from
enforcing our views upon unwilling nations and from taking an interested
part, without invitation, in the quarrels between different nations or
between governments and their subjects. Our course should always be in
conformity with strict justice and law, international and local. Such has
been the policy of the Administration in dealing with these questions. For
more than a year a valuable province of Spain, and a near neighbor of ours,
in whom all our people can not but feel a deep interest, has been
struggling for independence and freedom. The people and Government of the
United States entertain the same warm feelings and sympathies for the
people of Cuba in their pending struggle that they manifested throughout
the previous struggles between Spain and her former colonies in behalf of
the latter. But the contest has at no time assumed the conditions which
amount to a war in the sense of international law, or which would show the
existence of a de facto political organization of the insurgents sufficient
to justify a recognition of belligerency.

The principle is maintained, however, that this nation is its own judge
when to accord the rights of belligerency, either to a people struggling to
free themselves from a government they believe to be oppressive or to
independent nations at war with each other.

The United States have no disposition to interfere with the existing
relations of Spain to her colonial possessions on this continent. They
believe that in due time Spain and other European powers will find their
interest in terminating those relations and establishing their present
dependencies as independent powers--members of the family of nations. These
dependencies are no longer regarded as subject to transfer from one
European power to another. When the present relation of colonies ceases,
they are to become independent powers, exercising the right of choice and
of self-control in the determination of their future condition and
relations with other powers.

The United States, in order to put a stop to bloodshed in Cuba, and in the
interest of a neighboring people, proposed their good offices to bring the
existing contest to a termination. The offer, not being accepted by Spain
on a basis which we believed could be received by Cuba, was withdrawn. It
is hoped that the good offices of the United States may yet prove
advantageous for the settlement of this unhappy strife. Meanwhile a number
of illegal expeditions against Cuba have been broken up. It has been the
endeavor of the Administration to execute the neutrality laws in good
faith, no matter how unpleasant the task, made so by the sufferings we have
endured from lack of like good faith toward us by other nations.

On the 26th of March last the United States schooner Lizzie Major was
arrested on the high seas by a Spanish frigate, and two passengers taken
from it and carried as prisoners to Cuba. Representations of these facts
were made to the Spanish Government as soon as official information of them
reached Washington. The two passengers were set at liberty, and the Spanish
Government assured the United States that the captain of the frigate in
making the capture had acted without law, that he had been reprimanded for
the irregularity of his conduct, and that the Spanish authorities in Cuba
would not sanction any act that could violate the rights or treat with
disrespect the sovereignty of this nation.

The question of the seizure of the brig Mary Lowell at one of the Bahama
Islands by Spanish authorities is now the subject of correspondence between
this Government and those of Spain and Great Britain.

The Captain-General of Cuba about May last issued a proclamation
authorizing search to be made of vessels on the high seas. Immediate
remonstrance was made against this, whereupon the Captain-General issued a
new proclamation limiting the right of search to vessels of the United
States so far as authorized under the treaty of 1795. This proclamation,
however, was immediately withdrawn.

I have always felt that the most intimate relations should be cultivated
between the Republic of the United States and all independent nations on
this continent. It may be well worth considering whether new treaties
between us and them may not be profitably entered into, to secure more
intimate relations--friendly, commercial, and otherwise.

The subject of an interoceanic canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans through the Isthmus of Darien is one in which commerce is greatly
interested. Instructions have been given to our minister to the Republic of
the United States of Colombia to endeavor to obtain authority for a survey
by this Government, in order to determine the practicability of such an
undertaking, and a charter for the right of way to build, by private
enterprise, such a work, if the survey proves it to be practicable.

In order to comply with the agreement of the United States as to a mixed
commission at Lima for the adjustment of claims, it became necessary to
send a commissioner and secretary to Lima in August last. No appropriation
having been made by Congress for this purpose, it is now asked that one be
made covering the past and future expenses of the commission.

The good offices of the United States to bring about a peace between Spain
and the South American Republics with which she is at war having been
accepted by Spain, Peru, and Chile, a congress has been invited to be held
in Washington during the present winter.

A grant has been given to Europeans of an exclusive right of transit over
the territory of Nicaragua, to which Costa Rico has given its assent,
which, it is alleged, conflicts with vested rights of citizens of the
United States. The Department of State has now this subject under
consideration.

The minister of Peru having made representations that there was a state of
war between Peru and Spain, and that Spain was constructing, in and near
New York, thirty gunboats, which might be used by Spain in such a way as to
relieve the naval force at Cuba, so as to operate against Peru, orders were
given to prevent their departure. No further steps having been taken by the
representative of the Peruvian Government to prevent the departure of these
vessels, and I not feeling authorized to detain the property of a nation
with which we are at peace on a mere Executive order, the matter has been
referred to the courts to decide.

The conduct of the war between the allies and the Republic of Paraguay has
made the intercourse with that country so difficult that it has been deemed
advisable to withdraw our representative from there.

Toward the close of the last Administration a convention was signed at
London for the settlement of all outstanding claims between Great Britain
and the United States, which failed to receive the advice and consent of
the Senate to its ratification. The time and the circumstances attending
the negotiation of that treaty were unfavorable to its acceptance by the
people of the United States, and its provisions were wholly inadequate for
the settlement of the grave wrongs that bad been sustained by this
Government, as well as by its citizens. The injuries resulting to the
United States by reason of the course adopted by Great Britain during our
late civil war--in the increased rates of insurance; in the diminution of
exports and imports, and other obstructions to domestic industry and
production; in its effect upon the foreign commerce of the country; in the
decrease and transfer to Great Britain of our commercial marine; in the
prolongation of the war and the increased cost (both in treasure and in
lives) of its suppression could not be adjusted and satisfied as ordinary
commercial claims, which continually arise between commercial nations; and
yet the convention treated them simply as such ordinary claims, from which
they differ more widely in the gravity of their character than in the
magnitude of their amount, great even as is that difference. Not a word was
found in the treaty, and not an inference could be drawn from it, to remove
the sense of the unfriendliness of the course of Great Britain in our
struggle for existence, which had so deeply and universally impressed
itself upon the people of this country.

Believing that a convention thus misconceived in its scope and inadequate
in its provisions would not have produced the hearty, cordial settlement of
pending questions, which alone is consistent with the relations which I
desire to have firmly established between the United States and Great
Britain, I regarded the action of the Senate in rejecting the treaty to
have been wisely taken in the interest of peace and as a necessary step in
the direction of a perfect and cordial friendship between the two
countries. A sensitive people, conscious of their power, are more at ease
under a great wrong wholly unatoned than under the restraint of a
settlement which satisfies neither their ideas of justice nor their grave
sense of the grievance they have sustained. The rejection of the treaty was
followed by a state of public feeling on both sides which I thought not
favorable to an immediate attempt at renewed negotiations. I accordingly so
instructed the minister of the United States to Great Britain, and found
that my views in this regard were shared by Her Majesty's ministers. I hope
that the time may soon arrive when the two Governments can approach the
solution of this momentous question with an appreciation of what is due to
the rights, dignity, and honor of each, and with the determination not only
to remove the causes of complaint in the past, but to lay the foundation of
a broad principle of public law which will prevent future differences and
tend to firm and continued peace and friendship.

This is now the only grave question which the United States has with any
foreign nation.

The question of renewing a treaty for reciprocal trade between the United
States and the British Provinces on this continent has not been favorably
considered by the Administration. The advantages of such a treaty would be
wholly in favor of the British producer. Except, possibly, a few engaged in
the trade between the two sections, no citizen of the United States would
be benefited by reciprocity. Our internal taxation would prove a protection
to the British producer almost equal to the protection which our
manufacturers now receive from the tariff. Some arrangement, however, for
the regulation of commercial intercourse between the United States and the
Dominion of Canada may be desirable.

The commission for adjusting the claims of the "Hudsons Bay and Puget Sound
Agricultural Company" upon the United States has terminated its labors. The
award of $650,000 has been made and all rights and titles of the company on
the territory of the United States have been extinguished. Deeds for the
property of the company have been delivered. An appropriation by Congress
to meet this sum is asked.

The commissioners for determining the northwestern land boundary between
the United States and the British possessions under the treaty of 1856 have
completed their labors, and the commission has been dissolved.

In conformity with the recommendation of Congress, a proposition was early
made to the British Government to abolish the mixed courts created under
the treaty of April 7, 1862, for the suppression of the slave trade. The
subject is still under negotiation.

It having come to my knowledge that a corporate company, organized under
British laws, proposed to land upon the shores of the United States and to
operate there a submarine cable, under a concession from His Majesty the
Emperor of the French of an exclusive right for twenty years of telegraphic
communication between the shores of France and the United States, with the
very objectionable feature of subjecting all messages conveyed thereby to
the scrutiny and control of the French Government, I caused the French and
British legations at Washington to be made acquainted with the probable
policy of Congress on this subject, as foreshadowed by the bill which
passed the Senate in March last. This drew from the representatives of the
company an agreement to accept as the basis of their operations the
provisions of that bill, or of such other enactment on the subject as might
be passed during the approaching session of Congress; also, to use their
influence to secure from the French Government a modification of their
concession, so as to permit the landing upon French soil of any cable
belonging to any company incorporated by the authority of the United States
or of any State in the Union, and, on their part, not to oppose the
establishment of any such cable. In consideration of this agreement I
directed the withdrawal of all opposition by the United States authorities
to the landing of the cable and to the working of it until the meeting of
Congress. I regret to say that there has been no modification made in the
company's concession, nor, so far as I can learn, have they attempted to
secure one. Their concession excludes the capital and the citizens of the
United States from competition upon the shores of France. I recommend
legislation to protect the rights of citizens of the United States, as well
as the dignity and sovereignty of the nation, against such an assumption. I
shall also endeavor to secure, by negotiation, an abandonment of the
principle of monopolies in ocean telegraphic cables. Copies of this
correspondence are herewith furnished.

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