made except such as are absolutely necessary for its vigorous prosecution and the due administration of the government. Objects of appropriation, which in peace may be deemed useful or proper, but which are not indispeusable for the public service, may, when the country is engaged in a foreign war, be well postponed to a future period. By the observance of this policy at your present session, large amounts may be saved to the treasury, and be applied to objects of pressing and urgent necessity, and thus the creation of a corresponding amount of public debt may be avoided.

It is not meant to recommend that the ordinary and necessary appropriations for the support of government should be withheld, but it is well known that at every session of Congress appropriations are proposed for numerous objects which may or may not be made, without materially affecting the public interests; and these it is recommended should not be granted.

The act passed at your last session "reducing the duties on imports" not having gone into operation until the first of the present month, there has not been time for its practical effect upon the revenue and the business of the country, to be developed. It is not doubted, however, that the just policy which it adopts will add largely to our foreign trade, and promote the general prosperity. Although it can not certainly be foreseen what amount of revenue it will yield, it is estimated that it will exceed that produced by the act of 1842, which it superseded. The leading principles established by it are, to levy the taxes with a view to raise revenue, and to impose them upon the articles imported according to their actual value. The act of 1842, by the excessive rates of duty which it imposed on many articles, either totally excluded them from importation, or greatly reduced the amount imported, and thus diminished instead of producing revenue. By it the taxes were imposed, not for the legitimate purpose of raising revenue, but to afford advantages to favored classes, at the expense of a large majority of their fellow-citizens. Those employed in agriculture, mechanical pursuits, commerce, and navigation, were compelled to contribute from their substance to swell the profits and overgrown wealth of the comparatively few who had invested their capital in manufactures. The taxes were not levied in proportion to the value of the articles upon which they were imposed; but, widely departing from this just rule, the highter taxes were, in many cases, levied upon articles of luxury and high price, and the heavier taxes upon those of necessary and low price, consumed by the great mass of the people. It was a system, the inevitable effect of which was to relieve favored classes and the wealthy few from contributing their just proportion for the support of government, and to lay the burden on the labor of the many, engaged in other pursuits than manufactures.

A system so unequal and unjust has been superseded by the existing law, which imposes duties, not for the benefit or injury of classes or pursuits, but distributes, and, as far as practicable, equalizes the public burdens among all classes and occupations. The favored classes, who, under the unequal and unjust system which has been repealed, have heretofore realized large profits, and many of them amassed large fortunes, at the expense of the many who have been made tributary to them, will have no reason to complain if they shall be required to bear their just proportion of the taxes necessary for the support of government. So far from it, it will be perceived, by an examination of the existing law, that discriminations in the rates of duty imposed, within the revenue principle, have been retained

n their favor. The incidental aid against foreign competition whien they till enjoy gives them an advantage which no other pursuits possess; but of this none others will complain, because the duties levied are necessary for revenue. These revenue duties, including freights and charges, which the importer must pay before he can come in competition with the home manufacturer in our markets, amount, on nearly all our leading branches of manufacture, to more than one third of the value of the imported article, and in some cases to almost one half its value. With such advantages, it is not doubted that our domestic manufacturers will continue to prosper, realizing, in well-conducted establishments, even greater profits than can be derived from any other regular business. Indeed, so far from requiring the protection of even incidental revenue duties, our manufacturers in several leading branches are extending their business, giving evidence of great ingenuity and skill, and of their ability to compete, with increased prospect of success, for the open market of the world. Domestic manufactures, to the value of several millions of dollars, which can not find a market at home, are annually exported to foreign countries. With such rates of duty as those established by the existing law, the system will probably be permanent; and capitalists, who have made, or shall hereafter make, their investments in manufactures, will know upon what to rely. The country will be satisfied with these rates, because the advantages which the manufacturers still enjoy result necessarily from the collection of revenue for the support of government. High protective duties, from their unjust operation upon the masses of the people, can not fail to give rise to extensive dissatisfaction and complaint, and to constant efforts to change or repeal them, rendering all investments in manufactures uncertain and precarious. Lower and more permanent rates of duty, at the same time that they will yield to the manufacturer fair and remunerating profits, will secure him against the danger of frequent changes in the system, which can not fail to ruinously affect his interests.

Simultaneously with the relaxation of the restrictive policy by the United States, Great Britain, from whose example we derived the system, has relaxed hers. She has modified her corn laws, and reduced many other duties to moderate revenue rates. After ages of experiment, the statesmen of that country have been constrained by a stern necessity, and by a public opinion having its deep foundation in the sufferings and wants of impoverished millions to abandon a system, the effect of which was to build up immense fortunes in the hands of the few, and to reduce the laboring millions to pauperism and misery. Nearly in the same ratio that labor was depressed, capital was increased and concentrated by the British protective policy.

The evils of the system in Great Britain were at length rendered intolerable, and it has been abandoned, but not without a severe struggle on the part of the protected and favored classes to retain the unjust advantages which they have so long enjoyed. It was to be expected that a similar struggle would be made by the same classes in the United States, whenever an attempt was made to modify or abolish the same unjust system here. The protective policy had been in operation in the United States for a much shorter period, and its pernicious effects were not, therefore, so clearly perceived and felt. Enough, however, was known of these effects to induce its repeal.

It would be strange if, in the face of the example of Great Britain, our principal foreign customer, and of the evils of a system rendered manifest

in that country by long and painful experience, and in the face of the immense advantages which, under a more liberal commercial policy, we are already deriving, and must continue to derive, by supplying her starving population with food, the United States should restore a policy which she has been compelled to abandon, and thus diminish her ability to purchase from us the food and other articles which she so much needs, and we so much desire to sell.

By the simultaneous abandonment of the protective policy by Great Britain and the United States, new and important markets have already been opened for our agricultural and other products; commerce and navigation have received a new impulse; labor and trade have been released from the artificial trammels which have so long fettered them; and to a great extent reciprocity, in the exchange of commodities, has been introduced at the same time by both countries, and greatly for the benefit of both. Great Britain has been forced, by the pressure of circumstances at home, to abandon a policy which has been upheld for ages, and to open her markets for our immense surplus of breadstuffs, and it is confidently believed that other powers of Europe will ultimately see the wisdom, if they be not compelled by the pauperism and sufferings of their crowded population, to pursue a similar policy.

Our farmers are more deeply interested in maintaining the just and liberal policy of the existing law than any other class of our citizens. They constitute a large majority of our population; and it is well known that when they prosper, all other pursuits prosper also. They have heretofore not only received none of the bounties or favors of government, but, by the unequal operations of the protective policy, have been made, by the burdens of taxation which it imposed, to contribute to the bounties which have enriched others.

When a foreign as well as a home market is opened to them, they must receive, as they are now receiving, increased prices for their products. They will find a readier sale, and at better prices, for their wheat, flour, rice, Indian corn, beef, pork, lard, butter, cheese, and other articles, which they produce. The home market alone is inadequate to enable them to dispose of the immense surplus of food and other articles which they are capable of producing, even at the most reduced prices, for the manifest reason that they can not be consumed in the country. The United States can, from their immense surplus, supply not only the home demand, but the deficiencies of food required by the whole world.

That the reduced production of some of the chief articles of food in Great Britain, and other parts of Europe, may have contributed to increase the demand for our breadstuffs and provisions, is not doubted; but that the great and efficient cause of this increased demand, and of increased prices, consists in the removal of artificial restrictions heretofore imposed, is deemed to be equally certain. That our exports of food, already increased and increasing beyond former example, under the more liberal policy which has been adopted, will be still vastly enlarged, unless they be checked or prevented by a restoration of the protective policy, can not be doubted. That our commercial and navigating interests will be enlarged in a corresponding ratio with the increase of our trade, is equally certain; while our manufacturing interests will still be the favored interests of the country, and receive the incidental protection afforded them by revenue duties; and more than this they can not justly demand.

In my annual message of December last, a tariff of revenue duties

based upon the principles of the existing law was recommended; and I have seen no reason to change the opinions then expressed. In view of the probable beneficial effects of that law, I recommend that the policy established by it be maintained. It has but just commenced to operate, and to abandon or modify it without giving it a fair trial, would be inexpedient and unwise. Should defects in any of its details be ascertained by actual experience to exist, these may be hereafter corrected; but until such defects shall become manifest, the act should be fairly tested.

It is submitted for your consideration whether it may not be proper, as a war measure, to impose revenue duties on some of the articles now embraced in the free list. Should it be deemed proper to impose such duties, with a view to raise revenue to meet the expenses of the war with Mexico, or to avoid to that extent the creation of a public debt, they may be repealed when the emergency which gave rise to them shall cease to exist, and constitute no part of the permanent policy of the country.

The act of the sixth of August last, "to provide for the better organization of the treasury, and for the collection, safekeeping, transfer, and disbursement of the public revenue," has been carried into execution as rapidly as the delay necessarily arising out of the appointment of new officers, taking and approving their bonds, and preparing and securing proper places for the safekeeping of the public money, would permit. It is not proposed to depart in any respect from the principles or policy on which this great measure is founded. There are, however, defects in the details of the measure, developed by its practical operation, which are fully set forth in the report of the secretary of the treasury, to which the attention of Congress is invited. These defects would impair to some extent the successful operation of the law at all times, but are especially embarrassing when the country is engaged in a war, when the expenditures are greatly increased, when loans are to be effected, and the disbursements are to be made at points many hundred miles distant, in some cases, from any depository, and a large portion of them in a foreign country. The modifications suggested in the report of the secretary of the treasury are recommended to your favorable consideration.

In connexion with this subject, I invite your attention to the importance of establishing a branch of the mint of the United States at New York. Two thirds of the revenue derived from customs being collected at that point, the demand for specie to pay the duties will be large; and a branch mint, where foreign coin and bullion could be immediately converted into American coin, would greatly facilitate the transaction of the public business, enlarge the circulation of gold and silver, and be, at the same time, a safe depository of the public money.

The importance of graduating and reducing the price of such of the public lands as have been long offered in the market at the minimum rate authorized by existing laws, and remain unsold, induces me again to recommend the subject to your favorable consideration. Many millions of acres of these lands have been offered in the market for more than thirty years, and larger quantities for more than ten or twenty years; and being of an inferior quality, they must remain unsaleable for an indefinite period, unless the price at which they may be purchased shall be reduced. To place a price upon them above their real value is not only to prevent their sale, and thereby deprive the treasury of any income from that source, but is unjust to the states in which they lie, because it retards their growth and increase of population, and because they have no power

to levy a tax upon them as upon other lands within their limits, held by other proprietors than the United States, for the support of their local governments.

The beneficial effects of the graduation principle have been realized by some of the states owning the lands within their limits, in which it has been adopted. They have been demonstrated also by the United States acting as the trustee of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians in the sale of their lands lying within the states of Mississippi and Alabama. The Chickasaw lands, which would not command in the market the minimum price established by the laws of the United States for the sale of their lands, were, in pursuance of the treaty of 1834, with that tribe, subsequently offered for sale at graduated and reduced rates for limited periods. The result was, that large quantities of these lands were purchased, which would otherwise have remained unsold. The lands were disposed of at their real value, and many persons of limited means were enabled to purchase small tracts, upon which they have settled with their families. That similar results would be produced by the adoption of the graduation policy by the United States, in all the states in which they are the owners of large bodies of lands which have been long in the market, can not be doubted. It can not be a sound policy to withhold large quantities of the public lands from the use and occupation of our citizens, by fixing upon them prices which experience has shown they will not command. On the contrary, it is a wise policy to afford facilities to our citizens to become the owners, at low and moderate rates, of freeholds of their own, instead of being the tenants and dependants of others. If it be apprehended that these lands, if reduced in price, would be secured in large quantities by speculators or capitalists, the sales may be restricted, in limited quantities, to actual settlers or persons purchasing for purpose of cultivation.

In my last annual message I submitted for the consideration of Congress the present system of managing the mineral lands of the United States, and recommended that they should be brought into market and sold, upon such terms and under such restrictions as Congress might prescribe. By the act of the eleventh of July last, "the reserved lead mines and contiguous lands in the states of Illinois and Arkansas, and territories of Wisconsin and lowa," were authorized to be sold. The act is confined, in its operation, to "lead mines and contiguous lands."

A large portion of the public lands containing copper and other ores is represented to be very valuable, and I recommend that provision be made authorizing the sale of these lands, upon such terms and conditions as from their supposed value may, in the judgment of Congress, be deemed advisable, having due regard to the interests of such of our citizens as may be located upon them.

It will be important, during your present session, to establish a territorial government and to extend the jurisdiction and laws of the United States over the territory of Oregon. Our laws regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes east of the Rocky mountains should be extended to the Pacific ocean; and, for the purpose of executing them and preserving friendly relations with the Indian tribes within our limits, an additional number of Indian agencies will be required, and should be authorized by law. The establishment of customhouses, and of postoffices and postroads, and provision for the transportation of the mail on such routes as the public convenience will suggest, require legislative authority. It will be proper, also, to establish a surveyor-general's office in that ter