transmission, as well as the security of the funds of the department. The efficiency and industry of its officers, and the ability and energy of contractors, justify an increased confidence in its continued prosperity.

The attention of Congress was called, on a former occasion, to the necessity of such a modification of the office of attorney-general of the United States as would render it more adequate to the wants of the public service. This resulted in the establishment of the office of solicitor of the treasury, and the earliest measures were taken to give effect to the provisions of the law which authorized the appointment of that officer, and defined his duties. But it is not believed that this provision, however useful in itself, is calculated to supersede the necessity of extending the duties and powers of the attorney-general's office. On the contrary, I am convinced that the public interest would be greatly promoted by giving to that officer the general superintendence of the various law agents of the government, and of all law proceedings, whether civil or criminal, in which the United States may be interested, allowing to him at the same time such a compensation as would enable him to devote his undivided attention to the public business. I think such a provision is alike due to the public and to the officer.

Occasions of reference from the different executive departments to the attorney-general are of frequent occurrence; and the prompt decision of the questions so referred tends much to facilitate the despatch of business in those departments. The report of the secretary of the treasury, hereto appended, shows also a branch of the public service not specifically intrusted to any officer which might be advantageously committed to the attorney-general.

But, independently of those considerations, this office is now one of daily duty. It was originally organized, and its compensation fixed, with a view to occasional service, leaving to the incumbent time for the exercise of his profession in private practice. The state of things which warranted such an organization no longer exists. The frequent claims upon the services of this officer would render his absence from the seat of government, in professional attendance upon the courts, injurious to the public service; and the interests of the government could not fail to be promoted by charging him with the general superintendence of all its legal concerns.

Under a strong conviction of the justice of these suggestions, I recommend it to Congress to make the necessary provisions for giving effect to them, and to place the attorney-general, in regard to compensation, on the same footing with the heads of the several executive departments. To this officer might also be intrusted a cognizance of the cases of insolvency in public debtors, especially if the views which I submitted on this subject last year should meet the approbation of Congress-to which I again solicit your attention.

Your attention is respectfully invited to the situation of the district of Columbia. Placed by the constitution under the exclusive jurisdiction and control of Congress, this district is certainly entitled to a much greater share of its consideration than it has yet received. There is a want of uniformity in its laws, particularly those of a penal character, which increases the expense of their administration, and subjects the people to all the inconveniences which result from the operation of different codes in so small a territory. On different sides of the Potomac, the same offence is punishable in unequal degrees; and the peculiarities of many of the early laws of Maryland and Virginia remain in force, notwithstanding their repugnance, in some cases, to the improvements which have superseded them in those states.

Besides a remedy for these evils, which is loudly called for, it is respectfully submitted whether a provision authorizing the election of a delegate to represent the wants of the citizens of this district on the floor of Congress, is not due to them, and to the character of our government. No portion of our citizens should be without a practical enjoyment of the principles of freedom; and there is none more important than that which cultivates a proper relation between the governors and the governed. Imperfect as this must be in this case, yet it is believed that it would be greatly improved by a representation in Congress, with the same privileges that are allowed to that of the other territories of the United States.

The penitentiary is ready for the reception of convicts, and only awaits the necessary legislation to put it into operation; as one object of which, I beg leave to recall your attention to the propriety of providing suitable compensation for the officers charged with its inspection.

The importance of the principle involved in the inquiry whether it will be proper to recharter the bank of the United States, requires that I should again call the attention of Congress to the subject. Nothing has occurred to lessen in any degree, the dangers which many of our citizens apprehend from that institution, as at present organized. In the spirit of improvement and compromise which distinguishes our country and its institutions, it becomes us to inquire whether it be not possible to secure the advantages afforded by the present bank, through the agency of a bank of the United States so modified in its principles and structure as to obviate constitutional and other objections.

It is thought practicable to organize such a bank with the necessary officers, as a branch of the treasury department, based on the public and individual deposites, without power to make loans or purchase property, which shall remit the funds of the government, and the expenses of which may be paid, if thought advisable, by allowing its officers to sell bills of exchange to private individuals at a moderate premium. Not being a corporate body, having no stockholders, debtors, or property, and but few officers, it would not be obnoxious to the constitutional objections which are urged against the present bank; and having no means to operate on the hopes, fears, or interests of large masses of the community, it would be shorn of the influence which makes that bank formidable. The states would be strengthened by having in their hands the means of furnishing the local paper currency through their own banks; while the bank of the United States, though issuing no paper, would check the issues of the state banks, by taking their notes in deposite, and for exchange only, so long as they continue to be redeemed with specie. In times of public emergency, the capacities of such an institution might be enlarged by legislative provisions.

These suggestions are made, not so much as a recommendation, as with a view of calling the attention of Congress to the possible modifications of a system which can not continue to exist in its present form without occasional collisions with the local authorities, and perpetual apprehensions and discontent on the part of the states and the people.

In conclusion, fellow-citizens, allow me to invoke in behalf of your deliberations, that spirit of reconciliation and disinterestedness which is the gift of patriotism. Under an overruling and merciful Providence, the agency of this spirit has thus far been signalized in the prosperity and. glory of our beloved country. May its influence be eternal.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 15, 1830.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

:

GENTLEMEN From information received at the department of state, it is ascertained that, owing to unforeseen circumstances, several of the marshals have been unable to complete the enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States within the time prescribed by the act of the 23d March, 1830, viz., by the first day of the present month.

As the completion of the fifth census, as respects several of the states of the Union, will have been defeated, unless Congress, to whom the case is submitted, should, by an act of the present session, allow further time for making the returns in question, the expediency is suggested of allowing such an act to pass at as early a day as possible.

THIRD

ANNUAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 6, 1831.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives :—

THE representation of the people has been renewed for the twenty-second time since the constitution they formed has been in force. For near half a century, the chief magistrates who have been successively chosen have made their annual communications of the state of the nation to its representatives. Generally, these communications have been of the most gratifying nature, testifying an advance in all the improvements of social, and all the securities of political life. But, frequently and justly as you have been called on to be grateful for the bounties of Providence, at few periods have they been more abundantly or extensively bestowed, than at the present; rarely, if ever, have we had greater reason to congratulate each other on the continued and increasing prosperity of our beloved country.

Agriculture, the first and most important occupation of man, has compensated the labors of the husbandman with plentiful crops of all the varied products of our extensive country. Manufactures have been established in which the funds of the capitalist find a profitable investment, and which give employment and subsistence to a numerous and increasing body of industrious and dexterous mechanics. The laborer is rewarded by high wages in the construction of works of internal improvement, which are extending with unprecedented rapidity. Science is steadily penetrating the recesses of nature, and disclosing her secrets, while the ingenuity of free minds is subjecting the elements to the power of man, and making each new conquest auxiliary to his comforts. By our mails, whose speed is regularly increased and whose routes are every year extended, the communication of public intelligence and private business is rendered frequent and safe; the intercourse between distant cities, which it formerly required weeks to accomplish, is now effected in a few days; and in the construction of railroads, and the application of steam power, we have a reasonable prospect that the extreme parts of our country will be so much approximated, and

those most isolated by the obstacles of nature rendered so accessible, as to remove an apprehension sometimes entertained, that the great extent of the Union would endanger its permanent existence.

If, from the satisfactory view of our agriculture, manufactures, and internal improvements, we turn to the state of our navigation and trade with foreign nations and between the states, we shall scarcely find less cause for gratulation. A beneficent Providence has provided for their exercise and encouragement an extensive coast, indented by capacious bays, noble rivers. inland seas; with a country productive of every material for ship-building, and every commodity for gainful commerce, and filled with a population, active, intelligent, well-informed, and fearless of danger. These advantages are not neglected; and an impulse has lately been given to commercial enterprise, which fills our ship-yards with new constructions, encourages all the arts and branches of industry connected with them, crowds the wharves of our cities with vessels, and covers the most distant seas with our canvass.

Let us be grateful for these blessings to the beneficent Being who has conferred them, and who suffers us to indulge a reasonable hope of their continuance and extension, while we neglect not the means by which they may be preserved. If we may dare to judge of his future designs by the manner in which his past favors have been bestowed, he has made our national prosperity to depend on the preservation of our liberties-our national force on our federal Union-and our individual happiness on the maintenance of our state-rights and wise institutions. If we are prosperous at home, and respected abroad, it is because we are free, united, industrious, and obedient to the laws. While we continue so, we shall, by the blessing of Heaven, go on in the happy career we have begun, and which has brought us, in the short period of our political existence, from a population of three to thirteen millions-from thirteen separate colonies to twentyfour United States-from weakness to strength-from a rank scarcely marked in the scale of nations to a high place in their respect.

This last advantage is one that has resulted, in a great degree, from the principles which have guided our intercourse with foreign powers, since we have assumed an equal station among them: and hence the annual account which the executive renders to the country of the manner in which that branch of his duties has been fulfilled, proves instructive and salutary. The pacific and wise policy of our government kept us in a state of neutrality during the wars that have, at different periods since our political existence, been carried on by other powers; but this policy, while it gave activity and extent to our commerce, exposed it in the same proportion to injuries from the belligerent nations. Hence have arisen claims of indemnity for those injuries. England, France, Spain, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Naples, and lately Portugal, had all, in a greater or less degree, infringed our neutral rights. Demands for reparation were made upon all. They have had in all, and continue to have, in some cases, a leading influence on the nature of our relations with the powers on whom they were made.

Of our claims upon England, it is unnecessary to speak, further than to say, that the state of things to which their prosecution and denial gave rise has been succeeded by arrangements productive of mutual good feeling and amicable relations between the two countries, which it is hoped will not be interrupted. One of these arrangements is that relating to the colonial trade, which was communicated to Congress at the last session; and al

though the short period during which it has been in force will not enable me to form an accurate judgment of its operation, there is every reason to believe that it will prove highly beneficial. The trade thereby authorized has employed, to the 30th September last, upward of thirty thousand tons of American, and fifteen thousand tons of foreign shipping in the outward voyages; and in the inward, nearly an equal amount of American, and twenty thousand only of foreign tonnage. Advantages, too, have resulted to our agricultural interests from the state of the trade between Canada and our territories and states bordering on the St. Lawrence and the lakes, which may prove more than equivalent to the loss sustained by the discrimination made to favor the trade of the northern colonies with the West Indies.

After our transition from the state of colonies to that of an independent nation, many points were found necessary to be settled between us and Great Britain. Among them was the demarcation of boundaries, not described with sufficient precision in the treaty of peace. Some of the lines that divide the states and territories of the United States from the British provinces have been definitively fixed. That, however, which separates us from the provinces of Canada and New Brunswick to the north and the east, was still in dispute when I came into office. But I found arrangements made for its settlement over which I had no control. The commissioners who had been appointed under the provisions of the treaty of Ghent having been unable to agree, a convention was made with Great Britain by my immediate predecessor in office, with the advice and consent of the senate, by which it was agreed " that the points of difference which have arisen in the settlement of the boundary line between the American and British dominions, as described in the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, shall be referred, as therein provided, to some friendly sovereign or state, who shall be invited to investigate and make a decision upon such points of difference," and the king of the Netherlands having, by the late president and his Britannic majesty, been designated as such friendly sovereign, it became my duty to carry, with good faith, the agreement so made into full effect. To this end, I caused all the measures to be taken which were necessary to a full exposition of our case to the sovereign arbiter; and nominated as minister plenipotentiary to his court, a distinguished citizen of the state most interested in the question, and who had been one of the agents previously employed for settling the controversy. On the tenth day of January last, his majesty, the king of the Netherlands, delivered to the plenipotentiaries of the United States and of Great Britain, his written opinion on the case referred to him. The papers in relation to the subject will be communicated, by a special message, to the proper branch of the government, with the perfect confidence that its wisdom, will adopt such measures as will secure an amicable settlement of the controversy, without infringing any constitutional right of the states immediately interested.

It affords me satisfaction to inform you that suggestions made by my direction to the chargé d'affaires of his Britannic majesty to this government, have had their desired effect in producing the release of certain American citizens, who were imprisoned for setting up the authority of the state of Maine at a place in the disputed territory under the actual jurisdiction of his Britannic majesty. From this, and the assurances I have received of the desire of the local authorities to avoid any cause of collision, I have the