A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - James D. Richardson
I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,
MILLARD FILLMORE.
[Footnote 26: Addressed to the heads of the several Executive
Departments.]
WASHINGTON, _September 13, 1852_.
General Jos. G. TOTTEN.
SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 11th instant
and to say that I shall be pleased if you will cause the necessary
surveys, projects, and estimates for determining the best means of
affording the cities of Washington and Georgetown an unfailing and
abundant supply of good and wholesome water to be made as soon as
possible.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
MILLARD FILLMORE.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, October 26, 1852.]
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
_Washington, Monday Morning, October 25, 1852_.
The ACTING SECRETARY OF STATE and the SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY,
INTERIOR, WAR, NAVY, the ATTORNEY-GENERAL and POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
GENTLEMEN: The painful intelligence received yesterday enforces upon me
the sad duty of announcing to the Executive Departments the death of the
Secretary of State. Daniel Webster died at Marshfield, in Massachusetts,
on Sunday, the 24th of October, between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning.
Whilst this irreparable loss brings its natural sorrow to every American
heart and will be heard far beyond our borders with mournful respect
wherever civilization has nurtured men who find in transcendent
intellect and faithful, patriotic service a theme for praise, it
will visit with still more poignant emotion his colleagues in the
Administration, with whom his relations have been so intimate and
so cordial.
The fame of our illustrious statesman belongs to his country, the
admiration of it to the world. The record of his wisdom will inform
future generations not less than its utterance has enlightened the
present. He has bequeathed to posterity the richest fruits of the
experience and judgment of a great mind conversant with the greatest
national concerns. In these his memory will endure as long as our
country shall continue to be the home and guardian of freemen.
The people will share with the Executive Departments in the common
grief which bewails his departure from amongst us.
In the expression of individual regret at this afflicting event the
Executive Departments of the Government will be careful to manifest
every observance of honor which custom has established as appropriate
to the memory of one so eminent as a public functionary and so
distinguished as a citizen.
The Acting Secretary of State will communicate this sad intelligence to
the diplomatic corps near this Government and, through our ministers
abroad, to foreign governments.
The members of the Cabinet are requested, as a further testimony of
respect for the deceased, to wear the usual badges of mourning for
thirty days.
I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,
MILLARD FILLMORE.
THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.
WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1852_.
_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
The brief space which has elapsed since the close of your last session
has been marked by no extraordinary political event. The quadrennial
election of Chief Magistrate has passed off with less than the usual
excitement. However individuals and parties may have been disappointed
in the result, it is, nevertheless, a subject of national congratulation
that the choice has been effected by the independent suffrages of a free
people, undisturbed by those influences which in other countries have
too often affected the purity of popular elections.
Our grateful thanks are due to an all-merciful Providence, not only
for staying the pestilence which in different forms has desolated some
of our cities, but for crowning the labors of the husbandman with an
abundant harvest and the nation generally with the blessings of peace
and prosperity.
Within a few weeks the public mind has been deeply affected by the
death of Daniel Webster, filling at his decease the office of Secretary
of State. His associates in the executive government have sincerely
sympathized with his family and the public generally on this mournful
occasion. His commanding talents, his great political and professional
eminence, his well-tried patriotism, and his long and faithful services
in the most important public trusts have caused his death to be lamented
throughout the country and have earned for him a lasting place in our
history.
In the course of the last summer considerable anxiety was caused for
a short time by an official intimation from the Government of Great
Britain that orders had been given for the protection of the fisheries
upon the coasts of the British Provinces in North America against the
alleged encroachments of the fishing vessels of the United States and
France. The shortness of this notice and the season of the year seemed
to make it a matter of urgent importance. It was at first apprehended
that an increased naval force had been ordered to the fishing grounds
to carry into effect the British interpretation of those provisions in
the convention of 1818 in reference to the true intent of which the two
Governments differ. It was soon discovered that such was not the design
of Great Britain, and satisfactory explanations of the real objects of
the measure have been given both here and in London.
The unadjusted difference, however, between the two Governments as to
the interpretation of the first article of the convention of 1818 is
still a matter of importance. American fishing vessels, within nine or
ten years, have been excluded from waters to which they had free access
for twenty-five years after the negotiation of the treaty. In 1845 this
exclusion was relaxed so far as concerns the Bay of Fundy, but the just
and liberal intention of the home Government, in compliance with what
we think the true construction of the convention, to open all the
other outer bays to our fishermen was abandoned in consequence of the
opposition of the colonies. Notwithstanding this, the United States
have, since the Bay of Fundy was reopened to our fishermen in 1845,
pursued the most liberal course toward the colonial fishing interests.
By the revenue law of 1846 the duties on colonial fish entering our
ports were very greatly reduced, and by the warehousing act it is
allowed to be entered in bond without payment of duty. In this way
colonial fish has acquired the monopoly of the export trade in our
market and is entering to some extent into the home consumption. These
facts were among those which increased the sensibility of our fishing
interest at the movement in question.
These circumstances and the incidents above alluded to have led me to
think the moment favorable for a reconsideration of the entire subject
of the fisheries on the coasts of the British Provinces, with a view to
place them upon a more liberal footing of reciprocal privilege. A
willingness to meet us in some arrangement of this kind is understood to
exist on the part of Great Britain, with a desire on her part to include
in one comprehensive settlement as well this subject as the commercial
intercourse between the United States and the British Provinces. I have
thought that, whatever arrangements may be made on these two subjects,
it is expedient that they should be embraced in separate conventions.
The illness and death of the late Secretary of State prevented the
commencement of the contemplated negotiation. Pains have been taken to
collect the information required for the details of such an arrangement.
The subject is attended with considerable difficulty. If it is found
practicable to come to an agreement mutually acceptable to the two
parties, conventions may be concluded in the course of the present
winter. The control of Congress over all the provisions of such an
arrangement affecting the revenue will of course be reserved.
The affairs of Cuba formed a prominent topic in my last annual message.
They remain in an uneasy condition, and a feeling of alarm and
irritation on the part of the Cuban authorities appears to exist. This
feeling has interfered with the regular commercial intercourse between
the United States and the island and led to some acts of which we have
a right to complain. But the Captain-General of Cuba is clothed with no
power to treat with foreign governments, nor is he in any degree under
the control of the Spanish minister at Washington. Any communication
which he may hold with an agent of a foreign power is informal and
matter of courtesy. Anxious to put an end to the existing inconveniences
(which seemed to rest on a misconception), I directed the newly
appointed minister to Mexico to visit Havana on his way to Vera Cruz.
He was respectfully received by the Captain-General, who conferred with
him freely on the recent occurrences, but no permanent arrangement was
effected.
In the meantime the refusal of the Captain-General to allow passengers
and the mail to be landed in certain cases, for a reason which does not
furnish, in the opinion of this Government, even a good presumptive
ground for such prohibition, has been made the subject of a serious
remonstrance at Madrid, and I have no reason to doubt that due respect
will be paid by the Government of Her Catholic Majesty to the
representations which our minister has been instructed to make on the
subject.
It is but justice to the Captain-General to add that his conduct toward
the steamers employed to carry the mails of the United States to Havana
has, with the exceptions above alluded to, been marked with kindness and
liberality, and indicates no general purpose of interfering with the
commercial correspondence and intercourse between the island and this
country.
Early in the present year official notes were received from the
ministers of France and England inviting the Government of the United
States to become a party with Great Britain and France to a tripartite
convention, in virtue of which the three powers should severally and
collectively disclaim now and for the future all intention to obtain
possession of the island of Cuba, and should bind themselves to
discountenance all attempts to that effect on the part of any power or
individual whatever. This invitation has been respectfully declined, for
reasons which it would occupy too much space in this communication to
state in detail, but which led me to think that the proposed measure
would be of doubtful constitutionality, impolitic, and unavailing. I
have, however, in common with several of my predecessors, directed the
ministers of France and England to be assured that the United States
entertain no designs against Cuba, but that, on the contrary, I should
regard its incorporation into the Union at the present time as fraught
with serious peril.
Were this island comparatively destitute of inhabitants or occupied by a
kindred race, I should regard it, if voluntarily ceded by Spain, as a
most desirable acquisition. But under existing circumstances I should
look upon its incorporation into our Union as a very hazardous measure.
It would bring into the Confederacy a population of a different national
stock, speaking a different language, and not likely to harmonize with
the other members. It would probably affect in a prejudicial manner the
industrial interests of the South, and it might revive those conflicts
of opinion between the different sections of the country which lately
shook the Union to its center, and which have been so happily
compromised.
The rejection by the Mexican Congress of the convention which had been
concluded between that Republic and the United States for the protection
of a transit way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and of the interests
of those citizens of the United States who had become proprietors of
the rights which Mexico had conferred on one of her own citizens in
regard to that transit has thrown a serious obstacle in the way of the
attainment of a very desirable national object. I am still willing to
hope that the differences on the subject which exist, or may hereafter
arise, between the Governments will be amicably adjusted. This subject,
however, has already engaged the attention of the Senate of the United
States, and requires no further comment in this communication.
The settlement of the question respecting the port of San Juan de
Nicaragua and of the controversy between the Republics of Costa Rica and
Nicaragua in regard to their boundaries was considered indispensable to
the commencement of the ship canal between the two oceans, which was the
subject of the convention between the United States and Great Britain
of the 19th of April, 1850. Accordingly, a proposition for the same
purposes, addressed to the two Governments in that quarter and to the
Mosquito Indians, was agreed to in April last by the Secretary of State
and the minister of Her Britannic Majesty. Besides the wish to aid in
reconciling the differences of the two Republics, I engaged in the
negotiation from a desire to place the great work of a ship canal
between the two oceans under one jurisdiction and to establish the
important port of San Juan de Nicaragua under the government of a
civilized power. The proposition in question was assented to by Costa
Rica and the Mosquito Indians. It has not proved equally acceptable
to Nicaragua, but it is to be hoped that the further negotiations on
the subject which are in train will be carried on in that spirit of
conciliation and compromise which ought always to prevail on such
occasions, and that they will lead to a satisfactory result.
I have the satisfaction to inform you that the executive government of
Venezuela has acknowledged some claims of citizens of the United States
which have for many years past been urged by our charge d'affaires at
Caracas. It is hoped that the same sense of justice will actuate the
Congress of that Republic in providing the means for their payment.
The recent revolution in Buenos Ayres and the Confederated States having
opened the prospect of an improved state of things in that quarter, the
Governments of Great Britain and France determined to negotiate with the
chief of the new confederacy for the free access of their commerce to
the extensive countries watered by the tributaries of the La Plata; and
they gave a friendly notice of this purpose to the United States, that
we might, if we thought proper, pursue the same course. In compliance
with this invitation, our minister at Rio Janeiro and our charge
d'affaires at Buenos Ayres have been fully authorized to conclude
treaties with the newly organized confederation or the States composing
it. The delays which have taken place in the formation of the new
government have as yet prevented the execution of those instructions,
but there is every reason to hope that these vast countries will be
eventually opened to our commerce.
A treaty of commerce has been concluded between the United States and
the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, which will be laid before the Senate.
Should this convention go into operation, it will open to the commercial
enterprise of our citizens a country of great extent and unsurpassed in
natural resources, but from which foreign nations have hitherto been
almost wholly excluded.
The correspondence of the late Secretary of State with the Peruvian
charge d'affaires relative to the Lobos Islands was communicated to
Congress toward the close of the last session. Since that time, on
further investigation of the subject, the doubts which had been
entertained of the title of Peru to those islands have been removed,
and I have deemed it just that the temporary wrong which had been
unintentionally done her from want of information should be repaired
by an unreserved acknowledgment of her sovereignty.
I have the satisfaction to inform you that the course pursued by Peru
has been creditable to the liberality of her Government. Before it was
known by her that her title would be acknowledged at Washington, her
minister of foreign affairs had authorized our charge d'affaires at Lima
to announce to the American vessels which had gone to the Lobos for
guano that the Peruvian Government was willing to freight them on its
own account. This intention has been carried into effect by the Peruvian
minister here by an arrangement which is believed to be advantageous to
the parties in interest.
Our settlements on the shores of the Pacific have already given a great
extension, and in some respects a new direction, to our commerce in that
ocean. A direct and rapidly increasing intercourse has sprung up with
eastern Asia. The waters of the Northern Pacific, even into the Arctic
Sea, have of late years been frequented by our whalemen. The application
of steam to the general purposes of navigation is becoming daily more
common, and makes it desirable to obtain fuel and other necessary
supplies at convenient points on the route between Asia and our Pacific
shores. Our unfortunate countrymen who from time to time suffer
shipwreck on the coasts of the eastern seas are entitled to protection.
Besides these specific objects, the general prosperity of our States on
the Pacific requires that an attempt should be made to open the opposite
regions of Asia to a mutually beneficial intercourse. It is obvious that
this attempt could be made by no power to so great advantage as by
the United States, whose constitutional system excludes every idea of
distant colonial dependencies. I have accordingly been led to order an
appropriate naval force to Japan, under the command of a discreet and
intelligent officer of the highest rank known to our service. He is
instructed to endeavor to obtain from the Government of that country
some relaxation of the inhospitable and antisocial system which it has
pursued for about two centuries. He has been directed particularly to
remonstrate in the strongest language against the cruel treatment to
which our shipwrecked mariners have often been subjected and to insist
that they shall be treated with humanity. He is instructed, however,
at the same time, to give that Government the amplest assurances that
the objects of the United States are such, and such only, as I have
indicated, and that the expedition is friendly and peaceful.
Notwithstanding the jealousy with which the Governments of eastern
Asia regard all overtures from foreigners, I am not without hopes of a
beneficial result of the expedition. Should it be crowned with success,
the advantages will not be confined to the United States, but, as in the
case of China, will be equally enjoyed by all the other maritime powers.
I have much satisfaction in stating that in all the steps preparatory to
this expedition the Government of the United States has been materially
aided by the good offices of the King of the Netherlands, the only
European power having any commercial relations with Japan.
In passing from this survey of our foreign relations, I invite the
attention of Congress to the condition of that Department of the
Government to which this branch of the public business is intrusted. Our
intercourse with foreign powers has of late years greatly increased,
both in consequence of our own growth and the introduction of many new
states into the family of nations. In this way the Department of State
has become overburdened. It has by the recent establishment of the
Department of the Interior been relieved of some portion of the domestic
business. If the residue of the business of that kind--such as the
distribution of Congressional documents, the keeping, publishing, and
distribution of the laws of the United States, the execution of the
copyright law, the subject of reprieves and pardons, and some other
subjects relating to interior administration--should be transferred from
the Department of State, it would unquestionably be for the benefit of
the public service. I would also suggest that the building appropriated
to the State Department is not fireproof; that there is reason to think
there are defects in its construction, and that the archives of the
Government in charge of the Department, with the precious collections of
the manuscript papers of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and
Monroe, are exposed to destruction by fire. A similar remark may be made
of the buildings appropriated to the War and Navy Departments.
The condition of the Treasury is exhibited in the annual report from
that Department.
The cash receipts into the Treasury for the fiscal year ending the
30th June last, exclusive of trust funds, were $49,728,386.89, and
the expenditures for the same period, likewise exclusive of trust
funds, were $46,007,896.20, of which $9,455,815.83 was on account
of the principal and interest of the public debt, including the last
installment of the indemnity to Mexico under the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, leaving a balance of $14,632,136.37 in the Treasury on the
1st day of July last. Since this latter period further purchases
of the principal of the public debt have been made to the extent of
$2,456,547.49, and the surplus in the Treasury will continue to be
applied to that object whenever the stock can be procured within the
limits as to price authorized by law.
The value of foreign merchandise imported during the last fiscal year
was $207,240,101, and the value of domestic productions exported was
$149,861,911, besides $17,204,026 of foreign merchandise exported,
making the aggregate of the entire exports $167,065,937. Exclusive of
the above, there was exported $42,507,285 in specie, and imported from
foreign ports $5,262,643.
In my first annual message to Congress I called your attention to what
seemed to me some defects in the present tariff, and recommended such
modifications as in my judgment were best adapted to remedy its evils
and promote the prosperity of the country. Nothing has since occurred
to change my views on this important question.
Without repeating the arguments contained in my former message in favor
of discriminating protective duties, I deem it my duty to call your
attention to one or two other considerations affecting this subject.
The first is the effect of large importations of foreign goods upon
our currency. Most of the gold of California, as fast as it is coined,
finds its way directly to Europe in payment for goods purchased.
In the second place, as our manufacturing establishments are broken
down by competition with foreigners, the capital invested in them is
lost, thousands of honest and industrious citizens are thrown out of
employment, and the farmer, to that extent, is deprived of a home market
for the sale of his surplus produce. In the third place, the destruction
of our manufactures leaves the foreigner without competition in our
market, and he consequently raises the price of the article sent here
for sale, as is now seen in the increased cost of iron imported from
England. The prosperity and wealth of every nation must depend upon its
productive industry. The farmer is stimulated to exertion by finding a
ready market for his surplus products, and benefited by being able to
exchange them without loss of time or expense of transportation for the
manufactures which his comfort or convenience requires. This is always
done to the best advantage where a portion of the community in which
he lives is engaged in other pursuits. But most manufactures require
an amount of capital and a practical skill which can not be commanded
unless they be protected for a time from ruinous competition from
abroad. Hence the necessity of laying those duties upon imported goods
which the Constitution authorizes for revenue in such a manner as to
protect and encourage the labor of our own citizens. Duties, however,
should not be fixed at a rate so high as to exclude the foreign article,
but should be so graduated as to enable the domestic manufacturer
fairly to compete with the foreigner in our own markets, and by this
competition to reduce the price of the manufactured article to the
consumer to the lowest rate at which it can be produced. This policy
would place the mechanic by the side of the farmer, create a mutual
interchange of their respective commodities, and thus stimulate the
industry of the whole country and render us independent of foreign
nations for the supplies required by the habits or necessities of
the people.
Another question, wholly independent of protection, presents itself,
and that is, whether the duties levied should be upon the value of
the article at the place of shipment, or, where it is practicable,
a specific duty, graduated according to quantity, as ascertained by
weight or measure. All our duties are at present _ad valorem_. A
certain percentage is levied on the price of the goods at the port
of shipment in a foreign country. Most commercial nations have found it
indispensable, for the purpose of preventing fraud and perjury, to make
the duties specific whenever the article is of such a uniform value in
weight or measure as to justify such a duty. Legislation should never
encourage dishonesty or crime. It is impossible that the revenue
officers at the port where the goods are entered and the duties paid
should know with certainty what they cost in the foreign country. Yet
the law requires that they should levy the duty according to such cost.
They are therefore compelled to resort to very unsatisfactory evidence
to ascertain what that cost was. They take the invoice of the importer,
attested by his oath, as the best evidence of which the nature of the
case admits. But everyone must see that the invoice may be fabricated
and the oath by which it is supported false, by reason of which the
dishonest importer pays a part only of the duties which are paid by the
honest one, and thus indirectly receives from the Treasury of the United
States a reward for his fraud and perjury. The reports of the Secretary
of the Treasury heretofore made on this subject show conclusively that
these frauds have been practiced to a great extent. The tendency is to
destroy that high moral character for which our merchants have long been
distinguished, to defraud the Government of its revenue, to break down
the honest importer by a dishonest competition, and, finally, to
transfer the business of importation to foreign and irresponsible
agents, to the great detriment of our own citizens. I therefore again
most earnestly recommend the adoption of specific duties wherever it
is practicable, or a home valuation, to prevent these frauds.