A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - James D. Richardson
I recommend the establishment of a branch mint in California, as it
will, in my opinion, afford important facilities to those engaged in
mining, as well as to the Government in the disposition of the mineral
lands.
I also recommend that commissions be organized by Congress to examine
and decide upon the validity of the present subsisting land titles in
California and New Mexico, and that provision be made for the
establishment of offices of surveyor-general in New Mexico, California,
and Oregon and for the surveying and bringing into market the public
lands in those Territories. Those lands, remote in position and
difficult of access, ought to be disposed of on terms liberal to all,
but especially favorable to the early emigrants.
In order that the situation and character of the principal mineral
deposits in California may be ascertained, I recommend that a geological
and mineralogical exploration be connected with the linear surveys, and
that the mineral lands be divided into small lots suitable for mining
and be disposed of by sale or lease, so as to give our citizens an
opportunity of procuring a permanent right of property in the soil. This
would seem to be as important to the success of mining as of
agricultural pursuits.
The great mineral wealth of California and the advantages which its
ports and harbors and those of Oregon afford to commerce, especially
with the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans and the populous
regions of eastern Asia, make it certain that there will arise in a few
years large and prosperous communities on our western coast. It
therefore becomes important that a line of communication, the best and
most expeditious which the nature of the country will admit, should be
opened within the territory of the United States from the navigable
waters of the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. Opinion, as
elicited and expressed by two large and respectable conventions lately
assembled at St. Louis and Memphis, points to a railroad as that which,
if practicable, will best meet the wishes and wants of the country. But
while this, if in successful operation, would be a work of great
national importance and of a value to the country which it would be
difficult to estimate, it ought also to be regarded as an undertaking of
vast magnitude and expense, and one which must, if it be indeed
practicable, encounter many difficulties in its construction and use.
Therefore, to avoid failure and disappointment; to enable Congress to
judge whether in the condition of the country through which it must pass
the work be feasible, and, if it be found so, whether it should be
undertaken as a national improvement or left to individual enterprise,
and in the latter alternative what aid, if any, ought to be extended to
it by the Government, I recommend as a preliminary measure a careful
reconnoissance of the several proposed routes by a scientific corps and
a report as to the practicability of making such a road, with an
estimate of the cost of its construction and support.
For further views on these and other matters connected with the duties
of the home department I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the
Interior.
I recommend early appropriations for continuing the river and harbor
improvements which have been already begun, and also for the
construction of those for which estimates have been made, as well as for
examinations and estimates preparatory to the commencement of such
others as the wants of the country, and especially the advance of our
population over new districts and the extension of commerce, may render
necessary. An estimate of the amount which can be advantageously
expended within the next fiscal year under the direction of the Bureau
of Topographical Engineers accompanies the report of the Secretary of
War, to which I respectfully invite the attention of Congress.
The cession of territory made by the late treaty with Mexico has greatly
extended our exposed frontier and rendered its defense more difficult.
That treaty has also brought us under obligations to Mexico, to comply
with which a military force is requisite. But our military establishment
is not materially changed as to its efficiency from the condition in
which it stood before the commencement of the Mexican War. Some addition
to it will therefore be necessary, and I recommend to the favorable
consideration of Congress an increase of the several corps of the Army
at our distant Western posts, as proposed in the accompanying report of
the Secretary of War.
Great embarrassment has resulted from the effect upon rank in the Army
heretofore given to brevet and staff commissions. The views of the
Secretary of War on this subject are deemed important, and if carried
into effect will, it is believed, promote the harmony of the service.
The plan proposed for retiring disabled officers and providing an asylum
for such of the rank and file as from age, wounds, and other infirmities
occasioned by service have become unfit to perform their respective
duties is recommended as a means of increasing the efficiency of the
Army and as an act of justice due from a grateful country to the
faithful soldier.
The accompanying report of the Secretary of the Navy presents a full and
satisfactory account of the condition and operations of the naval
service during the past year. Our citizens engaged in the legitimate
pursuits of commerce have enjoyed its benefits. Wherever our national
vessels have gone they have been received with respect, our officers
have been treated with kindness and courtesy, and they have on all
occasions pursued a course of strict neutrality, in accordance with the
policy of our Government.
The naval force at present in commission is as large as is admissible
with the number of men authorized by Congress to be employed.
I invite your attention to the recommendation of the Secretary of the
Navy on the subject of a reorganization of the Navy in its various
grades of officers, and the establishing of a retired list for such of
the officers as are disqualified for active and effective service.
Should Congress adopt some such measure as is recommended, it will
greatly increase the efficiency of the Navy and reduce its expenditures.
I also ask your attention to the views expressed by him in reference to
the employment of war steamers and in regard to the contracts for the
transportation of the United States mails and the operation of the
system upon the prosperity of the Navy.
By an act of Congress passed August 14, 1848, provision was made for
extending post-office and mail accommodations to California and Oregon.
Exertions have been made to execute that law, but the limited provisions
of the act, the inadequacy of the means it authorizes, the ill
adaptation of our post-office laws to the situation of that country, and
the measure of compensation for services allowed by those laws, compared
with the prices of labor and rents in California, render those exertions
in a great degree ineffectual. More particular and efficient provision
by law is required on this subject.
The act of 1845 reducing postage has now, by its operation during four
years, produced results fully showing that the income from such reduced
postage is sufficient to sustain the whole expense of the service of the
Post-Office Department, not including the cost of transportation in mail
steamers on the lines from New York to Chagres and from Panama to
Astoria, which have not been considered by Congress as properly
belonging to the mail service.
It is submitted to the wisdom of Congress whether a further reduction of
postage should not now be made, more particularly on the letter
correspondence. This should be relieved from the unjust burden of
transporting and delivering the franked matter of Congress, for which
public service provision should be made from the Treasury. I confidently
believe that a change may safely be made reducing all single-letter
postage to the uniform rate of 5 cents, regardless of distance, without
thereby imposing any greater tax on the Treasury than would constitute a
very moderate compensation for this public service; and I therefore
respectfully recommend such a reduction. Should Congress prefer to
abolish the franking privilege entirely, it seems probable that no
demand on the Treasury would result from the proposed reduction of
postage. Whether any further diminution should now be made, or the
result of the reduction to 5 cents, which I have recommended, should be
first tested, is submitted to your decision.
Since the commencement of the last session of Congress a postal treaty
with Great Britain has been received and ratified, and such relations
have been formed by the post-office departments of the two countries in
pursuance of that treaty as to carry its provisions into full operation.
The attempt to extend this same arrangement through England to France
has not been equally successful, but the purpose has not been abandoned.
For a particular statement of the condition of the Post-Office
Department and other matters connected with that branch of the public
service I refer you to the report of the Postmaster-General.
By the act of the 3d of March, 1849, a board was constituted to make
arrangements for taking the Seventh Census, composed of the Secretary
of State, the Attorney-General, and the Postmaster-General; and it was
made the duty of this board "to prepare and cause to be printed such
forms and schedules as might be necessary for the full enumeration of
the inhabitants of the United States, and also proper forms and
schedules for collecting in statistical tables, under proper heads, such
information as to mines, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, education,
and other topics as would exhibit a full view of the pursuits, industry,
education, and resources of the country." The duties enjoined upon the
census board thus established having been performed, it now rests with
Congress to enact a law for carrying into effect the provision of the
Constitution which requires an actual enumeration of the people of the
United States within the ensuing year.
Among the duties assigned by the Constitution to the General Government
is one of local and limited application, but not on that account the
less obligatory. I allude to the trust committed to Congress as the
exclusive legislator and sole guardian of the interests of the District
of Columbia. I beg to commend these interests to your kind attention. As
the national metropolis the city of Washington must be an object of
general interest; and founded, as it was, under the auspices of him
whose immortal name it bears, its claims to the fostering care of
Congress present themselves with additional strength. Whatever can
contribute to its prosperity must enlist the feelings of its
constitutional guardians and command their favorable consideration.
Our Government is one of limited powers, and its successful
administration eminently depends on the confinement of each of its
coordinate branches within its own appropriate sphere. The first section
of the Constitution ordains that--
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives.
The Executive has authority to recommend (not to dictate) measures to
Congress. Having performed that duty, the executive department of the
Government can not rightfully control the decision of Congress on any
subject of legislation until that decision shall have been officially
submitted to the President for approval. The check provided by the
Constitution in the clause conferring the qualified veto will never be
exercised by me except in the cases contemplated by the fathers of the
Republic. I view it as an extreme measure, to be resorted to only in
extraordinary cases, as where it may become necessary to defend the
executive against the encroachments of the legislative power or to
prevent hasty and inconsiderate or unconstitutional legislation. By
cautiously confining this remedy within the sphere prescribed to it in
the cotemporaneous expositions of the framers of the Constitution, the
will of the people, legitimately expressed on all subjects of
legislation through their constitutional organs, the Senators and
Representatives of the United States, will have its full effect. As
indispensable to the preservation of our system of self-government, the
independence of the representatives of the States and the people is
guaranteed by the Constitution, and they owe no responsibility to any
human power but their constituents. By holding the representative
responsible only to the people, and exempting him from all other
influences, we elevate the character of the constituent and quicken his
sense of responsibility to his country. It is under these circumstances
only that the elector can feel that in the choice of the lawmaker he is
himself truly a component part of the sovereign power of the nation.
With equal care we should study to defend the rights of the executive
and judicial departments. Our Government can only be preserved in its
purity by the suppression and entire elimination of every claim or
tendency of one coordinate branch to encroachment upon another. With the
strict observance of this rule and the other injunctions of the
Constitution, with a sedulous inculcation of that respect and love for
the Union of the States which our fathers cherished and enjoined upon
their children, and with the aid of that overruling Providence which has
so long and so kindly guarded our liberties and institutions, we may
reasonably expect to transmit them, with their innumerable blessings, to
the remotest posterity.
But attachment to the Union of the States should be habitually fostered
in every American heart. For more than half a century, during which
kingdoms and empires have fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The
patriots who formed it have long since descended to the grave; yet still
it remains, the proudest monument to their memory and the object of
affection and admiration with everyone worthy to bear the American name.
In my judgment its dissolution would be the greatest of calamities, and
to avert that should be the study of every American. Upon its
preservation must depend our own happiness and that of countless
generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it, I shall stand by
it and maintain it in its integrity to the full extent of the
obligations imposed and the powers conferred upon me by the
Constitution.
Z. TAYLOR.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
WASHINGTON, _December 17, 1849_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to
ratification, a convention between the United States and His Majesty the
Emperor of Brazil, signed at Rio de Janeiro on the 27th of January last,
providing for the adjustment of claims of citizens of the United States
on the Brazilian Government. A copy of a dispatch from Mr. Tod, the
United States minister at Rio de Janeiro, relative to the convention is
also herewith communicated. As it is understood that the Emperor's
ratification is ready to be exchanged for that of the United States, and
as the period limited for the exchange will expire on the 27th of next
month, it is desirable that the decision of the Senate in regard to the
instrument should be known as soon as may be convenient.
Z. TAYLOR.
WASHINGTON, _December 21, 1849_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to
ratification, a treaty between the United States and His Majesty the
King of the Hawaiian Islands, yesterday concluded and signed in this
city on the part of the respective Governments by the Secretary of State
of the United States and by James Jackson Jarves, His Hawaiian Majesty's
special commissioner.
Z. TAYLOR.
WASHINGTON, _December 27, 1849_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives:_
In consequence of the unexpected delay in proceeding to business, I deem
it necessary to invite the immediate attention of Congress to so much of
the report of the Secretary of the Treasury as relates to the
appropriations required for the expenses of collecting the revenue for
the second half of the current fiscal year.
Z. TAYLOR.
WASHINGTON, _January 4, 1850_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:_
I herewith submit to you copies of a correspondence with the lady of Sir
John Franklin, relative to the well-known expedition under his command
to the arctic regions for the discovery of a northwest passage. On the
receipt of her first letter imploring the aid of the American Government
in a search for the missing ships engaged in an enterprise which
interested all civilized nations, I anxiously sought the means of
affording that assistance, but was prevented from accomplishing the
object I had in view in consequence of the want of vessels suitable to
encounter the perils of a proper exploration, the lateness of the
season, and the want of an appropriation by Congress to enable me to
furnish and equip an efficient squadron for that object. All that I
could do in compliance with a request which I was deeply anxious to
gratify was to cause the advertisements of reward promulged by the
British Government and the best information I could obtain as to the
means of finding the vessels under the command of Sir John Franklin to
be widely circulated among our whalers and seafaring men whose spirit
of enterprise might lead them to the inhospitable regions where that
heroic officer and his brave followers, who periled their lives in the
cause of science and for the benefit of the world, were supposed to be
imprisoned among the icebergs or wrecked upon a desert shore.
Congress being now in session, the propriety and expediency of an
appropriation for fitting out an expedition to proceed in search of the
missing ships, with their officers and crews, is respectfully submitted
to your consideration.
Z. TAYLOR.
EXECUTIVE OFFICE, _January 14, 1850_.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
SIR: I transmit herewith, to be laid before the Senate for its
constitutional action thereon, a treaty concluded with the half-breeds
of the Dacotah or Sioux Indians for lands reserved for them in the
treaty of July 15, 1830, with the Sioux and other Indians, with
accompanying papers.
Z. TAYLOR.
WASHINGTON, _January 14, 1850_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
I herewith transmit reports from the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of the Navy, containing the information called for by the
resolution of the Senate of the 7th instant, in relation to the
abduction[2a] of Rey, _alias_ Garcia, from New Orleans.
[Footnote 2a: By the Spanish consul at New Orleans.]
Z. TAYLOR.
WASHINGTON, _January 14, 1850_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
I transmit to the Senate, for their consideration, a copy of a
correspondence between the Department of State and the charge d'affaires
of Austria near this Government, on the subject of the convention for
the extension of certain stipulations contained in the treaty of
commerce and navigation of August 27, 1829, between the United States
and Austria, concluded and signed on the 8th of May, 1848, and submitted
to the Senate on the same day by my predecessor.
Z. TAYLOR.
WASHINGTON, _January 23, 1850_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to a resolution of that body
passed on the 17th instant, the accompanying reports of heads of
Departments, which contain all the official information in the
possession of the Executive asked for by the resolution.
On coming into office I found the military commandant of the Department
of California exercising the functions of civil governor in that
Territory, and left, as I was, to act under the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, without the aid of any legislative provision establishing a
government in that Territory, I thought it best not to disturb that
arrangement, made under my predecessor, until Congress should take some
action on that subject. I therefore did not interfere with the powers of
the military commandant, who continued to exercise the functions of
civil governor as before; but I made no such appointment, conferred no
such authority, and have allowed no increased compensation to the
commandant for his services.
With a view to the faithful execution of the treaty so far as lay in the
power of the Executive, and to enable Congress to act at the present
session with as full knowledge and as little difficulty as possible on
all matters of interest in these Territories, I sent the Hon. Thomas
Butler King as bearer of dispatches to California, and certain officers
to California and New Mexico, whose duties are particularly defined in
the accompanying letters of instruction addressed to them severally by
the proper Departments.
I did not hesitate to express to the people of those Territories my
desire that each Territory should, if prepared to comply with the
requisitions of the Constitution of the United States, form a plan of a
State constitution and submit the same to Congress with a prayer for
admission into the Union as a State, but I did not anticipate, suggest,
or authorize the establishment of any such government without the assent
of Congress, nor did I authorize any Government agent or officer to
interfere with or exercise any influence or control over the election of
delegates or over any convention in making or modifying their domestic
institutions or any of the provisions of their proposed constitution. On
the contrary, the instructions given by my orders were that all measures
of domestic policy adopted by the people of California must originate
solely with themselves; that while the Executive of the United States
was desirous to protect them in the formation of any government
republican in its character, to be at the proper time submitted to
Congress, yet it was to be distinctly understood that the plan of such a
government must at the same time be the result of their own deliberate
choice and originate with themselves, without the interference of the
Executive.
I am unable to give any information as to laws passed by any supposed
government in California or of any census taken in either of the
Territories mentioned in the resolution, as I have no information on
those subjects.
As already stated, I have not disturbed the arrangements which I found
had existed under my predecessor.
In advising an early application by the people of these Territories for
admission as States I was actuated principally by an earnest desire to
afford to the wisdom and patriotism of Congress the opportunity of
avoiding occasions of bitter and angry dissensions among the people of
the United States.
Under the Constitution every State has the right of establishing and
from time to time altering its municipal laws and domestic institutions
independently of every other State and of the General Government,
subject only to the prohibitions and guaranties expressly set forth in
the Constitution of the United States. The subjects thus left
exclusively to the respective States were not designed or expected to
become topics of national agitation. Still, as under the Constitution
Congress has power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting
the Territories of the United States, every new acquisition of territory
has led to discussions on the question whether the system of involuntary
servitude which prevails in many of the States should or should not be
prohibited in that territory. The periods of excitement from this cause
which have heretofore occurred have been safely passed, but during the
interval, of whatever length, which may elapse before the admission of
the Territories ceded by Mexico as States it appears probable that
similar excitement will prevail to an undue extent.
Under these circumstances I thought, and still think, that it was my
duty to endeavor to put it in the power of Congress, by the admission of
California and New Mexico as States, to remove all occasion for the
unnecessary agitation of the public mind.
It is understood that the people of the western part of California have
formed a plan of a State constitution and will soon submit the same to
the judgment of Congress and apply for admission as a State. This course
on their part, though in accordance with, was not adopted exclusively in
consequence of, any expression of my wishes, inasmuch as measures
tending to this end had been promoted by the officers sent there by my
predecessor, and were already in active progress of execution before any
communication from me reached California. If the proposed constitution
shall, when submitted to Congress, be found to be in compliance with the
requisitions of the Constitution of the United States, I earnestly
recommend that it may receive the sanction of Congress.
The part of California not included in the proposed State of that name
is believed to be uninhabited, except in a settlement of our countrymen
in the vicinity of Salt Lake.