Part 25
The rich inheritance bequeathed by our fathers has devolved upon us the sacred obligation of preserving it by the same virtues which conducted them through the eventful scenes of the Revolution and ultimately crowned their struggle with the noblest model of civil institutions. They bequeathed to us a Government of laws and a Federal Union founded upon the great principle of popular representation. After a successful experiment of forty-four years, at a moment when the Government and the Union are the objects of the hopes of the friends of civil liberty throughout the world, and in the midst of public and individual prosperity unexampled in history, we are called to decide whether these laws possess any force and that Union the means of self-preservation. The decision of this question by an enlightened and patriotic people can not be doubtful. For myself, fellow-citizens, devoutly relying upon that kind Providence which has hitherto watched over our destinies, and actuated by a profound reverence for those institutions I have so much cause to love, and for the American people, whose partiality honored me with their highest trust, I have determined to spare no effort to discharge the duty which in this conjuncture is devolved upon me. That a similar spirit will actuate the representatives of the American people is not to be questioned; and I fervently pray that the Great Ruler of Nations may so guide your deliberations and our joint measures as that they may prove salutary examples not only to the present but to future times, and solemnly proclaim that the Constitution and the laws are supreme and the _Union indissoluble_.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _January 16, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
In conformity with a resolution of the Senate of the 31st December last, I herewith transmit copies of the instructions under which the late treaty of indemnity with Naples was negotiated, and of all the correspondence relative thereto.
It will appear evident from a perusal of some of those documents that they are written by the agents of the United States to their own Government with a freedom, as far as relates to the officers of that of Naples, which was never intended for the public eye, and as they might, if printed, accidentally find their way abroad and thereby embarrass our ministers in their future operations in foreign countries, I respectfully recommend that in the printing, if deemed necessary, such a discrimination be made as to avoid that inconvenience, preferring this course to withholding from the Senate any part of the correspondence.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _January 17, 1833_. _The Speaker of the House of Representatives_:
In conformity with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 11th December last, I herewith transmit "such portions as have not heretofore been communicated of the instructions given to our ministers in France on the subject of claims for spoliations since September, 1800, and of the correspondence of said ministers with the French Government and with the Secretary of State of the United States on the same subject."
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _January 22, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
Having received on yesterday certified copies of the acts passed by the State of South Carolina to carry into effect her ordinance of nullification, which were referred to in my message of the 16th instant to Congress, I now transmit them.
As but one copy of these acts was sent to me, I am prevented from communicating them by a joint message to the two Houses of Congress.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _January 23, 1833_. _The President of the Senate_:
A treaty of peace, friendship, and amity between the United States and the King of the Belgians having this day been concluded by the plenipotentiaries of the respective countries, I herewith transmit it to the Senate for its consideration.
ANDREW JACKSON.
_The Speaker of the House of Representatives_:
I transmit to the House of Representatives a report of the Secretary of State, with a list of appointments made by the Executive since the 13th of April, 1826, from members of Congress during their term of service and for twelve months thereafter, pursuant to the resolution of the said House of the 26th of December, 1832, which I referred to him, and which appointments are recorded in his office. I send likewise a list of similar appointments, also furnished by the Secretary of State and of record in his office, from the 3d of March, 1825, to the 13th of April, 1826.
ANDREW JACKSON. _January 23, 1833_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I send herewith a convention concluded on the 14th day of October last between the United States and His Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies. This treaty has been ratified by me agreeably to the Constitution, and the ratification will be dispatched to Naples without delay, when there is no doubt it will be ratified by His Sicilian Majesty.
The early communication of this treaty is deemed proper because it will be necessary to provide for the execution of the first article in order that our fellow-citizens may with as little delay as possible obtain the compensation stipulated for by this convention.
ANDREW JACKSON. _January 24, 1833_.
WASHINGTON, _January 25, 1833_. _The Speaker of the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith, for the information of Congress, the report of the officer to whom was intrusted the inspection of the works for the improvement of the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _January 29, 1833_. _To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Postmaster-General, which I request may be considered as forming a part of my message of the 23d instant, in answer to the resolution calling for a list of all appointments made by the Executive since the 13th April, 1826, from the members of Congress during their term of service and for twelve months thereafter, etc.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 7, 1833_. _To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit, for the consideration of Congress, a report from the Secretary of State, on the subject of our diplomatic intercourse with foreign nations.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 12, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate requesting the President of the United States to lay before it "copies of the orders which have been given to the commanding officers of the military forces assembled in and near to the city of Charleston, S.C., and also copies of the orders which have been given to the commander of the naval forces assembled in the harbor of Charleston, particularly such orders, if any such have been given, to resist the constituted authorities of the State of South Carolina within the limits of said State," I transmit herewith papers, numbered from 1 to 17, inclusive, embracing the orders which have been given to the commanding officers of the land and naval forces assembled in and near the city of Charleston and within the limits of the State of South Carolina, and which relate to the military operations in that quarter. No order has at any time been given in any manner inconsistent therewith. There is a part, however, of the letter of the Secretary of War dated December 3, 1832, omitted, which, being conditional in its character, and not relating to the operation of the troops, it is deemed improper in the present state of the service to communicate.
No order has been at any time given "to resist" the constituted authorities of the State of South Carolina within the chartered limits of said State.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 12, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their advice and consent as to the ratification of the same, a treaty recently concluded between the commissioners for adjusting all differences with the Indians west of the Mississippi and the mixed band of Shawnese and Senecas who emigrated from Ohio. I transmit also the journal of their proceedings.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 15, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their advice and consent as to the ratification of the same, articles of agreement supplemental to the treaty of February 8, 1831, between the commissioner on the part of the United States and the Menominee tribe of Indians, with the assent of the New York Indians.
I transmit also the journal of proceedings.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 19, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
The renomination of Samuel Gwin to be register of the land office at Mount Salus, in the State of Mississippi, having been on the 16th of July last laid upon the table of the Senate, with a resolution declaring that it was not the intention of the Senate to take any proceeding in regard to it during that session, a vacancy in the office was found existing in the recess, which the public service required to be filled, and which was filled by the appointment of Samuel Gwin. I therefore nominate the said Gwin to the same office.
In addition to the papers which were transmitted with his nomination at the last session, I have received others from the most respectable sources in the State of Mississippi, bearing the fullest testimony to his fitness for the office in question. Of this character are the two now inclosed, signed by members of the convention recently assembled to revise the constitution of the State, and also by many members of its present legislature. They also show that the appointment of Mr. Gwin would be acceptable to the great body of the people interested in the office.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 22, 1833_. _To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith, for the consideration of the House, a letter from General Lafayette to the Secretary of State, with the petition which came inclosed in it of the Countess d'Ambrugeac and Madame de la Gorée, granddaughter of Marshal Count Rochambeau, and original documents in support thereof, praying compensation for services rendered by the Count to the United States during the Revolutionary war, together with translations of the same; and I transmit with the same view the petition of Messrs. De Fontenille de Jeaumont and De Rossignol Grandmont, praying compensation for services rendered by them to the United States in the French army, and during the same war, with original papers in support thereof, all received through the same channel, together with translations of the same.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 22, 1833_. _To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit to the Senate, for its advice and consent as to the ratification of the same, a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States and Russia, concluded and signed at St. Petersburg on the 18th of December, 1832, by the plenipotentiaries of the two parties, with an additional article to the same, concluded and signed on the same day, together with an extract from the dispatch of the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to the Secretary of State, communicating the said treaty and additional article.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _February 26, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate as to the ratification of the same, a treaty concluded with the Ottawa Indians residing on the Miami of Lake Erie on the 18th instant by the commissioners on the part of the United States,
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
I transmit herewith, for the consideration of the Senate, a report from the Secretary of State, in relation to the consular establishment of the United States.
ANDREW JACKSON.
WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1833_. _To the Senate_:
I have made several nominations to offices located within the limits of the State of Mississippi which have not received the approbation of the Senate. Inferring that these nominations have been rejected in pursuance of a resolution adopted by the Senate on the 3d of February, 1831, "that it is inexpedient to appoint a citizen of one State to an office which may be vacated or become vacant in any other State of the Union within which such citizen does not reside, without some evident necessity for such appointment," and regarding that resolution, in effect, as an unconstitutional restraint upon the authority of the President in relation to appointments to office, I think it proper to inform the Senate that I shall feel it my duty to abstain from any further attempt to fill the offices in question.
ANDREW JACKSON.
_The President of the Senate_:
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate passed the 1st instant, requesting "that the President inform the Senate, if not incompatible with the public interest, what negotiation has been had since the last session of Congress with Great Britain in relation to the northeastern boundary of the United States, and the progress and result thereof; also whether any arrangement, stipulation, or agreement has at any time been made between the Executive of the United States and the government of the State of Maine, or by commissioners or agents on the part of the United States and that State, having reference to any proposed transfer or relinquishment of their right of jurisdiction and territory belonging to that State, together with all documents, correspondence, and communications in relation thereto," I inform the Senate that overtures for opening a negotiation for the settlement of the boundary between the United States and the British provinces have been made to the Government of Great Britain since the last session, but that no definitive answer has yet been received to these propositions, and that a conditional arrangement has been made between commissioners appointed by me and others named by the governor of Maine, with the authority of its legislature, which can not take effect without the sanction of Congress and of the legislature aforesaid, and which will be communicated to them as soon as the contingency in which alone it was intended to operate shall happen. In the meantime it is not deemed compatible with the public interest that it should be communicated.
ANDREW JACKSON. _March 2, 1833_.
VETO MESSAGES.[16]
[Footnote 16: Pocket vetoes.]
WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1832_. _To the Senate of the United States_:
I avail myself of this early opportunity to return to the Senate, in which it originated, the bill entitled "An act providing for the final settlement of the claims of States for interest on advances to the United States made during the last war," with the reasons which induced me to withhold my approbation, in consequence of which it has failed to become a law.
This bill was presented to me for my signature on the last day of your session, and when I was compelled to consider a variety of other bills of greater urgency to the public service. It obviously embraced a principle in the allowance of interest different from that which had been sanctioned by the practice of the accounting officers or by the previous legislation of Congress in regard to the advances by the States, and without any apparent grounds for the change.
Previously to giving my sanction to so great an extension of the practice of allowing interest upon accounts with the Government, and which in its consequences and from analogy might not only call for large payments from the Treasury, but disturb the great mass of individual accounts long since finally settled, I deemed it my duty to make a more thorough investigation of the subject than it was possible for me to do previously to the close of your last session. I adopted this course the more readily from the consideration that as the bill contained no appropriation the States which would have been entitled to claim its benefits could not have received them without the fuller legislation of Congress.
The principle which this bill authorizes varies not only from the practice uniformly adopted by many of the accounting officers in the case of individual accounts and in those of the States finally settled and closed previously to your last session, but also from that pursued under the act of your last session for the adjustment and settlement of the claims of the State of South Carolina. This last act prescribed no
## particular mode for the allowance of interest, which, therefore, in
conformity with the directions of Congress in previous cases and with the uniform practice of the Auditor by whom the account was settled, was computed on the sums expended by the State of South Carolina for the use and benefit of the United States, and which had been repaid to the State; and the payments made by the United States were deducted from the principal sums, exclusive of the interest, thereby stopping future interest on so much of the principal as had been reimbursed by the payment.
I deem it proper, moreover, to observe that both under the act of the 5th of August, 1790, and that of the 12th of February, 1793, authorizing the settlement of the accounts between the United States and the individual States arising out of the war of the Revolution, the interest on those accounts was computed in conformity with the practice already adverted to, and from which the bill now returned is a departure.
With these reasons and considerations I return the bill to the Senate.
ANDREW JACKSON.
_December 6, 1832_. _To the House of Representatives_:
In addition to the general views I have heretofore expressed to Congress on the subject of internal improvement, it is my duty to advert to it again in stating my objections to the bill entitled "An act for the improvement of certain harbors and the navigation of certain rivers," which was not received a sufficient time before the close of the last session to enable me to examine it before the adjournment.
Having maturely considered that bill within the time allowed me by the Constitution, and being convinced that some of its provisions conflict with the rule adopted for my guide on this subject of legislation, I have been compelled to withhold from it my signature, and it has therefore failed to become a law.
To facilitate as far as I can the intelligent action of Congress upon the subjects embraced in this bill, I transmit herewith a report from the Engineer Department, distinguishing, as far as the information within its possession would enable it, between those appropriations which do and those which do not conflict with the rules by which my conduct in this respect has hitherto been governed. By that report it will be seen that there is a class of appropriations in the bill for the improvement of streams that are not navigable, that are not channels of commerce, and that do not pertain to the harbors or ports of entry designated by law, or have any ascertained connection with the usual establishments for the security of commerce, external or internal.
It is obvious that such appropriations involve the sanction of a principle that concedes to the General Government an unlimited power over the subject of internal improvements, and that I could not, therefore, approve a bill containing them without receding from the positions taken in my veto of the Maysville road bill, and afterwards in my annual message of December 6, 1830.
It is to be regretted that the rules by which the classification of the improvements in this bill has been made by the Engineer Department are not more definite and certain, and that embarrassments may not always be avoided by the observance of them, but as neither my own reflection nor the lights derived from other sources have furnished me with a better guide, I shall continue to apply my best exertions to their application and enforcement. In thus employing my best faculties to exercise the power with which I am invested to avoid evils and to effect the greatest attainable good for our common country I feel that I may trust to your cordial cooperation, and the experience of the past leaves me no room to doubt the liberal indulgence and favorable consideration of those for whom we act.
The grounds upon which I have given my assent to appropriations for the construction of light-houses, beacons, buoys, public piers, and the removal of sand bars, sawyers, and other temporary or partial impediments in our navigable rivers and harbors, and with which many of the provisions of this bill correspond, have been so fully stated that I trust a repetition of them is unnecessary. Had there been incorporated in the bill no provisions for works of a different description, depending on principles which extend the power of making appropriations to every object which the discretion of the Government may select, and losing sight of the distinctions between national and local character which I had stated would be my future guide on the subject, I should have cheerfully signed the bill.
ANDREW JACKSON.
PROCLAMATION.
BY ANDREW JACKSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina have passed an ordinance by which they declare "that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and more especially" two acts for the same purposes passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, "are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and void and no law," nor binding on the citizens of that State or its officers; and by the said ordinance it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance; and
Whereas by the said ordinance it is further ordained that in no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said State wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take such appeal shall be punished as for contempt of court; and, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard, and that they will consider the passage of any act by Congress abolishing or closing the ports of the said State or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the Federal Government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union, and that the people of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent states may of right do; and