A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 2: John Tyler
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 2: John Tyler
Presidents -- United States; Tyler, John, 1790-1862; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
In discharging the high duties thus imposed on me by the Constitution I
repeat to the House my entire willingness to cooperate in all financial
measures, constitutional and proper, which in its wisdom it may judge
necessary and proper to reestablish the credit of the Government.
I believe that the proceeds of the sales of the public lands being
restored to the Treasury--or, more properly speaking, the proviso of
the act of September, 1841, being permitted to remain in full force--a
tariff of duties may easily be adjusted, which, while it will yield a
revenue sufficient to maintain the Government in vigor by restoring its
credit, will afford ample protection and infuse a new life into all our
manufacturing establishments. The condition of the country calls for
such legislation, and it will afford me the most sincere pleasure to
cooperate in it.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _August 9, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
It is with unfeigned regret that I find myself under the necessity of
returning to the House of Representatives with my objections a bill
entitled "An act to provide revenue from imports, and to change and
modify existing laws imposing duties on imports, and for other
purposes." Nothing can be more painful to any individual called upon to
perform the Chief Executive duties under our limited Constitution than
to be constrained to withhold his assent from an important measure
adopted by the Legislature. Yet he would neither fulfill the high
purposes of his station nor consult the true interests or the solemn
will of the people--the common constituents of both branches of the
Government--by yielding his well-considered, most deeply fixed, and
repeatedly declared opinions on matters of great public concernment to
those of a coordinate department without requesting that department
seriously to reexamine the subject of their difference. The exercise of
some independence of judgment in regard to all acts of legislation is
plainly implied in the responsibility of approving them. At all times
a duty, it becomes a peculiarly solemn and imperative one when the
subjects passed upon by Congress happen to involve, as in the present
instance, the most momentous issues, to affect variously the various
parts of a great country, and to have given rise in all quarters to such
a conflict of opinion as to render it impossible to conjecture with any
certainty on which side the majority really is. Surely if the pause for
reflection intended by the wise authors of the Constitution by referring
the subject back to Congress for reconsideration be ever expedient and
necessary it is precisely such a case as the present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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