“There is reasonable ground of confidence,” he said, “that we may now safely dispense with all the internal taxes, ... and that the remaining sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the support of government, to pay the interest of the public debts, and to discharge the principals within shorter periods than the laws or the general expectation had contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward events may change this prospect of things, and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen but for the temptations offered by that treasure.” Assuming that “the States themselves have principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation, constituting the great field of human concerns,” the Message maintained that the general government was unnecessarily complicated and expensive, and that its work could be better performed at a smaller cost. “Considering the general tendency,” it said, “to multiply offices and dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge, that it never may be seen here that, after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it can subsist, government shall itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard.”