Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
I informed Congress at their last session of the enterprises against the
public peace which were believed to be in preparation by Aaron Burr and his
associates, of the measures taken to defeat them and to bring the offenders
to justice. Their enterprises were happily defeated by the patriotic
exertions of the militia whenever called into action, by the fidelity of
the Army, and energy of the commander in chief in promptly arranging the
difficulties presenting themselves on the Sabine, repairing to meet those
arising on the Mississippi, and dissipating before their explosion plots
engendering there. I shall think it my duty to lay before you the
proceedings and the evidence publicly exhibited on the arraignment of the
principal offenders before the circuit court of Virginia.
You will be enabled to judge whether the defect was in the testimony, in
the law, or in the administration of the law; and wherever it shall be
found, the Legislature alone can apply or originate the remedy. The framers
of our Constitution certainly supposed they had guarded as well their
Government against destruction by treason as their citizens against
oppression under pretense of it, and if these ends are not attained it is
of importance to inquire by what means more effectual they may be secured.
The accounts of the receipts of revenue during the year ending on the 30th
day of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement will be
hereafter transmitted from the Treasury. In the mean time, it is
ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $16 millions, which,
with the $5.5 millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have
enabled us, after meeting the current demands and interest incurred, to
pay more than $4 millions of the principal of our funded debt. These
payments, with those of the preceding five and a half years, have
extinguished of the funded debt $25.5 millions, being the whole which
could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and of our
contracts, and have left us in the Treasury $8.5 millions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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