Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
By ceasing to run in debt and applying the surplus of our
crops and incomes to the discharge of existing obligations, buying less and
selling more, and managing all affairs, public and private, with strict
economy and frugality, we shall see our country soon recover from a
temporary depression, arising not from natural and permanent causes, but
from those I have enumerated, and advance with renewed vigor in her career
of prosperity.
Fortunately for us at this moment, when the balance of trade is greatly
against us and the difficulty of meeting it enhanced by the disturbed state
of our money affairs, the bounties of Providence have come to relieve us
from the consequences of past errors. A faithful application of the immense
results of the labors of the last season will afford partial relief for the
present, and perseverance in the same course will in due season accomplish
the rest. We have had full experience in times past of the extraordinary
results which can in this respect be brought about in a short period by the
united and well-directed efforts of a community like ours. Our surplus
profits, the energy and industry of our population, and the wonderful
advantages which Providence has bestowed upon our country in its climate,
its various productions, indispensable to other nations, will in due time
afford abundant means to perfect the most useful of those objects for which
the States have been plunging themselves of late in embarrassment and debt,
without imposing on ourselves or our children such fearful burdens.
But let it be indelibly engraved on our minds that relief is not to be
found in expedients. Indebtedness can not be lessened by borrowing more
money or by changing the form of the debt. The balance of trade is not to
be turned in our favor by creating new demands upon us abroad. Our currency
can not be improved by the creation of new banks or more issues from those
which now exist. Although these devices sometimes appear to give temporary
relief, they almost invariably aggravate the evil in the end. It is only by
retrenchment and reform--by curtailing public and private expenditures, by
paying our debts, and by reforming our banking system--that we are to
expect effectual relief, security for the future, and an enduring
prosperity. In shaping the institutions and policy of the General
Government so as to promote as far as it can with its limited powers these
important ends, you may rely on my most cordial cooperation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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