To increase the attachment of our people to the
Union, our laws should be just. Any policy which shall tend to
favor monopolies or the peculiar interests of sections or classes
must operate to the prejudice of the interest of their fellow-
citizens, and should be avoided. If the compromises of the
Constitution be preserved, if sectional jealousies and
heartburnings be discountenanced, if our laws be just and the
Government be practically administered strictly within the limits
of power prescribed to it, we may discard all apprehensions for
the safety of the Union.
With these views of the nature, character, and objects of the
Government and the value of the Union, I shall steadily oppose the
creation of those institutions and systems which in their nature
tend to pervert it from its legitimate purposes and make it the
instrument of sections, classes, and individuals. We need no
national banks or other extraneous institutions planted around the
Government to control or strengthen it in opposition to the will
of its authors. Experience has taught us how unnecessary they are
as auxiliaries of the public authorities--how impotent for good
and how powerful for mischief.
Ours was intended to be a plain and frugal government, and I shall
regard it to be my duty to recommend to Congress and, as far as
the Executive is concerned, to enforce by all the means within my
power the strictest economy in the expenditure of the public money
which may be compatible with the public interests.
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