A national debt has become almost an institution of European
monarchies. It is viewed in some of them as an essential prop to
existing governments. Melancholy is the condition of that people
whose government can be sustained only by a system which
periodically transfers large amounts from the labor of the many to
the coffers of the few. Such a system is incompatible with the
ends for which our republican Government was instituted. Under a
wise policy the debts contracted in our Revolution and during the
War of 1812 have been happily extinguished. By a judicious
application of the revenues not required for other necessary
purposes, it is not doubted that the debt which has grown out of
the circumstances of the last few years may be speedily paid off.
I congratulate my fellow-citizens on the entire restoration of the
credit of the General Government of the Union and that of many of
the States. Happy would it be for the indebted States if they were
freed from their liabilities, many of which were incautiously
contracted. Although the Government of the Union is neither in a
legal nor a moral sense bound for the debts of the States, and it
would be a violation of our compact of union to assume them, yet
we can not but feel a deep interest in seeing all the States meet
their public liabilities and pay off their just debts at the
earliest practicable period.
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