No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too large a
surplus in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives birth to
extravagant legislation. It produces wild schemes of expenditure
and begets a race of speculators and jobbers, whose ingenuity is
exerted in contriving and promoting expedients to obtain public
money. The purity of official agents, whether rightfully or
wrongfully, is suspected, and the character of the government
suffers in the estimation of the people. This is in itself a very
great evil.
The natural mode of relief from this embarrassment is to
appropriate the surplus in the Treasury to great national objects
for which a clear warrant can be found in the Constitution. Among
these I might mention the extinguishment of the public debt, a
reasonable increase of the Navy, which is at present inadequate to
the protection of our vast tonnage afloat, now greater than that
of any other nation, as well as to the defense of our extended
seacoast.
It is beyond all question the true principle that no more revenue
ought to be collected from the people than the amount necessary to
defray the expenses of a wise, economical, and efficient
administration of the Government. To reach this point it was
necessary to resort to a modification of the tariff, and this has,
I trust, been accomplished in such a manner as to do as little
injury as may have been practicable to our domestic manufactures,
especially those necessary for the defense of the country.
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