In such measures as I may be called on to pursue in regard to the rights
of the separate States I hope to be animated by a proper respect for
those sovereign members of our Union, taking care not to confound the
powers they have reserved to themselves with those they have granted to
the Confederacy.
The management of the public revenue--that searching operation in all
governments--is among the most delicate and important trusts in ours,
and it will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official
solicitude. Under every aspect in which it can be considered it would
appear that advantage must result from the observance of a strict and
faithful economy. This I shall aim at the more anxiously both because it
will facilitate the extinguishment of the national debt, the unnecessary
duration of which is incompatible with real independence, and because it
will counteract that tendency to public and private profligacy which a
profuse expenditure of money by the Government is but too apt to
engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the attainment of this desirable end
are to be found in the regulations provided by the wisdom of Congress
for the specific appropriation of public money and the prompt
accountability of public officers.
With regard to a proper selection of the subjects of impost with a view
to revenue, it would seem to me that the spirit of equity, caution, and
compromise in which the Constitution was formed requires that the great
interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures should be equally
favored, and that perhaps the only exception to this rule should consist
in the peculiar encouragement of any products of either of them that may
be found essential to our national independence.
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