eye upon the means of sustaining it, do not require to be reminded of the duty they owe to themselves to remedy all essential defects in so vital a part of their system. While they are sensible that every evil attendant upon its operation is not necessarily indicative of a bad organization, but may proceed from temporary causes; yet the habitual presence, or even a single instance of evils which can be clearly traced to an organic defect, will not, I trust, be overlooked through a too scrupulous veneration for the work of their ancestors. The Constitution was an experiment committed to the virtue and intelligence of the great mass of our countrymen, in whose ranks the framers of it themselves were to perform the part of patriotic observation and scrutiny; and if they have passed from the stage of existence with an increased confidence in its general adaptation to our condition, we should learn from authority so high the duty of fortifying the points in it which time proves to be exposed, rather than be deterred from approaching them by the suggestions of fear, or the dictates of misplaced reverence.

A provision which does not secure to the people a direct choice of their Chief Magistrate, but has a tendency to defeat their will, presented to my mind such an inconsistency with the general spirit of our institutions, that I was induced to suggest for your consideration the substitute which appeared to me, at the same time, the most likely to correct the evil and to meet the views of our constituents. The most mature reflection since has added strength to the belief that the best interests of our country require the speedy adoption of some plan calculated to effect this end. A contingency which sometimes places it in the power of a single member of the House of Representatives to decide an election of so high and solemn a character, is unjust to the people; and becomes, when it occurs, a source of embarrassment to the individuals thus brought into power, and a cause of distrust of the representative body. Liable as the confederacy is, from its great extent, to parties founded upon sectional interests, and to a corresponding multiplication of candidates for the Presidency, the tendency of the constitutional reference to the House of Representatives, is, to devolve the election upon that body in almost every instance; and, whatever choice may then be made among the candidates thus presented to them, to swell the influence of particular interests to a degree inconsistent with the general good. The consequences of this feature of the Constitution appear far more threatening to the peace and integrity of the Union, than any which I can conceive as likely to result from the simple legislative action of the Federal Government.

It was a leading object with the framers of the Constitution to keep as separate as possible the action of the Legislative and Executive branches of the Government. To secure this object, nothing is more essential than to preserve the former from all temptations of private interest, and, therefore, so to direct the patronage of the latter as not to permit such temptations to be offered. Experience abundantly demonstrates that every precaution in this respect is a valuable safeguard of liberty, and one which my reflections upon the tendencies of our system incline me to think should be made still stronger. It was for this reason, that, in connexion with an amendment of the Constitution, removing all intermediate agency in the choice of the President, I recommended some restrictions upon the re-eligibility of that officer, and upon the tenure of offices generally. The reason still exists; and I renew the recommendation, with an increased confidence that its adoption will strengthen those checks by which the Constitution designed to secure the independence of each department of the Government, and promote the

healthful and equitable administration of all the trusts which it has created. The agent most likely to contravene this design of the Constitution is the Chief Magistrate. In order, particularly, that his appointment may, as far as possible, be placed beyond the reach of any improper influences; in order that he may approach the solemn responsibilities of the highest office in the gift of a free people, uncommitted to any other course than the strict line of constitutional duty; and that the securities for this independence may be rendered as strong as the nature of power, and the weakness of its possessor, will admit; I cannot too earnestly invite your attention to the propriety of promoting such an amendment of the Constitution as will render him ineligible after one term of service.

It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements, is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress; and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes, also, to seek the same obvious advantages.

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments, on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north, and Louisiana on the south, to the settlements of the whites, it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier, and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasion without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi, and the western part of Alabama, of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way, and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers; and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government, and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits, and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community. These consequences, some of them so certain, and the rest so probable, make the complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress at their last session an object of much solieitude.

Towards the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits, and make them a happy, prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to the State authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the States within the scope of their reserved powers, they are not responsible to this Government. As individuals, we may entertain and express our opinions of their acts; but, as a Government, we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe laws for other nations.

With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes have, with great unanimity, determined to avail themselves of the liberal offers presented by the act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi river. Treaties have been made with them, which, in due season, will be submitted for consideration. In negotiating these treaties, they were made to understand their true condition; and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the western forests to submitting to the laws of the States in which they now reside. These treaties being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are characterized by great liberality on the part of the Government. They give the Indians a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable subsistence on their arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest to maintain

a separate existence, they will there be at liberty to do so without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and Mississippi.

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country; and philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it. But its progress has never for a moment been arrested; and, one by one, have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race, and to tread on the graves of extinct nations, excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes, as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the west, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated, or has disappeared, to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there any thing in this, which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages, to our extensive republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farins; embellished with all the improvements which art can devise, or industry execute; occupied by more than twelve millions of happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion!

The present policy of the Government is but a continuation of the same progressive change, by a milder process. The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the eastern States, were annihilated, or have melted away, to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward; and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the south and west by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged, and perhaps made perpetual. Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did, or than our children are now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land, our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children, by thousands, yearly leave the land of their birth, to seek new homes in distant regions. Does humanity weep at these painful separations from every thing, animate and inanimate, with which the young heart has become entwined? Far from it. It is rather a source of joy that our country affords scope where our young population may range unconstrained in body or in mind, developing the power and faculties of man in their highest perfection. These remove hundreds, and almost thousands

of miles, at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival. Can it be cruel in this Government, when, by events which it cannot control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home, to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the west on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

And is it supposed tha. the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home, than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers, than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government towards the red man is not only liberal but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States, and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement.

In the consummation of a policy originating at an early period, and steadily pursued by every administration within the present century-so just to the States, and so generous to the Indians, the Executive feels it has a right to expect the co-operation of Congress, and of all good and disinterested men. The States, moreover, have a right to demand it. It was substantially a part of the compact which made them members of our confederacy. With Georgia, there is an express contract; with the new States, an implied one, of equal obligation. Why, in authorizing Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama, to form constitutions, and become separate States, did Congress include within their limits extensive tracts of Indian lands, and, in some instances, powerful Indian tribes? Was it not understood by both parties that the power of the States was to be co-extensive with their limits, and that, with all convenient despatch, the General Goverument should extinguish the Indian title, and remove every obstruction to the complete jurisdiction of the State Governments over the soil? Probably not one of those States would have accepted a separate existence-certainly it would never have been granted by Congress-had it been understood that they were to be confined forever to those small portions of their nominal territory, the Indian title to which had at the time been extinguished.

It is, therefore, a duty which this Government owes to the new States, to extinguish, as soon as possible, the Indian title to all lands which Congress themselves have included within their limits. When this is done, the duties of the General Government in relation to the States and the Indians within their limits are at an end. The Indians may leave the State or not, as they choose. The purchase of their lands does not alter, in the least, their personal relations with the State Government. No act of the General Government has ever been deemed necessary to give the States jurisdiction over the persons of the Indians. That they possess, by virtue of their sovereign power within their own limits, in as full a manner before as after the chase of the Indian lands; nor can this Government add to or diminish it. May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more zealously than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and, by a speedy removal, to relieve them

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from all the evils, real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be threatened.

Among the numerous causes of congratulation, the condition of our impost revenue deserves special mention, inasmuch as it promises the means of extinguishing the public debt sooner than was anticipated, and furnishes a strong illustration of the practical effects of the present tariff upon our commercial interests.

The object of the tariff is objected to by some as unconstitutional; and it is considered by almost all as defective in many of its parts.

The power to impose duties on imports originally belonged to the several States. The right to adjust those duties with a view to the encouragement of domestic branches of industry is so completely incidental to that power, that it is difficult to suppose the existence of the one without the other. The States have delegated their whole authority over imports to the General Government, without limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable reservation relating to their inspection laws. This authority having thus entirely passed from the States, the right to exercise it for the purpose of protection does not exist in them; and, consequently, if it be not possessed by the General Government, it must be extinct. Our political system would thus present the anomaly of a people stripped of the right to foster their own industry, and to counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might be adopted by foreign nations. This surely cannot be the case: this indispensable power, thus surrendered by the States, must be within the scope of the authority on the subject expressly delegated to Congress.

In this conclusion, I am confirmed as well by the opinions of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who have each repeatedly recommended the exercise of this right under the Constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the continued acquiescence of the States, and the general understanding of the people.

The difficulties of a more expedient adjustment of the present tariff, although great, are far from being insurmountable. Some are unwilling to improve any of its parts, because they would destroy the whole: others fear to touch the objectionable parts, lest those they approve should be jeoparded. I am persuaded that the advocates of these conflicting views do injustice to the American people, and to their Representatives. The general interest is the interest of each: and my confidence is entire, that, to ensure the adoption of such modifications of the tariff as the general interest requires, it is only necessary that that interest should be understood.

It is an infirmity of our nature to mingle our interests and prejudices with the operation of our reasoning powers, and attribute to the objects of our likes and dislikes qualities they do not possess, and effects they cannot produce. The effects of the present tariff are doubtless overrated, both in its evils and in its advantages. By one class of reasoners, the reduced price of cotton and other agricultural products is ascribed wholly to its influence, and by another, the reduced price of manufactured articles. The probability is, that neither opinion approaches the truth, and that both are induced by that influence of interests and prejudices to which I have referred. The decrease of prices extends throughout the commercial world, embracing not only the raw material and the manufactured article, but provisions and lands. The cause must, therefore, be deeper and more pervading than the tariff of the United States. It may, in a measure, be attributable to the in