impolitic and in a high degree oppressive. I shall promptly give my
sanction to any constitutional measure which, originating in Congress,
shall have for its object the restoration of a sound circulating medium,
so essentially necessary to give confidence in all the transactions
of life, to secure to industry its just and adequate rewards, and to
reestablish the public prosperity. In deciding upon the adaptation of
any such measure to the end proposed, as well as its conformity to the
Constitution, I shall resort to the fathers of the great republican
school for advice and instruction, to be drawn from their sage views of
our system of government and the light of their ever-glorious example.

The institutions under which we live, my countrymen, secure each person
in the perfect enjoyment of all his rights. The spectacle is exhibited
to the world of a government deriving its powers from the consent of the
governed and having imparted to it only so much power as is necessary
for its successful operation. Those who are charged with its
administration should carefully abstain from all attempts to enlarge
the range of powers thus granted to the several departments of the
Government other than by an appeal to the people for additional grants,
lest by so doing they disturb that balance which the patriots and
statesmen who framed the Constitution designed to establish between the
Federal Government and the States composing the Union. The observance
of these rules is enjoined upon us by that feeling of reverence and
affection which finds a place in the heart of every patriot for the
preservation of union and the blessings of union--for the good of our
children and our children's children through countless generations.
An opposite course could not fail to generate factions intent upon
the gratification of their selfish ends, to give birth to local and
sectional jealousies, and to ultimate either in breaking asunder the
bonds of union or in building up a central system which would inevitably