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.