Rutherford B. Hayes: “I want you to be perfectly independent of mere influence from any quarter.”

The imperative necessity for prompt action and the pressure of public duties in this closing week of my term of office compel me to refrain from any attempt to make a full and satisfactory presentation of the objections to the bill.

If successfully accomplished, it will secure a large decrease in the annual interest payment of the nation, and I earnestly recommend, if the bill before me shall fail, that another measure for this purpose be adopted before the present…

I have the honor to inform the Senate that Hon. Benjamin Harrison, Senator elect from the State of Indiana, has resigned his office as a member of the Commission for the Improvement of the Mississippi River, and the same has been accepted…

Believing that a measure for refunding the national debt is not necessarily connected with the national banking law, and that any refunding act would defeat its own object if it imperiled the national banking system or seriously impaired…