Further than this it is neither our policy nor our right to interfere.

That manufactures adequate to the supply of our domestic consumption would in the abstract be beneficial to our country there is no reason to doubt, and to effect their establishment there is perhaps no American citizen who would not for a…

Large interests have grown up under the implied pledge of our national legislation, which it would seem a violation of public faith suddenly to abandon.

But those who have vested their capital in manufacturing establishments can not expect that the people will continue permanently to pay high taxes for their benefit, when the money is not required for any legitimate purpose in the…

Those who take an enlarged view of the condition of our country must be satisfied that the policy of protection must be ultimately limited to those articles of domestic manufacture which are indispensable to our safety in time of war.

In some sections of the Republic its influence is deprecated as tending to concentrate wealth into a few hands, and as creating those germs of dependence and vice which in other countries have characterized the existence of monopolies and…

A large portion of the people in one section of the Republic declares it not only inexpedient on these grounds, but as disturbing the equal relations of property by legislation, and therefore unconstitutional and unjust.

It is my painful duty to state that in one quarter of the United States opposition to the revenue laws has arisen to a height which threatens to thwart their execution, if not to endanger the integrity of the Union.

The whole principle on which they are based is deemed by many unconstitutional, and to persist in the policy which they indicate is considered wholly inexpedient.

Among the interests which merit the consideration of Congress after the payment of the public debt, one of the most important, in my view, is that of the public lands.

As the lands may now be considered as relieved from this pledge, it is in the discretion of Congress to dispose of them in such way as best to conduce to the quiet, harmony, and general interest of the American people.

In examining this question all local and sectional feelings should be discarded and the whole United States regarded as one people, interested alike in the prosperity of their common country.

It can not be doubted that the speedy settlement of these lands constitutes the true interest of the Republic.

The wealth and strength of a country are its population, and the best part of that population are cultivators of the soil.

Independent farmers are every where the basis of society and true friends of liberty.

The influence of a great sectional interest, when brought into full action, will be found more dangerous to the harmony and union of the States than any other cause of discontent, and it is the part of wisdom and sound policy to foresee…

If a system compatible with the Constitution can not be devised which is free from such tendencies, we should recollect that that instrument provides within itself the mode of its amendment, and that there is, therefore, no excuse for the…

But if the people of the several States think otherwise they will amend the Constitution, and in their decision all ought cheerfully to acquiesce.

But a more efficient organization of our militia system is essential to that security which is one of the principal objects of all governments.

Neither our situation nor our institutions require or permit the maintenance of a large regular force.

History offers too many lessons of the fatal result of such a measure not to warn us against its adoption here.

The expense which attends it, the obvious tendency to employ it because it exists and thus to engage in unnecessary wars, and its ultimate danger to public liberty will lead us, I trust, to place our principal dependence for protection…

If in asserting rights or in repelling wrongs war should come upon us, our regular force should be increased to an extent proportional to the emergency, and our present small Army is a nucleus around which such force could be formed and…

Those by whom and for whom the Government was instituted and is supported will constitute its protection in the hour of danger as they do its check in the hour of safety.

Little useful knowledge is gained by the musters and drills as now established, and the whole subject evidently requires a thorough examination.