Andrew Jackson

The experience of another year has confirmed the utter fallacy of the idea that the Bank of the United States was necessary as a fiscal agent of the Government.

If it is ever used for the ends of government, it has to be incessantly watched, or it corrupts the sources of the public virtue and agitates the country with questions unfavorable to the harmonious and steady pursuit of its true interests.

Wherever this spirit has effected an alliance with political power, tyranny and despotism have been the fruit.

We have felt but one class of these dangers exhibited in the contest waged by the Bank of the United States against the Government for the last four years.

All the serious dangers which our system has yet encountered may be traced to the resort to implied powers and the use of corporations clothed with privileges, the effect of which is to advance the interests of the few at the expense of…

On this subject I am sure that I can not be mistaken in ascribing our want of success to the undue countenance which has been afforded to the spirit of monopoly.

The great desideratum in modern times is an efficient check upon the power of banks, preventing that excessive issue of paper whence arise those fluctuations in the standard of value which render uncertain the rewards of labor.

The extraordinary receipts from the sales of the public lands invite you to consider what improvements the land system, and particularly the condition of the General Land Office, may require.

This circumstance attests the rapidity with which agriculture, the first and most important occupation of man, advances and contributes to the wealth and power of our extended territory.

Either would be constitutional and useful, and would render unnecessary any attempt in our present peculiar condition to divide the surplus revenue or to reduce it any faster than will be effected by the existing laws.

This sum can, in my judgment, be now usefully applied to proposed improvements in our navy yards, and to new national works which are not enumerated in the present estimates or to the more rapid completion of those already begun.

The honor of my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the statement of truth and the performance of duty; nor can I give any explanation of my official acts except such as is due to integrity and justice and consistent…

I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that such a sacrifice will not be made through any agency of mine.

In any event, however, the principle involved in the new aspect which has been given to the controversy is so vitally important to the independent administration of the Government that it can neither be surrendered nor compromitted without…

The people of the United States are justly attached to a pacific system in their intercourse with foreign nations.

When our discussions terminate in acts, our responsibility to foreign powers commences, not as individuals, but as a nation.

The conception that it was my intention to menace or insult the Government of France is as unfounded as the attempt to extort from the fears of that nation what her sense of justice may deny would be vain and ridiculous.

To have gone, on the other hand, a single step further for the purpose of wounding the pride of a Government and people with whom we had so many motives for cultivating relations of amity and reciprocal advantage would have been unwise and…

To have shrunk in making it from saying all that was necessary to its correct understanding, and that the truth would justify, for fear of giving offense to others, would have been unworthy of us.

Thus disappointed in our just expectations, it became my imperative duty to consult with Congress in regard to the expediency of a resort to retaliatory measures in case the stipulations of the treaty should not be speedily complied with…

Sincerely desirous of preserving the pacific relations which had so long existed between the two countries, I was anxious to avoid this course if I could be satisfied that by so neither the interests nor the honor of my country would be…

Such it is now conceded is the character of the wrongs we suffered--wrongs in many cases so flagrant that even their authors never denied our right to reparation.

The antiquity of these claims, their high justice, and the aggravating circumstances out of which they arose are too familiar to the American people to require description.

In every element of national resources and wealth and of individual comfort we witness the most rapid and solid improvements.

Never in any former period of our history have we had greater reason than we now have to be thankful to Divine Providence for the blessings of health and general prosperity.