STATE PAPERS. 



735 



tizens, you best know whether we 

 hare done well or ill. The suppres- 

 sion of unnecessary offices, of use- 

 less establishments, and expences, 

 enables us to discontinue our inter- 

 nal taxes. These, covering our 

 land with otficers, and opening our 

 doors to their intrusions, had alrea- 

 dy begun that process of domiciliary 

 Texation, which, once entertained, 

 is scarcely to be restrained from 

 reaching, successively, every article 

 of produce and of property. If 

 among these taxes some minor ones 

 fell, which had not been inconve- 

 nient, it was because their amount 

 ■would not have paid the officers 

 who collected them, and because, if 

 they had any merit, the state autho- 

 rities might adopt them, instead of 

 others less approved. The remain- 

 ing revenue on the consumption of 

 foreign articles, is paid chiefly by 

 those who can afford to add foreign 

 luxuries to domestic comforts. Be- 

 ing collected on our sca-board and 

 frontiers only, and incorporated 

 with the transactions of our mercan- 

 tile citizens, it may be the pleasure 

 and pride of an American to ask, 

 what farmer, what mechanic, what 

 labourer, ever sees a tax-gatherer of 

 the United States ? Those contribu- 

 tions enable us to support the cur- 

 rent expences of the government, to 

 fulfil contracts with lorcign nations, 

 to extinguish the native right of soil 

 within our limits, to extend those 

 limits, and to apply such a surplus 

 to our public debts, as places at a 

 short day, their final redemption, 

 and that redemption once effected, 

 the revenue thereby liberated, may, 

 by a just reparation among the 

 States, and a correspoiuling amend- 

 ment of the constitution, be applied 

 in time of peace, to rivers, canals, 

 roads, arts, manufactures, educa- 



tion, and other great objects within 

 each state. In time of war, if in- 

 justice by ourselves or others must 

 sometimes produce war, increased as 

 the same revenue will be by in- 

 creased population and consump- 

 tion, and aided by other resources 

 reserved for that crisis, it may meet 

 within the year all the expences of 

 the year, without encroaching on 

 the rights of future generations, by 

 burthening them with the debts of 

 the past. War will then be but a 

 suspension of useful works, and a 

 return to a state of peace, a return 

 to the progress of improvement. I 

 have said, fellow citizens, thatthein- 

 come reserved had enabled us to 

 extend our limits ; but that exten- 

 sion may possibly pay for itself be- 

 fore we are called on, and in the 

 mean time may keep down the ac- 

 cruing interest. In all events it 

 will replace the advances we shall 

 have made. I know that the ac- 

 quisition of Louisiana has been dis- 

 approved by some, from a candid 

 apprehension that the enlargement 

 of our territory may endanger its 

 union ; but, who can limit the ex- 

 tent to which the federative princi- , 

 pie may operate effectively ? The- 

 larger our association, the less will 

 it be shaken by local passions, and 

 in any view, is it not better that the 

 opposite bank of the Missisippi, 

 should be settled by our own bre- 

 thren and children, than by stran- 

 gers of another family ? With which 

 shall we be most likely to live in har- 

 mony and friendly intercourse ? — In 

 matters of religion, 1 have considered 

 that its free exorcise is placed by tlio 

 constitution, independent of tho. 

 powers of the general government. 

 1 have, therefore, undertaken, on 

 no occasion, to prescribe the reli- 

 gious exercises suited to it; but 



haTC>. 



