ncy will never object to the
imposition of necessary burdens for useful ends, and true wisdom
dictates the resort to such means in order to supply deficiencies in the
revenue, rather than to those doubtful expedients which, ultimating in
a public debt, serve to embarrass the resources of the country and to
lessen its ability to meet any great emergency which may arise. All
sinecures should be abolished. The appropriations should be direct
and explicit, so as to leave as limited a share of discretion to the
disbursing agents as may be found compatible with the public service.
A strict responsibility on the part of all the agents of the Government
should be maintained and peculation or defalcation visited with
immediate expulsion from office and the most condign punishment.

The public interest also demands that if any war has existed between
the Government and the currency it shall cease. Measures of a financial
character now having the sanction of legal enactment shall be faithfully
enforced until repealed by the legislative authority. But I owe it to
myself to declare that I regard existing enactments as unwise and
impolitic and in a high degree oppressive. I shall promptly give my
sanction to any constitutional measure which, originating in Congress,
shall have for its object the restoration of a sound circulating medium,
so essentially necessary to give confidence in all the transactions
of life, to secure to industry its just and adequate rewards, and to
reestablish the public prosperity. In deciding upon the adaptation of
any such measure to the end proposed, as well as its conformity to the
Constitution, I shall resort to the fathers of the great republican
school for advice and instruction, to be drawn from their sage views of
our system of government and the light of their ever-glorious example.

The institutions under which we live, my countrymen, secure each person
in the perfect enjoyment of all his rights. The spectacle is exhibited
to the world of a government deriving its powers from the consent of the
governed and having imparted to it only so much power as is necessary
for its successful operation. Those who are charged with its
administration should carefully abstain from all attempts to enlarge
the range of powers thus granted to the several departments of the
Government other than by an appeal to the people for additional grants,
lest by so doing they disturb that balance which the patriots and
state