nnection with this subject, to the
necessity which exists for adopting some suitable measure whereby the
unlimited creation of banks by the States may be corrected in future.
Such result can be most readily achieved by the consent of the States,
to be expressed in the form of a compact among themselves, which
they can only enter into with the consent and approbation of this
Government--a consent which might in the present emergency of the
public demands justifiably be given by Congress in advance of any action
by the States, as an inducement to such action, upon terms well defined
by the act of tender. Such a measure, addressing itself to the calm
reflection of the States, would find in the experience of the past and
the condition of the present much to sustain it; and it is greatly to be
doubted whether any scheme of finance can prove for any length of time
successful while the States shall continue in the unrestrained exercise
of the power of creating banking corporations. This power can only be
limited by their consent.

With the adoption of a financial agency of a satisfactory character the
hope may be indulged that the country may once more return to a state of
prosperity. Measures auxiliary thereto, and in some measure inseparably
connected with its success, will doubtless claim the attention of
Congress. Among such, a distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands, provided such distribution does not force upon Congress
the necessity of imposing upon commerce heavier burthens than those
contemplated by the act of 1833, would act as an efficient remedial
measure by being brought directly in aid of the States. As one sincerely
devoted to the task of preserving a just balance in our system of
Government by the maintenance of the States in a condition the most free
and respectable and in the full possession of all their power, I can no
otherwise than feel desirous for their emancipation from the situation
to which the pressure on their finances now subjects them. And while I
must repudiate, as a measure founded in error and wanting constitutional
sanction, the slightest approach to an assumption by this Government of
the debts of the States, yet I can see in the distribution adverted to
much to recommend it. The compacts between the proprietor States and
this Government expressly guarantee to the States all the benefits which
may arise from the sales. The mode by which this is to be effected
addresses