nd the temporary
sacrifice of a policy which should only be abandoned in such exigencies,
are not merely unnecessary, but in direct and deadly hostility to the
principles of their Government and to their own permanent welfare.

The progress made in the development of these positions appears in the
preceding sketch of the past history and present state of the financial
concerns of the Federal Government. The facts there stated fully
authorize the assertion that all the purposes for which this Government
was instituted have been accomplished during four years of greater
pecuniary embarrassment than were ever before experienced in time of
peace, and in the face of opposition as formidable as any that was ever
before arrayed against the policy of an Administration; that this has
been done when the ordinary revenues of the Government were generally
decreasing as well from the operation of the laws as the condition
of the country, without the creation of a permanent public debt or
incurring any liability other than such as the ordinary resources of
the Government will speedily discharge, and without the agency of a
national bank.

If this view of the proceedings of the Government for the period it
embraces be warranted by the facts as they are known to exist; if the
Army and Navy have been sustained to the full extent authorized by law,
and which Congress deemed sufficient for the defense of the country and
the protection of its rights and its honor; if its civil and diplomatic
service has been equally sustained; if ample provision has been made for
the administration of justice and the execution of the laws; if the
claims upon public gratitude in behalf of the soldiers of the Revolution
have been promptly met and faithfully discharged; if there have been no
failures in defraying the very large expenditures growing out of that
long-continued and salutary policy of peacefully removing the Indians to
regions of comparative safety and prosperity; if the public faith has at
all times and everywhere been most scrupulously maintained by a prompt
discharge of the numerous, extended, and diversified claims on the
Treasury--if all these great and permanent objects, with many others
that might be stated, have for a series of years, marked by peculiar
obstacles and difficulties, been successfully accomplished without a
resort to a permanent debt or the aid of a national bank, have we not
a right to expect that a policy the object of wh