be paid
before they are contracted. If we would escape embarrassment, public and
private, we must cease to run in debt except for objects of necessity
or such as will yield a certain return. Let the faith of the States,
corporations, and individuals already pledged be kept with the most
punctilious regard. It is due to our national character as well as
to justice that this should on the part of each be a fixed principle
of conduct. But it behooves us all to be more chary in pledging it
hereafter. By ceasing to run in debt and applying the surplus of our
crops and incomes to the discharge of existing obligations, buying less
and selling more, and managing all affairs, public and private, with
strict economy and frugality, we shall see our country soon recover from
a temporary depression, arising not from natural and permanent causes,
but from those I have enumerated, and advance with renewed vigor in her
career of prosperity.

Fortunately for us at this moment, when the balance of trade is greatly
against us and the difficulty of meeting it enhanced by the disturbed
state of our money affairs, the bounties of Providence have come to
relieve us from the consequences of past errors. A faithful application
of the immense results of the labors of the last season will afford
partial relief for the present, and perseverance in the same course will
in due season accomplish the rest. We have had full experience in times
past of the extraordinary results which can in this respect be brought
about in a short period by the united and well-directed efforts of a
community like ours. Our surplus profits, the energy and industry of our
population, and the wonderful advantages which Providence has bestowed
upon our country in its climate, its various productions, indispensable
to other nations, will in due time afford abundant means to perfect the
most useful of those objects for which the States have been plunging
themselves of late in embarrassment and debt, without imposing on
ourselves or our children such fearful burdens.

But let it be indelibly engraved on our minds that relief is not to be
found in expedients. Indebtedness can not be lessened by borrowing more
money or by changing the form of the debt. The balance of trade is not
to be turned in our favor by creating new demands upon us abroad. Our
currency can not be improved by the creation of new banks or more issues
from those which now exist. Although these devices sometim