banks, which cannot and ought not to be overlooked. By their means we have flooded with a depreciated paper, which it was evidently the design of the framers of the constitution to prevent, when they required Congress to "coin money and regulate the value of foreign coins," and when they forbade the states "to coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debt, or pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts."

If they did not guard more explicitly against the present state of things, it was because they could not have anticipated that the few banks then existing were to swell to an extent which would expel to so great a degree the gold and silver, for which they had provided from the channels of circulation, and fill them with a currency that defeats the object they had in view. No good that might accrue in a particular case from the exercise of powers not obviously conferred on the general government would authorise its interference, or justify a course that might in the slightest degree increase, at the expense of the states, the power of the federal authorities; nor do I doubt that the states will apply the remedy. Within the last few years, events have appeared to them too strongly to be disregarded. They have seen that the constitution, though theoretically adhered to, is subverted in practice; that while on the statute books there is no legal tender but gold and silver, no law impairing the obligations of contracts, yet that, in point of fact, the privileges conferred on banking corporations have made their notes the currency of the country; that the obligations imposed by these notes are violated under the impulse of

interest or convenience; and that the number and power of the persons connected with these operations, or placed under their influence, give them a fearful weight when their interest is in opposition to the spirit of the constitution and laws.

To the people it is immaterial whether these results are produced by open violations of the latter, or by the workings of a system of which the result is the same. An inflexible execution even of the existing statutes of most of the states would redress many evils now endured; would effectually show to the banks the dangers of mismanagement which impunity encourages them to repeat; and would teach all corporations the useful lesson that they are the subjects of the law and the servants of the people. What is still wanting to effect these objects, must be sought in additional legislation; or, if that be inadequate, in such further constitutional grants or restrictions as may bring us back into the path from which we have so widely wandered.

In the meantime, it is the duty of the general government to cooperate with the states, by a wise exercise of its constitutional powers, and the enforcement of its existing laws. The extent to which it may do so by further enactments I have already adverted to, and the wisdom of Congress may yet enlarge them. But, above all, it is incumbent upon us to hold erect the principles of morality and law, constantly executing our own contracts in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, and thus serving as a rallying point by which our whole country may be brought back to that safe and honoured standard.

Our people will not long be insensible to the extent of the burthens entailed upon them by the false system that has been operating on their sanguine, energetic, and industrious character; nor to the means necessary to extricate themselves from these embarrassments. The weight which presses upon a large portion of the people and the states is an enormous debt, foreign and domestic. The foreign debt of our states, corporations, and men of business can scarcely be less than two hundred millions of dollars, requiring more than ten millions of dollars a year to pay the interests. This sum has to be paid out of the exports of the country, and must of necessity cut off imports to that extent, or plunge the country more deeply in debt from year to year. It is easy to see that the increase of this foreign debt must augment the annual demand on the exports to pay the interest, and to the same extent diminish the imports; and in proportion to the enlargement of the foreign debt, and the consequent increase of interest, must be the decrease of the import trade. In lieu of the comforts which it now brings us, we might have our gigantic banking institutions, and splendid, but in many instances, profitless, railroads and canals, absorbing, to a great extent, in interest upon the capital borrowed to construct them, the surplus fruits of national industry for years to come, and securing to posterity no adequate return for the comforts which the labours of their hands might other wise have secured. It is not by the increase of this debt that relief is to be sought, but in its diminution.

Upon this point there is, I am happy to say, hope before us; not

so much in the return of confidence abroad, which will enable the states to borrow more money, as in a change of public feeling at home, which prompts our people to pause in their career, and think of the means by which debts are to be paid before they are contracted. If we would escape embarrassment, private and public, 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 behoves us all to be more chary in pledging it. 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 vigour 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 results of the labours 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 ex

traordinary results which can, in this respect, be brought about in a short period by the united and welldirected efforts of a community like ours. Our surplus profits, the energy and industry of our population, and the wonderful advantage 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 burthens.

But let it be indelibly engraved on our minds that relief is not to be found in expedients. Indebted ness cannot be lessened by borrow ing more money, or by changing the form of the debt. The balance of trade is not to be turned in our favour by creating new demands upon us abroad. Our currency cannot be improved by the creation of new banks, or more issues from those which now exist. Although these devices sometimes appear to give temporary relief they almost invariably aggravate the evil in the end. It is only by retrenchment and reform, by curtailing public and private expenditures, by paying our debts, and by reforming our banking system, that we are to expect effectual relief, security for the future, and an enduring prosperity. In shaping the institutions and policy of the general government, so as to promote, as far as it can with its limited powers, these important ends, you may rely on most cordial co-operation.

That there should have been, in the progress of recent events, doubts in many quarters, and in some a heated opposition to every

change, cannot surprise us. Doubts are properly attendant on all reform; and it is peculiarly in the nature of such abuses as we are now encountering to seek to perpetuate their power by means of the influence they have been permitted to acquire. It is their result, if not their object, to gain for the few an ascendancy over the many, by securing to them a monopoly of the currency, the medium through which most of the wants of mankind are suppliedto produce throughout society a chain of dependence which leads all classes to look to privileged associations for the means of speculation and extravagance-to nourish, in preference to the manly virtues that give dignity to human nature, a craving desire for luxurious enjoyment and sudden wealth, which renders those who seek them dependent on those who supply them

to substitute for republican simplicity and economical habits a sickly appetite for effeminate indulgence, and an inanition of that reckless extravagance which impoverished and enslaved the industrious people of foreign lands; and, at last, to fix upon us, instead of those equal political rights, the acquisition of which was alike the object and supposed reward of our revolutionary struggle, a system of exclusive privileges conferred by partial legislation.

To remove the influences which had thus gradually grown up among us to deprive them of their deceptive advantages-to test them by the light of wisdom and truth-to oppose the force which they concentrate in their support-all this was necessarily the work of time, even among a people so enlightened and pure as that of the United States. In most

other countries, perhaps, it could only be accomplished through that series of revolutionary movements which are too often found necessary to effect any great and radical reform; but it is the crowning merit of our institutions that they create and nourish in the vast majority of our people a disposition and a power peaceably to remedy abuses which have elsewhere caused the effusion of rivers of blood, and the sacrifice of thousands of the human race.

The result thus far is most honourable to the self-denial, the intelligence, and the patriotism of our citizens. It justifies the confident hope that they will carry through the reform they have so well begun; that they will go still further than they have yet gone in illustrating the important truth, that a people as free and enlight. ened as ours will, whenever it becomes necessary, show themselves to be indeed capable of self-government, by voluntarily adopting appropriate remedies for every abuse, and submitting to temporary sacrifice, however great, to ensure their permanent welfare.

My own exertions for the furtherance of these desirable objects

have been bestowed throughout my official career with a zeal that is nourished by ardent wishes or the welfare of my country, and by an unlimited reliance on the wisdom that marks its ultimate decision on all great and controverted questions. Impressed with the solemn obligations imposed upon me by the constitution desirous also of laying before my fellow citizens, with whose confidence and support I have been so highly honoured, such measures as appear to me conducive to their prosperityand anxious to submit to their fullest consideration the grounds upon which my opinions are formed, I have on this, as on preceding occasions, freely offered my views on those points of domestic policy that seem, at the present time, most prominently to require the action of the government. I know that they will receive from Congress that full and able consideration which the importance of the subject merits, and I can repeat the assurance heretofore made, that I shall cheerfully and readily cooperate with you in every measure that will tend to promote the welfare of the union.

M. VAN BUREN.

MR. FOX TO MR. FORSYTH.

Washington, Jan. 26. The undersigned, her Britannic majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, has the honour to acquaint Mr. For

syth, secretary of state of the United States, that since the date of his last official note, of the 12th instant, he has been furnished by her majesty's authorities in North America with more correct infor

mation than he then possessed respecting certain reported movements of British troops within the disputed territory, which formed the subject of a part of that official note, as well as of the two official notes.addressed by the secretary of state to the undersigned on the 24th of December, and on the 16th of the present month. The same reported movements of troops were referred to in a recent message from the governor of Maine to the legislature of the state, and also in a published official letter addressed by the governor of Maine to the president of the United States on the 22d of December.

It appears from the accurate information now in the possession of the undersigned, that the governor of Maine, and through him, the president and general govern ment of the United States, have been misinformed as to the facts. In the first place, no reinforcement has been marched to the British post at the Lake Temiscouata; the only change occurring there has been the relief of a detachment of her majesty's 24th regiment by a detachment of equal force of the 11th regiment, this force of one company being now stationed at the Temiscouata post, as it always has been, for the necessary purpose of protecting the stores and accommodations provided for the use of her majesty's troops, who may be required, as heretofore, to march by that route to and from the provinces of Canada and New Brunswick. In the second place, it is not true that the British authorities either have built, or are building, barracks on both sides of the St. John's river, or at the mouth of the Madawaska river; no new barracks have in fact been built anywhere. In the third place,

her majesty's authorities are not concentrating a military force at the Grand Falls. The same trifling force of sixteen men is now stationed at the post of the Grand Falls, which has been stationed there for the last twelvemonth. It was perhaps, however, needless for the undersigned to advert to this last matter at all, as the post of the Grand Falls is beyond the bounds of the disputed territory, and within the acknowledged limits of New Brunswick.

The undersigned, while conveying the above information upon a matter of fact to the secretary of state of the United States, takes occasion to repeat distinctly his former declaration that there exists no intention on the part of her majesty's authorities to infringe the terms of those provisional agreements which were entered into at the beginning of last year, so long as there is reason to trust that the same will be faithfully adhered to by the opposite party. But it is the duty of the undersigned, at the same time, to clearly state that her majesty's authorities in North America, taking into view the attitude assumed by the state of Maine with reference to the boundary question, will, as at present advised, be governed entirely by circumstances in adopting such measures of defence and protection (whether along the confines of the disputed territory, or within that portion of it where it has been before explained the authority of Great Britain, according to the existing agreements, was not to be interfered with) as may seem to them necessary for guarding against, or for promptly repelling, the further acts of hostile aggression over the whole of the disputed territory, which it