Δευτέρα, 22 Μαρτίου 2010

Andrew Jackson’s Farewell Address

Andrew Jackson was president from 1828 to 1836. This address was his final as a politician, delivered on March 4, 1837. Its significance lies in its prophecies. He warned against the expansion of the federal government, the debasement of the currency, the income tax and the perils of foreign intervention. Contrast Jackson’s wisdom with many of the neuters and frauds who occupy Washington today. This address should be read and re-read. It has been moderately edited for length.

 A SPEECH By Andrew Jackson


If we turn to our relations with foreign powers, we find our condition equally gratifying. Actuated by the sincere desire to do justice to every nation and to preserve the blessings of peace, our intercourse with them has been conducted on the part of this government in the spirit of frankness; and I take pleasure in saying that it has generally been met in a corresponding temper. Difficulties of old standings have been surmounted by friendly discussion and the mutual desire to be just, and the claims of our citizens, which have long been withheld, have at length been acknowledged and adjusted and satisfactory arrangements made for their final payment; and with a limited, and I trust a temporary, exception, our relations with every foreign power are now of the most friendly  character, our commerce continually expanding and our flag respected in every quarter of the world.

Remember George Washington

The necessity of watching with jealous anxiety for the preservation of the union was earnestly pressed upon his fellow citizens by the father of his country in his farewell address. He has there told us that “while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands”; and he has cautioned us in the strongest terms against the formation of parties on geographical discriminations, as one of the means which might disturb our union and to which designing men would be likely to resort.


The federal Constitution was then regarded by him as an experiment—and he so speaks of it in his  address—but an experiment upon the success of which the best hopes of his country depended; and we all know that he was prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to secure it a full and a fair trial. The trial has been made. It has succeeded beyond the proudest hopes of those who framed it. Every quarter of this widely extended nation has felt its blessings and shared in the general prosperity produced by its adoption.  But amid this general prosperity and splendid success the dangers of which he warned us are becoming every day more evident, and the signs of evil are sufficiently apparent to awaken the deepest anxiety in the bosom  of the patriot. We behold systematic efforts publicly made to sow the seeds of discord between different parts of the United States and to place party divisions directly upon geographical distinctions; to excite the  south against the north and the north against the south, and to force into the controversy the most delicate and exciting topics—topics upon which it is impossible that a large portion of the union can ever speak  without strong emotion.

The Dangers of Sectionalism


The first line of separation would not last for a single generation; new fragments would be torn off, new leaders would spring up, and this great and glorious republic would soon be broken into a multitude of petty states, without commerce, without credit, jealous of one another, armed  for mutual aggression, loaded with taxes to pay armies and leaders, seeking aid against each other from foreign powers, insulted and trampled upon by the nations of Europe, until, harassed with conflicts and humbled  and debased in spirit, they would be ready to submit to the absolute dominion of any military adventurer and to surrender their liberty for the sake of repose. It is impossible to look on the consequences that would  inevitably follow the destruction of this government and not feel indignant when we hear cold calculations about the value of the union and have so constantly before us a line of conduct so well calculated to weaken its ties. . . .


It is true that cases may be imagined disclosing such a settled purpose of usurpation and oppression on the part of the government as would justify an appeal to arms. These, however, are extreme cases, which we have no reason to apprehend in a government where the power is in the hands of a patriotic people. And no citizen who loves his country would in any case whatever resort to forcible  resistance unless he clearly saw that the time had come when a freeman should prefer death to submission; for if such a struggle is once begun, and the citizens of one section of the country arrayed in arms against  those of another in doubtful conflict, let the battle result as it may, there will be an end of the union and with it an end to the hopes of freedom. The victory of the injured would not secure to them the blessings  of liberty; it would avenge their wrong, but they would themselves share in the common ruin.

But the Constitution cannot be maintained nor the union preserved, in opposition to public feeling, by the mere  exertion of the coercive powers confided to the general government. The foundations must be laid in the affections of the people, in the security it gives to life, liberty, character and property in every quarter of the country, and in the fraternal attachment which the citizens of the several states bear to one another as members of one political family, mutually contributing to promote the happiness of each other. Hence the citizens of every state should studiously avoid everything calculated to wound the sensibility or offend the just pride of the people of other states, and they should frown upon any proceeding within their own borders likely to disturb the tranquility of their political brethren in other portions of the union. In a country so extensive as the United States, and with pursuits so varied, the internal regulations of the several states must frequently differ from one another in important particulars, and this difference is unavoidably increased by the varying principles upon which the American colonies were originally  planted—principles which had taken deep root in their social relations before the Revolution, and therefore of necessity influencing their policy since they became free and independent states. But each state has the unquestionable right to regulate its own internal concerns according to its own pleasure, and while it does not interfere with the rights of the people of other states or the rights of the union, every state must be the sole judge of the measures proper to secure the safety of its citizens and promote their happiness; and all efforts on the part of the people of other states to cast odium upon their institutions, and all  measures calculated to disturb their rights of property or to put in jeopardy their peace and internal tranquility, are in direct opposition to the spirit in which the union was formed, and must endanger its safety.  . . .

In the legislation of Congress, also, and in every measure of the general government, justice to every portion of the United States should be faithfully observed. No free government can stand without  virtue in the people and a lofty spirit of patriotism, and if the sordid feelings of mere selfishness shall usurp the place which ought to be filled by public spirit, the legislation of Congress will soon be converted into a scramble for personal and sectional advantages. Under our free institutions the citizens of every quarter of our country are capable of attaining a high degree of prosperity and happiness without  seeking to profit themselves at the expense of others; and every such attempt must in the end fail to succeed, for the people in every part of the United States are too enlightened not to understand their own rights  and interests and to detect and defeat every effort to gain undue advantages over them; and when such designs are discovered it naturally provokes resentments which cannot always be easily allayed. Justice—full and  ample justice—to every portion of the United States should be the ruling principle of every freeman and should guide the deliberations of every public body, whether it is state or national.
Against Enlargement of Government


Abuse of Taxing Power

There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the federal government so liable to abuse than the taxing power. The productive and convenient source of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it might be able to perform the important duties imposed upon it; and the taxes which it lays upon commerce being concealed from the real tax payer in the price of the  article, they do not so readily attract the attention of the people as smaller sums demanded from them directly by the tax gatherer. But the tax imposed on goods enhances by so much the price of the commodity to the consumer, and as many of these duties are imposed on articles of necessity which are daily used by the great body of the people, the money raised by these imports is drawn from their pockets.

Congress has no  right under the Constitution to take money from the people unless it is equipped to execute some one of the specific powers entrusted to the government; and if they raise more than is necessary for such purposes, it  is an abuse of the power of taxation, and unjust and oppressive. It may indeed happen that the revenue will sometimes exceed the amount anticipated when the taxes were laid. When, however, this is ascertained, it is easy to reduce them, and in such a case it is unquestionably the duty of the government to reduce them, for no circumstances can justify it in assuming a power not given to it by the Constitution nor taking away the money of the people when it is not needed for the legitimate wants of the government.

Plain as these principles appear to be, you will yet find there is a constant effort to induce the general government to go beyond the limits of its taxing power and to impose unnecessary burdens upon the people. Many powerful interests are continually at work to produce heavy duties on commerce and to swell the revenue beyond the real necessities of the public service, and the country has already felt the injurious effects of their combined influence. They succeeded in obtaining a tariff of duties bearing most oppressively on the agriculture and laboring classes of society and producing a revenue that could not be usefully employed within the range of the powers conferred upon congress, and in order to fasten upon the people this unjust and unequal system of taxation extravagant schemes of internal improvement were got up in various quarters to squander the money and to purchase support. Thus one unconstitutional measure was intended to be upheld by another,  and the abuse of the power of taxation was to be maintained by usurping the power of expending the money in internal improvements. You cannot have forgotten the severe and doubtful struggle through which we passed when the executive department of the government by its veto endeavored to arrest this prodigal scheme of injustice and to bring back the legislation of congress to the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution. The  good sense and practical judgment of the people when the subject was brought before them sustained the course of the executive, and this plan of unconstitutional expenditures for the purpose of corrupt influence, is I trust, finally overthrown.

The result of this decision has been felt in the rapid extinguishment of the public debt and the large accumulation of a surplus in the treasury, notwithstanding the tariff was reduced and is now very far below the amount originally contemplated by its advocates. But, rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and burden you with taxes beyond the economical wants of the  government is not yet abandoned. The various interests which have combined together to impose a heavy tariff and to produce an overflowing treasury are too strong and have too much at stake to surrender the contest.  The corporations and wealthy individuals who are engaged in large manufacturing establishments desire a high tariff to increase their gains. Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditure for the purpose of purchasing influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the federal government cannot be permitted to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several states by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the general government and annually divided among the states; and if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the states should disregard the principles of economy which ought to characterize every republican government, and should indulge in lavish expenditures exceeding their resources, they will before long find themselves oppressed with debts which they are simply unable to pay, and the temptation will become irresistible to support  high tariff in order to obtain a surplus for distribution. Do not allow yourselves, my fellow citizens, to be misled on this subject. The federal government cannot collect a surplus for such purposes without violating the principles or the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been granted. It is, moreover, a system of injustice, and if persisted in will inevitably lead to corruption, and must end in ruin. The  surplus revenue will be drawn from the pockets of the people—from the farmer, the mechanic, the laboring classes of society; but who will receive it when distributed among the states, where it is to be disposed of  by leading state politicians, who have friends of favor and political partisans to gratify? It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to it. There  is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the general government rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for those purposes enumerated in the  Constitution, and if its income is found to exceed these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the burden of the people so far lightened.

Beware of the Money Powers




It is not by encouraging this spirit that we shall best preserve public  virtue and promote the true interests of our country; but if your currency continues as exclusively paper as it now is, it will foster this eager desire to amass wealth without labor, it will multiply the number of dependents on bank accommodations and bank favors; the temptation to obtain money at any sacrifice will become stronger and stronger, and inevitably lead to corruptions, which will find its way into your public  councils and destroy at no distant day the purity of your government. Some of the evils which arise from this system of paper press with peculiar hardship upon the class of society least able to bear it. A portion of this currency frequently becomes depreciated or worthless, and all of it is easily counterfeited in such a manner as to require peculiar skill and much experience to distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine note. These frauds are most generally perpetrated in the smaller notes, which are used in the daily transactions of ordinary business, and the losses occasioned by them are commonly thrown upon the laboring classes of society, whose situation and pursuits put it out of their power to guard themselves from its impositions, and whose daily wages are necessary for their subsistence. It is the duty of every government so to regulate its currency as to protect this numerous class, as far as practicable, from the imposition of avarice and fraud. It is more especially the duty of the United States, where the government is emphatically the government of the people, and where this respectable portion of our citizens are so proudly distinguished from the laboring classes of all other nations by their independent spirit, their love of liberty, their  intelligence and their high tone of moral character. Their industry in peace is the source of our wealth and their bravery in war has covered us with glory; and the government of the United States will but ill discharge its duties if it leaves them a prey to such dishonest impositions. Yet it is evident that their interest cannot be effectually protected unless silver and gold are restored to circulation.


Recent events have proved that the paper-money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine your free institutions, and that those who desire to engross all power in the hands of a few and to govern by corruption or force are  aware of its power and prepared to employ it. Your banks now furnish your only circulating medium, and money is plenty or scarce according to the quantity of notes issued by them. While they have capitals not  greatly disproportioned to each other, they are competitors in business, and no one of them can exercise dominion over the rest; and although in the present state of the currency these banks may and do operate injuriously upon the habits of business, the pecuniary concerns and the moral tone of society, yet, from their number and dispersed situation, they cannot combine for the purposes of political influence, and whatever may be the dispositions of some of their power of mischief must necessarily be confined to a narrow space and felt only in their immediate neighborhoods.

But when the charter of the Bank of the  United States was obtained from Congress, it perfected the schemes of the paper system and gave its advocates the position they have struggled to obtain from the commencement of the federal government to the present  hour. The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them, which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce at its pleasure, at any time and in any quarter of the union, by controlling the issues of other banks and permitting an expansion or compelling a general contraction of the circulating medium, ac cording to its own will.

The other banking institutions were sensible of its strength, and they soon generally became its obedient instruments, ready at all  times to execute its mandates; and with the banks necessarily went also that numerous class of persons in our commercial cities who depend altogether on bank credits for their solvency and means of business, and who  are therefore obliged, for their own safety, to propitiate the favor of the money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its service. The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly was to concentrate the whole money power of the union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head, thus organizing this  particular interest as one body and securing to it unity and concert of action throughout the United States, and enabling it to bring forward upon any occasion its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat  any measure of the government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the amount or the circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the  amount of the circulating medium, and to regulate the value of property and the fruits of labor in every quarter of the union, and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might best comport with its own interest or policy.


Predicting the Federal Reserve

The severe lessons of experience will, I doubt not, be sufficient to prevent Congress from again chartering such a monopoly, even if the Constitution did not present an insuperable objection to it. But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves  you, therefore, to be watchful in your states as well as in the federal government. The power which the moneyed interest can exercise, when concentrated under a single head and with our present system of currency,  was sufficiently demonstrated in the struggle made by the Bank of the United States. Defeated in the general government, the same class of intriguers and politicians will resort to the states and endeavor to obtain  there the same organization which they failed to perpetuate in the union; and with specious and deceitful plans of public advantages and state interests and state pride they will endeavor to establish in the different states one moneyed institution with overgrown capital and exclusive privileges sufficient to enable it to control the operations of the other banks. Such an institution will be pregnant with the same evils produced by the Bank of the United States, although its sphere of action is more confined, and in the state in which it is chartered the money power will be able to embody its whole strength and to move together with undivided force to accomplish any object it may wish to attain. You have already had abundant evidence of its power to inflict injury upon agricultural, mechanical and laboring classes of society, and over whose engagements in trade or speculation render them dependent on bank facilities the dominion of the state monopoly will be absolute and their obedience unlimited. With such a bank and a paper currency the money power would in a few years govern the state and control its measures, and if a sufficient number of states can be induced to create such establishments the time will soon come when it will again take the field  against the United States and succeed in perfecting and perpetuating its organization by a charter from Congress.



The paper money system and its natural association—monopoly and  exclusive privilege—have already struck their roots too deep in the soil, and will require all your efforts to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit by these abuses and desire to perpetuate them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the general government as well as in the states, and will seek by every artifice to mislead and deceive the public servants. It is to yourselves that you must look for safety and the means of guarding and perpetuating your free institutions. In your hands is rightfully placed the sovereignty of the country, and to you everyone placed in authority is ultimately responsible. It is always in your power to see that the wishes of the people are carried into faithful execution, and their will, when once made known, must sooner or later be obeyed; and while the people  remain, as I trust they ever will, uncorrupted and incorruptible, and continue watchful and jealous of their rights, the government is safe, and the cause of freedom will continue to triumph over all its enemies.


Protecting America’s Borders


It is unquestionably our true interest to cultivate the friendliest understanding with every nation and to avoid by every honorable means  the calamities of war, and we shall best attain this object by frankness and sincerity in our foreign intercourse, by the prompt and faithful execution of treaties and by justice and impartiality in our conduct to all.



In presenting to you, my fellow citizens, these parting counsels, I have brought before you the leading principles upon which I endeavored to administer the government in the high office with which you twice honored me. Knowing that the path of freedom is continually beset by enemies who often assume the disguise of friends, I have devoted the last hours of my public life to warn you of the dangers. The progress of the United States under our free and happy institutions has surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the founders of the republic. Our growth has been rapid beyond all former example in numbers, in wealth, in knowledge and all the useful arts which contribute to the comforts and convenience of man, and from the earliest ages of history to the present day there never have been 13 millions of people associated in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to  fear danger from abroad; your strength and power are well known throughout the civilized world, as well as the high and gallant bearing of your sons. It is from within, among you—from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power—which factions will be formed and liberty endangered.



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