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Fillmore's First Annual Message. December 2, 1850: Mexico

The annexation of Texas and the acquisition of California and New Mexico have given increased importance to our Indian relations. The various tribes brought under our jurisdiction by these enlargements of our boundaries, are estimated to embrace a population of one hundred and twenty-four thousand. Texas and New Mexico are surrounded by powerful tribes of Indians, who are a source of constant terror and annoyance to the inhabitants. Separating into small predatory bands, and always mounted, they overrun the country, devastating farms, destroying crops, driving off whole herds of cattle, and occasionally murdering the inhabitants or carrying them off into captivity. The great roads leading into the country are infested with them, whereby travelling is rendered extremely dangerous, and immigration is almost entirely arrested. The Mexican frontier, which, by the 11th article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, we are bound to protect against the Indians within our border, is exposed to these incursions equally with our own. The military force stationed in that country (although forming a large portion of the army) is represented as entirely inadequate to our own protection and the fulfilment of our treaty stipulations with Mexico. The principal deficiency is in cavalry, and I recommend that Congress should, at as early a period as practicable, provide for the raising of one or more regiments of mounted men. For further suggestions on this subject, and other connected with our domestic interests, and the defence of our frontier, I refer you to the reports of the Secretary of the Interior and of the Secretary of War. I commend also to your favorable consideration the suggestion contained in the last-mentioned report, and in the letter of the General-in-chief, relative to the establishment of an asylum for the relief of disabled and destitute soldiers. This subject appeals so strongly to your sympathies, that it would be superfluous in me to say any thing more than barely to express my cordial approbation of the proposed object.

The navy continues to give protection to our commerce and other national interests in the different quarters of the globe, and with the exception of a single steamer on the northern lakes, the vessels in commission are distributed in six different squadrons.

The report of the head of that department will exhibit the services of these squadrons, and of the several vessels employed in each during the past year. It is a source of gratification, that while they have been constantly prepared for any hostile emergency, they have everywhere met with the respect and courtesy due as well to the dignity as to the peaceful dispositions and just purposes of the nation.

The two brigantines accepted by the government from a generous citizen of New York, and placed under the command of an officer of the navy, to proceed to the Arctic seas in quest of the British commander, Sir John Franklin, and his companions, in compliance with the act of Congress, approved in May last, had, when last heard from, penetrated into a high northern latitude; but the success of this noble and human enterprise is yet uncertain. I invite your attention to the view of our present naval establishment and resources presented in the report of the Secretary of the Navy, and the suggestions therein made for its improvement, together with the naval policy recommended for the security of our Pacific coast, and the protection and extension of our commerce with Eastern Asia. Our facilities for a larger participation in the trade of the East, by means of our recent settlements on the shores of the Pacific, are too obvious to be overlooked or disregarded. The questions in relation to rank in the army and navy, and relative rank between officers of the two branches of the service, presented to the executive by certain resolutions of the House of Representatives, at the last session of Congress, have been submitted to a board of officers in each branch of the service, and their report may be expected at an early day. I also earnestly recommend the enactment of a law authorizing officers of the army and navy to be retired from the service when incompetent for its vigorous and active duties, taking care to make suitable provision for those who have faithfully served their country, and awarding distinctions, by retaining in appropriate commands those who have been particularly conspicuous for gallantry and good conduct. While the obligation of the country to maintain and honor those who, to the exclusion of other pursuits, have devoted themselves to its arduous service, is acknowledged, this obligation should not be permitted to interfere with the efficiency of the service itself. I am gratified in being able to state, that the estimates of expenditure for the navy in the ensuing year are less, by more than one million of dollars, than those of the present, excepting the appropriation which may become necessary for the construction of a dock on the coast of the Pacific, propositions for which are now being considered, and on which a special report may be expected early in your present session.

There is an evident justness in the suggestion of the same report, that appropriations for the naval service proper should be separated from those for fixed and permanent objects; such as building docks and navy-yards, and the fixtures attached; and from the extraordinary objects under the care of the department which, however important, are not essentially naval. A revision of the code for the government of the navy seems to require the immediate consideration of Congress. Its system of crimes and punishments had undergone no change for half a century, until the last session, though its defects have been often and ably pointed out, and the abolition of a particular species of corporal punishment, which then took place, without providing any substitute, has left the service in a state of defectiveness, which calls for prompt correction. I therefore recommend that the whole subject be revised without delay, and such a system established for the enforcement of discipline as shall be at once humane and effectual. The accompanying report of the Postmaster-General presents a satisfactory view of the operations and condition of that department.

At the close of the last fiscal year, the length of the inland mail-routes in the United States (not embracing the service in Oregon and California) was one hundred and seventy-eight thousand six hundred and seventy-two miles; the annual transportation thereon, forty-six million five hundred and forty-one thousand four hundred and twenty-three miles; and the annual cost of such transportation, two million seven hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and twenty-six dollars.

The increase of the annual transportation over that of the preceding year was three million nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and fifty-four miles, and the increase in cost was three hundred and forty-two thousand four hundred and forty dollars.

The number of post-offices in the United States on the first day of July last, was eighteen thousand four hundred and seventeen--being an increase of sixteen hundred and seventy during the preceding year.

The gross revenues of the department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1850, amounted to five million five hundred and fifty-two thousand nine hundred and seventy-one dollars and forty-eight cents, including the annual appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars for the franked matter of the departments, and excluding the foreign postages collected for and payable to the British government.

The expenditures for the same period were five million two hundred and twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty-three dollars and forty-three cents -- leaving a balance of revenue over expenditures of three hundred and forty thousand and eighteen dollars and five cents.

I am happy to find that the fiscal condition of the department is such as to justify the Postmaster-General in recomending the reduction of our inland letter postage to three cents the single letter when prepaid, and five cents when not prepaid. He also recommends that the prepaid rate shall be reduced to two cents whenever the revenues of the department, after the reduction, shall exceed its expenditures by more than five per cent. for two consecutive years; that the postage upon California and other letters sent by our ocean steamers shall be much reduced; and that the rates of postage on newspapers, pamphlets, periodicals, and other printed matter, shall be modified, and some reduction thereon made.

It cannot be doubted that the proposed reductions will, for the present, diminish the revenues of the department. It is believed that the deficiency, after the surplus already accumulated shall be exhausted, may be almost wholly met, either by abolishing the existing privileges of sending free matter through the mails, or by paying out of the treasury to the Post-office Department a sum equivalent to the postage of which it is deprived by such privileges. The last is supposed to be the preferable mode, and will, if not entirely, so nearly supply that deficiency as to make any further appropriation that may be found necessary so inconsiderable as to form no obstacle to the proposed reductions.

I entertain no doubt of the authority of Congress to make appropriations for leading objects in that class of public works comprising what are usually called works of internal improvement. This authority I suppose to be derived chiefly from the power of regulating commerce with foreign nations and among the States, and the power of laying and collecting imposts. Where commerce is to be carried on, and imposts collected, there must be ports and harbors, as well as wharves and custom-houses. If ships, laden with valuable cargoes, approach the shore, or sail along the coast, light-houses are necessary at suitable points for the protection of life and property. Other facilities and securities for commerce and navigation are hardly less important; and those clauses of the constitution, therefore, to which I have I have referred, have received from the origin of the government a liberal and beneficial construction. Not only have light-houses, buoys, and beacons been established, and floating lights maintained, but harbors have been cleared and improved, piers constructed, and even breakwaters for the safety of shipping, and sea walls to protect harbors from being filled up and rendered useless, by the action of the ocean, have been erected at very great expense. And this construction of the constitution appears the more reasonable from the consideration, that if these works, of such evident importance and utility, are not to be accomplished by Congress, they cannot be accomplished at all. By the adoption of the constitution the several States voluntarily parted with the power of collecting duties of imposts in their own ports; and it is not to be expected that they should raise money, by internal taxation, direct or indirect, for the benefit of that commerce, the revenues derived from which do not, either in whole or in part, go into their own treasuries. Nor do I perceive any difference between the power of Congress to make appropriations for objects of this kind on the ocean, and the power to make appropriations for similar objects on lakes and rivers, wherever they are large enough to bear on their waters an extensive traffic. The magnificent Mississippi and its tributaries, and the vast lakes of the north and northwest, appear to me to fall within the exercise of the power, as justly and as clearly as the ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. It is a mistake to regard expenditures judiciously made for these objects as expenditures for local purposes. The position or site of the work is necessarily local; but its utility is general. A ship canal around the falls of St. Mary of less than a mile in length, though local in its construction, would yet be national in its purpose and its benefits, as it would remove the only obstruction to a navigation of more than a thousand miles, affecting several States, as well as our commercial relations with Canada. So, too, the breakwater at the mouth of the Delaware is erected, not for the exclusive benefit of the States bordering on the bay and river of that name, but for that of the whole coastwise navigation of the United States, and, to a considerable extent, also of foreign commerce. If a ship be lost on the bar at the entrance of a southern port for want of sufficient depth of water, it is very likely to be a northern ship; and if a steamboat be sunk in any part of the Mississippi, on account of its channel not having been properly cleared of obstructions, it may be a boat belonging to either of eight or ten States. I may add, as somewhat remarkable, that among all the thirty-one States there is none that is not, to a greater or less extent, bounded on the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, or one of the great lakes, or some navigable river.

In fulfilling our constitutional duties, fellow-citizens, on this subject, as in carrying into effect all other powers conferred by the constitution, we should consider ourselves as deliberating and acting for one and the same country, and bear constantly in mind that our regard and our duty are due, not to a particular part only, but to the whole.

I therefore recommend that appropriations be made for completing such works as have been already begun, and for commencing such others as may seem to the wisdom of Congress to be of public and general importance. The difficulties and delays incident to the settlement of private claims by Congress, amount in many cases to a denial of justice. There is reason to apprehend that many unfortunate creditors of the government have thereby been unavoidably ruined. Congress has so much business of a public character, that it is impossible it should give much attention to mere private claims; and their accumulation is now so great, that many claimants must despair of ever being able to obtain a hearing. It may well be doubted whether Congress, from the nature of its organization, is properly constituted to decide upon such cases. It is impossible that each member should examine the merits of every claim on which he is compelled to vote; and it is preposterous to ask a judge to decide a case which he has never heard. Such decisions may, and frequently must, do injustice either to the claimant or the government, and I perceive no better remedy for this growing evil than the establishment of some tribunal to adjudicate upon such claims. I beg leave, therefore, most respectfully, to recommend that provision be made by law for the appointment of a commission to settle all private claims against the United States; and, as an ex parte hearing must in all contested cases be very unsatisfactory, I also recommend the appointment of a solicitor, whose duty it shall be to represent the government before such commission, and protect it against all illegal, fraudulent, or unjust claims, which may be presented for their adjudication. This District, which has neither voice nor vote in your deliberations, looks to you for protection and aid, and I commend all its wants to your favorable consideration, with a full confidence that you will meet them not only with justice, but with liberality. It should be borne in mind that in this city, laid out by Washington and consecrated by his name, is located the Capitol of our nation, the emblem of our Union and the symbol of our greatness. Here, also, are situated all the public buildings necessary for the use of the government, and all these are exempt from taxation. It should be the pride of Americans to render this place attractive to the people of the whole republic, and convenient and safe for the transaction of the public business and the preservation of the public records. The government should, therefore, bear a liberal proportion of the burdens of all necessary and all necessary and useful improvements. And, as nothing could contribute more to the health, comfort, and safety of the city, and the security of the public buildings and records, than an abundant supply of pure water, I respectfully recommend that you make such provisions for obtaining the same as in your wisdom you may deem proper.