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Tyler's First Annual Message, December 6, 1841: Secretary

From the report of the Secretary of War, and other reports accompanying it, you will be informed of the progress which has been made in the fortifications designed for the protection of our principal cities, roadsteads, and inland frontier, during the present year, together with their true state and condition. They will be prosecuted to completion with all the expedition which the means placed by Congress at the disposal of the executive will allow. I recommend particularly to your consideration that portion of the secretary's report which proposes the establishment of a chain of military posts from Council Bluffs to some point on the Pacific Ocean, within our limits. The benefit thereby destined to accrue to our citizens engaged in the fur trade over that wilderness region added to the importance of cultivating friendly relations with savage tribes inhabiting it, and at the same time of giving protection to our frontier settlements, and of establishing the means of safe intercourse between the American settlements at the mouth of the Columbia River, and those on this side of the Rocky Mountains, would seem to suggest the importance of carrying into effect the recommendations upon this head with as little delay as may be practicable.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy, will place you in possession of the present condition of that important arm of the national defence. Every effort will be made to add to its efficiency, and I cannot too strongly urge upon you liberal appropriations to that branch of the public service. Inducements of the weightiest character exist for the adoption of this course of policy. Our extended and otherwise exposed maritime frontier, calls for protection, to the furnishing of which an efficient naval force is indispensable. We look to no foreign conquests, nor do we propose to enter into competition with any other nation for supremacy on the ocean; but it is due not only to the honor, but to the security of the people of the United States, that no nation should be permitted to invade our waters at pleasure, and subject our towns and villages to confiagration or pillage. Economy in all branches of the public service, is due from all the public agents to the people--but parsimony alone would suggest the withholding of the necessary means for the protection of our domestic firesides from invasion, and our national honor from disgrace. I would most earnestly recommend to Congress to abstain from all appropriations for objects not absolutely necessary; but I take upon myself, without a moment of hesitancy, all the responsibility of recommending the increase and prompt equipment of that gallant navy which has lighted up every sea with its victories, and spread an imperishable glory over the country. The report of the Postmaster General will claim your particular attention, not only because of the valuable suggestions which it contains, but because of the great importance which, at all times, attaches to that interesting branch of the public service. The increased expense of transporting the mail along the principal routes, necessarily claims the public attention, and has awakened a corresponding solicitude on the part of the government. The transmission of the mail must keep pace with those facilities of intercommunication which are every day becoming greater through the building of railroads and the application of steam power; but it cannot be disguised that, in order to do so, the post office department is subjected to heavy exactions. The lines of communication between distant parts of the Union, are, to a great extent, occupied by railroads, which in the nature of things, possess a complete monopoly, and the department is therefore liable to heavy and unreasonable charges. This evil is destined to greatly increase in future, and some timely measure may become necessary to guard against it.

I feel it my duty to bring under your consideration a practice which has grown up in the administration of the government, and which, I am deeply convinced, ought to be corrected. I allude to the exercise of the power, which usage, rather than reason, has vested in the president, of removing incumbents from office, in order to substitute others more in favor with the dominant party. My own conduct in this respect, has been governed by a conscientious purpose to exercise the removing power, only in cases of unfaithfulness or inability, or in those in which the exercise appeared necessary, in order to discountenance and suppress that spirit of active partisanship on the part of the holders of office, which not only withdraws them from the steady and impartial discharge of their official duties, but exerts an undue and injurious influence over elections, and degrades the character of the government itself, inasmuch as it exhibits the chief magistrate as being a party, through his agents, in the secret plots or open workings of political parties.