Andrew Jackson: Farewell Address, March 4, 1837; Annals of America, Vol. 6, p. 299
“Washington said there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who may endeavor to weaken its bonds; and has cautioned us against the formation of parties on geographical discriminations, as one means which might disturb our Union, and to which designing men would be likely to resort.”
“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 the different parts of the United States and to place party divisions directly upon geographical distinctions.”
“Mutual suspicions and reproaches may in time create mutual hostility, and artful and designing men will always be found who are ready to foment these fatal divisions and to inflame the natural jealousies of different sections of the country. The history of the world is full of such examples and especially the history of republics.”
“In order to maintain the Union unimpaired, it is absolutely necessary that the laws passed by the constituted authorities should be faithfully executed in every part of the country, and that every good citizen should stand ready to put down every attempt at unlawful resistance.”
“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 resort to forcible resistance unless he clearly saw that the time had come when a freeman should prefer death to submission.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“There have always been those among us who wish to enlarge the powers of the [federal] government. Every attempt to exercise power beyond [Constitutional] limits should be promptly and firmly opposed. For one evil example will lead to other measures still more mischievous; and if the principle of constructive powers, or supposed advantages, or temporary circumstances, shall ever be permitted to justify the assumption of a power not given by the Constitution, the [federal] government will before long absorb the powers of the legislature, and you will have, in effect, but one consolidated government.”
“Congress has no right, under the Constitution, to take money from the people unless it is required 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.”
“Extravagant schemes of internal improvement were got up to squander the money and to purchase support. Thus, the unconstitutional measure was intended to be upheld by another, and the abuse of power of taxation was to be maintained by usurping the power of expending the money in internal improvements. Rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and to 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 [tax] to increase their gains. Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditures 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 country by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived among the states. [Surplus taxation] It is a system of injustice which will inevitably lead to corruption and must end in ruin. It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to it.”
Monetary Policy:
“Nothing has produced such deep-seated evil as the course of legislation in relation to the currency. The establishment of a national bank by Congress with it the privilege of issuing paper money receivable in the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several states upon the subject, drove from the general circulation the constitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its place.”
Honest and even enlightened men are sometimes misled by the specious and plausible statements of the designing. But experience has now proved the mischiefs and dangers of a paper currency, and it rests with you to determine whether the proper remedy shall be applied. The paper system being founded on public confidence and having of itself no intrinsic value, it is liable to great and sudden fluctuations, thereby rendering property insecure and the wages of labor unsteady and uncertain. Nor does the evil stop here. These ebbs and flows in the currency and these indiscreet extensions of credit naturally engender a spirit of speculation injurious to the habits and character of the people.”
“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 corruption which will find its way into your public councils and destroy, at no distant day, the purity of your government.”
“The interests of the people cannot be effectually protected unless silver and gold are restored to circulation.”
“The paper money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine our free institutions; and that those who desire to engross all power in the hands of the few and to govern by corruption in the hands of the few and to govern by corruption or force are aware of its power and prepared to employ it.”
“With the banks necessarily went that numerous class of persons in our commercial cities who depend altogether on bank credit 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 moneyed power of the Union, with the 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. …to bring prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might comport with its own interest or policy.”
“The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country when the Bank of the United States waged war upon the people in order to compel them to submit to its demands cannot yet be forgotten. The ruthless and unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency ought to be indelibly impressed on the memory of the people of the United States.
The organized money power from its’ secret enclave, would have dictated the choice of your highest officers and compelled you to make peace and war as best suited their own wishes. The forms of your government might, for a time, have remained; but its living spirit would have departed from it.”
“It is one of the serious evils of our present system of banking that it enables one class of society, and that by no means a numerous one, by its control over the currency to act injuriously upon the interests of all the others and to exercise more than its just proportion of influence in political affairs.”
“This spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end, find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered away…”
“It is from within, among yourselves, from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power, that factions [parties] will be formed and liberty endangered.”
“So many interests are united to resist all reform on this subject that you must not hope the conflict will be a short one nor success easy.”
“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.”
See also: The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin
