President Andrew Jackson vetoed the Congressional bill renewing the charter of the Second Bank of the United States and then moved the federal government's assets out of the bank, fearing that the BUS would have otherwise bribed Congress to override his veto. The following considerations in President Jackson's 1837 farewell address are peculiarly relevant to the incompetent policies of today's Federal Reserve Bank and its responsibility for the current banking problems:
"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...In times of prosperity, when confidence is high...[the banks] extend their issues of paper beyond the bounds of discretion and the reasonable demands of business; and when...public confidence is at length shaken, then a reaction takes place, and they immediately withdraw the credits they have given, suddenly curtail their issues, and produce an unexpected and ruinous contraction of the circulating medium, which is felt by the whole community. The banks by this means save themselves, and the mischievous consequences of their imprudence or cupidity are visited upon the public. 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...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 corruption, 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...It is the duty of every government so to regulate its currency as to protect this numerous class, as far as practicable, from the impositions of avarice and fraud...Yet it is evident that their interests can not be effectually protected unless silver and gold are restored to circulation...
"The distress and sufferings inflicted on the people by the bank are some of the fruits of that system of policy which is continually striving to enlarge the authority of the Federal Government beyond the limits fixed by the Constitution. The powers enumerated in that instrument do not confer on Congress the right to establish such a corporation as the Bank of the United States, and the evil consequences which followed may warn us of the danger of departing from the true rule of construction...Let us abide by the Constitution as it is written, or amend it in the constitutional mode if it is found to be defective."
---President Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, 1837. Quoted in Harry L. Watson, Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America. Boston: Bedford St. Martin, 1998, pp. 246.
Monday, February 9, 2009
President Andrew Jackson on The Limits of Federal Power
Woe is me. We need another president like Andrew Jackson. Although President Jackson favored states' rights, he opposed nullification, i.e., the idea that South Carolina tried to abrogate the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. Although there were things about Jackson that I don't like, such as his disregard for Indian rights, he was the best president in American history. The following excerpt from his 1837 farewell address is quoted in Harry L. Watson, Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America*:
"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...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 be State or national.
"It is well known that there have always been those amongst us who wish to enlarge the powers of the General Government, and experience would seem to indicate that there is a tendency on the part of this Government to overstep the boundaries marked out for it by the Constitution. Its legitimate authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for which it was created, and its powers being expressly enumerated, there can be no justification for claiming anything beyond them...From the extent of our country, its diversified interests, different pursuits and different habits, it is too obvious for argument that a single coordinated government would be wholly inadequate to watch over and protect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full vigor the rights and sovereignty of the States and to confine the action of the General Government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties.
"There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the Federal Government so liable to abuse as the taxing power. The most productive and convenient sources of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it might be able to perform the important duties imposed upon it...But...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 intrusted 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...
"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 procure 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 agricultural 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 set 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 can not 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 Executives, and this plan of unconstitutional expenditures for the purpose of corrupt influence is, I trust, finally overthrown.
*Boston: Bedford St. Martin, 1998, pp. 243-4.
"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...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 be State or national.
"It is well known that there have always been those amongst us who wish to enlarge the powers of the General Government, and experience would seem to indicate that there is a tendency on the part of this Government to overstep the boundaries marked out for it by the Constitution. Its legitimate authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for which it was created, and its powers being expressly enumerated, there can be no justification for claiming anything beyond them...From the extent of our country, its diversified interests, different pursuits and different habits, it is too obvious for argument that a single coordinated government would be wholly inadequate to watch over and protect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full vigor the rights and sovereignty of the States and to confine the action of the General Government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties.
"There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the Federal Government so liable to abuse as the taxing power. The most productive and convenient sources of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it might be able to perform the important duties imposed upon it...But...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 intrusted 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...
"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 procure 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 agricultural 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 set 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 can not 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 Executives, and this plan of unconstitutional expenditures for the purpose of corrupt influence is, I trust, finally overthrown.
*Boston: Bedford St. Martin, 1998, pp. 243-4.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The Coming American Civil War
Bob Robbins just forwarded this post at World Net Daily. According to WND lawmakers in eight states have proposed bills declaring state sovereignty due to "a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control.
"...The various sovereignty measures moving through state legislatures are designed to reassert state authority through a rollback of federal authority under the powers enumerated in the Constitution, with the states assuming the governance of the non-enumerated powers, as required by the Tenth Amendment.
"The state sovereignty measures, aimed largely at the perceived fiscal irresponsibility of Congress in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have gained momentum with the $1 trillion deficit-spending economic stimulus package the Obama administration is currently pushing through Congress."
These are exciting developments. The devolution of power to the states could throw a major wrench into the plans of the liberal establishment.
"...The various sovereignty measures moving through state legislatures are designed to reassert state authority through a rollback of federal authority under the powers enumerated in the Constitution, with the states assuming the governance of the non-enumerated powers, as required by the Tenth Amendment.
"The state sovereignty measures, aimed largely at the perceived fiscal irresponsibility of Congress in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have gained momentum with the $1 trillion deficit-spending economic stimulus package the Obama administration is currently pushing through Congress."
These are exciting developments. The devolution of power to the states could throw a major wrench into the plans of the liberal establishment.
Down Memory Lane circa 1960
An old friend, Allen Leon, put up this 1960 picture of our kindergarten class with Mrs. McNellen on Facebook. The school, PS 83, was located in Long Island City, Queens in between 9th Street (to the west) and Vernon Boulevard (to the east) just south of 34th Avenue. I'm in the righthand top row in between two young ladies. PS 83 was closed in 1966 and I spent the last half of 6th grade in a new school, PS 76, that had been build that year. PS 83 must have been built before 1920 and I recall that there were separate entrances for boys and girls, although they had fallen out of use by 1960. It was built of old fashioned red brick. PS 1, located on 21st street, is not too far away and is still standing (it is now used as artists' studios) and PS 83 looked something like
the red portion of the PS 1 building toward the front.
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