(From Vicksburg Sentinel, July 21, 1846.)
Fellow Citizens: I address you to explain the cause of my
present absence from the seat of the federal government.
Those of our fellow-citizens who, in answer to a call of the
President, had volunteered to serve the U. S. in the existing war with Mexico,
have elected me for their Colonel, and the Governor has furnished to me a
commission, in accordance with that election. Having received a military
education and served a number of years in the line of the army, I felt that my
services were due to the country, and believed my experience might be available
in promoting the comfort, the safety and efficiency of the Mississippi Regiment
in the campaign on which they were about to enter. Such considerations, united
to the desire common to our people to engage in the military service of the
country, decided me unhesitatingly to accept the command which was offered. The
regiment was organized and waiting to be mustered into service preparatory to a
departure for the army of operation. Under such circumstances, I could not
delay until the close of the Congressional session, though then so proximate
that it must occur before a successor could be chosen and reach the city of
Washington.
It was my good fortune to see in none of the measures likely
to be acted on at this session such hazard as would render a single vote
important, except the bill to regulate anew the duties upon imports. The vote
on this was to occur very soon (in two days) after the receipt of my commission
as Colonel, and I have the satisfaction to announce to you that it passed the
House the evening before I left Washington; and I entertain no doubt of its
passing through the Senate and becoming the law of the land. An analysis of the
votes upon this bill will show that its main support was derived from the
agricultural and exporting States. To these in a pecuniary view it was the
measure of highest importance. But whilst I rejoice in it for such
considerations, because tending to advance the great staple interest of our
State, and thus to promote the prosperity of all industry among us, I am not
less gratified at it as a measure of political reform. In adopting the ad
valorem rule and restricting its operation to the revenue limit, the great
principle of taxing in proportion to the benefits conferred is more nearly
approximated, and the power to lay duties is directed to the purpose of raising
money, for which alone it was conferred in the constitution of our confederacy.
Thus it was exercised by the fathers of our Republic in the first tariff
enacted under the federal constitution; when for the benefit it would confer
upon American producers and manufacturers they chose to raise revenue by
imposts rather than direct taxation. Since then, as in the bill of 1842, (to be
substituted by that lately passed through the House of Representatives,) the
collection of revenue has been the subordinate; the benefit to particular
classes, the main object of duties. And the extent to which this was pursued
was concealed by specific duties and minima valuations-rendering the law
unintelligible on its face, and in many cases wholly prohibitory in its
operation-destroying revenue but leaving taxation. A tariff "for
protection" must discriminate against the necessaries of life to favor
manufactures in a rude or "infant" state; a tariff for revenue may,
and generally would, impose its highest duties upon luxuries, for reasons so
just and equalizing in their practical effects, that one could have no
inducement to conceal the policy or shrink from its avowal.
Commercial changes and the wants or superfluities of the
treasury must require occasional modifications in the rates of duties upon
imports; but a salutary check is held by the people so long as all
modifications are made by changing the rate per cent. on enumerated articles,
by which it is seen at once what tax is imposed upon consumption, and whether
or not the limit of revenue is passed.
I trust we shall never again witness the spectacle, so
revolting to every idea of self government, of a law in which, by specific
duties and minima valuations, the purpose and effect is as absolutely concealed
as in the edicts of the ancient tyrant, which were written in a hand so small
and hung so high as to be illegible to those upon whom they were to operate.
During this session, as your Representative, I have acted
upon all measures as seemed to me best to accord with the principles upon which
I was elected, and most likely to correspond with the wishes and interests of
the people of Mississippi. Thus my support was given to the law for the
separation of the fiscal affairs of the general government from all connection
with banks. The bill passed by the House of Representatives will, it is
confidently expected, pass the Senate of the United States probably with an
amendment extending the time at which it is to go into full effect. This is
supposed to be necessary to prevent an injurious revulsion in the trade of the
country, consequent upon the sudden contraction of the discounts of those
banks, which have extended their accomodations upon the government deposits.
Evils however positive, cannot always be immediately abated; and in this
extension of the time it is only designed to make a temporary concession of
policy, that by an easy, gradual change the prosperity of trade may be secured
and monetary derangement be avoided. These two, the "tariff" and
"Independent Treasury," are the measures which seem to me most deeply
to involve the interests of Mississippi. Without mountain slopes, and mountain
streams to furnish water power; without coal mines permanently to supply large
amounts of cheap fuel at any locality, we cannot expect, in competition with
those who enjoy either or both of these advantages, ever to become a
manufacturing people. We must continue to rely, as at present, almost entirely
upon our exports; and it requires no argument, under such circumstances, to
maintain the position that the interest of our State will be most advanced by
freeing commerce from all unnecessary burthens, and by measuring the value of
our purchases by the standard used in our sales-the currency of the world.
By the active exertion of our Senator Speight, a bill was
passed through the Senate, granting to the State of Mississippi alternate
sections of land to aid in the construction of the proposed Mississippi and
Alabama rail road. It is scarcely to be hoped that the House will act upon this
measure at the present session, but placed upon the calendar of unfinished
business, I think it will become a law at the next session of this Congress. I
have also hoped that at the same session, a law would be passed to enable the
Postmaster General to make contracts for a long term of years with rail roads
under construction, by which the government would be secured from the
exorbitant charges monopolies have it in their power to impose, and such certainty
conferred upon the value of rail road stock as would greatly aid in the
completion of an entire chain of railways from the Mississippi at Vicksburg to
the Atlantic, and to the metropolis of our Union—a chain like a system of
nerves to couple our remote members of the body politic to the centre of the
Union, and rapidly to transmit sensation from one to the other; or like great
sinews, uniting into concentrated action the power of the right hand and the
left-the valley of the Mississippi and the coast of the Atlantic—when ever the
necessities of one or the other shall require the action of both.
Much has been done during the past winter to adjust
suspended and conflicting claims to land purchased from the U. S., and it is to
be hoped that the action of this Congress will relieve our people from the
uncertainty and harassing delays under which so many of them have labored for
years past.
The bill to graduate and reduce the price of the public
lands, will no doubt become a law; and we may expect from it an important
increase to our population and State wealth; such as has been the result in the
northern portion of our State, where under the Chickasaw treaty, a graduation
system has been in operation, it is to be supposed, will be the result of a
similar graduation in those districts where the public land has remained long
unsold. The coast survey, now in progress along the Gulf of Mexico, cannot fail
to have an important influence upon that portion of our State which borders on
the Gulf, by giving correct charts of the channels and points of entrance safe
for coasting vessels. Beyond this, I anticipate that the survey will establish
as a fact that the best point west of Cape Florida for a navy yard to repair or
construct vessels of the largest class, is the Harbor of Ship Island; and
further, that it will lead to the speedy establishment of the necessary lights
along the Coast and upon its adjacent Islands. The difficulty of obtaining
appropriations for these has heretofore been greatly increased by the want of official
information. The Legislature of our State memorialized Congress upon the
propriety of re-opening the Pass Manchac. I was fully impressed with the
propriety of the claim. Under more favorable circumstances, an appropriation
for the purpose might have been obtained; and I yet hope that we shall get a
survey and report for the contemplated work, in time for action at the next
session of this Congress.
Since I took a seat as your Representative in Congress, the
country has been disturbed; its political elements agitated and thrown into
confusion; its peace with England seriously endangered by a question of
boundary in what is known as the Oregon Territory. We have now satisfactory
reason to believe that this question is amicably adjusted. The exact terms of
the agreement have not transpired; but in general language it may be stated as
settled on the basis of the 49th parallel of north latitude, with a temporary
permission to the Hudson's Bay Company to navigate the Columbia River. That
there should have been a desire among our people generally to hold the whole
Territory was but natural, and this not merely from a wish to extend our
territory, but also from a more creditable desire to reserve as far as we
might, the North American Continent for republican institutions. As few will contend
that this desire would have justified our Government in waging a war for
territorial acquisition, the question was narrowed down to this: how far our
rights clearly defined, and how shall we best secure what is clearly our own,
and upon what terms shall we compromise for what is disputable? There were some
who claimed for the parallel of 54° 40′ N. L. a talismanic merit-that it was
the line to which patriotism required us to go, and short of which it was
treasonable to stop. This opinion could only rest on the supposition that by
purchase from Spain we acquired a perfect title. But this was to assume too
much. The assumption carried with it the element of its own destruction. The
Spanish claim extended as far as the 61st degree. If the boundary had been well
defined, and the title perfect, then there was no power in our Government to
surrender any part of it, and the Convention with Russia is void. But if, as
must be generally admitted, the line of 54° 40′ was a compromise with Russia
growing out of the fact that our title was imperfect and the boundary
unsettled, then was 54° 40′ merely a line of expediency, as any other parallel
would have been-good only as against Russia, and subject on the same principle
to further adjustment with the other claimant in that territory.
The history of our past negotiations with Great Britain in
relation to that territory gave little foundation for the expectation that we
could get amicably, the whole country we have now secured south of the 49th
parallel of latitude; and if the information I have derived from the officers
who have explored different portions of that country be correct, a few years
will satisfy our people that we have obtained nearly all which would have been
valuable to us-a territory extending further north than the most northern point
ever occupied by any portion of our people, and if the term "Oregon
Territory" was properly applicable to the valley of the Columbia, or Oregon
River, a territory far more valuable than could be claimed in the valley drained
by that stream and all its tributaries.
In the south we had another question of boundary unsettled;
and though all proper efforts were made to adjust it amicably, they proved
abortive. The minister sent to Mexico under a previous understanding that diplomatic
relations should be renewed, and invested with full powers to treat of all
questions in dispute, was rejected, without even being allowed to present his
credentials. It could not be permitted to our rival claimant thus to decide the
question, and though the insult would have justified an immediate declaration
of war, in spirit of forbearance, the administration refrained from
recommending this measure, and merely moved forward our troops to take
possession of the entire territory claimed as our own, when there was no longer
a prospect of adjustment by negotiation. This led to such hostilities as
rendered it necessary to recognize the existence of war. Our government made
the declaration in the mode provided by the constitution; and proceeded steadily
to supply the means for a vigorous prosecution of the war into which we have
been so unexpectedly drawn. In this connection it is worthy of remark that
before a declaration was made on our part, the President of Mexico had made a
similar declaration, and the appointments of the Mexican army which crossed the
Rio Grande to attack the forces of General Taylor clearly show that it had
advanced on that frontier for the purpose of invading the State of Texas.
The zeal shown in every quarter of the Union to engage in
the service of our common country—the masses who have voluntarily come forward
in numbers far exceeding the necessities of the occasion-attest the military
strength of our Republic, and furnish just cause for patriotic pride and
gratulation. I regret the disappointment felt by so many of my fellow-citizens
of Mississippi at not being called into service; and I have not failed to
present the case fully to the Executive of the U. S. Your patriotic anxiety is
well appreciated; nor is the propriety of your conduct in waiting until
regularly called for, forgotten; and if the war should continue, as further
supplies of troops be required, there is no doubt but that our State will be
among the first looked to for new levies.
There are several subjects connected with the local
interests of Mississippi upon which it would have been agreeable to me to have
said something, but the great length to which this letter is already extended,
induces me with a few remarks bearing more particularly upon myself, to
terminate it.
Unless the government of Mexico shall very soon take such
steps as to give full assurance of a speedy peace, so that I may resume my
duties as your Representative at the beginning of the next session of Congress,
my resignation will be offered at an early day, that full time may be allowed
to select a successor. Grateful to the people for their confidence and honor
bestowed upon me, I have labored as their representative industriously. Elected
on avowed and established principles, the cardinal points to guide my course
were always before me. How well that course has accorded with your wishes; how
far it is improved by your judgment, it is not for me to anticipate; but I
confidently rely on your generous allowance to give credit to my motives, and
for the rest, as becomes a representative, I will cheerfully submit to your
decision.
JEFF'N DAVIS.
Steamer Star Spangled Banner,
Mississippi River, July 13, 1846.
SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis,
Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 52-8
