ects to that highest of all our
obligations, the payment of the public debt, and an opportunity be
afforded for the adoption of some better rule for the operations of the
Government in this matter than any which has hitherto been acted upon.

Profoundly impressed with the importance of the subject, not merely as
relates to the general prosperity of the country, but to the safety of
the federal system, I can not avoid repeating my earnest hope that all
good citizens who take a proper interest in the success and harmony of
our admirable political institutions, and who are incapable of desiring
to convert an opposite state of things into means for the gratification
of personal ambition, will, laying aside minor considerations and
discarding local prejudices, unite their honest exertions to establish
some fixed general principle which shall be calculated to effect the
greatest extent of public good in regard to the subject of internal
improvement, and afford the least ground for sectional discontent.

The general grounds of my objection to local appropriations have been
heretofore expressed, and I shall endeavor to avoid a repetition of what
has been already urged--the importance of sustaining the State
sovereignties as far as is consistent with the rightful action of the
Federal Government, and of preserving the greatest attainable harmony
between them. I will now only add an expression of my conviction--a
conviction which every day's experience serves to confirm--that the
political creed which inculcates the pursuit of those great objects as a
paramount duty is the true faith, and one to which we are mainly
indebted for the present success of the entire system, and to which we
must alone look for its future stability.

That there are diversities in the interests of the different States
which compose this extensive Confederacy must be admitted. Those
diversities arising from situation, climate, population, and pursuits
are doubtless, as it is natural they should be, greatly exaggerated by
jealousies and that spirit of rivalry so inseparable from neighboring
communities. These circumstances make it the duty of those who are
intrusted with the management of its affairs to neutralize their effects
as far as practicable by making the beneficial operation of the Federal
Government as equal and equitable among the several States as can be
done consistently with the great ends of its institution.

It is only necessary to refer