g safeguard of
republican institutions. It was not intended to confer special favors on
individuals or on any classes of them, to create systems of agriculture,
manufactures, or trade, or to engage in them either separately or in
connection with individual citizens or organized associations. If
its operations were to be directed for the benefit of any one class,
equivalent favors must in justice be extended to the rest, and the
attempt to bestow such favors with an equal hand, or even to select
those who should most deserve them, would never be successful.

All communities are apt to look to government for too much. Even in
our own country, where its powers and duties are so strictly limited,
we are prone to do so, especially at periods of sudden embarrassment
and distress. But this ought not to be. The framers of our excellent
Constitution and the people who approved it with calm and sagacious
deliberation acted at the time on a sounder principle. They wisely
judged that the less government interferes with private pursuits the
better for the general prosperity. It is not its legitimate object to
make men rich or to repair by direct grants of money or legislation in
favor of particular pursuits losses not incurred in the public service.
This would be substantially to use the property of some for the benefit
of others. But its real duty--that duty the performance of which makes
a good government the most precious of human blessings--is to enact and
enforce a system of general laws commensurate with, but not exceeding,
the objects of its establishment, and to leave every citizen and every
interest to reap under its benign protection the rewards of virtue,
industry, and prudence.

I can not doubt that on this as on all similar occasions the Federal
Government will find its agency most conducive to the security and
happiness of the people when limited to the exercise of its conceded
powers. In never assuming, even for a well-meant object, such powers as
were not designed to be conferred upon it, we shall in reality do most
for the general welfare. To avoid every unnecessary interference with
the pursuits of the citizen will result in more benefit than to adopt
measures which could only assist limited interests, and are eagerly,
but perhaps naturally, sought for under the pressure of temporary
circumstances. If, therefore, I refrain from suggesting to Congress any
specific plan for regulating the exchanges of the country, r