In the meantime it is the duty of the General Government to cooperate
with the States by a wise exercise of its constitutional powers and
the enforcement of its existing laws. The extent to which it may do so
by further enactments I have already adverted to, and the wisdom of
Congress may yet enlarge them. But above all, it is incumbent upon us
to hold erect the principles of morality and law, constantly executing
our own contracts in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution,
and thus serving as a rallying point by which our whole country may be
brought back to that safe and honored standard.

Our people will not long be insensible to the extent of the burdens
entailed upon them by the false system that has been operating on
their sanguine, energetic, and industrious character, nor to the means
necessary to extricate themselves from these embarrassments. The weight
which presses upon a large portion of the people and the States is
an enormous debt, foreign and domestic. The foreign debt of our
States, corporations, and men of business can scarcely be less than
$200,000,000, requiring more than $10,000,000 a year to pay the
interest. This sum has to be paid out of the exports of the country,
and must of necessity cut off imports to that extent or plunge the
country more deeply in debt from year to year. It is easy to see that
the increase of this foreign debt must augment the annual demand on
the exports to pay the interest, and to the same extent diminish the
imports, and in proportion to the enlargement of the foreign debt and
the consequent increase of interest must be the decrease of the import
trade. In lieu of the comforts which it now brings us we might have
our gigantic banking institutions and splendid, but in many instances
profitless, railroads and canals absorbing to a great extent in interest
upon the capital borrowed to construct them the surplus fruits of
national industry for years to come, and securing to posterity no
adequate return for the comforts which the labors of their hands might
otherwise have secured. It is not by the increase of this debt that
relief is to be sought, but in its diminution. Upon this point there
is, I am happy to say, hope before us; not so much in the return of
confidence abroad, which will enable the States to borrow more money, as
in a change of public feeling at home, which prompts our people to pause
in their career and think of the means by which debts are to