To suppose it necessary now
to trace these reverses to their sources would be a reflection on the
intelligence of my fellow-citizens. Whatever may have been the obscurity
in which the subject was involved during the earlier stages of the
revulsion, there can not now be many by whom the whole question is not
fully understood.
Not deeming it within the constitutional powers of the General
Government to repair private losses sustained by reverses in business
having no connection with the public service, either by direct
appropriations from the Treasury or by special legislation designed to
secure exclusive privileges and immunities to individuals or classes
in preference to or at the expense of the great majority necessarily
debarred from any participation in them, no attempt to do so has been
either made, recommended, or encouraged by the present Executive.
It is believed, however, that the great purposes for the attainment of
which the Federal Government was instituted have not been lost sight
of.
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