The growth of Pennsylvania from 1800 to 1800 was 323,000, whereas from 1830 to 1840 it has been 376, showing an increase of 53,000, whereas that of New York has fallen from 515,000 to 510,500. Cuba. Statement of the Vessels which entered at Havana, in 884 87 14 15 29 21 31 17 16 Throughout the world the land first occupied is that which Number. yields food most readily in return to labor, while that which yields coal and iron is always avoided, because of its comparative sterility. The South of England was in former times! 559 the seat of empire, but with the growth of population and of capital, it has gradually passed to the North, and the Reform! Bill deprived numerous towns and boroughs in the South of their representation, because of their decayed condition, for the purpose of transferring it to those of the North, which had sprung up in and near that great coal region. So long as it was not necessary to pass the mountains, Pennsylvania grew more rapidly than New York, but when the Eastern counties became tolerably settled, the superior advantages of 1653 New York for cultivation attracted emigration thither, and her numbers increased with great rapidity. With the growth of the population and capital of Pennsylvania numerous canals and railroads have enabled her citizens to bring into activity her great mineral resources, and a counter-action has commenced. The ratio of her increase is now greater than that of any Atlantic State except Georgia, and we think we hazard little in asserting that the next, probably all future consuses will show a higher ratio of increase than will be shown by any Atlantic State whatever. No State in the Union possesses the same amount of mineral wealth-none can yield larger returns to labor and capital. We have wasted a large amount of both in the construction of roads and canals, some of which are useless, and all of which have cost far more than they should have done: but great as is the amount of debt that has thus been fastened upon us, we are strongly disposed to believe, that if proper economy be used in future, the public faith may be imaintained, while the taxation will bear to the amount of production almost as small a proportion as in any State of the Union. Common sense and common honesty will carry us through triumphantly, and a few years hence we shall all look back with a feeling of surprise that any doubt could have been entertained of either the ability or the disposition of this State to pay both principal and interest of a debt amounting to about one eighth of the yearly revenue of the French Government-a revenue contributed by a people, nearly three fouths of whom are compelled to live upon six cents a day. We shall all then be disposed to believe that, although the advantageous situation of New York has, up to this time enabled her to take the lead in the Union, PennRylvania must ultimately contain the largest population and be the wealthiest State and we hope our successors at some future time may be able to add --the most enlightened State in the Union, -Aanemal Gatw OBITUARY. Value cargoes. $7,000,000 [Public Ledger. On the 1st inst. near Georgetown, the venerable JOSEPH NOURSE, in the 88th year of his age. The name of Joseph Nourse is familiar to us all, and has been justly associated with that of Charles Thompson in the minds and memories of those who lived and served during the trying period of the Revolution. Mr. N. was born in London in the year 1754; he emi grated with his father's family to this country in 1769, and settled in the lower part of Virginia. In 1776, he entered the Army, and served in it and in different departments connected with it until the close of the war; from which time he continued in the civil department of the Government until its re-organization in 1789, when he was appointed by General Washington to the office of Register of the Treasury, in which he afforded great assistance to Secretary Hamilton in arranging the details of his system of revenue and finance. In this office Mr. N. was continued, giving by his faithful and laborious services the most entire satisfaction to every administration of the Government, until 1829. To the House of Representatives of the United States: It is with extreme regret that I feel myself constrained, by the duty faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States, and to the best of my ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, to return to that House in which it originated, the bill "to provide for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursement of the public revenue, by means of a corporation to be styled the Fiscal Corporation of the United States," with my written objections. In my message sent to the Senate on the 16th day of August last, returning the bill "to incorporate the subscribers to the Fiscal Bank of the United States, I distinctly declared that my own opinion had been uniformly proclaimed to be against the exercise of the power of Congress to create a National Bank to operate per se over the Union ;" and entertaining that opinion, my main objection to that bill was based upon the highest moral and religious obligations of conscience and the Constitution. I readily admit, that whilst the qualified veto with which the Chief Magistrate is invested, should be regarded, and was intended by the wise men who made it a part of the Constitution, as a great conservative principle of our system, without the exercise of which, on important occasions, a mere representative majority may urge the Government in its legislation beyond the limits fixed by its framers, or might exert its just powers too hastily or oppressively; yet, it is a power which ought to be most cautiously exerted, and perhaps never, except in a case imminently involving the public interest, or one in which the oath of the President, acting under his convictions, both mental and moral, imperiously requires its exercise. In such a case he has no alternative, He must either exert the negative power intrusted to him by the Constitution, chiefly for its own preservation, protection, and defence, or commit an act of gross moral turpitude. Mere regard to the will of a majority must not, in a constitutional republic like ours, control this sacred and solemn duty of a sworn officer. The Constitution itself, I regard and cherish, as the embodied and written will of the whole people of the United States. It is their fixed and fundamental law, which they unanimously prescribe to the public functionaries-their mere trustees and servants. This, their will, and the law which they have given us as the rule of our action, has no guard, no guarantee of preservation, protection, and defence, but the oath which it prescribes to public officers, the sanctity with which they shall religiously observe the oaths, and the patriotism with which the people shall shield it by their sovereign will, which has made the Constitution supreme. It must be exerted against the will of a mere representative majority, or not at all. It is alone in pursuance of that will that any measure can ever reach the President; and to say that because a majority in Congress have passed a bill the President should therefore sanction it, is to abrogate the power altogether, and to render its insertion in the Constitution a work of absolute supererogation. The duty is to guard the fundamental will of the people themselves from (in this case I admit unintentional) change or infraction by a majority in Congress. And in that light alone, do I regard the constitutional duty which I now most reluctantly discharge. Is this bill, now presented for my approval or disapproval, such a bill as I have already declared could not receive my sanction? Is it such a bill as calls for the exercise of the negative power under the Constitution? Does it violate the Constitution, by creating a National Bank, to operate per se over the Union? Its title, in the first place, describes its general character. It is "An act to provide for the better collection, safe-keeping and disbursement of the public reVOL V.-22 venue," by means of a corporation, to be styled the Fiscal Corporation of the United States. In style, then, it is plainly national in its character. Its powers, functions and duties, are those which pertain to the collecting, keeping and disbursing the public revenue. The means by which these are to be exerted is a corporation, to be styled the Fiscal ated by the Congress of the United States, in the character Corporation of the United States. It is a corporation creof a National Legislature for the whole Union, to perform the fiscal purposes, meet the fiscal wants and exigencies, supply the fiscal uses, and exert the fiscal agencies of the Treasury of the United States. Such is its own description of itself. Do its provisions contradict its title? They do not. It is true, that by its first section, it provides that it shall be established in the District of Columbia, but the amount of its capital-the manner in which its stock is to be subscribed for and held-the persons, bodies, corporate and politic, by whom its stock may be held-the appointment of its directors, and their powers and duties-its fundamental articles, especially that to establish agencies in any part of the Union -the corporate powers and business of such agencies—the prohibition of Congress to establish any other corporation with similar powers for twenty years, with express reservation in the same clause, to modify or create any bank for the District of Columbia, so that the aggregate capital shall not exceed five millions; without enumerating other features which are equally distinctive and characteristic, clearly show that it cannot be regarded as other than a Bank of the United States, with powers seemingly more limited than have heretofore been granted to such an institution. It ope rates per se over the Union, by virtue of the unaided, and, in my view, assumed authority of Congress as a National Legislature, as distinguished from a bank created by Congress for the District of Columbia, as the local Legislature of the District. Every United States Bank heretofore created has had the power to deal in bills of exchange, as well as in local discounts. Both were trading privileges conferred, and both exercised, by virtue of the aforesaid power of Congress, over the whole Union. The question of power remains unchanged, without reference to the extent of privilege granted. If this proposed Corporation is to be regarded as a local bank of the District of Columbia, invested by Congress with general powers to operate over the Union, it is obnoxious to still stronger objections. It assumes that Congress may invest a local institution with general, or national powers.With the same propriety that it may do this in regard to a bank of the District of Columbia, it may as to a State bank. Yet who can indulge the idea that this Government can rightfully, by making a State bank its fiscal agent, invest it with the absolute and unqualified powers conferred by this bill? When I come to look at the details of the bill, they do not recommend it strongly to my adoption. A brief notice of some of its provisions will suffice. First. It may justify substantially a system of discounts of the most objectionable character. It is to deal in bills of exchange drawn in one State and payable in another, without any restraint. The bill of exchange may have an unlimited time to run, and its renewability is nowhere guarded against. It may, in fact, assume the most objectionable form of accommodation paper. It is not required to rest on any actual, real, or substantial exchange basis; a drawer in one place becomes the acceptor in another, and so on in turn the acceptor may become the drawer, upon a mutual understanding. It may, at the same time, indulge in mere local discount under the name of bills of exchange. A bill drawn at Philadelphia on Camden, New Jersey; at New York on a border town in New Jersey; at Cincinnati on Newport, Kentucky, not to multiply other examples, might, for anything in this bill to restrain it, become a mere matter of loca accommodation. Cities thus relatively situated would possess advantages over cities otherwise situated, of so decided a character as most justly to excite dissatisfaction. 2d. There is no limit prescribed to the premium in the purchase of bills of exchange; thereby correcting none of the evils under which the community now labors, and operating most injuriously upon the agricultural States, in which the inequality in the rates of exchange are most severely felt.— 170 MISCELLANEOUS. Nor are these the only consequences. A resumption of specie payments by the banks of these States, would be liable to indefinite postponement; for as the operation of the agencies of the interior would chiefly consist in selling bills of exchange, and the purchases could only be made in specie, or in notes of banks paying specie, the State banks would either have to continue with their doors closed, or exist at the mercy of this national monopoly of brokerage. Nor can it be passed over without remark, that whilst the District of Columbia is made the seat of the principal bank, its citizens are excluded from all participation in any benefit it might afford, by a positive prohibition of the bank from all discounting within the District. North-Eastern Boundary. OFFICIAL. CAMP NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY, These are some of the objections which prominently exist against the details of the bill; others might be urged, of much force, but it would be unprofitable to dwell upon them: suffice it to add, that this charter is designed to continue for twenty years, without a competitor; that the defects to Ion. DANIEL WEBSTER, which I have alluded being founded on the fundamental law of the Corporation, are irrevocable; and that if the objections be well founded, it would be over hazardous to pass the bill into a law. In conclusion, I take leave most respectfully to say, that I have felt the most anxious solicitude to meet the wish.cs of Congress in the adoption of a Fiscal Agent, which, avoiding all constitutional objections, should harmonise conflicting opinions. Actuated, by this feeling, I have been ready to yield much, in a spirit of conciliation, to the opinions of others; and it is with great pain that I now feel compelled to differ from Congress a second time in the same session. At the commencement of this session, inclined from choice to defer to the legislative will, I submitted to Congress the propriety of adopting a Fiscal Agent which, without violating the Constitution, would separate the public moneys from the Executive control, perform the operations of the Treasury, without being burdensome to the people, or inconvenient, or expensive to the Government. It is deeply to be regretted that this Department of the Government cannot, upon constitutional and other grounds, concur with the Legislative Department in this last measure proposed to attain these desirable objects. Owing to the brief space between the period of the death of my lamented predecessor, and my own installation into office, I was, in fact, not left time to prepare and submit a definite recommendation of my own regular message; and since, my mind has been wholly occupied in a most anxious attempt to conform my action to the Legislative will. In this communication, I am confined by the Constitution to my objections, simply to this bill, but the period of the regular session will soon arrive, when it will be my duty under another clause of the Constitution "to give to Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient." And I most respect fully submit in a spirit of harmony, whether the present differences of opinion should be pressed further at this time, and whether the peculiarity of my situation does not entitle me to a postponement of this subject to a more auspicious period for deliberation. The two Houses of Congress have distinguished themselves at this extraordinary session, by the performance of an immense mass of labor at a season very unfavorable both to health and action, and have passed many laws which I trust will prove highly beneficial to the interest of the country, and fully answer its just expectations. It has been my good fortune and pleasure to concur with them in all measures, except this, and why should our difference on this alone be pushed to extremes? It is my anxious desire that they should not be. I, too, have been burdened with extraordinary labors of late, and I sincerely desire time for deep and deliberate reflection on this, the greatest difficulty of my administration. May we not now pause, until a more favorable time, when, with the most anxious hope that the Executive and Con gress may cordially unite, some measure of finance may be deliberately adopted, promotive of the good of our common Secretary of State, Washington. Sir:-My attention having very recently been brought to several notices, in the newspapers of the United States, of a statement contained in the Woodstock (New Brunswick) Telegraph of the 14th ultimo, in reference to the surveys and explorations now progressing by order of the Government of the United States, under my immediate direction, for the purpose of acquiring information connected with that portion of the boundary in dispute between the United States and Great Britain which is included between the monument at the source of the St. Croix and the Highlands described in the treaty of 1783, I deem it proper to inform the Department of State that, so far as I have any knowledge, the article in question is erroneous in its most important statements. Neither myself nor any of my officers had received any intimation of the existence of an excitement in the vicinity of our operations, arising from our proceedings, until we saw the matter alluded to in the newspapers of our own country, nor has violence ever been offered in opposition to them.On the contrary, we have generally met with civil treatment from Her Britannic Majesty's subjects residing near the line of exploration, and the same disposition has always been manifested towards them in return. It is not true that we are making the line "United States boundary line," as has been stated. The survey, being ordered solely for the purpose of acquiring information, is limited to that object, and the principal stations, where it has been necessary to mark them in order that they may hereafter be identified, have been designated by the words "U. S. ex parte survey," with the date added. Neither the question of jurisdiction, nor that allegiance on the part of the inhabitants heretofore supposed to be residents of the province of New Brunswick, has ever been interfered with by myself or any of my party, so far as I have any knowledge. Our operations have been confined to the objects pointed out in my instructions from the Department, and I have no reason whatever to apprehend that obstacles will be thrown in the way of their fulfilment. servant. I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient Kickapoo. A sale of lots in the town of Kickapoo, 12 miles northwest of Peoria, on the Charleston road, took place on SaturA corner lot fronting upon the day last. Twenty were disposed of, at prices ranging generally from 15 to 20 dollars. public square brought $40, being the highest price, and one or two were knocked off at $7 50. The whole amount of sales was about 400 dollars, all the purchasers living in the neighborhood. The lots are 60 by 171, twelve to a block. Some half dozen houses have been put up during the past year, and preparations are making for building as many more. I will take this occasion to declare, that the conclusions It is not improbable that in a year or two this will be the se to which I have brought myself are those of a settled convic-cond town in size in the county.—Peoria (Ill.) Register. country. Schuylkill county is fast acquiring a high character, both at home and abroad, for the great beauty of its steam en gines. The machinists of Pottsville are not to be surpassed by any in the country for ingenuity and skill; and their work will bear the most critical examination. The steam engine lately erected by Pomroy & Maginnis, for Potts and Bannan's Colliery, is decidedly one of the best in the State. It is the largest that has yet been erected in the Pottsville Coal Basin. The steam cylinder is 14 inches in diameter, four feet stroke, and six boilers, 30 inches in diameter and 20 feet long. The engine is so arranged, that with the use of only one eccentric, she reverses and works either way, with the eccentric hook on the same shackle pin. This is the first engine constructed with this new and highly valuable improvement, and the inventors, Messrs. Pomroy & Maginnis, deserve great credit for overcoming what has hitherto been deemed by practical engineers an insurmountable difficulty. The engine works a double pump of ten inch working barrels, and 400 feet of twelve inch pipes. The arrangement of the buckets is of a novel character, the buckets being entirely metallic; but as the plan of it is the property of the inventors we are unable to give a description of it. The engine and pump have been in operation upwards of one month, and work to the entire satisfaction of both makers and owners. The pump throws a constant volume of water by the use of the double working barrels, and is geared to work from the second motion of the engine. The same enterprising firm is also erecting on Mr. Charles Lawton's celebrated Gate Vein, an engine for pumping water and hoisting coal; the whole machinery being from the same patterns as described above. We also learn that the Delaware Coal Company have given an order to the same establishment for a larger class engine: the steam cylinder to be 18 inches in diameter, 6 feet stroke, six boilers of the usual size, &c. &c. The Colliery of Potts & Bannan's is one of the most interesting of the kind in the region; and will well repay the trouble, and we might add, the fatigues of a visit. The Colliery is better known as the Guinea Hill or black Mine, and is one of the deepest in our coal basin. The depth of the slope is four hundred feet, which, at an inclination of 40 degrees, would give a perpendicular depth of two hundred and fifty-two feet into the very bowels of the earth. The pitch of the vein, as soon as it loses the influence of the hill, is very regular, and the coal becomes of a purer and better quality, and is found in greater masses between the slates. The Colliery is worked with two steam engines; one of fifty horse power and the other of twenty. The former is used in pumping the water which accumulates in the mines, and the latter in hoisting the coal in cars to the mouth of the slope. The pump used in the Colliery is manufactured of cast iron, is twelve inches in diameter, and extend the entire depth of the slope-four hundred feet. The pump is worked by two 10 inch working barrels, which connect with the main pump barrel by goose necks; and throws a constant stream of water, the invention, we understand, of Mr. Charles Potts. The column of water brought up by the engine, at each lift of the pump, is equal in weight to about eight and a half tons. At the depth of two hundred feet of this slope, a tunnel has been driven 90 yards south to the tunnel vein, and 70 yards north to the Lawton vein, both through solid rock, which enables the proprietors to work three veins with the present engines and fixtures. As the visiter leaves the slope and finds himself, lantern in hand, groping his way through the gangway into the heart of the mine, he is half bewildered and startled, as the almost indistinct masses of coal, slate, dirt, &c. fashion themselves into something bordering upon a dark, dusky, and even forbidding outline. It seems as if you had fallen upon a subterranean city, buried by some great convulsion of nature; and the illusion is still further heightened by observing workmen busily engaged apparently in excavating the ruins. Or, if you are highly imaginative, and having read the Odyssey, you might readily fancy the feelings of Ulysses, that "god-like and much enduring man," when he paid a visit to the infernal shades, for the purpose of ascertaining the shortest and most direct cut to his beloved Ithaca. Homer, however, does not inform us whether or not the shades carried lamps in their caps, without which the pick would be of little use to our miners. A considerable outlay of money has already been made in this Colliery on what may be termed improvements. I he steam engines, pumps, sinking of slope, &c, to prepare the mines for working, have cost upwards of $18,000; and the cars, schutes, skreens, &c., including a railroad about onefourth of a mile in extent through the borough, say $15,000 more; making in all an outlay of $33,003. Upwards of 16,000 tons of coal have been got out of the Black Mine in one season; but at least 20,000 tons could now be procured in one year, from the present workings, if a demand for coal together with good prices would justify the employment of a sufficient force for that purpose. It is the intention of the proprietors to sink the present slope an additional hundred feet; at the bottom of which a tunnel will be driven 90 yards south, through solid rock, to the Tunnel vein, which will be worked from the same shaft as in the level above.-l'ottsville Journal, California Wheat. The grain of this article was brought by a trader from Middle California, 34 or 35 degrees north latitude, where it grows luxuriantly and yields abundantly a superior article of flour. It was obtained and introduced by Major Thomas P. Spierin, who was in the north-west, in the employ of the United States as Indian Agent. This wheat has been sown in Abbeville District, South Carolina, latitude 34° 10′ N. The crop of this year, 1841, is superior to that of last year, 1849, in the size of the heads, superior product, and fulness of the grain. Experienced farmers, who have seen the wheat grow, assert that on proper wheat land, well prepared, eighty bushels can be raised on an acre. Its yield is astonishing, from the fact of one grain producing thirty to forty stalks each, having a full head, which contains from one hundred to two hundred grains. The best head of our common wheat will only shell out from sixty to eighty grains. Another advantage is, that this wheat is not so subject to disease as other kinds of wheat, and will withstand high winds and storms. It also grows and matures well westwardly in the 39th degree of north latitude.. We consider it to be a superior kind of wheat, and a great acquisition to the agricultural community; and we hope it may at least have a fair trial, when it will prove itself all what its most sanguine friends have said or thought it would be. The above is the strong recommendation of this wheat, by several gentlemen of Abbeville, distinguished as farmers and for their respectability. Augusta (Ga.) Constitutionalist. COMMERCE OF NEW ORLEANS. In the last number of Levy's Price Current we find the usual interesting annual tables of the commerce of that place. By request of the merchants these tables are now made out for the year ending September 1st, instead of October 1st, as were those which were inserted in Vol. I. page 278, and Vol. III. page 264. For the sake of future comparison, we therefore copy them entire for the years from September 1, to August 31st. Imports from the interior into New Orleans, for ten years-from 1st September to 31st August, in each year. |