Speech of the Hon. John Quincy Adams, in the House of Representatives, on the State of the Nation: Delivered May 25, 1836 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Speech of the Hon. John Quincy Adams, in the House of Representatives, on the State of the Nation: Delivered May 25, 1836

Mr. Chairman, - There is no appropriation annexed to this resolution, We are called to vote upon it without knowing how deep it will dive into the public purse. We have no estimate from any executive department; no statement of the numbers of the distressed and unfortunate persons whom we are called upon to relieve, not with our own mone s, but with the moneys of our constituents. By an exception to the or inary rules of the House, especially established to guard the public treasury against the danger of rash and inconsiderate expenditures, we are to drive this resolution through all its stages in a single day. And it is, I believe, the first example of a system of gratuitous donations to our own countrymen, infinitely more formidable by its consequences as a precedent, than from any thing appearing upon its face. I shall, nevertheless, vote for it. But answerable to my constituents as I am in this as in all other cases for voting away their money, I seek for a principle which may justify me, to their judgment and my own, in this lavish disposal of the public funds.

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