Among those who are dependent on Executive
discretion I have begun the reduction of what was deemed unnecessary.
The expenses of diplomatic agency have been considerably diminished. The
inspectors of internal revenue who were found to obstruct the
accountability of the institution have been discontinued. Several
agencies created by Executive authority, on salaries fixed by that also,
have been suppressed, and should suggest the expediency of regulating
that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative
inspection and sanction. Other reformations of the same kind will be
pursued with that caution which is requisite in removing useless things,
not to injure what is retained. But the great mass of public offices is
established by law, and therefore by law alone can be abolished. Should
the Legislature think it expedient to pass this roll in review and try
all its parts by the test of public utility, they may be assured of
every aid and light which Executive information can yield. Considering
the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies and to
increase expense to the ultimate term of burthen which the citizen can
bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents
itself for taking off the surcharge, that it never may be seen here that
after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it
can subsist, Government shall itself consume the whole residue of what
it was instituted to guard.
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