MESSAGE.

Gentlemen of the Senate, and House of Represen'atives:

You have again assembled, according to the provisions of our Constitution, to deliberate upon the interests of our people. Connected with you, to some extent, by the Constitution, in your du ties and labors, I promise you my hearty co-operation in all that is calculated to advance the welfare of our beloved State.

During the past year, the nation has been called to mourn the decease of its Chief Magistrate. Zachary Taylor was a brave and sturdy soldier-a true patriot. Death suddenly ended his eventful career, in the midst of the convulsions of Congress, consequent upon the agitation and settlement of subjects, the complexity and importance of which, are unparalleled in our history. His official mantle fell quietly upon another. The majesty of the Constitution and Laws, and the wisdom thereof, were sublimely manifested. They supplied the place which death had made vacant. The Executive functions of twenty millions of freemen, passed in a single day, into new hands; yet the change, great as it was, only served to chasten agitation, instead of adding to the public commotion. Emotions of general sorrow, in view of the national bereavement, were predominant; and the result exhibited alike the patriotic sympathies of the people; the strength and grandeur of our form of government, and its efficiency to meet every emergency and crisis which can arise.

During the last year we have enjoyed within our borders, the bless. ings of general health. In some parts of the State, we were visited with that terrible disease, the Cholera, which, in other portions of the country, has carried off thousands. Yet through the mercies of an overruling Providence, but few among us fell victims to the destroyer. With this exception, the past year has been one of health, hap piness and general prosperity.

Nothing has transpired since your adjournment, to interrupt the regular action of all the departments of government. The laws have been laithfully administered, respected and obeyed.

I am gratified in being able to say, that the necessary means to

meet our January interest, has been promptly advanced by our fellow citizens, through the energy of our county collectors, without bor rowing of the banks.

For the promptness with which our collectors have responded to the call of the State Treasurer, it is right that you authorise the Auditor and Treasurer to make them some compensation.

The financial condition of the State is still improving.

The ordinary expenses of the State Government, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of October, 1850, were $83,615 10.

The expenditures for the ensuing year, (exclusive of the expenses of the Convention,) are estimated, by the Auditor of State, at $80,000.

The whole amount of revenue paid into the State Treasury, during the past year, on all accounts, was $450,481 76, which exceeds the amount of the previous year, $18,197 98.

The total value of taxable property, as returned for 1850, is $137,443,565, which is an increase over the previous year of $4,014,504. The number of polls returned for 1850, is 149,986, being an increase over last year, of 6,266.

I concur fully with the Auditor of State, in most earnestly calling your attention to the subject of an improvement in the revenue system.

While the property of the man of moderate means, the farmer, the mechanic, and the day laborer, is, from its very character, exposed to the eye of the Assessor, and is such as to enable him to estimate its value with accuracy, it cannot be doubted that a large amount of invisible property, consisting of corporation stocks, moneys and credits, entirely escapes taxation.

The whole amount of corporation stock assessed in the State for the current year, is $286,516; when, taking into consideration our numerous Plank Roads, Rail Roads, River improvements, Insurance companies, and Manufactories, it is safe to estimate the value of this description of property, at not less than three millions of dollars.

In many cases, the same property when assessed for municipal purposes, is returned at a much higher rate of valuation, than when listed by the county Assessor.

In New Albany, the city assessment exceeds the county assessment in the sum of $300,000; in Madison, by the sum of $565,407; and in Indianapolis, $657,990; making a total excess, in these three cities alone, of more than one and a half millions of dollars.

Individual instances of erroneous assessment, are familiar to all. A case has been brought to the attention of the Executive, where the property of a citizen was valued by the county Assessor at the sum of $75,525; and upon his death, the same property was valued, in the settlement of his estate, at $256,917.

There is also a great inequality in the assessment of lands in contiguous counties; to rectify which, can only be accurately done by a State Board of equalization, or by Boards in the several Congressional districts.

The true remedy for this state of things, is, the adoption of a sys tem to assess, at its cash value, every species of real and personal es tate; such a one as in a single year, in our sister State, Ohio, increas ed the aggregate amount of the taxables of that State, from one hundred and fifty millions, to four hundred and ten millions of dollars. Let the Assessor furnish each tax-payer a blank form, to be filled up by himself, with an enumeration of his property, to be verified by oath or affirmation; and on refusal, authorise the Assessor to add to the valuation such per centum as may be deemed necessary. Under such a system, we shall not only equalize the burdens of the people of the State, but swell our total of taxables to at least two hundred millions of dollars, thereby enabling us to reduce the present rate of taxation. Property and wealth are the true bases of taxation, and the public burdens should rest upon them.

Owing to the construction of various works of Internal Improvement, and other causes, the value of real estate is constantly changing, and frequent assessments, under any system, will be necessary. The last valuation of real estate was made in 1846, and to secure an equalization of the burdens of the State, a re-appraisement is imperatively required.

As the Assessors have a right to commence making assessments the first of January, if it is designed to change the present system, it is suggested that steps be immediately taken to postpone such assessment until the first of March ensuing.

Through the politeness of Mr. Meredith, U. S. Marshal, I am this moment advised, though the returns are not complete, that our entire population is about 988,000, being an increase, since 1840, of upwards of three hundred thousand. The total valuation of Real

Estate, farming implements, and live stock, exclusive of other personal property, as returned by the Marshal, is about two hundred millions of dollars, being sixty-three millions over the entire assessment for taxation. If to this were added other descriptions of personal property, our entire valuation could not be less than two hundred and fifty millions of dollars.

I know of no higher duty that a citizen owes to the institutions of his country, than that of being just, not only to his neighbors, but to the government that shields and protects him. No good man will refuse to pay for the support of his government. When he pays, he should pay in proportion to what he has-according to his wealth; and he will on no occasion refuse to declare or affirm what that wealth is.

I trust, before you return to your constituents, you will pass an efficient and practical system for the assessment and collection of your revenue, by which you will obtain the just proportion levied upon the entire wealth of the State.

There is no subject that our people take more interest in than that of the reduction and final payment of our State debt. They desire some practical system that will annually reduce their debt. It will be time enough to provide a sinking fund when we have

some means to appropriate in that way; and when we shall have fully assessed and collected the revenue levied upon the entire wealth and property of the State, we shall have something to set apart for that purpose.

As it will, however, require time to perfect a system, it is proper that you enter upon the consideration of this subject. My own opinion is, that no intricate or perplexed plan of reducing our pub lic debt can be beneficial. Simple taxation is the only remedy; and as near as can be, direct application of the money, when collected, to discharge the debt.

In the establishment of a board to manage the funds, your officers of State, with the aid of one commissioner elected by the people, would be entirely sufficient. The power given should be discretionary as to the investment of surplus funds, for obvious reasons.

The financial ability of the State may be seen in what we have accomplished in the last nine years, commencing with the suspension of our internal improvement system. In that period, with no other resource but taxation, we have liquidated, of our domestic debt, in principal and interest, the sum of $2,529,156, and have paid of interest on our foreign debt, including the January interest, 1851, the sum of $73),269; making a total of $3,268,425, or over $360,000 per year, in addition to the ordinary expenses of the State, a sum equivalent to one half our present State indebtedness.

By the year 1853, with the improvements proposed in our revenue system, the saving effected by biennial sessions of the Legislature, and the revenue to be derived from the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad, it is estimated that we shall be able within that year to appropriate the sum of $100,000 to the payment of the principal of the foreign debt. A table has been prepared with great care, and is appended to this message, assuming the revenue of 1853 to be $500,000, that the annual increase of revenue will be three per centum, that the sum of $100,000 may be appropriated the first year for the payment of principal; and that this sum may be increased every year thereafter by the three per centum of increase, and the amount saved in the interest account. Under such an estimate, and I believe it entirely practicable, the public debt will be liquidated in seventeen years from the first payment. To show still further the practicability of wiping out the debt of the State at an early day, a table has been prepared by the Auditor of State, on a different basis, for which you are referred to his report.

We are progressing rapidly with works of public improvement. In the past season, we have completed Four Hundred miles of Plank roads, which have cost from twelve to twenty-five hundred dollars per mile. There are some twelve hundred miles additional surveyed and in progress. We have two hundred and twelve miles of railroad in successful operation; of which, one hundred and twentyfour were completed the past year. There are more than one thousand miles of Railroad surveyed, and in a state of progress.

There is no evil to be apprehended from this expenditure of mon

ey and labor upon Plank roads. They are built by our own labor and capital. The profits go to our own people, and consequently no surplus for the payment of interest on loans, goes out of the country.

So long as we confine our operations and expenditures upon Rail roads and works of a similar character, to individual enterprise and capital, we have the surest guaranty that the investment will be made upon works of such a character as will pay liberally for the cost of their construction. While it is not the province of the Executive to dictate to his fellow citizens to what particular works private capital and enterprise should be directed, still it may not be improper to say, at this time, when the mind of the public is so strongly directed to railroad enterprises, that the danger to be ap prehended, is, that works so entirely local in their character as to disappoint the expectations of the stockholders and the public, when constructed, will absorb the capital and energy of the country; and that the same might be appropriated to greater advantage in works of a more general character. And it is to be feared that there is too great a disposition to carry on these works by subscriptions of corporate cities and counties. From the evidence before me, there is now one million of dollars of corporate stock taken, in the State, in railroads, by cities and counties; and from the present excitement in different parts of the State, the amount will be largely increased the coming season.

Sound policy dictates that no municipal department, however wealthy, should become associated with private companies for any purpose whatever. The appropriation of the revenues of cities and counties to such purposes, is wholly foreign to the objects for which municipal corporations are organized, and for which the power of taxation is granted to them; and will lead to local embarrassments and difficulties similar to those in which the State became involved a few years ago.

If we shall hold a firm and steady hand; confine investments in our public improvements to individual capital and enterprise; show the capitalist at home and abroad, by our actions and words, that we are determined to keep faithfully all past engagements; that we regard State and county credit, not as mere empty sound and promise, but that which is real and substantial and worth preserving; if we shall do this, Indiana will steadily move forward with increas ed energy; her resources will be developed at the proper and right time; and she will be enabled to present the greatest chain of improvements of any State in the Union. But if in this hour, the turning point in her second history of improvements, we overleap the proper bounds, and in the moment of excitement, when individual capital is marking the whole map of the State with railroad lines, we add millions of the corporate stocks of counties, cities and townships, through a laudable but mistaken zeal to advance this or that work, we shall repent for years to come that we had part or lot in the matter. We have had such a lesson on this subject, that