Under such circumstances, without an anxiety in regard to foreign or domestic affairs, President Madison sent his Annual Message to Congress December 5, 1815. It told a pleasant story of successful administration and of rapidly growing income; but its chief historical interest lay in the lines of future party politics that Madison more or less unconsciously sketched. The Message proved, or seemed to prove, that Madison’s views and wishes lay in the direction of strong government. He advised “liberal provision” for defence; more military academies; an improved and enlarged navy; effectual protection to manufactures; new national roads and canals; a national university; and such an organization of the militia as would place it promptly and effectually under control of the national government. Madison seemed to take his stand, beyond further possibility of change, on the system of President Washington. Dallas’s report echoed the tone of Alexander Hamilton. Very long, chiefly historical, and interesting beyond the common, this Treasury Report of 1815 recommended a scale of annual expenditure exceeding twenty-seven millions, in place of the old scale of ten millions. The expenditure was to be but a part of the system. A protective tariff of customs duties was assumed to be intended by Congress, and a national bank was urged as the only efficient means by which the government could recover control over the currency. Although the President was less emphatic than the secretary in holding a national bank to be the only cure for the disorders of the currency, he was prepared to go a step further by issuing government paper as a national currency, and suggested that alternative in his Message. A national bank or a national currency was an equally energetic exercise of supreme central powers not expressly granted by the Constitution and much disputed by theorists. Dallas’s objection to the national currency did not relate to its inefficiency, but to the practical difficulty of issuing paper and keeping it in issue. Either course of action implied a recurrence to the principles of President Washington. The Executive proposed to start afresh in 1816 from its point of departure in 1790.