On the 9th of December President Johnson sent his last annual Message to Congress. It was a grave, dignified and statesmanlike document both in form and content. In it he told Congress plainly and respectfully that its Reconstruction policy had arrayed the races against each other at the South, had impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously existed between them, and had given mortal offence to the civilized race by placing the uncivilized race in domination over it; and he urged that legislation which had produced such baleful consequences ought to be abrogated. He also told Congress that it had seriously impaired the power of the President to exact the necessary accountability of the public officers by its Tenure-of-Office Act, and had embarrassed {215} the Executive in the exercise of his constitutional military functions by the Act of March 2d, 1867; and he urged the repeal of both of these measures. He also gave a most serious and startling account of the condition of the public finances, and of the consumption of the wealth of the Nation by the bondholders, officials and pensioners. He pointed out that the public debt, which in 1860 was 64,000,000 dollars, had become 2,527,129,552 dollars; that the annual expenditure, which was, in 1860, 63,000,000 dollars, had become 336,000,000 dollars and more, and that the expenditure per capita, which was two dollars in 1860, had become nearly ten dollars. And he suggested the ways in which this threatening condition might be relieved, viz., by a refunding of the bonds at a lower interest, by a speedy resumption of specie payment, by a reduction of the army and of the horde of Reconstruction officials in the South, and by a strict accountability of the revenue officials to their superiors and of these latter to the President. From the point of view of sound political science, good public policy and true patriotism all of these suggestions were at least worth consideration, but Congress took no more notice of them than it did of the distant murmurs of the waters of the Potomac. [Sidenote: The President's amnesty proclamation of December 25th, 1868.]