Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
In looking to the internal concerns of our country you will, I am
persuaded, derive much satisfaction from a view of the several objects to
which, in the discharge of your official duties, your attention will be
drawn. Among these none holds a more important place than the public
revenue, from the direct operation of the power by which it is raised on
the people, and by its influence in giving effect to every other power of
the Government. The revenue depends on the resources of the country, and
the facility by which the amount required is raised is a strong proof of
the extent of the resources and of the efficiency of the Government.
A few prominent facts will place this great interest in a just light before
you. On September 30th, 1815, the funded and floating debt of the United
States was estimated at $119,635,558. If to this sum be added the amount
of 5% stock subscribed to the Bank of the United States, the amount of
Mississippi stock and of the stock which was issued subsequently to that
date, and as afterwards liquidated, to $158,713,049.
On September 30th, 1820, it amounted to $91,993,883, having been reduced
in that interval by payments $66,879,165. During this term the expenses
of the Government of the United States were likewise defrayed in every
branch of the civil, military, and naval establishments; the public
edifices in this city have been rebuilt with considerable additions;
extensive fortifications have been commenced, and are in a train of
execution; permanent arsenals and magazines have been erected in various
parts of the Union; our Navy has been considerably augmented, and the
ordnance, munitions of war, and stores of the Army and Navy, which were
much exhausted during the war, have been replenished.
By the discharge of so large a proportion of the public debt and the
execution of such extensive and important operations in so short a time a
just estimate may be formed of the great extent of our national resources.
The demonstration is the more complete and gratifying when it is
recollected that the direct tax and excise were repealed soon after the
termination of the late war, and that the revenue applied to these purposes
has been derived almost wholly from other sources.
The receipts into the Treasury from every source to the 30th of September
last have amounted to $16,794,107.66, whilst the public expenditures to the
same period amounted to $16,871,534.72, leaving in the Treasury on that day
a sum estimated at $1.95 millions. For the probable receipts of the
following year I refer you to the statement which will be transmitted from
the Treasury.
The sum of $3 millions authorized to be raised by loan by an act of the
last session of Congress has been obtained upon terms advantageous to the
Government, indicating not only an increased confidence in the faith of the
nation, but the existence of a large amount of capital seeking that mode of
investment at a rate of interest not exceeding 5% per annum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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