Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The measures taken by the Secretary of the Treasury will probably
enable to pay off in the course of the present year the residue of the
exchanged 4.5% stock, redeemable on January 1st, 1834. It has therefore
been included in the estimated expenditures of this year, and forms a
part of the sum above stated to have been paid on account of the public
debt. The payment of this stock will reduce the whole debt of the
United States, funded and unfunded, to the sum of $4,760,082.08, and as
provision has already been made for the 4.5% stocks above mentioned,
and charged in the expenses of the present year, the sum last stated is
all that now remains of the national debt; and the revenue of the
coming year, together with the balance now in the Treasury, will be
sufficient to discharge it, after meeting the current expenses of the
Government. Under the power given to the commissioners of the sinking
fund, it will, I have no doubt, be purchased on favorable terms within
the year.
From this view of the state of the finances and the public engagements
yet to be fulfilled you will perceive that if Providence permits me to
meet you at another session I shall have the high gratification of
announcing to you that the national debt is extinguished. I can not
refrain from expressing the pleasure I feel at the near approach of
that desirable event. The short period of time within which the public
debt will have been discharged is strong evidence of the abundant
resources of the country and of the prudence and economy with which the
Government has heretofore been administered. We have waged two wars
since we became a nation, with one of the most powerful kingdoms in the
world, both of them undertaken in defense of our dearest rights, been
successfully prosecuted and honorably terminated; and many of those who
partook in the first struggle as well as in the second will have lived
to see the last item of the debt incurred in these necessary but
expensive conflicts faithfully and honestly discharged. And we shall
have the proud satisfaction of bequeathing to the public servants who
follow us in the administration of the Government the rare blessing of
a revenue sufficiently abundant, raised without injustice or oppression
to our citizens, and unencumbered with any burdens but what they
themselves shall think proper to impose upon it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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