Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Nearly $8,000,000 of Treasury notes are to be paid during the coming year
in addition to the ordinary appropriations for the support of Government.
For both these purposes the resources of the Treasury will undoubtedly be
sufficient if the charges upon it are not increased beyond the annual
estimates. No excess, however, is likely to exist. Nor can the postponed
installment of the surplus revenue be deposited with the States nor any
considerable appropriations beyond the estimates be made without causing a
deficiency in the Treasury. The great caution, advisable at all times, of
limiting appropriations to the wants of the public service is rendered
necessary at present by the prospective and rapid reduction of the tariff,
while the vigilant jealousy evidently excited among the people by the
occurrences of the last few years assures us that they expect from their
representatives, and will sustain them in the exercise of, the most rigid
economy. Much can be effected by postponing appropriations not immediately
required for the ordinary public service or for any pressing emergency, and
much by reducing the expenditures where the entire and immediate
accomplishment of the objects in view is not indispensable.
When we call to mind the recent and extreme embarrassments produced by
excessive issues of bank paper, aggravated by the unforeseen withdrawal of
much foreign capital and the inevitable derangement arising from the
distribution of the surplus revenue among the States as required by
Congress, and consider the heavy expenses incurred by the removal of Indian
tribes, by the military operations in Florida, and on account of the
unusually large appropriations made at the last two annual sessions of
Congress for other objects, we have striking evidence in the present
efficient state of our finances of the abundant resources of the country to
fulfill all its obligations. Nor is it less gratifying to find that the
general business of the community, deeply affected as it has been, is
reviving with additional vigor, chastened by the lessons of the past and
animated by the hopes of the future. By the curtailment of paper issues, by
curbing the sanguine and adventurous spirit of speculation, and by the
honorable application of all available means to the fulfillment of
obligations, confidence has been restored both at home and abroad, and ease
and facility secured to all the operations of trade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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