State of the Union AddressesPolk, James K. (James Knox)
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State of the Union Addresses
Polk, James K. (James Knox)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The Secretary of the Treasury in his annual report to Congress will
communicate a full statement of the condition of our finances. The imports
for the fiscal year ending on the 30th of June last were of the value of
$117,254,564, of which the amount exported was $15,346,830, leaving a
balance of $101,907,734 for domestic consumption. The exports for the same
year were of the value of $114,646,606, of which the amount of domestic
articles was $99,299,776. The receipts into the Treasury during the same
year were $29,769,133.56, of which there were derived from customs
$27,528,122.70, from sales of public lands $2,077,022.30, and from
incidental and miscellaneous sources $163,998.56. The expenditures for the
same period were $29,968,206.98, of which $8,588,157.62 were applied to the
payment of the public debt. The balance in the Treasury on the 1st of July
last was $7,658,306.22. The amount of the public debt remaining unpaid on
the 1st of October last was $17,075,445.52. Further payments of the public
debt would have been made, in anticipation of the period of its
reimbursement under the authority conferred upon the Secretary of the
Treasury by the acts of July 21, 1841, and of April 15, 1842, and March 3,
1843, had not the unsettled state of our relations with Mexico menaced
hostile collision with that power. In view of such a contingency it was
deemed prudent to retain in the Treasury an amount unusually large for
ordinary purposes.
A few years ago our whole national debt growing out of the Revolution and
the War of 1812 with Great Britain was extinguished, and we presented to
the world the rare and noble spectacle of a great and growing people who
had fully discharged every obligation. Since that time the existing debt
has been contracted, and, small as it is in comparison with the similar
burdens of most other nations, it should be extinguished at the earliest
practicable period. Should the state of the country permit, and especially
if our foreign relations interpose no obstacle, it is contemplated to apply
all the moneys in the Treasury as they accrue, beyond what is required for
the appropriations by Congress, to its liquidation. I cherish the hope of
soon being able to congratulate the country on its recovering once more the
lofty position which it so recently occupied. Our country, which exhibits
to the world the benefits of self-government, in developing all the sources
of national prosperity owes to mankind the permanent example of a nation
free from the blighting influence of a public debt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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