useful in any inquiries that Congress may see fit to institute with a
view to a salutary reform of the system.

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you upon the prosperous
condition of the finances of the country, as will appear from the report
which the Secretary of the Treasury will in due time lay before you.
The receipts into the Treasury during the present year will amount to
more than $32,000,000. The revenue derived from customs will, it is
believed, be more than $28,000,000, and the public lands will yield about
$3,000,000. The expenditures within the year for all objects, including
$2,572,240.99 on account of the public debt, will not amount to
$25,000,000, and a large balance will remain in the Treasury after
satisfying all the appropriations chargeable on the revenue for the
present year.

The measures taken by the Secretary of the Treasury will probably enable
him to pay off in the course of the present year the residue of the
exchanged 4-1/2 per cent stock, redeemable on the 1st of January next.
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 4-1/2
percents 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.