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, both 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.

The flourishing state of the finances ought not, however, to encourage
us to indulge in a lavish expenditure of the public treasure. The
receipts of the present year do not furnish the test by which we are to
estimate the income of the next. The changes made in our revenue system
by the acts of Congress of 1832 and 1833, and more especially by the
former, have swelled the receipts of the present year far beyond the
amount to be expected in future years upon the reduced tariff of duties.
The shortened credits on revenue bonds and the cash duties on woolens