instances the most effectual measures in our power have been taken,
without interfering with its other duties, for the suppression of the
slave trade and of piracy in the neighboring seas.

The situation of the United States in regard to their resources, the
extent of their revenue, and the facility with which it is raised
affords a most gratifying spectacle. The payment of nearly $67,000,000
of the public debt, with the great progress made in measures of defense
and in other improvements of various kinds since the late war, are
conclusive proofs of this extraordinary prosperity, especially when it
is recollected that these expenditures have been defrayed without a
burthen on the people, the direct tax and excise having been repealed
soon after the conclusion of the late war, and the revenue applied to
these great objects having been raised in a manner not to be felt. Our
great resources therefore remain untouched for any purpose which may
affect the vital interests of the nation. For all such purposes they
are inexhaustible. They are more especially to be found in the virtue,
patriotism, and intelligence of our fellow-citizens, and in the
devotion with which they would yield up by any just measure of taxation
all their property in support of the rights and honor of their country.

Under the present depression of prices, affecting all the productions
of the country and every branch of industry, proceeding from causes
explained on a former occasion, the revenue has considerably
diminished, the effect of which has been to compel Congress either to
abandon these great measures of defense or to resort to loans or
internal taxes to supply the deficiency. On the presumption that this
depression and the deficiency in the revenue arising from it would be
temporary, loans were authorized for the demands of the last and
present year. Anxious to relieve my fellow-citizens in 1817 from every