it was chrisly intended to afford of an honorable and speedy adjustment of the auities between the two nations, would have been accepted; and I there did not hesitate to give it my sanction and full approbation. Tis was due to the Minister who had made himself responsible for the a. and it was published to the People of the United States, and is now ad before their Representatives, to show how far their Executive has gone its endeavors to restore a good understanding between the two countries. It would have been, at any time, communicated to the Government of France, had it been officially requested.

The French Government having received all the explanation which honor and principle permitted, and which could in reason be asked, it was hoped it would no longer hesitate to pay the instalments now due. The agent authorized to receive the money was instructed to inform the French Minister of his readiness to do so. In reply to this notice, he was told that the money could not then be paid, because the formalities required by the act of the Chambers had not been arranged.

Not having received any official communication of the intentions of the French Government, and anxious to bring, as far as practicable, this unpleasant affair to a close before the meeting of Congress, that you might have the whole subject before you, I caused our Charge d'Affaires at Paris to be instructed to ask for the final determination of the French Government; and in the event of their refusal to pay the instalments now due, without further explanations, to return to the United States.

The result of this last application has not yet reached us, but is daily expected. That it may be favorable is my sincere wish. France having now, through all the branches of her Government, acknowledged the validity of our claims, and the obligation of the treaty of 1831; and there really existing no adequate cause for further delay, will, at length, it may be hoped, adopt the course which the interests of both nations, not less than the principles of justice, so imperiously require. The treaty being once executed on her part, little will remain to disturb the friendly relations of the two countries; nothing, indeed, which will not yield to the suggestions of a pacific and enlightened policy, and to the influence of that mutual good will, and of those generous recollections, which we may confidently expect will then be revived in all their ancient force. In any event, however, the principle involved in the new aspect which has been given to the controversy, is so vitally important to the independent administration of the Government, that it can neither be surrendered nor compromitted, without national degradation. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that such a sacrifice will not be made through any agency of mine. The honor of my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the statement of truth and the performance of duty; nor can I give any explanation of my official acts, except such as is due to integrity and justice, and consistent with the principles on which our institutions have been framed. This determination will, I am confident, be approved by my constituents. I have, indeed, studied their character to but little purpose, if the sum of twenty-five millions of francs will have the weight of a feather, in the estimation of what appertains to their national independence: and if, unhappily, a different impression should at any time obtain in any quarter, they will, I am sure, rally round the government of their choice with alacrity and unanimity, and silence for ever the degrading imputation.

Having thus frankly presented to you the circumstances which, since the last session of Congress, have occurred in this interesting and important matter, with the views of the Executive in regard to them, it is at this time only necessary to add, that, whenever the advices, now daily expected from our Charge d'Affaires shall have been received, they will be made the subject of a special communication.

The condition of the public finances was never more flattering than at the present period.

Since my last annual communication, all the remains of the Public Debt have been redeemed, or money has been placed in deposit for this purpose, whenever the creditors choose to receive it. All the other pecuniary engagements of the Government have been honorably and promptly fulfilled, and there will be a balance in the treasury, at the close of the present year, of about nineteen millions of dollars. It is believed, that after meeting all outstanding and unexpended appropriations, there will remain near eleven millions to be applied to any new objects which Congress may designate, or to the more rapid execution of the works already in progress. In aid of these objects, and to satisfy the current expenditures of the ensuing year, it is estimated that there will be received, from various sources, twenty mil lions more in 1836.

Should Congress make new appropriations, in conformity with the estimates which will be submitted from the proper departments, amounting to about twenty-four millions, still the available surplus, at the close of the next year, after deducting all unexpended appropriations, will probably not be less than six millions. This sum can, in my judgment, be now usefully applied to proposed improvements in our Navy Yards, and to new national works, which are not enumerated in the present estimates, or to the more rapid completion of those already begun. Either would be constitutional and useful, and would render unnecessary any attempt in our present pecu liar condition, to divide the surplus revenue, or to reduce it any faster than will be effected by the existing laws. In any event, as the annual report from the Secretary of the Treasury will enter into details showing the probability of some decrease in the revenue during the next seven years, and a very considerable deduction in 1842, it is not recommended that Congress should undertake to modify the present tariff, so as to disturb the principles on which the compromise act was passed. Taxation on some of the arti eles of general consumption, which are not in competition with our own productions, may be, no doubt, so diminished as to lessen to some extent the source of this revenue: and the same object can also be assisted by more liberal provisions for the subjects of public defence, which, in the present state of our prosperity and wealth, may be expected to engage your attention. If, however, after satisfying all the demands which can arise from these sources, the unexpended balance in the Treasury should still continue to increase, it would be better to bear with the evil until the great changes contemplated in our tariff laws have occurred, and shall enable us to revise the system with that care and circumspection which are due to so delicate and important a subject.

It is certainly our duty to diminish, as far as we can, the burdens of taxation, and to regard all the restrictions which are imposed on the trade and navigation of our citizens as evils which we shall mitigate whenever we are not prevented by the adverse legislation and policy of foreign nations, or those primary duties which the defence and independence of our country

en or upon us. That we have accomplished much towards the relief of our chans by the changes which have accompanied the payment of the putar debt, and the adoption of the present revenue laws, is manifest from het that, conrpared with 1833, there is a diminution of near twenty-five mes in the last two years, and that our expenditures, independently of for the public debt, have been reduced near nine millions during the se period. Let us trust, that by the continued observance of economy, and ry harmonizing the great interests of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, much more may be accomplished to diminish the burdens of Govenment, and to increase still further the enterprise and the patriotic affection of all classes of our citizens, and all the members of our happy Confederacy. As the data which the Secretary of the Treasury will lay before you, in regard to our financial resources, are full and extended, and will afford a safe guide in your future calculations, I think it unnecessary to offer any further observations on that subject here.

Among the evidences of the increasing prosperity of the country, not the leas: gratifying is that afforded by the receipts from the sales of the Public Lands, which amount, in the present year, to the unexpected sum of $11.090.000. This circumstance attests the rapidity with which agricul turs, the first and most important occupation of man, advances, and contributes to the wealth and power of our extended territory. Being still of the open that it is our best policy, as far as we can, consistently with the obligatons under which those lands were ceded to the United States, to promote their speedy settlement, I beg leave to call the attention of the present Congress to the suggestions I have offered respecting it, in my former mes

The extraordinary receipts from the sales of the public lands invite you to consider what improvements the land system, and particularly the condition of the General Land Office, may require. At the time this institution was organized, near a quarter of a century ago, it would probably have beer thought extravagant to anticipate, for this period, such an addition to its business as has been produced by the vast increase of those sales, during the past and present years. It may also be observed, that, since the year 1812, the land offices and surveying districts have been greatly multiplied, and that numerous legislative enactments, from year to year since that time, have imposed a great amount of new and additional duties upon that office: while the want of a timely application of force, commensurate with the care and labor required, has caused the increasing embarrassment of accumulated arrears in the different branches of the establishment.

These impediments to the expedition of much duty in the General Land Office induce me to submit to your judgment, whether some modification of the laws relating to its organization, or an organization of a new character, be not called for, at the present juncture, to enable the office to accomplish all the ends of its institution with a greater degree of facility and promptitude than experience has proved to be practicable under existing regulations. The variety of the concerns, and the magnitude and compexity of the details occupying and dividing the attention of the CommisSoner, appear to render it difficult, if not impracticable, for that officer. by any possible assiduity, to bestow on all the multifarious subjects, upon which he is called to act, the ready and careful attention due to their resective importance; unless the Legislature shall assist him by a law proriding, or enabling him to provide, for a more regular and economical dis

tribution of labor, with the incident responsibility, among those employed under his direction. The mere manual operation of aflixing his signature to the vast number of documents issuing from his office, subtracts so largely from the time and attention claimed by the weighty and complicated subjects daily accumulating in that branch of the public service, as to indicate the strong necessity of revising the organic law of the establishment. will be easy for Congress, hereafter, to proportion the expenditure on account of this branch of the service to its real wants, by abolishing, from time to time, the offices which can be dispensed with.

It

The extinction of the public debt having taken place, there is no longer any use for the offices of Commissioners of Loans and of the Sinking Fund. I recommend, therefore, that they be abolished, and that proper measures be taken for the transfer to the Treasury Department, of any funds, books, and papers, connected with the operations of those offices; and that the proper power be given to that department for closing, finally, any portion of their business which may remain to be settled.

It is also incumbent on Congress, in guarding the pecuniary interests of the country, to discontinue, by such a law as was passed in 1812, the receipt of the bills of the Bank of the United States in payment of the public revenue; and to provide for the designation of an agent, whose duty it shall be to take charge of the books and stock of the United States in that institution, and to close all connection with it, after the 3d of March, 1836, when its charter expires. In making provision in regard to the disposition of this stock, it will be essential to define, clearly and strictly, the duties and powers of the officer charged with that branch of the public service.

It will be seen from the correspondence which the Secretary of the Treasury will lay before you, that notwithstanding the large amount of the stock which the United States hold in that institution, no information has yet been communicated which will enable the Government to anticipate when it can receive any dividends, or derive any benefit from it.

Connected with the condition of the finances, and the flourishing state of the country in all its branches of industry, it is pleasing to witness the advantages which have been already derived from the recent laws regulating the value of the gold coinage. These advantages will be more apparent in the course of the next year, when the branch mints authorized to be established in North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, shall have gone into operation. Aided, as it is hoped they will be, by further reforms in the banking systems of the States, and by judicious regulations on the part of Congress, in relation to the custody of the public moneys, it may be confidently anticipated that the use of gold and silver, as a circulating medium, will become general in the ordinary transactions connected with the labor of the country. The great desideratum, in modern times, is an efficient check upon the power of banks, preventing that excessive issue of paper whence arise those fluctuations in the standard of value, which render uncertain the rewards of labor. It was supposed by those who established the Bank of the United States, that from the credit given to it by the custody of the public moneys, and other privileges, and the precautions taken to guard against the evils which the country had suffered in the bankruptcy of many of the State institutions of that period, we should derive from that institution all the security and benefits of a sound currency, and very good end that was attainable under that provision of the constitution which authorizes Congress alone to coin money and regulate the value

thereof. But it is scarcely necessary now to say that these anticipations have not been realized. After the extensive embarrassment and distress recently produced by the Bank of the United States, from which the country is now recovering, aggravated as they were by pretensions to power whis defied the public authority, and which, if acquiesced in by the Peophd have changed the whole character of our Government, every ad and intelligent individual must admit that, for the attainment of the advantages of a sound currency, we must look to a course of legislaon radically different from that which created such an institution.

In considering the means of obtaining so important an end, we must set aside all calculations of temporary convenience, and be influenced by those only which are in harmony with the true character and the permanent interests of the Republic. We must recur to first principles, and see what it is that has prevented the legislation of Congress and the States, on the subject of currency, from satisfying the public expectation, and realizing results corresponding to those which have attended the action of our system when truly consistent with the great principle of equality upon which it rests, and with that spirit of forbearance and mutual concession, and generous patriotism, which was originally, and must ever continue to be, the vital element of our Union.

On this subject, I am sure that I cannot he mistaken in ascribing our want of success to the undue countenance which has been afforded to the spirit of monopoly. All the serious dangers which our system has yet encountered, my be traced to the resort to implied powers, and the use of corporations clothed with privileges, the effect of which is to advance the interest of the few at the expense of the many. We have felt but one class of these dangers exhibited in the contest waged by the Bank of the United States against the Goverment for the last four years. Happily they have been obviated for the present by the indignant resistance of the People; but we should recollect that the principle whence they sprung is an ever active one, which will not fail to renew its efforts in the same and in other forms, so long as there is a hope of success, founded either on the inattention of the people, or the treachery of their representatives, to the subtle progress of its inquence. The Bank is, in fact, but one of the fruits of a system at war with the genius of all our institutions-a system founded upon a political creed, the fundamental principle of which is a distrust of the popular will as a safe regulator of political power, and whose great ultimate object, and inevitable results, should it prevail, is the consolidation of all power in our system in one central Government. Lavish public disbursements, and corporations with exclusive privileges, would be its substitutes for the original and, as yet, sound checks and balances of the constitution-the means by whose silent and secret operation a control would be exercised by the few over the political conduct of the many, by first acquiring that control over the labor and earnings of the great body of the people. Wherever this spirit has effected an alliance with political power, tyranny and despotism have been the fruit. If it is ever used for the ends of Government, it has to be incessantly watched, or it corrupts the sources of the public virtue, and agitates the country with questions unfavorable to the harmonious and steady pursuit of its true interests.

We are now to see whether, in the present favorable condition of the country, we cannot take an effectual stand against this spirit of monopoly, and practically prove, in respect to the currency as well as other important