ime, a recommendation of such changes in
the system of the militia as, by classing and disciplining for the most
prompt and active service the portions most capable of it, will give to
that great resource for the public safety all the requisite energy and
efficiency.

The moneys received into the Treasury during the nine months ending on
the 30th day of June last amounted to $32,000,000, of which near eleven
millions were the proceeds of the public revenue and the remainder
derived from loans. The disbursements for public expenditures during the
same period exceeded $34,000,000, and left in the Treasury on the 1st
day of July near $5,000,000. The demands during the remainder of the
present year already authorized by Congress and the expenses incident to
an extension of the operations of the war will render it necessary that
large sums should be provided to meet them.

From this view of the national affairs Congress will be urged to take
up without delay as well the subject of pecuniary supplies as that of
military force, and on a scale commensurate with the extent and the
character which the war has assumed. It is not to be disguised that the
situation of our country calls for its greatest efforts. Our enemy is
powerful in men and in money, on the land and on the water. Availing
himself of fortuitous advantages, he is aiming with his undivided force
a deadly blow at our growing prosperity, perhaps at our national
existence. He has avowed his purpose of trampling on the usages of
civilized warfare, and given earnests of it in the plunder and wanton
destruction of private property. In his pride of maritime dominion and
in his thirst of commercial monopoly he strikes with peculiar animosity
at the progress of our navigation and of our manufactures. His barbarous
policy has not even spared those monuments of the arts and models of
taste with which our country had enriched and embellished its infant
metropolis. From such an adversary hostility in its greatest force and
in its worst forms may be looked for. The American people will face it
with the undaunted spirit which in their revolutionary struggle defeated
his unrighteous projects. His threats and his barbarities, instead of
dismay, will kindle in every bosom an indignation not to be extinguished
but in the disaster and expulsion of such cruel invaders. In providing
the means necessary the National Legislature will not distrust the
heroic and enlightened patriotism of i