r the expiration of the year for
which appropriated, excepting when those expenses are provided for by
some permanent appropriation, and excepting in the War and Navy
Departments, under section 3732.

The number of permanent appropriations are very limited, and cover but
few of the necessary expenditures of the Government. They are nearly
all, if not quite all, embraced in sections 3687, 3688, and 3689 of
the Revised Statutes. That contained in section 3687 is applicable to
_expenses of collecting the revenue from customs_, that in section 3688
to the payment of interest on the _public debt_, and that in section
3689 to various objects too numerous to detail here.

It will be observed that while section 3679, quoted above, provides
that _no_ Department shall in any one fiscal year involve the Government
in any contract for the future payment of money in excess of the
appropriation for that year, section 3732, also quoted above, confers,
by clear implication, upon the heads of the War and Navy Departments
full authority, even in the absence of any appropriation, to purchase
or contract for clothing, subsistence, forage, fuel, quarters, or
transportation not exceeding the necessities of the current year. The
latter provision is special and exceptional in its character, and is to
be regarded as excluded from the operation of the former more general
one. But if any of the appropriation bills above enumerated should fail
to be matured before the expiration of the current fiscal year, the
Government would be greatly embarrassed for want of the necessary
funds to carry on the service. Precluded from expending money not
appropriated, the Departments would have to suspend the service so
far as the appropriations for it should have failed to be made.

A careful examination of this subject will demonstrate the embarrassed
condition all branches of the Government will be in, and especially the
executive, if there should be a failure to pass the necessary
appropriation bills before the 1st of July, or otherwise provide.

I commend this subject most earnestly to your consideration, and urge
that some measure be speedily adopted to avert the evils which would
result from nonaction by Congress. I will venture the suggestion, by
way of remedy, that a joint resolution, properly guarded, might be
passed through the two Houses of Congress, extending the provisions
of all appropriations for the present fiscal year to the next in
all cas