e current quarter is estimated at five
millions and a half; from these thirty-one millions, deducting the
drawbacks, estimated at less than seven millions, a sum exceeding
twenty-four millions will constitute the revenue of the year, and will
exceed the whole expenditures of the year. The entire amount of the
public debt remaining due on the 1st of January next will be short of
$81,000,000.
By an act of Congress of the 3d of March last a loan of $12,000,000 was
authorized at 4-1/2 per cent, or an exchange of stock to that amount of
4-1/2 per cent for a stock of 6 per cent, to create a fund for
extinguishing an equal amount of the public debt, bearing an interest of
6 per cent, redeemable in 1826. An account of the measures taken to give
effect to this act will be laid before you by the Secretary of the
Treasury. As the object which it had in view has been but partially
accomplished, it will be for the consideration of Congress whether the
power with which it clothed the Executive should not be renewed at an
early day of the present session, and under what modifications.
The act of Congress of the 3d of March last, directing the Secretary of
the Treasury to subscribe, in the name and for the use of the United
States, for 1,500 shares of the capital stock of the Chesapeake and
Delaware Canal Company, has been executed by the actual subscription for
the amount specified; and such other measures have been adopted by that
officer, under the act, as the fulfillment of its intentions requires.
The latest accounts received of this important undertaking authorize the
belief that it is in successful progress.
The payments into the Treasury from the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands during the present year were estimated at $1,000,000. The
actual receipts of the first two quarters have fallen very little short
of that sum; it is not expected that the second half of the year will be
equally productive, but the income of the year from that source may now
be safely estimated at a million and a half. The act of Congress of 18th
May, 1824, to provide for the extinguishment of the debt due to the
United States by the purchasers of public lands, was limited in its
operation of relief to the purchaser to the 10th of April last. Its
effect at the end of the quarter during which it expired was to reduce
that debt from ten to seven millions. By the operation of similar prior
laws of relief, from and since that of 2d March, 1821,
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