pril, and July of that year. In May there occurred a general
suspension of specie payments by the banks, including, with very few
exceptions, those in which the public moneys were deposited and upon
whose fidelity the Government had unfortunately made itself dependent
for the revenues which had been collected from the people and were
indispensable to the public service.

This suspension and the excesses in banking and commerce out of which it
arose, and which were greatly aggravated by its occurrence, made to a
great extent unavailable the principal part of the public money then on
hand, suspended the collection of many millions accruing on merchants'
bonds, and greatly reduced the revenue arising from customs and the
public lands. These effects have continued to operate in various degrees
to the present period, and in addition to the decrease in the revenue
thus produced two and a half millions of duties have been relinquished
by two biennial reductions under the act of 1833, and probably as much
more upon the importation of iron for railroads by special legislation.

Whilst such has been our condition for the last four years in relation
to revenue, we have during the same period been subjected to an
unavoidable continuance of large extraordinary expenses necessarily
growing out of past transactions, and which could not be immediately
arrested without great prejudice to the public interest. Of these, the
charge upon the Treasury in consequence of the Cherokee treaty alone,
without adverting to others arising out of Indian treaties, has already
exceeded $5,000,000; that for the prosecution of measures for the
removal of the Seminole Indians, which were found in progress, has been
nearly fourteen millions, and the public buildings have required the
unusual sum of nearly three millions.

It affords me, however, great pleasure to be able to say that from
the commencement of this period to the present day every demand upon
the Government, at home or abroad, has been promptly met. This has
been done not only without creating a permanent debt or a resort to
additional taxation in any form, but in the midst of a steadily
progressive reduction of existing burdens upon the people, leaving
still a considerable balance of available funds which will remain in
the Treasury at the end of the year. The small amount of Treasury notes,
not exceeding $4,500,000, still outstanding, and less by twenty-three
millions than the United State