y power of Christendom having a surplus revenue drawn
immediately from imposts on commerce, and therefore measured by the
spontaneous enterprise and national prosperity of the country, with
such indirect relation to agriculture, manufactures, and the products
of the earth and sea as to violate no constitutional doctrine and yet
vigorously promote the general welfare. Neither as to the sources of the
public treasure nor as to the manner of keeping and managing it does any
grave controversy now prevail, there being a general acquiescence in the
wisdom of the present system.

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury will exhibit in detail the
state of the public finances and the condition of the various branches
of the public service administered by that Department of the Government.

The revenue of the country, levied almost insensibly to the taxpayer,
goes on from year to year, increasing beyond either the interests or the
prospective wants of the Government.

At the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1852, there remained in
the Treasury a balance of $14,632,136. The public revenue for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1853, amounted to $58,931,865 from customs and to
$2,405,708 from public lands and other miscellaneous sources, amounting
together to $61,337,574, while the public expenditures for the same
period, exclusive of payments on account of the public debt, amounted
to $43,554,262, leaving a balance of $32,425,447 of receipts above
expenditures.

This fact of increasing surplus in the Treasury became the subject of
anxious consideration at a very early period of my Administration, and
the path of duty in regard to it seemed to me obvious and clear, namely:
First, to apply the surplus revenue to the discharge of the public debt
so far as it could judiciously be done, and, secondly, to devise means
for the gradual reduction of the revenue to the standard of the public
exigencies.

Of these objects the first has been in the course of accomplishment in
a manner and to a degree highly satisfactory. The amount of the public
debt of all classes was on the 4th of March, 1853, $69,190,037, payments
on account of which have been made since that period to the amount of
$12,703,329, leaving unpaid and in continuous course of liquidation the
sum of $56,486,708. These payments, although made at the market price of
the respective classes of stocks, have been effected readily and to the
general advantage of the Treas