cure that service, now become almost essential to the public interests, and at the same, time protect the department from combinations and unreasonable demands.

Nor can I too earnestly request your attention to the necessity of providing a more secure building for this department. The danger of destruction to which its important books and papers are continually exposed, as well from the highly combustible character of the building occupied, as from that of others in the vicinity, calls loudly for prompt action.

Your attention is again earnestly invited to the suggestions and recommendations submitted at the last session in respect to the District of Columbia.

I feel it my duty, also, to bring to your notice certain proceedings at law which have recently been prosecuted in this District, in the name of the United States, on the relation of Messrs. Stockton and Stokes, of the State of Maryland, against the Postmaster General, and which have resulted in the payment of money out of the National Treasury, for the first time since the establishmentof the Government, by judicial compulsion exercised by the common law writ of mandamus, issued by the circuit court of this District.

The facts of the case, and the grounds of the proceedings, will be found fully stated in the report of the decision; and any additional information which you may desire will be supplied by the proper department. No interference in the particular case is contemplated. The money has been paid; the claims of the prosecutors have been satisfied; and the whole subject, so far as they are concerned, is finally disposed of; but it is on the supposition that the case may be regarded as an authoritative exposition of the law as it now stands, that I have thought it necessary to present it to your consideration.

The object of the application to the circuit court was to compel the Postmaster General to carry into effect an award made by the Solicitor of the Treasury, under a special act of Congress for the settlement of certain claims of the relators on the Post Office Department, which award the Postmaster General declined to execute in full, until he should receive further legislative direction on the subject. If the duty imposed on the Postmaster General, by that law, was to be regarded as one of an official nature, belonging to his office as a branch of the Executive, then it is obvious that the constitutional competency of the Judiciary to direct and control him in its discharge, was necessarily drawn in question. And if the duty so imposed on the Postmaster General was to be considered as merely ministerial, and not executive, it yet remained to be shown that the circuit court of this district had au thority to interfere by mandamus-such a power having never before been asserted or claimed by that court. With a view to the settlement of these important questions, the judgment of the circuit court was carried, by a writ of error, to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the opinion of that tribunal, the duty imposed on the Postmaster General was not an official, executive duty, but one of a merely ministerial nature. grave constitutional questions which had been discussed were, therefore, excluded from the decision of the case; the court, indeed, expressly admitting that, with powers and duties properly belonging to the Executive, no other department can interfere by the writ of mandamus; and the question, therefore, resolved itself into this: Has Congress conferred upon the circuit court of this District the power to issue such a writ to an officer of the General Government, commanding him to perform a ministerial act? A majority of the court have decided that it has, but have founded their decision upon a process of reasoning which, in my judg ment, renders further legislative provision indispensable to the public interests and the equal administration of justice.

The

It has long since been decided by the Supreme Court, that neither that tribunal nor the circuit courts of the United States held within the respective States, possess the power in question; but it is now held that this power, denied to both of these high tribunals, (to the former by the Constitution,

and to the latter by Congress,) has been, by its legislation, vested in the circuit court of this District. No such direct grant of power to the circuit court of this District is claimed; but it has been held to result, by necessary implication, from several sections of the law establishing the court. One of these sections declares, that the laws of Maryland, as they existed at the time of the cession, should be in force in that part of the District ceded by that State; and, by this provision, the common law, in civil and criminal cases, as it prevailed in Maryland in 1801, was established in that part of the District.

In England, the Court of King's Bench-because the sovereign, who, according to the theory of the Constitution, is the fountain of justice, originally sat there in person, and is still deemed to be present, in construction of law-alone possesses the high power of issuing the writ of mandamus, not only to inferior jurisdictions and corporations, but also to magistrates and others, commanding them, in the King's name, to do what their duty requires, in cases where there is a vested right, and no other specific remedy. It has been held, in the case referred to, that, as the Supreme Court of the United States is, by the Constitution, rendered incompetent to exercise this power, and as the circuit cart of this District is a court of general jurisdiction in cases at common law, and the highest court of original jurisdiction in the District, the right to issue the writ of mandamus is incident to its common law powers. Another groun1 relied upon to maintain the power in question, is, that it was included, by fair construction, in the power it granted to the circuit courts of the United States, by the act "to provide for the more convenient organization of the courts of the United States," passed 13th of February, 1801; that the act establishing the circuit court of this District, passed the 27th day of February, 1801, conferred upon that court and the judges thereof the same powers as were by law vested in the circuit courts of the United States and in the judges of the said courts; that the repeal of the first mentioned act, which took place in the next year, did not divest the circuit court of this District of the authority in dispute, but left it still clothed with the powers over the subject which, it is conceded, were taken away from the circuit courts of the United States by the repeal of the act of 13th February, 1801.

Admitting that the adoption of the laws of Maryland for a portion of this District confers on the circuit court thereof, in that portion, the transcendent extra-judicial prerogative powers of the Court of King's Bench, in England, or that either of the acts of Congress, by necessary implication, authorize the former court to issue a writ of mandamus to an officer of the United States, to compel him to perform a ministerial duty, the consequences are, in one respect, the same. The result in either case is, that the officers of the United States, stationed in different parts of the United States, are, in respect to the performance of their official duties, subject to different laws and a different supervision: those in the States to one rule, and those in the District of Columbia to another and a very different one. In the District their official conduct is subject to a judicial control, from which in the States they are exempt.

Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the expediency of vesting such a power in the judiciary, in a system of Government constituted like that of the United States, all must agree that these disparaging discrepancies in the law and in the administration of justice ought not to be permitted to continue; and as Congress alone can provide the remedy, the subject is unavoidably presented to your consideration.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, December 3, 1838. The Message having been read, On motion of Mr. WRIGHT, Ordered, That the usual number of copies be printed, and that five thousand additional copies without the documents, and fifteen hundred copies with the documents, be printed for the use of the Senate.

On motion,

The Senate adjourned.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

TUESDAY, December 4, 1838.

HUGH A. GARLAND, esq. Clerk elect of the Honse of Representatives, presented himself at the Speaker's table, and took the oaths of office.

The message from the Senate for the appointment of a joint committee of the two Houses to wait on the President, and inform him that they were ready to receive any communication from him, was taken up, as the business first in order, and concurred in.

The committee on the part of the House was ordered to consist of three, and was composed of the following gentlemen:

Mr. CAMBRELENG, of New York.
Mr. CONNOR, of North Carolina.
Mr. LINCOLN, of Massachusetts.

The SPEAKER laid before the House the fol lowing communication from the Hon. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, which was read:

To the President of the Senate and Speaker of the

House of Representatives of the United States: In compliance with the request of Mr. George Washington Lafayette, and of the respective family of our late illustrious and ever-venerated friend, General Lafayette, I have the honor of presenting to Congress, in their name, a copy of the memoirs and writings of their houored parent, recently published by them, to be deposited in the Library of Congress. JOHN Q. ADAMS.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES U. S.

Monday, December 3, 1838. Mr. A. then submitted the following resolution, which was agreed to nem diss.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the thanks of this Congress be presented to George Washington Lafayette, the son, and to the surviving family, of the late illustrious and lamented General Lafayette, for the copy of his memoirs and writings, recently published by them, and presented in their name to this Congress, to be deposited in their library; and that the same be deposited in the said library accordingly.

On motion of Mr. HARLAN, the usual order for furnishing members with newspapers, not to exceed the price of three daily papers, was agreed to.

On motion of Mr. GRENNELL, a joint resolution for the election of two chaplains to the two Houses, for the present session, was agreed to.

Mr. TAYLOR submitted the following, which was rejected:

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to report a plan for carrying into effect, as far as practicable, the order of the House of the 2d July last, directing that, in the new arrangement of the Hall, the members should be entitled, as near as may be, to the same relative position to the CHAIR which they then occupied, or to devise and report such other mode of assigning seas to members as the committee may deem equitable and proper.

Mr. ADAMS, on leave, submitted the following: Resolved, That all the petitions, memorials, and remoustrances against the annexation of the Republic of Texas to the United States, presented at the first and second sessions of the present Congress, together with the resolutions of the Legisla tures of the States of Alabama, Tennessee, Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio, Michigan, and Massachusetts, now on file in the clerk's office, relating to that subject, be taken from, the said files, and referred to a select committee of - members, to consider and report thereon. Mr. HOWARD moved to lay the resolution on the table.

Mr. ADAMS called for the yeas and nays; which were ordered.

Mr. MERCER requested the gentleman from Maryland to withdraw the motion for a moment to enable him (Mr. M.) to propound a question to that gentleman. Mr. M. promised to renew the motion.

Mr. HOWARD withdrew it.

Mr. MERCER wished to know whether the ap plication of the Republic of Texas for admission into this Union had not been withdrawn?

Mr. HOWARD was understood to express his belief that it had, though he had no other know.

The receipts during the first three quarters of 1838, with exceptions similar to these before named, are ascertained and estimated to have been Viz:

Customs, including postponed bonds

[Of this sum, about $2,900,000, received in Treasury notes, cannot,until the settlements to which they belong shall be completed by the accounting officers, be entered upon the Register's books. A part will be carried into the Treasury warrant during the fourth quarter, and the remainder next year.]

Lands
Miscellaneous

by

$37,166,251 98 Naval service, etc. Public debt,

$31,075,723 19

$12,228,770 56

2,036,828 54 238,431 85

2,254,871 38

1,600,000 00

12,716,820 86

Redemption of Trea

sury notes, including interest

4,325,563 21

1,217 08

4,339,440 64 The expenditures during the fourth quarter, including $1,000 interest on funded debt, and the redemption of $3,750,000 of Treasury notes, are estimated by the different departments at $13,511,920 10. But it is not expected that the redemption of all these notes will appear on the Register's books until next year. Nor does the undersigned anticipate that the actual expenditures within this quarter, including the above notes redeemed, will exceed

Making an aggregate of expenditures for the year 1838, of

12,000,000 00

- $40,427,218 68

The payments on account of the funded and

unfunded debt, since the 1st December, 1837, have been as follows:

1. On account of the principal and interest of the funded debt:

It is proper to ascertain, in the next place, how much of this balance is not immediately available and applicable to public purposes.

The sum of $28,101,644 97, which has been placed with the States for safekeeping, is a part of that balance, and cannot, by the provisions of the act of October 14, 1837, be made available till directed by Congress.

Another part is about $1,100,000 00, due chiefly from various insolvent banks, on account of the money that before 1837 had been placed in their custody, to the credit of the Treasurer, and still remaius unpaid.

Another portion is near $2,400,000 00, which is due from banks that suspended specie payments in 1837, and will probably not be paid during the present year.

About $500,000 of the amount which has been placed in the Mint, for the specific purposes designated in the laws on that subject, is another part of that balance, which could not at once be made available for other objects without much public inconvenience.

The aggregate of these items, not immediately available and applicable to public purposes, is $32,101,644 97; and if deducted from the foregoing balance, it would leave on the 1st of January next, as stated in the commencement of this report, only the sum of $2,765,342 36 then available, and applicable to those purposes.

Subjoined is a condensed view of the receipts and means, as well as the expenditures for 1838, as ascertained and estimated; also the funds not available in that year.

III. EXPLANATIONS AS TO THE APPROPRIATIONS OUTSTANDING.

The appropriations heretofore made, which will remain unsatisfied at the end of the year 1838, and be chargeable on the balance then in the Treasury, and the revenue subsequently received, are estimated by the other departments at $13,187,426 83, bu: by the undersigned at $1,511,920 10 more, in consequence of estimating the expenditures of the fourth quarter differently.

Upon the view taken by this department, it is computed that $12,369,623 68 of those appropriations will be required to be paid, in order to accomplish the objects contemplated by them.

Of the remainder, about $370,360 40 may go to the surplus fund, or not be needed to accomplish those objects; and the residue, being $1,959,362 85, it is proposed to apply to the service of the ensuing year, without reappropriation.

IV. ESTIMATE OF THE RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES FOR 1839.

The receipts into the Treasury during the year 1839, are estimated at $28,780,000 00

Viz:

$19,000,000 00 4,500,000 00 500,000 00

2,380,000 00

For further particulars see the details of the annual estimates.

It will be perceived by these statements, that no surplus balance will probably exist either on the 1st of January, 1839, or during that year, to be deposited with the several States for safekeeping, as a fourth instalment under the deposite act of June, 23, 1836. Indeed, great care will be necessary in restricting the appropriations to the necessary wants of the Government, or the receipts will not be sufficient to meet the current demands on the Treasury, unless those receipts should unexpectedly exceed the present estimates.

When an unusual excess existed in the Treasury, it was proposed to place that fourth instalment with the States for safekeeping till needed; but before it became payable, the money was wanted to discharge existing appropriations. The deposite of it was, therefore, postponed by Congress till next January, and the money has been used by the United States, to which it belonged, without incurring the expense and inconvenience, to all the parties concerned, of paying and then immediately recal-, ling it. That instalment is not a debt due to the States, and, hence, is not required to be paid like an appropriation for the public service. Yet the remark may properly be added, that if a surplus should hereafter accrue, large enough, after defraying all the existing charges imposed by Congress upon the Treasury, to make the deposite originally contemplated, this department, with its present views, would feel bound to carry it into effect, unless Congress, in the mean time, should further modify the laws now in force in relation to the subject.

V. EXPORTS AND IMPORTS IN 1838.

The exports during the year ending September 30, 1838, are computed to have been $103,136,000. Of these, about $90,666,000 were of domestic, and $12,470,000 of foreign origin.

The former have diminished from the previous year, $4,898,414, and the latter, $9,384,962. The imports for the same year were $112,000,000.

These are $28,989,217 less in value than those of the previous year, being nearly $78,000,000 less than those under the enormous overtrading and other overactions which characterized 1836.

For further particulars reference may be had to the table annexed.

It is an interesting fact, that during the last three years more than $86,000,000 annually, or an average of nearly nine-tenths of our whole domestic exports, have been derived from agriculture. More than seven-tenths of our whole population are probably employed in that useful pursuit.

VI. EXPLANATIONS OF THE ESTIMATES OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES, AND SUGGESTIONS ON THE MODE OF MEETING FLUCTUATIONS IN THEM.

The receipts from customs during the present year, will vary but little from the estimate submitted in the last annual report. The receipts from lands will be less; but the amount of sales made, and pre-emption rights existing, will not differ essentially from what was anticipated, though the act of Congress, as to the latter, passed so late that payments for all of them could not be realized till another year, without causing much inconvenience and unnecessary pressure in some portions of the country.

The estimates presented for new appropriations and for expenditures, in 1838, were quite as large as the views of the different departments, at the time Congress assembled in December last, appeared to justify. But the unexpected continuance of the Florida war, a solicitude to induce the Cherokees to remove peaceably, and an earnest desire to suppress, with promptitude, all threatened disturbances on our northern frontier, with several other measures of less importance, originating in Congress, led that body to make appropria tions amounting to nearly ten millions beyond those requested in the annual estimates. Some provision of additional means, corresponding to this excess, became, therefore, necessary; and, in order to discharge the excess, and guard against contingencies, as well as avert the consequences of a protracted suspension of specie payments by the banks, Congress wisely granted the additional authority both to sell the bonds of the United States Bank and to issue new Treasury notes, instead of such as might be paid in before the time for their redemption arrived. The apprehensions of embarrassments in the finances within the year, which had arisen from those unexpected appropriations, and from the failure that then continued among the banks in most quarters of the Union to return to specie payments, were removed by these opportune provisions. Occasions, however, have not yet arisen to require the full use of either of them.

The whole amount of Treasury notes outstanding at any one time since they were first authorized, in October, 1837, has never equalled ten millions of dollars. The amount now outstanding is only $7,754,560. Beside the restrictions on the sale of the bonds of the United States Bank, the want of power to guaranty their eventual payment, and the short period they had to run, with the great quantity of State stocks in the market of a better character for permanent investment, caused some temporary inconvenience, and prevented any offer for them above par, either at home or abroad. The sale, however, of one becoming expedient, it was effected within the limitations prescribed. It has not yet been found necessary to dispose of the other. But it is expected that, when the period for redeeming most of the outstanding Treasury notes arrives, it must be sold, unless other means to meet the public engagements shall, in the mean time, be provided by Congress.

If the receipts from customs or lands should exceed the estimates made for the ensuing year, which, in the vacillations of trade, is not very improbable, still it is not supposed the excess will be so large that all the expected charges on the year can be defrayed without a sale of the remaining bond, or some equivalent resource.

The estimates of receipts for 1839, rest on the following general views: An overflowing tide of

speculation and bank issues, like that of 1836, is not anticipated, while the recent evils and disasters from these sources are fresh in remembrance. Noi, on the contrary, is any expectation entertained of a repetition, so soon, of the mercantile revulsions which characterized the year 1837.

The receipts from duties during the last year, if the bonds had not been postponed, would have been about $16 000,000. Those of the present year, in the ordinary operation of the laws, without the postponed bonds, will not probably exceed $13,000,000.

By supposing a large increase of 50 per cent. in 1839, beyond the ordinary receipts for the last year, they would amount to between nineteen and twenty millions, and would be larger than the receipts in 1835. Such an increase would be greater than in any previous year of our history, not affected by commercial restrictions, foreign wars, or important changes in the tariff.

Considering that, under the present credits, the duties actually paid within any calendar year must be estimated chiefly on the imports from the first of July preceding, to the first of July in that year, and that two biennial reductions in the tariff have occurred since 1835, it is believed that nineteen or twenty millions is an estimate sufficiently high for 1839.

But as the receipts of late have depended, much less than formerly, when credits were longer and almost universal, on the amount of bonds taken in previous years, the estimates must be much more conjectural; and intestine commotions, wars in Europe or on our own borders, fluctuations in crops or prices, and various other contingencies in the ensuing year, which cannot be foreseen or computed, may vary the result several millions.

The reduced receipts both from lands and duties in 1837 and 1838, as compared with the two preceding years, were anticipated by the department in 1836, and a permanent provision to meet any deficiency was earnestly urged on the consideration of Congress.

Confident as were the expectations entertained by many, that the revenue of 1837 would be so great as to justify further large deposites with the States, and severe as were the censures bestowed on those who expressed apprehensions of a different result, a striking dimunition in the revenue actually occurred. Although any difference of opinion on a point of so much importance to the public faith was deeply regretted by the department, yet it felt constrained, at that time, to regard many appearances of extraordinary prosperity as delusive; the existing surplus as temporary and fallacious in its characte.; and consequently believed that much of it was likely to be required in a few years to meet deficiences in the revenue, arising from the progressive reduction of the tariff, and those fluctuations in income and expenditure to which all Governments are more or less subject, and to which our own system of finance is peculiarly exposed.

Apart from the contingencies of war, and other exigencies affecting expenditure, it is impossible, under the ebbs and floods of trade and speculations of all kinds, which, with the present banking system, are as certain though not so regular as the tides, that a revenue derived chiefly from foreign importations, and the sales of land, should not vibrate with such changes. The Department, therefore, has discharged a duty deemed imperative, in urging on the attention of Congress, at several sessions, some permanent and efficient arrangement for enabling the Treasury to meet such fluctuations without injury to the public credit.

On one occasion, permanent legislation in respect to this point did take place. But that has been repealed, or indefinitely postponed by the act of October 12, 1837; and the temporary measures substitute, having nearly ceased their operation, the necessity for some further provision is apparent. The form scems to be the great question of difficulty; there being, it is apprehended, a general concurrence of views in favor of having some effectaal provision on a subject of such obvious impor

lance.

The investment of a part of the surplus in the Treasury in State stocks, in the manner which for

several years lias been successfully practised, under the acts of Congress, as to large sums belonging to the Indians, so as to constitute a provident fund to meet contingencies and fluctuations, was the mode first recommended by the department. But a substitute for this plan was preferred by Congress, which directed the whole surplus to be deposited with the States for safekeeping, and enabied the Secretary of the Treasury to recall it, whenever needed for public purposes. In the autumn of 1837, however, when the necessity of resorting to this substitute was in view, Congress postponed its operation. Instead of it, the power to issue Treasury notes for a limited period was granted, and for additional security against deficiencies, the deposite of the fourth instalment with the States, was deferred till next January, and afterwards the power to sell the bonds of the United States Bank was added. But both of those powers will soon be inoperative, and without some further legislation on this subject, which shall be of an efficient character, and be available at an early day, the preservation of the public faith must be endangered.

Recent experience is full of admonition on this question. Since the extinguishment of the national debt, and especially within the last three years, it has been the policy of Congress to avoid a large balance in the Treasury immediately available, which, if unemployed for the public service, was regarded as taken from the circulation of the country, and in some degree hoarded, though deposited in banks which had made the public money the basis of enlarged operations. This policy, as it obviates the hazard attending such operations, as well as the imputation of improper influence in the management of the money, is certainly the most prudent. But the preservation of the public faith, either under the former practice of keeping the money in banks, or under the proposed system of an Independent Treasury, may occasionally render other resources necessary, from the considerable fluctuations which are frequently occuring in our receipts and expenditures from year to year, and even from month to month. Thus, the receipts from the usual sources, which were, in 1834, about twenty-one millions, rose unexpectedly in 1836 to forty-eight millions; but fell again as suddenly in 1837 to only about nineteen millions. So the aggregate expenditures in 1834 and 1835, independent of any payments for trusts or the national debt, were only seventeen or eighteen millions; but from Indian wars and other causes they rapidly rose, and, notwithstanding the diminution in receipts, have remained since not far from thirty millions yearly. Again, in the month of January last, the expenditures were only about one million eight hundred thousand dollars; and in May last, only two million two hundred and fortytwo thousand dollars; but in July, they suddenly increased to over four million five hundred thousand dollars, being an excess, in a single month, of nearly two millions and a third, or more more than enough to sweep off, in thirty days, the whole balance on hand. Consequently, at any period, with only a million or two in the Treasury, and the current receipts being less than two millions monthly, it is obvious that the public engagements could not all be punctually met, unless some power, like those before named, shall exist to provide for calls so unequal in different portions of the year, as well as in different years. Though the receipts for any one year may be equal to the whole expenditures within it, even that will not remove the difficulty. The expenditures may be required in larger proportions in the first half of the year, and the greatest receipts occur in the last half.

Having the power to issue Treasury notes during 1838, the department has been enabled, by the aid of that and other means, to meet every authorized ngagement with punctuality. A power of a similar kind has been found in other countries, during more than a century, to be indispensable to sustain public credit. If we keep only a small available balance in the Treasury, and realize only the comparatively small income which is desirable since the discharge of the national debt, and this income shall continue to be affected by the periodical fluctuations of receipts which are pro

bable, under the changes going on in the tariff, as well as in banking and the habits of trade, this power, or some equivalent resource, seems to be essential to the support of the public faith, in the scrupulous manner required by justice and sound policy.

The estimates of expenditures in 1839, have been formed on the most economical basis which the different departments think the public interests will permit. They are less than those of either of the two preceding years, under many heads, and are several millions less than either the appropri ations made by Congress in those years, or the ex penditures actually paid within them. Judging from past experience alone, the probabilities would be, that the appropriations to be made at the present session will exceed by some millions the esti mates submitted.

But such additional appropriations, to any considerable extent, are not anticipated, when the whole circumstances of the country and of the Treasury shall have been calmly reviewed by Congress. No doubt exists with the undersigned that prudence, at this time, requires a reduction, rather than an increase, in the aggregate of the annnal appropriations. Besides what is dictated on this subject by a wise public frugality, and the straitened condition of the Treasury, it is probable that, by the gradual reduction in the tariff, which is in pro gress under the existing laws, the receipts from customs, which now average sixteen or seventeen millions yearly, will, by 1842, be so far diminished

as

not then to exceed ten or twelve millions. Hence, if the annnal expenses do not by that? period undergo a reduction in some degree corre sponding, so as not to surpass that sum and the few additional millions which may then be derived from the sales of the public lands, an unpleasant resort to another increase of the tariff, or to a recall of deposites with the States, or to permane:t loans, will then, if not sooner, become indispensable.

The further details connected with the diminution in our revenue by 1842, under the existing laws, were so fully exhibited in the annual report in 1835, that the undersigned forbears, on this occasion, to repeat them. But in commencing the unpleasant task of reduction in the expenditures, a question naturally arises as to what items it should first be applied. The department would not be understood as urging retrenchment or parsimony, where the object is great, pressing, and constitutional. It has always approved, not only those appropriations which are necessary to satisfy the ordinary wants of the public service, and others rendered proper to vindicate our rights and national character in war, but those which our unex ampled increase in territory, numbers, and wealth, may have required, in order, at all times, to afford due protection to persons and property abroad, as well as at home, and discharge with efficiency ail those momentous duties which have been clearly and wisely devolved on the Government of the Union. A judiciary for twenty-six, instead of thirteen States, must of course require more officers and expense. An army to guard an inland frontier of five thousand miles in extent, and embracing one million and a half of square miles of territory mote than in 1789; and a navy to protect a sea coast of over hree thousand miles and a commerce of two millions tonnage, instead of less than half a mil lion, with annual imports and exports of nearly three hundred millions in value, instead of forty three millions, must necessarily require a large ad dition to the public burdens. But, at the same time some of these circumstances evince, with equa clearness, a flattering change in our ability to sus tain those burdens.

This country is not, like most others, stationary either in its fiscal wants or its fiscal means, but ex hibits more clearly every year the interesting de yelopment of the wants and means of manhood compared with those of infancy.

Besides the increased demands on the Treasur before mentioned, there has sprang up a light-hous establishment, exceeding, in extent, that of any o the powers in Europe, with a plan of river and ha boi improvements, of constructing national road hospitals, mints, forts, arsenals, armories, nav