back to this thirty-one millions as the true amount, which they say he recommends to be funded. At least, his own political partisans out of Congress say that is the true amount, as they understand him, and as they, no less than he, were doubtless very anxious to have verified. Then, again, says another of the modern whig presses, this very week, referring to this very report:

"There appears to be a deficiency of revenue of about $11,000,000, and a debt of $31,000,000, which may be augmented at the close of the year."

So, once more:

"Again: if we are to be relieved of the existing debt of $40,000,000, there should be a further augmentation to the revenue of some millions, for the purpose of gradually clearing off that incumbrance."

And another :

"We wish to confine the thoughts of all our readers to one great point, this week, the condition of the United States Treasury, and the amount of Mr. Van Buren's national debt, his legacy to the people—more than THIRTY-ONE MILLIONS.”

Another, going down even to Mr. Ewing's cents, says:

"KEEP IT BEFORE THE PEOPLE, - that it is now officially announced, that the national debt incurred by Mr. Van Buren, during the four years of his administration, amounts to THIRTY-ONE MILLIONS, three hundred and ten thousand, fourteen dollars and twenty cents."

But enough, out of a myriad of such blunders. This, then, is the place, and proper occasion, to correct these scandalous errors, derived from this very document, by the Secretary's own friends. I will endeavor to set history right on this point, before I sit down. These statements as to the contents of the report must be either true or false. I ask, then, first, will Mr. Ewing's supporters on this floor admit that a single one of these statements, made by his and their friends, is true? On the contrary, must they not declare that their own friends, led into error by the Secretary himself, are publishing the foulest misrepresentations of the truth? If they so declare, then let me ask, what a beautiful illustration this collision and contradiction in their own ranks furnish of the boasted clearness and accuracy of this report! for, if the debt already created be not thirty-one millions, according to Mr. Ewing's views, as understood out of Congress, it must be only about six millions, as that is the only other sum, in any other portion of the report, referred to by him as the amount of the debt. It would, then, follow, first, that this document had been drawn up with such special care and clearness as to cause an impression among his own party different from the truth in the enormous amount of near twentyfive millions of dollars! This, too, in a matter most vital to our present meeting, deliberation and action, the amount of the public debt which we are really requested to have funded. It is, too, if a

mistake, and not intended to exhibit the thirty-one millions as a debt, a mistake which has led some of his friends to believe that all the coloring, exaggerations, and calumny, against the past administration, for having created a debt of thirty to forty millions, was now discovered, and proved by official data, to be true as the Gospel of Christ, instead of being false as the Alcoran.

But, on the supposition that the Secretary possibly did mean to convey the idea, and does convey it clearly, as many of his party allege, that the thirty-one millions is the debt inherited from the past administration, and to be now "funded," let us examine, for a moment, the base and shallow pretences for such an idea. We shall, at least, do one benefit by it, if successful. We shall force his friends here to admit that there is no such debt, and that, for political purposes, a vile and monstrous exaggeration has been resorted to by their own party.

If this thirty-one millions be a debt, to whom, then, are we to issue the scrip or certificates of stock, when it is funded, under the funding schemes of the new dynasty? Of the whole amount, one item of near nine millions is money collected chiefly from the United States Bank, on account of the capital we formerly owned there. Is this nine millions a debt we owe, when we have merely collected that amount from our creditors? If so, to whom do we owe it, and why? With a change in our political dynasty friendly to a United States Bank, are we to be called on to refund to that bank all our capital we have collected, and thus generously to aid that distressed and unfortunate corporation, as we propose to aid most of the rest of creation, though pretended by our opponents that we ourselves, the General Government, have been left in the most pitiable and embarrassed condition?

This is one of the greatest humbugs in this age of humbugs, to pretend that a dollar of this nine millions is a debt we owe to anybody, or which should be funded.

The thirty-one millions is, then, reduced to twenty-two. But, mixed up in another item of about seventeen millions, is a balance of money of near eight millions, which was in the treasury on the first of January, 1837, which has been expended, as it should be, on objects directed by Congress. Is that a debt? If so, to whom? Who shall have the stock for it? This is quite too ridiculous for argument, that we are to fund and pay as a debt, to some unknown somebody, seven millions of dollars, which belonged to ourselves, and for which we do not now owe, and never did owe, a cent!

This leaves only fifteen millions, or not half of the mighty thirty

But, of that fifteen, over nine millions is confessedly the fourth instalment. Is that a debt we owe? A debt for what? What property did we get for it; and from whom? No. It will do to talk at ale-houses and political log-cabins about our owing the States this last nine millions. But it is a little too much for a Secretary of the Treasury to countenance such an idea, -a Secretary who had the solemn laws of the twenty-six States before him, and their receipts,

showing that all the instalments were to be considered as money belonging still to the United States, and not to the States. That, instead of owing them the fourth instalment, as a debt, they owed us all the three others, and were liable, and had engaged to return them whenever required. That the transaction was expressly and deliberately agreed to be a mere deposit temporarily, to be returned when needed, and not even a gift outright, and much less a debt owing by us. Much less could it even be pretended, by any intelligent financier, that the United States, by using the fourth instalment, their own money, and for their own public purposes, thereby incurred any debt to the States.

All of the whole thirty-one millions, as a debt, then, after deducting this, dwindles to between four and six millions.

The inflated balloon, so large with party gas, thus pricked, collapses, and leaves nothing but the comparatively small amount of debt named in another portion of the report, and there named as not due now, but in the ensuing year.

What a miserable abortion or pretence there is, then, in all this thirty-one millions, for any debt now due, so as to justify this early session! This scrutiny shows also the carelessness, and originality, at least, of a fiscal officer having a whole head of his report devoted to the "public debt," and yet, in no part of the information given under that head, stating the amount of this public debt. Was ever such wisdom exhibited before? And I now ask any gentleman, on the other side, to inform me, from any part of his report, how much public debt the Secretary means to state has been caused by the appropriations under the past administration; and how much by new appropriations, and his new "Fiscal Bank" scheme, under the present administration?

But one or two minutes longer as to this large item of thirty-one millions. Why was it dragged in so awkwardly in respect to this session, unless it was meant to convey an impression to cursory readers that a debt to this extent had been created by the past administration? It had some object. Was it, then, the mere partisan object of holding up the preceding administration as extravagant and odious? If so, I am ready to prove, from official documents in the Secretary's own office, that he was conveying an impression which he knew, or was bound to know, to be utterly groundless.

Thus, in document No. 497, of the Senate, at the twenty-fifth Congress, second session, it is reported from the treasury department, that the appropriations made by Congress exceeded those asked in the annual estimates over nineteen millions, and in 1837 they exceeded them over seventeen millions, making an aggregate of thirtysix millions of excess. Now, none of those passed in 1837 had been made or expended on the 1st of January, 1837, and probably none of the former ones, being made mostly in July previous, had been expended beyond the sum of four or five millions. There was, then, imposed on this four years, from 1837 to 1841, outstanding appro

priations, beyond the estimates, equal to this whole thirty-one millions, and which, though it or its predecessor never called for them, it was compelled by Congress to expend beyond the ordinary appropriations called for and outstanding. Yet to spend this excess is now imputed to it as extravagance and waste, by some of the very persons in the opposition who were foremost and eager to break down the treasury with them.

Again by another document, No. 450 of the Senate, twenty-sixth Congress, first session, it appears, that in these four years more extraordinary and temporary appropriations were required by Congress to be expended than was the average of the two previous presidential terms by the whole amount of this thirty-one millions, and quite forty-six millions more than in the presidential term of the younger Adams. Yet it is now charged upon Mr. Van Buren and his friends, by those who moved and advocated many of those extra and temporary appropriations, that the balance of only thirty-one millions of excess in his expenditures over the receipts is evidence of his want of economy. A want of economy for a balance against him of thirty-one millions, when they compelled him to expend quite forty-six millions more than were imposed on their own administration.

Nor was this period "a time of peace," as the Secretary states; but it was burdened with one of the most expensive and bloody Indian wars that has ever ravaged our frontier.

Again: look at the other side, to the RECEIPTS in this period, from 1837 to 1840. The executive cannot increase or diminish the receipts, except sometimes from lands, by many or few advertisements. But Congress can. In those years the tariff had become lessened by Congress itself, under a biennial reduction. Was the past administration culpable for that, when the measure originated before it came into power? Over forty millions of revenue, which would otherwise have accrued, had also been relinquished and reduced by the alteration in the tariff of 1832 and 1833. Added to this, the Secretary has seized on a period for his comparison when most extraordinary revulsions had begun in the commercial world, lessening, and almost entirely for a time paralyzing, all revenue. Was this very period picked out on that very account? Had the Secretary intended to draw a fair comparison of the receipts and expenditures, after a great civil revolution, like the accession of General Jackson in 1829, or a great event in the monetary concerns of the country, like the removal of the deposites in 1833, it would have been natural and proper to take these dates, and not 1837. Those two eras of ruin, in the view of most gentlemen on the other side, were a sort of Hegira in their political chronology, and the results would have been useful; but they would not have answered the purpose of conveying to the world an impression of great comparative expense over the receipts, and hence of great supposed wastefulness. Thus, by document No. 212, Senate, 25th Congress, 3d session, and the annual reports since in the finances, it can be seen

that from 1829 to 1840, when the country was ruined by General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, the receipts exceeded the expenditures, instead of the reverse, by quite fourteen millions of dollars; and from 1833 to 1840, by quite three millions; and from 1829 to 1837, by forty millions. Again: if gentlemen would devolve on 1837 the money then on hand, since deposited with the States to the extent of twenty-eight millions, and the balance of near seven millions left beside in the treasury, as well as devolve on 1837 all the excessive outstanding appropriations made in 1836-7, above what the estimates called for, this alone would not only square the accounts, but leave seven millions balance in favor of the past administration. Such and so groundless are some of the obsolete charges now vamped up and newly varnished by the Secretary against his prede

cessors.

I take great pleasure in finding, that in the financial parts of the President's message, he has too much tact to allude at all to this thirty-one millions. He does not treat of its extraordinary items as a debt, or deficit, or evidence of extravagance. But he should have done it, were they either of the former. He knew better, and he did better. He, too, shows the judgment and good sense to extract nothing about this four millions surplus from "the report of the Secretary of the Treasury," to which he expressly refers us (p. 30) as having seen, and as furnishing the data of his own fiscal exhibits.

But gentlemen may argue that, in another portion of the report, it is shown that over thirty-three millions of appropriations were outstanding on the 4th of March, and that this is prima facie evidence, either of a great debt to near that amount, or of great arrearages. Such sage arguments have heretofore been used to reach similar conclusions by our opponents, and they are likely to be again. Even the report seems to give some countenance to such an impression, by swelling the aggregate of appropriations by the addition of all the treasury notes, and giving no explanations how short a time the great mass of these outstanding appropriations had been passed. It is therefore necessary to scrutinize them a single moment. First, then, including only the appropriations for ordinary expenditures, exclusive of any debt or treasury notes, which is the customary mode of stating outstanding appropriations, and the aggregate was only about twentyeight millions, instead of thirty-three millions.

Again: it is a recorded fact, in an exhibit published by an officer of this body, and which I hold in my hand, that near eighteen millions and a third of those twenty-eight had been appropriated, or become chargeable, during the recent session, at the heel of it, and most of them within even three days of the 4th of March.

Yet, without any such explanation, they are sent out to the world, by Mr. Ewing, in a form calculated to create an impression with many that the whole thirty-three millions were old arrearages, or old debts, or evidence of one of them. But, on a scrutiny, it appears that only