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Statement No. 25 Amount of the tonnage of the United States annually from 1789 to 1863. Also the registered aud enrolled and licensed tonnage employed in steam navigation each year

279

tatement No. 26 Stocks held in trust by the United States for the Chickasaw na-
tional fund and the Smithsonian Institution.....
Statement No. 27. Range of prices of staple articles in the New York market at the
beginning of each month in each year from 1825 to 1863.....

280

283

No. 28. Regulations concerning commercial intercourse with and in States declared
in insurrection, and the collection of abandoned and captured property.....

403

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ERRATA.

On page 241 the total of receipts for the year 1863, exclusive of loans and treasury notes, should be $132,889,746 95, instead of $144,635,769 29; and the total receipts from all sources should be $889,379,652 52, instead of 8901,125,574 86.

1

FINANCE REPORT.

LETTER

FROM THE

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY,

TRANSMITTING HIS

ANNUAL REPORT ON THE FINANCES.

DECEMBER 10, 1863.-Referred to the Committee of Ways and Means and ordered to be printed.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

December 10, 1863.

SIR: In compliance with the act of Congress of May 10, 1800, I have the honor to transmit herewith the annual report on the national finances.

Very respectfully,

S. P. CHASE, Secretary of the Treasury.

Hon. SCHUYLER COLFAX,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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In submitting to the consideration of Congress the report on the state of the finances, required of him by law at the commencement of each session, the Secretary of the Treasury has much satisfaction in being able to say, in general, that the operations of the department intrusted to his charge have been attended, during the last fiscal year, by a greater measure of success than he ventured to anticipate at its beginuing.

At the beginning of that year all demands on the treasury had indeed been discharged, and there remained a balance to the credit of the Treasurer of $13,043,546 81. But the large disbursements, constantly demanded by military and naval operations, reduced, by comparison, this seemingly considerable balance to almost inconsiderable proportions, and the practical operations of the restrictive provisions of the acts authorizing the negotiation of the bonds known as five-twenties, the most important loan acts not already fully availed of, made new negotiations for adequate amounts and on admissible terms quite im practicable. The reverses which befel our arms in June, July, and August, increased the difficulties of the situation, so that, though the Secretary was enabled under existing legislation to provide largely for the increasing disbursements, there remained necessarily unpaid, on the first day of the last session of Congress, requisitions on the treasury, chiefly from the War and Navy Depart menta, amounting in the aggregate to the sum of $46,394,875 80.

To provide for these requisitions and for current demands, Congress, on the 17th of January, 1863, authorized an additional issue of United States notes to the amount of one hundred millions of dollars; but did not reach any definite conclusions in regard to loans in time to imbody them in an act before the day on which the session closed.

On that day, March 3, 1863, the act to provide ways and means for the sup port of the government received the approval of the President, and became law. In addition to various provisions for loans, it contained clauses repealing the restrictions affecting the negotiation of the five-twenties, and thus disengaged that important loan from the embarrassments which had previously rendered it almost unavailable.

A week earlier, on the 25th of February, an act, even more important to the credit of the government-the act to provide a national currency through a

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