1847 1,117,830 22 570,841,700 25 895,796,630 65 *Actual payments on the public debt, but not carried into the totals because of repayments to the Treasury. N. L. JEFFRIES, Register TREASURY DEPARTMENT, REGISTER'S OFFICE, November 9, 1867. 370,594 54 5,601,452 15 1,213,823 31 27,632,282 90 6,719,282 37 60.520.851 74 13,036,036 25 15,427,688 42 60,655,143 19 16,452,880 13 56,386,422 74 7,438,728 17 44,604,718 26 4,426,151 83 48,476,104 31 6,322,654 27 46,712,608 83 10,498,905 35 54,577,061 74 75,473,119 08 66,164,775 96 72,726,341 57 6,242,027 61 71,274,587 37 These tables show the wild extravagance of the Government, and the cause of our enormous taxes. The public debt, unnecessarily doubled by the resort to depreciated paper, calls for interest to nearly twice the amount of the whole expenses for any year before the war since the organization of the Government. The civil list alone now costs more than the whole Government during any year of its early stages. Not one step is taken in Congress to diminish these enormous expenditures. Nearly onehalf of our present expenses are occasioned, not by national necessity, but by the reckless and never-ending efforts of the Republicans to retain political power in their own hands. We call upon the people to examine these tables, and to learn where and how these expenses are incurred, and, if they wish them diminished, to secure representatives in Congress who will attend to the interests of their constituents, instead of making the nation pay for keeping the Republican party in power. 139.-OUR PUBLIC DEBT. The Constitution authorizes Congress to borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. This does not authorize taxing the people to sustain Freedmen's Bureaus and armies to govern people in States, or to make and use machinery to produce political effect, which we now see in the Southern States. But we have now a debt upon us, that is already recognized, amounting to $2,757,689,571.43, the details of which we give below. A considerable portion of this vast sum was unauthorized by the Constitution, but cannot now be separated from the honest and legal portion. The evils that are upon us we must endure. But we can secure ourselves against the future by taking the Government from the hands of those who have been unmindful of the Constitution and regardless of their pledges of economy, and place it with those who have been faithful to both, and wise, and sagacious, and will so administer it as to make it a blessing instead of a burden under which the people are bending, staggering, and liable to be crushed, without the hope of possibie relief. Statement of the Public Debt on November 1, 1867. The unrecognized debts, which must be eventually admitted, will add very largely to this amount, and many estimate that it will nearly double it. The money in the Treasury has already gone, without actually diminishing the public debt, in paying interest and meeting new claims under appropriations by Congress. The legislative authority is daily increasing instead of diminishing our public debt. It keeps in the field, at the South, five armies to promote the interests of the Republican party, and a host of Freedmen's Bureau officers and spies, all of whom are worse than useless for any honest pur. pose under the Constitution and laws. Receipts for the last Fiscal Year-June 30, 1867. $176,417,810.88 ... Leaving an estimated surplus over expenditures of $9,000,000. If there should be an annual surplus of nine millions to apply to the discharge of the principal, it would take some two hundred years to pay the whole acknowledged debt. But already the Treasury records show a large falling off of the estimated income, and a very considerable increase of the debt, while our expenses are increasing, and are likely to continue to do so. Let us compare these expenses with those incurred in General Jackson's time: "Whole expenses in 1833 were $24,257,298.44, while the estimated expenses for 1868 are $372,000,000, being over fifteen times as much, and at a time when we have no war on hand, except a political one. Notwithstanding all the estimates and pretences to the contrary, our public debt is increasing, instead of being diminished. When will this enormous debt be paid? Honesty and good faith require us to pay it, just as honest men pay their debts. But the signs indicate that it is not the intention of the Republican party to pay. Stevens, Butler, and other kindred spirits in the House, Sherman and others in the Senate, are engaged, with their political friends in various States, in schemes of indirect repudiation. It is to be done a little at a time, instead of by a bold and open movement, not subject to disguise. They fear that a frank and manly step would be promptly condemned, while they seek to accomplish the result by a less odious name, and in a deceptive form. The scheme is to create a currency more worthless than the present, and to give it the same name, as a more valuable one, pronounced as good as gold when first issued, but not having the funding provisions, and to compel the holders of Government bonds to receive it at par. They propose not only to enforce this inferior currency upon those who sold the Government greenbacks, but upon all holders of Government bonds, whether issued upon liquidated debts or subsequently bought at a large premium in the market without knowing upon what considerations such bonds were issued. These demagogues do not propose any time or mode of payment of the currency they design to issue. It is doubtless expected that this currency will become worthless, and never be redeemed, like that issued during the War of the Revolution. Should this course be pursued, would the Government, under any future exigency, be able to borrow money to meet its necessities? Would foreigners lend their gold and silver, or would our own citizens yield it their confidence, or trust again to its good faith? 140.-A NEW DEPARTMENT IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. The Constitution provides a government with three departments-legislative, executive, and judicial. The powers of each are distinctly specified in the Constitution, each supreme in its sphere, but not superior to the others. When either assumes powers not conferred upon it, its acts are null and void, and bind nobody. The recent attempt of the legislative branch to control the other two, being unauthorized by the Constitution, is wholly null, and its acts are void. Within the last few years there has sprung into existence a new and powerful department, un |