III. THE ESTIMATES OF THE PUBLIC REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES FOR THE YEAR 1835, Next require attention, and are as follows: The receipts into the Treasury from all sources during the year 1835, are estimated at Viz: From Customs, Public lands, $20,000,000 00 Bank dividends, and miscellaneous receipts, 500,000 To which add the balance of available funds in the Trea- 5,586,232 34 - $25.586,232 34 The necessary appropriations for the year 1835, including those under new and permanent acts, are estimated at $15,660,232 73; but the whole expenditures for the service of that year are estimated to require the additional sum of $1,523,308 79, which has before been appropriated and mentioned as applicable to the wants of 1835 without a reappropriation, making, together $17,183,541 52 Viz : Civil, foreign intercourse, and miscellaneous$2,788,225 85 propriations under act of June 7, 1832, 9,672,654 50 Unclaimed interest on public debt, 50.000 00 Naval service and gradual improvement, 4,672,661 17 To this add, as a contingent expenditure, about half of the amount of the average excess of appropriations beyond the estimates during the last three years, And they make the sum of 2,500,000 00 $19,683,541 52 Leaving an available balance in the Treasury at the close of the year 1835, or on the 1st of January, 1836, estimated at $5,902,690 82. But should the whole amount of former appropriations, current and permanent, that will be outstanding on the 1st of January, 1835, and be needed to complete the services of former years, amounting, in all, as before shown, to the sum of $6,141,707 20, be actually called for during the year 1835, there would be an apparent deficiency in the Treasury on the 1st of January, 1836. It usually happens, however, that, of the new and the old appropriations, a sum of five or six millions remains uncalled for at the commencement of each year and hence no real deficit is then anticipated, nor much, if any, excess after defraying all the expenditures then chargeable to the Treasury. This estimate of receipts is formed on the supposition that the value of imports during the ensuing year, and especially of those paying duties, will not differ essentially from the average value during the last three years. Though our population has within that period probably increased over one million, yet our manufactures and internal trade have probably increased nearly in an equal proportion; and this circumstance, coupled with the greater caution and frugality practised during the past year, and still continuing, will, it is believed, tend to prevent any considerable augmentation in the consumption or importation of foreign articles The imports during the year ending September 30, 1834, are estimated in value at $123,093,351, being, compared with the preceding year, an increase of $14,101,541. Those during the three past years have, on an average, been about $111,038.142. The exports during the same year are estimated at $97,318,724, of which $74,444,429 were in domestic, and $22,874,295 in foreign products, being, compared with the preceding year, an increase of $6,655,321, of which $3,802,399 were in articles of domestic, and $2,852,922 in those of foreign products. The average exports during the last three years have been about $91,719,690, of which $69,407,976 are the average in articles of domestic products, and $22,311,714 in those of foreign. Should It will thus be seen, that the imports of the last year varied in amount |$12,055,209 from the average of the three past years, and those paying duties are believed to have varied much less. It is therefore, in connexion with the reasons before named, consiuered safe to infer that the imports of the ensuing year may not differ materially from that average they not so differ, the revenue from customs will probably correspond in substance with that of the past year, except so far as it may be changed by the whole amount of all the importations when compared with the above average; because the classes and value of articles paying duty, for aught which is known, will probably be similar, and the rate of duties on them will not, by existing laws, be essentially altered till the 31st December, 1835. The revenue from the sale of public lands has been estimated at half a million more than the amount it was estimated for the current year, and one million more than the amount for 1833. This estimate would have been made still larger, had not the sales of the Chickasaw lands, which will probably exceed half a million of dollars, been pledged by treaty to other purposes, and not to the general revenue of the Government. This large computation is founded on the facts of the progressive increase for some time evinced; the sum actually received during the past year; the great quantity of new and saleable lands coming into market; the enlarged demand for them to satisfy the necessary wants of our growing population, and of the emigrants from Europe; and the high prices which their produce fortunately obtains both at home and abroad. The revenue from bank dividends has been estimated at somewhat less than heretofore, in consequence of the sales of our bank stock, under the act of July 10, 1832, for the investment of the accruing income of the navy pension and hospital funds having already amounted to $656,600, and on which the Treasury can now receive no dividends applicable to general purposes. It might, perhaps, be advisable to deduct a still further sum to meet any contingency like that of the present year, in which the United States Bank, without the consent of this department, or the sanction of Congress, and without any forewarning of its intention, seized on about $170,041 of the estimated revenue from this source, and has since withheld it from the public Treasury. Copies of the opinious of the Attorney General, and the whole correspondence on this subject between the department and the bank, which took place previously to the request for these opinions, are annexed for the consideration and action of Congress. It may be proper to add, that, within a few days past, a new communication in relation to this transaction has been received from the bank, and, when a reply is finished, both will be subinitted, if desired. No foundation appears to have existed, in law or equity, for the great claim of damages made by the bank on account of the protest of what has been called, in common parlance, the bill of exchange drawn on the French Government by this department. It is believed that the bill, when protested, ought by our agents abroad, had they acted with due regard towards their principal, to have been taken up for the credit of that principal, which was the United States, rather than for the credit of the bauk; or, at the furthest, if similar and conflicting relations existed between them and the bank, they should have pursued the equitable course of taking it up for the credit of both the United States and the bank, or the more liberal one of giving the preference to the Government, which was the drawer; and, in either of these events, no room for difficulty by this extraordinary claim would probably have been left. But as these agents preferred a different course thereby justly impairing the further confidence of the Government in their discretion, it would seem that the bank, in the next place, having long been the general fiscal agent of the Government, and the primary one in importance, should have returned the bill, and made no charge against its principal, the United States, except for the actual advances, and the actual costs and expenses it had incurred in the transaction. The actual advances by the bank when the bill was originally received, had ouly been a matter of form, and were nothing. The money, in fact, never belonged to this department, except in trust for the merchants, or their widows and orphans, who had suffered by French spoliations: and a sum exceeding the whole amount of it having been left in the bank and its branches, and no part of the money having ever been brought into the Treasury by warrant, it was, immediately on notice of the protest, restored in form, and a willingness was expressed to make remuneration to the bank for all reasonable costs and expenses. But the temptation of an opportunity to obtain more from its principal, by a novel species of litigation, through a virtual judicial prosecution for damages against the Government of the Union, seems to have been too strong for resistance; and the bank concluded to depart from the above equitable rule, and, by some technical regulation of strict law between individuals, to attempt to procure a large sum, as mere constructive damages; and by the extraordinary mode of seizing on the dividends, which had been declared by the bank itself to belong to the United States, and of withholding them, to abide the ordinary contingencies of a law-suit. It seems to have preferred this unprecedented course rather than to pursue the usual mode of a petition addressed to the justice of Congress, though Congress is well known to be the customary and only tribunal for adjusting controverted claims against the Government, when no suit is pending by the United States, and the only tribunal, which, under the constitution, is empowered to appropriate money to discharge any claim whate ver. After applying to this department, and being, so long as a year ago last June, informed of its inability to admit, or authority to discharge the damages demanded, it is remarkable that the bank should have continued to pay over the accruing dividends, and not till after the last session closed, and when any deficiency in the current revenue could not be provided for, should, without any prior application to Congress, have resorted to this unusual proceeding, and sought to have its claim against the United States adjudicated by the Judiciary, when the United States are not amenable to any citizen or corporation, high or low, betore the judiciary, for the decision of any claim, unless they have of their own accord, been pleased to resort to that tribunal, by a previous action against a debtor; and in which event only is a set-off, under certain limitations, authorized to be pleaded as either equitable or legal. But here the United States had instituted no such action against the bank, and had no intention or foundation to institute one; aud yet the bank, not in the case provided in the charter where dividends might be withheld, but by an unfaithful act as an agent, and as a public corporation, towards its principal and the community, proceeded to seize their dividends in a case entirely different and most questionable, in equity as well as law, and refused to fulfil the duty imposed by its charter, and by civil and moral obligations, of paying over those dividends promptly to the Treasury. In the adoption of this reprehensible course, an attempt is made to force the Government either to lose their dividends entirely, or to pay a controverted claim for damages, which, so far as any of its departments or officers have examined it, was found, and pronounced to be, groundless; or consent to let the United States be arraigned as a debtor, and compelled to submit the claim to decision before a branch of their own Government, to which such claims are not ordinarily submitted, and to whose decision it could not be referred, in this instance, but by the previous commission, on the part of the bank, of a deliberate violation of its obligations. The further attempt appears to be made, in this way, to take from Congress and the Executive, the constitutional power, on their high official responsibilities and deep sense of duty, to make or withhold appro priations to discharge all controverted demands against the United States and to enable the judiciary, instead of them, indirectly and unconstitu tionally to make these appropriations, in all cases of citizens or corporations who possess doubtful claims, and are unscrupulous enough to commit, in order to prevent their adjudication by Congress, a deliberate] attack on the property of the United States, or a deliberate sequestration of their acknowledged dues. For further and more detailed views on this extraordinary case, a reference is made to the whole correspondence and opinions annexed, without the discussion of any course which the power and the wisdom of Congress are able to select for evincing its opinions on this outrage, whether by withdrawing indulgencies from the bank as to the receipt of its notes for public dues, or by adopting some other measure on the subject, which the nature of the transaction, the rights of the United States, and the constitutional authority of Congress, may be thought to justify and demand. Believing that a similar seizure was not likely to be repeated by the bank in 1835, under the other pretence of satisfying claims for damages, in consequence of the removal of the deposites, as set up in its second letter, this department has estimated the probable revenue the ensuing year from this source, at the usual rate of dividends lately made on all our stock in the bank, remaining after the sales which have taken place for the investment of the navy pension and hospital funds. But should Congress, on a full examination of the subject, think otherwise, it may be provident to supply some other equivalent for this portion of the estimated receipts. The estimate of revenue from miscellaneous sources has been computed a little below the actual receipts of the current year, because the dividends applicable to general purposes will be on a less amount of bank stock, and the anticipated sales of such stock, to meet the further wants of the beforementioned funds, will be much reduced. In this explanation of the estimate of the receipts during the coming year, it is hoped that satisfactory reasons have been assigned to shew its general accuracy. This estimate being one and a half million larger than that of last year, it is more likely to exceed, than, like that, to fall short of the actual result That estimate proved to be less than the actual receipts, probably about $2,000,000, or from customs about $1,200,000; from lands nearly $800,000; and the residue chiefly from larger sales of bank stock, as before named, than was anticipated. As the first deduction of 10 per cent. from the excess of duties on goods imported, and paying over 20 per cent. ad valorem, took effect on the 31st of December last, it was not practicable to fix beforehand, with much certainty, the amount of the diminution, on account of it, from the revenue of the year, as the same value of merchandise might not be imported as in any previous year which should be selected for a guide in forming the estimates, and the particular kinds of merchandise thus imported, whether free, or paying a duty, might greatly fluctuate. To these uncertainties in the whole value, and in the kinds of goods imported, were to be added the circumstances that the system of reduction going into operation was almost entirely new in practice, and that the cash duties substituted for credit, on) some articles, tended to render former means of calculation still more inapplicable and doubtful. It is hoped that, as the ensuing year is exposed chiefly to only one of these sources of uncertainty, which is the whole value of dutiable goods imported, the estimate made for the income from customs will not vary essentially from the amount of receipts which time may prove to be correct. In relation to the excess of revenue received from lauds over the estimate made for the year 1834, the amount from that source happened to be unprecedented; and as full returns of the very large sales in December, 1833, had not then been received, it was entirely unexpected. But the actual excess this year, though not so large as in the previous one, coupled with circumstances before named, has induced the department to submit a larger estimate under this head than has heretofore been made. The estimates for the expenditures of the ensuing year have been graduated and modified by the following circumstances. The actual expenditures for the year 1833 did not differ much from the expectations expressed concerning them in the last annnal report, except that the residue of the four and a half per cent. stocks, although charged to 1833, was not, in fact, all reimbursed, or the money paid to the commissioners of loans for that purpose, within that year, but only $13,198 of them were redeemed in the residue of 1833. Between the 1st of January and May, 1834, about $497,697 more were redeemed, and afterwards the sum of $759,271 was advanced to the commissioners of loans to meet the balance which was then outstanding. Partly from this cause, therefore, reducing the actual expenditure in the fourth quarter of 1833, about a million below the estimate, and partly from an increase in the revenue of nearly two millions beyond the estimate of that quarter, from causes |