exico, in four equal annual installments
of $3,000,000 each, the first of which will fall due on the 30th day of
May, 1849. The treaty also stipulates that the United States shall
"assume and pay" to our own citizens "the claims already liquidated and
decided against the Mexican Republic," and "all claims not heretofore
decided against the Mexican Government," "to an amount not exceeding
three and a quarter millions of dollars." The "liquidated" claims of
citizens of the United States against Mexico, as decided by the joint
board of commissioners under the convention between the United States
and Mexico of the 11th of April, 1839, amounted to $2,026,139.68. This
sum was payable in twenty equal annual installments. Three of them have
been paid to the claimants by the Mexican Government and two by the
United States, leaving to be paid of the principal of the liquidated
amount assumed by the United States the sum of $1,519,604.76, together
with the interest thereon. These several amounts of "liquidated" and
unliquidated claims assumed by the United States, it is believed, may be
paid as they fall due out of the accruing revenue, without the issue of
stock or the creation of any additional public debt.

I can not too strongly recommend to Congress the importance of
husbanding all our national resources, of limiting the public
expenditures to necessary objects, and of applying all the surplus at
any time in the Treasury to the redemption of the debt. I recommend that
authority be vested in the Executive by law to anticipate the period of
reimbursement of such portion of the debt as may not be now redeemable,
and to purchase it at par, or at the premium which it may command in the
market, in all cases in which that authority has not already been
granted. A premium has been obtained by the Government on much the
larger portion of the loans, and if when the Government becomes a
purchaser of its own stock it shall command a premium in the market,
it will be sound policy to pay it rather than to pay the semiannual
interest upon it. The interest upon the debt, if the outstanding
Treasury notes shall be funded, from the end of the last fiscal year
until it shall fall due and be redeemable will be very nearly equal to
the principal, which must itself be ultimately paid.

Without changing or modifying the present tariff of duties, so great has
been the increase of our commerce under its benign operation that the
revenue derived from