have advanced and improved.

It is confidently believed that we have been saved from their effect by
the salutary operation of the constitutional treasury. It is certain
that if the twenty-four millions of specie imported into the country
during the fiscal year ending on the 30th of June, 1847, had gone into
the banks, as to a great extent it must have done, it would in the
absence of this system have been made the basis of augmented bank paper
issues, probably to an amount not less than $60,000,000 or $70,000,000,
producing, as an inevitable consequence of an inflated currency,
extravagant prices for a time and wild speculation, which must have been
followed, on the reflux to Europe the succeeding year of so much of that
specie, by the prostration of the business of the country, the
suspension of the banks, and most extensive bankruptcies. Occurring, as
this would have done, at a period when the country was engaged in a
foreign war, when considerable loans of specie were required for distant
disbursements, and when the banks, the fiscal agents of the Government
and the depositories of its money, were suspended, the public credit
must have sunk, and many millions of dollars, as was the case during the
War of 1812, must have been sacrificed in discounts upon loans and upon
the depreciated paper currency which the Government would have been
compelled to use.

Under the operations of the constitutional treasury not a dollar has
been lost by the depreciation of the currency. The loans required to
prosecute the war with Mexico were negotiated by the Secretary of the
Treasury above par, realizing a large premium to the Government. The
restraining effect of the system upon the tendencies to excessive paper
issues by banks has saved the Government from heavy losses and thousands
of our business men from bankruptcy and ruin. The wisdom of the system
has been tested by the experience of the last two years, and it is
the dictate of sound policy that it should remain undisturbed. The
modifications in some of the details of this measure, involving none of
its essential principles, heretofore recommended, are again presented
for your favorable consideration.

In my message of the 6th of July last, transmitting to Congress the
ratified treaty of peace with Mexico, I recommended the adoption of
measures for the speedy payment of the public debt. In reiterating that
recommendation I refer you to the considerations presented in that