en placed in deposit for this
purpose whenever the creditors choose to receive it. All the other
pecuniary engagements of the Government have been honorably and promptly
fulfilled, and there will be a balance in the Treasury at the close of
the present year of about $19,000,000. It is believed that after meeting
all outstanding and unexpended appropriations there will remain near
eleven millions to be applied to any new objects which Congress may
designate or to the more rapid execution of the works already in
progress. In aid of these objects, and to satisfy the current
expenditures of the ensuing year, it is estimated that there will
be received from various sources twenty millions more in 1836.

Should Congress make new appropriations in conformity with the estimates
which will be submitted from the proper Departments, amounting to about
twenty-four millions, still the available surplus at the close of the
next year, after deducting all unexpended appropriations, will probably
not be less than six millions. This sum can, in my judgment, be now
usefully applied to proposed improvements in our navy-yards, and to new
national works which are not enumerated in the present estimates or
to the more rapid completion of those already begun. Either would be
constitutional and useful, and would render unnecessary any attempt
in our present peculiar condition to divide the surplus revenue or to
reduce it any faster than will be effected by the existing laws. In
any event, as the annual report from the Secretary of the Treasury will
enter into details, shewing the probability of some decrease in the
revenue during the next seven years and a very considerable deduction in
1842, it is not recommended that Congress should undertake to modify the
present tariff so as to disturb the principles on which the compromise
act was passed. Taxation on some of the articles of general consumption
which are not in competition with our own productions may be no doubt so
diminished as to lessen to some extent the source of this revenue, and
the same object can also be assisted by more liberal provisions for the
subjects of public defense, which in the present state of our prosperity
and wealth may be expected to engage your attention. If, however, after
satisfying all the demands which can arise from these sources the
unexpended balance in the Treasury should still continue to increase,
it would be better to bear with the evil until the great cha